Holocaust denial

Did Six Million Really Die? by Richard Harwood (also known as Richard Verrall). The Supreme Court of Canada found in 1992 that the book "misrepresented the work of historians, misquoted witnesses, fabricated evidence, and cited non-existent authorities."

This article is about the history, development, and methods of Holocaust denial. For an examination of the arguments of Holocaust revisionism, see Holocaust denial (disambiguation).

Holocaust revisionism (commonly called Holocaust denial by its opponents) is the belief that the genocide of Jews and other minority groups during World War II — the Holocaust — either did not occur, or did not occur to the extent described by current scholarship.

Key elements of this belief are the explicit or implicit rejection that the Nazi government had a policy of deliberately targeting Jews and people of Jewish ancestry for extermination as a people; that between five and seven million Jews were systematically killed by the Nazis and their allies; and that tools of mass extermination such as gas chambers were used in extermination camps to kill Jews.

Most Holocaust denial claims imply, or openly state, that the Holocaust is a hoax arising out of a deliberate Jewish conspiracy to advance the interest of Jews at the expense of other peoples. For this reason, Holocaust denial is generally considered an antisemitic conspiracy theory. Holocaust denial has been illegal in many European countries since shortly after World War II, because it is seen as motivated by an antisemitic or neo-Nazi agenda. In January 2007, the German government moved to criminalize Holocaust denial and the parading of Nazi symbols across the European Union and the United Nations General Assembly officially "condemns any denial of the Holocaust."

Many Holocaust deniers do not accept "denier" as an appropriate term to describe their point of view, using the term "Holocaust revisionist" instead. They are nevertheless commonly labeled "Holocaust deniers" to differentiate them from historical revisionists who consider their goal to be historical inquiry using evidence and established methodology. According to the Holocaust historian Alan Berger, Holocaust deniers argue to support a preconceived theory, namely that the Holocaust simply did not take place or was largely a hoax, ignoring extensive historical evidence to the contrary.

Terminology: Holocaust denial or Holocaust revisionism?

The term "holocaust denial" (also but less often in English "holocaust negationism" ) is objected to by the people to whom it is applied, who prefer "revisionist," although scholars believe that term to be deliberately misleading. While historical revisionism is the re-examination of accepted history, with an eye towards updating it with newly discovered, more accurate, and less-biased information, "deniers" have been criticized for seeking evidence to support a preconceived theory, omitting substantial facts. Broadly speaking, historical revisionism is an academic approach that holds that a given slice of history, as it has been traditionally told, may not be entirely accurate, and should hence be revised accordingly. Historical revisionism in this sense is a well-accepted and mainstream part of history studies, and it is applied to the study of the Holocaust as new facts emerge and change our understanding of it. A very different process unfolds when someone proceeds from the premise that a major element of human history is simply inaccurate, and ignores or routinely minimizes even confirmed evidence that conflicts with that premise. Teaching history in this way is not revisionism, but denial.

Technically, the term Holocaust denial fits the description at the beginning of this article, while the term Holocaust revisionism does not. However, because the latter term has become associated with Holocaust deniers, mainstream Holocaust historians today generally avoid using it to describe themselves. Though they no longer use the term "revisionism," many contemporary historians do continue to study and revise opinions on aspects of the Holocaust.

In the words of historian Donald Niewyk of Southern Methodist University:

With the main features of the Holocaust clearly visible to all but the willfully blind, historians have turned their attention to aspects of the story for which the evidence is incomplete or ambiguous. These are not minor matters by any means, but turn on such issues as Hitler's role in the event, Jewish responses to persecution, and reactions by onlookers both inside and outside Nazi-controlled Europe.

Despite the best attempts of some to make a distinction between the terms Holocaust denial and Holocaust revisionism, the jailing of the discredited self-taught historical author David Irving in Austria in February 2006 shows that the British news media frequently use the term revisionist when referring to a Holocaust denier.

Claims of the Holocaust deniers

Main article: Criticism of Holocaust denial

Holocaust deniers often find themselves in agreement with the following points, not all of which are limited in scope to the denial of the Holocaust:

• They claim that Nazis did not use gas chambers to mass murder Jews. They hold that small chambers did exist for delousing and Zyklon-B was used in this process, but argue that larger chambers were not built or would not have worked as described if built.
• They claim that Nazis did not use cremation ovens to dispose of millions of extermination victims. They argue that the amount of energy required to fire the ovens far exceeded what the energy-strapped nation could spare in wartime. They maintain that the cremation ovens that existed would have been too small for this purpose and were actually installed for the hygienic removal of corpses. They argue that death from natural causes and disease epidemics could reasonably be expected in a high-density work camp.
• They claim that the figure of 5-6 million Jewish deaths is an exaggeration, because this would mean that virtually all of the Jews in Nazi occupied territories were exterminated; instead, they claim that many Jews actually emigrated or escaped to the Soviet Union, Britain, Palestine and the United States.
• They claim that many photos and much of the film footage shown after World War II was either incorrectly attributed or specially manufactured as propaganda against the Nazis by the Allied forces, in particular by the Soviet Union. For example, they cite one film of supposed Holocaust victims, shown to Germans after the war, that in fact depicted German civilians being treated after Allied bombing of Dresden.
• They claim that what the Nazis are believed to have done to European Jews was part of a grander plot intended to facilitate the Allies in their intention to enable the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. They claim that the Holocaust was ultimately intended to garner support for the policies of the state of Israel, especially in its dealings with the Palestinians.
• They claim that historical proof for the Holocaust, such as maps and documents or buildings claimed to be gas chambers, have been deliberately falsified, misinterpreted, misrepresented, or reconstructed. For example, they argue that documents contain grammatical errors which only non-native German speakers would make; they claim that photographs of "generic" death and destruction are falsely labeled as Nazi atrocities.
• They claim that there is an American, British or Jewish conspiracy to make Jews look like victims and to demonize Germans. They claim that it was in the Soviet Union's interest to propagate wild stories about Germany in order to frighten certain nations (such as Poland and Czechoslovakia) into accepting Soviet rule. They argue that the amount of money pumped into Israel and reparations from Germany alone would give Israel a strong incentive to maintain this conspiracy.
• They claim that mainstream research into the Holocaust is inherently biased because it is considered immoral, and it is often illegal, to attempt to question the extent of the Holocaust. For example, they hold that an article revising the number of victims of the Holocaust up from 5-6 million to 8 million could in principle be considered valid research, whereas any article revising this number downwards would be automatically labeled "anti-Semitic" and denied print, and its author could face career or legal problems. This dynamic, they argue, violates the basic principles of scientific method and calls the results into question.
• They claim that, on the sites of the gas chamber and crematorium at Birkenau, there is far less rubble than would have come from the remains of the destroyed building. (In fact, after liberation, the local Polish farming population, returning, removed much of that rubble to rebuild farm buildings.)
• They claim that the Holocaust pales in comparison to the number of dissidents and Christians killed in Soviet gulags (which crimes they usually attribute to Jews) and to the number of non-Jews killed by Nazis during World War II.

Additionally, two other common claims of Holocaust deniers constitute part of the debate on functionalism versus intentionalism:

• They claim that although crimes were committed, they were not centrally orchestrated, and thus the Nazi leadership bore no responsibility for the implementation of such a policy.
• They claim that there was no specific order by Adolf Hitler or other top Nazi officials to exterminate the Jews.

Holocaust denial examined

Holocaust denial is widely viewed as failing to adhere to rules for the treatment of evidence, rules that are recognized as basic to rational inquiry. The prevailing consensus is that the evidence given by survivors, eye witnesses, and historians is overwhelming, that it proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the Holocaust occurred, and that it occurred as they say it occurred. It is unreasonable to ask these claimants to prove that their evidence is "really real" any more than they already have, unless there is some particular demonstrably credible reason for thinking that it is suspect.

The existence and nature of the Holocaust was well-documented by the heavily bureaucratic German government itself. It was further witnessed by the Allied forces who entered Germany and its associated Axis states towards the end of World War II. Among the evidence produced was film and stills that showed the existence of prisoner camps, as well as the testimony of those freed when the camps were entered. The Holocaust was a massive undertaking that lasted for years across several countries, with its own command and control infrastructure, which left a large trail of documentation. Although the Nazis made attempts to destroy the evidence of the Holocaust when they could see that their defeat was imminent, substantial documentation remained. After their defeat, many documents were recovered, and many thousands of bodies were found not yet completely decomposed, in mass graves near many concentration camps. The physical evidence and the documentary proof included numerous reports written by the Nazis about the number of Jews killed, records of train shipments of Jews to the camps, orders for tons of cyanide and other poisons, photographs, films, and the remaining concentration camp structures themselves. Thousands of interviews with survivors, perpetrators, and bystanders added to the level of documentation around the Holocaust. Diaries written by German anti-Nazis, such as Friedrich Kellner, show the extent to which the average German was aware of the crimes.

Thus, there is little debate among scholars whether the Holocaust occurred, and much of the controversy surrounding the claims of Holocaust deniers centers upon the methods used to present arguments that the Holocaust allegedly never happened as commonly accepted. Numerous accounts have been given by Holocaust deniers (including evidence presented in court cases) of claimed "facts" and "evidence"; however, independent research has shown these claims to be based upon flawed research, biased statements, or even deliberately falsified evidence. Opponents of Holocaust denial have compiled detailed accounts of numerous instances where this evidence has been altered or manufactured (see Nizkor Project and David Irving). Evidence presented by Holocaust deniers has also failed to stand up to scrutiny in courts of law (see Fred A. Leuchter), further questioning its veracity.

As Holocaust denial is not considered to be historical research by mainstream scholars, there has been a substantial debate on the right way to respond to deniers. Since the aim of some Holocaust deniers is to prove that the Holocaust did not happen, a conclusion contradicted by deep historical record, many scholars worry that to debate Holocaust denial is to make the former appear a legitimate field of inquiry.

A second group of scholars, typified by historian Deborah Lipstadt, have tried to raise awareness of the methods and motivations of Holocaust denial, while trying not to legitimize the deniers themselves. Lipstadt explained her goals:

We need not waste time or effort answering the deniers' contentions. It would be never-ending to respond to arguments posed by those who freely falsify findings, quote out of context and simply dismiss reams of testimony. Unlike true scholars, they have little, if any, respect for data or evidence. Their commitment is to an ideology and their 'findings' are shaped to support it.

A third group, typified by the Nizkor Project, responds by confronting Holocaust denial head-on, debunking the invalid arguments and false claims made by Holocaust denial groups.

History of Holocaust denial

Anti-Semitism has been an important part of the revisionist philosophy since the very beginnings of the movement. With few exceptions, charges of anti-Jewish bias have been leveled against many deniers over the years – charges that they have rarely rejected.

Early examples

The first Holocaust deniers were the Nazis themselves. Historians have documented evidence that Heinrich Himmler instructed his camp commandants to destroy records, crematoria and other signs of mass extermination, as Germany's defeat became imminent and the Nazi leaders realized they would most likely be captured and brought to trial. Following the end of World War II, many of the former leaders of the SS left Germany and began using their propaganda skills to defend their actions (or, their critics contended, to rewrite history). Denial materials began to appear shortly after the war.

The case of Harry Elmer Barnes

Harry Elmer Barnes was at one time a mainstream historian with liberal credentials who took a Holocaust-denial stance in the later years of his life. Between World War I and World War II, Barnes became well known as an anti-war writer and a leader in the historical revisionism movement. Following World War II, however, Barnes became convinced that allegations made against Germany and Japan to justify U.S. involvement in WWII were merely wartime propaganda that needed to be debunked. He later began including the Holocaust in this category in his writings. Barnes' anti-war and mainstream historical revisionist writings are still held in high regard by some libertarians. Following the example of Barnes, a few other early libertarian writers also concerned with anti-war historical revisionism began to take a Holocaust denial stance, including James J. Martin. Most libertarians, even those who otherwise hold Barnes' writings in high regard, reject his Holocaust denial. Barnes' name has since been appropriated by some modern Holocaust deniers in an attempt to lend credibility to their cause, most notably Willis Carto.

The beginnings of the modern Holocaust denial movement

File:KKK holocaust a zionist hoax.jpg

The KKK: Nazi salute and Holocaust denial

A prominent early Holocaust denier was the American historian David Hoggan, whose book Der Erzwungene Krieg (The Forced War) 1961, though primarily concerned with the origins of World War II, also down-played or justified the effects of Nazi anti-Semitic measures in the pre-1939 period. Subsequently, Hoggan wrote one of the first books denying the Holocaust in 1969 entitled The Myth of the Six Million, which was published by the Noontide Press, a small Los Angeles based publisher noted for specializing in anti-Semitic literature. Hoggan became one of the early stars of the Holocaust denial movement, because he had a number of professorships at prestigious universities.

The next denier was French historian Paul Rassinier who published The Drama of the European Jews in 1964. Rassinier was himself a concentration camp survivor (imprisoned in Buchenwald for his socialist beliefs), and modern-day revisionists continue to cite his works as scholarly research that questions the accepted facts of the Holocaust. Mainstream historians, however, note that Rassinier's own anti-Semitic views influenced his viewpoint and that Buchenwald was not a mass extermination camp, so his argument that he saw no gassings there was unsurprising. While Rassinier did not cite evidence for his claims, and ignored information that contradicted his assertions, he remains influential in Holocaust denial for being one of the first deniers to propose that a vast Zionist/Allied/Soviet conspiracy faked the Holocaust, a theme picked up by other authors.

The Holocaust denial movement further grew in the 1970s with the publication of Arthur Butz' The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The case against the presumed extermination of European Jewry in 1976 and David Irving's Hitler's War in 1977. These books brought other similarly inclined individuals into the fold. In December 1978 and January 1979, Robert Faurisson, a French professor of literature at the University of Lyon, published two letters in Le Monde claiming that the gas chambers used by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews did not exist.

Institute for Historical Review

In 1979 the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) was founded by Willis Carto as an organization dedicated to publicly challenging the "myth of the Holocaust." The IHR sought from the beginning to attempt to establish itself within the broad tradition of historical revisionism, by soliciting token supporters who were not from a neo-Nazi background such as James J. Martin and Samuel Edward Konkin III, and by promoting the writings of French socialist Paul Rassinier and American anti-war historian Harry Elmer Barnes to attempt to show that Holocaust denial had a broader base of support besides just neo-Nazis. The IHR brought most of Barnes' writings, which had been out of print since his death, back into print. However, most of IHR's supporters were neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, and while IHR included token articles on other topics and sold some token books by mainstream historians in its book catalog, the vast majority of material published and distributed by IHR was devoted to questioning the facts surrounding the Holocaust.

The IHR became one of the most important organizations devoted to Holocaust denial. In recent years the IHR underwent an internal power struggle which ousted Willis Carto. Under the subsequent leadership of Mark Weber, the IHR has taken on an even more explicit neo-Nazi orientation than it had under Carto. Carto went on to found the Barnes Review magazine after his ousting from IHR, a magazine which is also devoted to Holocaust denial.

In recent published articles, volunteer organizations monitoring hate groups have stated that Holocaust denial groups, such as the IHR, have been having difficulty finding supporters (and especially financial sponsors) in the United States. As a result, spokespersons for the IHR and other denial groups have been traveling to the Middle East in an attempt to forge closer ties with extremist groups there. IHR spokespersons have been reported to have met with persons suspected of involvement with terrorist groups.

In an "About the IHR" statement on their website, the IHR makes the claim that "The Institute does not 'deny the Holocaust'," though they explicitly deny many of the elements of the mainstream view of the Holocaust, calling them a "hoax," as stated in the IHR journal:

There is no dispute over the fact that large numbers of Jews were deported to concentration camps and ghettos, or that many Jews died or were killed during World War II. Revisionist scholars have presented evidence, which "exterminationists" have not been able to refute, showing that there was no German program to exterminate Europe's Jews, and that the estimate of six million Jewish wartime dead is an irresponsible exaggeration. The Holocaust — the alleged extermination of some six million Jews (most of them by gassing) — is a hoax and should be recognized as such by Christians and all informed, honest and truthful men everywhere.

Commentators have noted the misleading nature of statements by the IHR that they are not Holocaust deniers. For example, in The San Francisco Express, Paul Raber described a revisionist "word game":

The question [of whether the IHR denies the Holocaust] appears to turn on IHR's Humpty-Dumpty word game with the word Holocaust. … According to Mark Weber [the Director of IHR], … "If by the `Holocaust' you mean the political persecution of Jews, some scattered killings, if you mean a cruel thing that happened, no one denies that." … That is, IHR doesn't deny that the Holocaust happened; they just deny that the word "Holocaust" means what people customarily use it for.

Bradley Smith and CODOH

Bradley R. Smith is the founder of a group called the "Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust".He is former media director of the "Institute for Historical Review" which is known to be a clearing house for Holocaust denial propaganda. CODOH was founded in 1987. In the United States, CODOH has repeatedly tried to place newspaper ads questioning whether the Holocaust happened, especially in college campus newspapers. These ads typically cause a stir on each campus, whether or not they are actually run in the campus newspaper. Some newspapers have accepted the ads, some have rejected them. No matter which decision the editors make, most papers run an editorial defending their decision either on free speech grounds or on the grounds that Smith's views are repugnant and rightfully kept out of the newspaper. During the early 1990s, CODOH's ad campaign attracted national controversy after many campus newspapers accepted the ads. This action became the subject of editorials in major newspapers such as The New York Times. Since 2000, CODOH's newspaper ad campaign has fallen into inactivity because most campus papers (with a few exceptions) reject the ads as a matter of course. Attempts to place the ads no longer generate the controversy they once did. Bradley Smith has more recently sought other avenues to promote Holocaust denial with little success.

James Keegstra

Further information: R. v. Keegstra

In 1984, James Keegstra, a Canadian high-school teacher, was charged with denying the Holocaust and making anti-Semitic claims in his classroom as part of the course material. Keegstra and his lawyer, Doug Christie, argued that the section of the Criminal Code (now section 319{2}), is an infringement of the Charter of Rights (section 9{b}). The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, where it was decided that the law he was convicted under did infringe on his freedom of expression, but it was a justified infringement. Keegstra was convicted, and fired from his job.

The Zündel trials

Former Canadian resident Ernst Zündel operated a small-press publishing house called Samisdat Publishing, which published and distributed Holocaust-denial material such as Did Six Million Really Die? by Richard Harwood (a/k/a Richard Verrall - a British neo-Nazi leader). In 1985, he was tried and convicted under a "false news" law and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment by an Ontario court for "disseminating and publishing material denying the Holocaust." Zündel gained considerable notoriety after this conviction, and a number of free-speech activists stepped forward to defend his right to publish his opinion. His conviction was overturned in 1992 when the Supreme Court of Canada declared the "false news" law unconstitutional.

Zündel has a Web site (www.Zundelsite.org) which publicizes his viewpoints, ostensibly web-mastered by his wife Ingrid}. In January 2002, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal delivered a ruling in a complaint involving his website, in which it was found to be contravening the Canadian Human Rights Act. The court ordered Zündel to cease communicating hate messages. In February 2003, the American INS arrested him in Tennessee, USA, on an immigration violations matter, and few days later, Zündel was sent back to Canada, where he tried to gain refugee status. Zündel remained in prison until March 1, 2005, when he was deported to Germany and prosecuted for disseminating hate propaganda. On February 15 2007 Zündel was convicted on 14 counts of incitement under Germany's Volksverhetzung law, which bans the incitement of hatred against a minority of the population, and given the maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Ken McVay and alt.revisionism

In the mid-1990s, the popularity of the Internet brought new international exposure to many organizations, including Holocaust deniers and other groups. A number of authority figures stated publicly that the Internet allowed hate groups to introduce their messages to a widespread audience, and it was feared that Holocaust denial would gain in popularity as a result. However, this was not the case, largely due to the efforts of Ken McVay and the participants in the Usenet newsgroup alt.revisionism.

McVay, a Canadian resident, was disturbed by the efforts of organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center to suppress the speech of the Holocaust deniers. On alt.revisionism he began a campaign of "truth, fact, and evidence," working with other participants on the newsgroup to uncover factual information about the Holocaust and counter the arguments of the deniers by proving them to be based upon misleading evidence, false statements, and outright lies. He founded the Nizkor Project to expose the activities of the Holocaust deniers, who responded to McVay with personal attacks and slander. McVay received a number of death threats, and the Nizkor Project soon became the number-one online foe of many Holocaust deniers.

File:Denying the holocaust.jpg

Book cover: Denying The Holocaust.

David Irving and the Lipstadt Affair

In 1998, the British writer David Irving filed suit against American author Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin Books, claiming that Lipstadt had libeled him in her book Denying the Holocaust. The statements made by Lipstadt included the accusation that Irving deliberately twisted and misrepresented evidence to conform to his ideological viewpoint. Under English libel law, which seeks primarily to protect the reputation of an individual, Lipstadt and her publisher bore the full burden of demonstrating not only that they had not shown "reckless disregard" for the truth (as would be the case in America), but also that the statements made were true (that Irving had denied the Holocaust, and that the Holocaust had, in fact, happened).

Lipstadt and Penguin hired British lawyer Anthony Julius and Cambridge historian Richard J. Evans to present her case. Evans spent two years examining Irving's work, and presented evidence of Irving's misrepresentations, including that Irving had knowingly used forged documents as a source. One of the few witnesses called on Irving's behalf was American evolutionary psychology professor Kevin B. MacDonald. The judge, Mr Justice Gray, was persuaded by the evidence presented by Evans and others and wrote a long and decisive verdict in favor of Lipstadt, calling Irving a "right-wing pro-Nazi polemicist," and confirming the accusations of Lipstadt and Evans.

In 2006, Irving pleaded guilty to the charge of denying the Holocaust in Austria, where Holocaust denial is a crime and where an arrest warrant was issued based on speeches he made in 1989. Irving knew that the warrant had been issued and that he was banned from Austria, but chose to come to Austria anyway. After he was arrested, Irving claimed in his plea that he changed his opinions on the Holocaust, "I said that then based on my knowledge at the time, but by 1991 when I came across the Eichmann papers, I wasn't saying that anymore and I wouldn't say that now," Irving told the court. "The Nazis did murder millions of Jews." Upon hearing of Irving's sentence, Lipstadt said, "I am not happy when censorship wins, and I don't believe in winning battles via censorship… The way of fighting Holocaust deniers is with history and with truth.".

Other recent trends

In France, Holocaust denial has become more prominent in the 1990s as "negationism," though the movement has existed in ultra-left French politics since at least the sixties, led by figures such as Pierre Guillaume (who was involved in the bookshop La Vieille Taupe during the 1960s). Recently, elements of the extreme far left and extreme far right in France have begun to build on each others' negationist arguments, which often span beyond the Holocaust to cover a range of anti-Semitic views, incorporating Marxist critiques of "Jewish capitalists," attempts to tie the Holocaust to the Biblical massacre of the Canaanites, critiques of Zionism and other material fanning what has been called a "conspiratorial Judeo-phobia" designed to legitimize and "banalize" anti-Semitism.

Recently the terms "Holocaust industry" and "Shoah business", have come into vogue among those who believe Jewish leaders use the Holocaust for financial and political gain. The term "Holocaust industry" was used as the title of a 2000 book by Norman Finkelstein, a Jew and the son of Holocaust survivors. Finkelstein fully accepts the fact that the Holocaust occurred, but believes that its memory is being dishonestly exploited. However, his phrase has also been used by Holocaust deniers who believe the Holocaust was faked for the purpose of financial and political gain.

In Belgium in 2001, Roeland Raes, the ideologue and vice-president of one of the country's largest political parties, the Vlaams Belang (formerly named Vlaams Blok, Flemish Bloc), gave an interview on Dutch TV where he cast doubt over the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. In the same interview he also questioned the scale of the Nazis' use of gas chambers and the authenticity of Anne Frank's diary. In response to the media assault following the interview, Raes was forced to resign his position but vowed to remain active within the party. Three years later, the Vlaams Blok was convicted of racism and chose to disband. Immediately afterwards, it legally reformed under the new name Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) with the same leaders and the same membership.

Accusations of a Zionist conspiracy

Since 1960s, the Soviet Union promoted the allegation of secret ties between the Nazis and the Zionist leadership. The thesis of 1982 doctoral dissertation of Mahmoud Abbas, a co-founder of Fatah and one of the leaders of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, who earned his Ph.D. in history at the Moscow State Institute of Oriental Studies with Yevgeny Primakov being his thesis advisor, was "The Secret Connection between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement" In his 1983 book The Other Face: The Secret Connection Between the Nazis and the Zionist Movement, based on the dissertation, Abbas wrote:

"It seems that the interest of the Zionist movement, however, is to inflate this figure [of Holocaust deaths] so that their gains will be greater. This led them to emphasize this figure [six million] in order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions—fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand."

In his March, 2006 interview with Haaretz Abbas stated:

"I wrote in detail about the Holocaust and said I did not want to discuss numbers. I quoted an argument between historians in which various numbers of casualties were mentioned. One wrote there were 12 million victims and another wrote there were 800,000. I have no desire to argue with the figures. The Holocaust was a terrible, unforgivable crime against the Jewish nation, a crime against humanity that cannot be accepted by humankind. The Holocaust was a terrible thing and nobody can claim I denied it."

Holocaust denial symposiums

Individuals from the Syrian and Iranian governments, as well as the Palestinian political group Hamas have recently published Holocaust denial statements Denials of the Holocaust have been regularly promoted by various Arab leaders and in various media throughout the Middle East. In August 2002 the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-up, an Arab League think-tank whose Chairman, Sultan Bin Zayed Al Nahayan, served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, promoted a Holocaust denial symposium in Abu Dhabi. Hamas leaders have also promoted Holocaust denial; Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi held that the Holocaust never occurred, that Zionists were behind the action of Nazis, and that Zionists funded Nazism. A press release by Hamas in April 2000 decried "the so-called Holocaust, which is an alleged and invented story with no basis" Holocaust denial has also been resisted by prominent intellectual figures in the Arab world; in 2001, an outcry led by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Lebanese writer Elias Khoury and others brought about the cancellation of a conference the negationist Institute for Historical Review had planned to hold in Beirut.

Ahmadinejad and Iran

Holocaust denial is relatively new to the Middle East, as Kenneth Jacobson, assistant national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in an interview with Haaretz: "Adopting the theories of Holocaust denial of Western scholars is a relatively new phenomenon in the Muslim world. The accepted attitude had been to say that whereas it was true the Holocaust had taken place, the Palestinians should not have to pay the price. A look at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statements shows that he has mixed the two approaches."

In a December 2005 speech, Ahmadinejad said that the Holocaust was a "fairy tale" that had been promoted to protect Israel, ramping up his rhetoric and triggering a fresh wave of international denunciation. He said,

"They have fabricated a legend under the name 'Massacre of the Jews', and they hold it higher than God himself, religion itself and the prophets themselves...(The West) deals very severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to those who deny God, religion, and the prophets."

He also called for Israel to be relocated to Germany, or Austria, arguing it was these nations that persecuted the Jews, so they ought to bear the responsibility, not Palestinians forsaking their land to form a nation of Israel. He also suggested relocating Israeli Jews to the United States.

The remarks immediately provoked a blaze of international controversy as well as swift condemnation from government officials in Israel, Europe, and the United States. All six political parties in the German parliament signed a joint resolution condemning this Holocaust denial.

Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal described Ahmadinejad's comments as "courageous" and stated that "...Muslim people will defend Iran because it voices what they have in their hearts, in particular the Palestinian people." In the United States, the Muslim Public Affairs Council condemned Ahmadinejad's remarks.

On April 24 2006, Ahmadinejad demanded a free evaluation of the real extent of the Holocaust "in order to find the ultimate truth."

In a May 30, 2006 interview with Der Spiegel Ahmadinejad again questioned the Holocaust several times, insisting there were "two opinions" on it. When asked if the Holocaust was a myth, he responded "I will only accept something as truth if I am actually convinced of it".

On December 11, 2006 the "International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust" opened, to widespread condemnation. The conference, called for by and held at the behest of Ahmadinejad, was widely described as a "Holocaust denial conference" or a "meeting of Holocaust deniers", though Iran insisted it is not a Holocaust denial conference. A few months before it opened, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi stated: "The Holocaust is not a sacred issue that one can't touch. I have visited the Nazi camps in Eastern Europe. I think it is exaggerated."

However Ali Akbar Velayati, the representative of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, when asked in an interview "do you think the holocaust ever happened?" answered "Yes it did.". The same view was echoed by Javad Zarif, Iran's representative to the United Nations on Feb 13, 2007 when he said "the Genocide of the Jews did happen, and it should not happen again."

Jimmy Carter accused of "Soft-core denial" of the Holocaust

In the first week of February 2007, Lipstadt used a neologism "soft-core denial" at a public rally in London. Referring to such groups as the Muslim Council of Britain, reportedly she stated: "'When groups of people refuse to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day unless equal time is given to anti-Muslim prejudice, this is soft-core denial.'" According to Paul, "She received huge applause when she asked how former US President Jimmy Carter could omit the years 1939-1947 from a chronology in his book"; referring to his recently-published and controversial book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, she said: "'When a former president of the United States writes a book on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and writes a chronology at the beginning of the book in order to help them understand the emergence of the situation and in that chronology lists nothing of importance between 1939 and 1947, that is soft-core denial!'"

Main article: Palestine Peace Not Apartheid

See also: Commentary on Palestine Peace Not Apartheid

Public reactions to Holocaust denial

Recently, a number of public figures and scholars have increasingly spoken out against Holocaust denial. Dr. William Shulman, director of the Holocaust Research Center, described the denial "…as if these people [in the Holocaust] were killed twice", a sentiment echoed by literary theorist Jean Baudrillard, who argued that "Forgetting the extermination is part of the extermination itself." In 2006, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said: "Remembering is a necessary rebuke to those who say the Holocaust never happened or has been exaggerated. Holocaust denial is the work of bigots; we must reject their false claims whenever, wherever and by whomever they are made." Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel calls the Holocaust "the most documented tragedy in recorded history. Never before has a tragedy elicited so much witness from the killers, from the victims and even from the bystanders—millions of pieces here in the museum what you have, all other museums, archives in the thousands, in the millions." He made a similar statement on a special edition of the The Oprah Winfrey Show after his final trip to Auschwitz, along with host Oprah Winfrey.

Laws against Holocaust denial

Penalties for violation of Holocaust Denial Laws

Country	Minimum	Maximum
Austria	6 months	10-20 years
Belgium	Fine	1 year
Czech Republic	6 months	2 years
France	Fine or 1 month	2 years
Germany	Fine or 1 month	5 years
Israel	1 year	5 years
Italy (law against racial discrimination)	3 years	4 years
Lithuania	Fine or 2 years	10 years
Poland	Fine or 3 months	3 years
Romania	6 months	3-5 years
Slovakia	Fine or 1 month	3 years
Switzerland	Fine or 1 year	15 months

Holocaust denial is illegal in a number of European countries: Austria (article 3h Verbotsgesetz 1947), Belgium (Belgian Negationism Law), the Czech Republic under section 261, France (Loi Gayssot), Germany (§ 130 (3) of the penal code) also the Auschwitzlüge law section 185, Lithuania, The Netherlands under articles 137c and 137e, Poland, Romania, Slovakia,and Switzerland (article 261bis of the Penal Code). In addition, under Law 5710-1950 it is also illegal in Israel. Italy enacted a law against racial and sexual discrimination on January 25, 2007. [2] Even if it is commonly referred as the "Holocaust law" in the public debate, it does not actually contain direct references to the Holocaust and does not explicitly address its denial.

Many of these countries also have broader laws against libel or inciting racial hatred, as do a number of countries that do not specifically have laws against Holocaust denial, such as Canada and the United Kingdom. The Council of Europe's 2003 Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cyber Crime, concerning the criminalisation of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems includes an article 6 titled Denial, gross minimisation, approval or justification of genocide or crimes against humanity, though this does not have the status of law.

Of the countries that ban Holocaust denial, a number (Austria, Germany, Romania and Slovakia) were among the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and many of these also ban other elements associated with Nazism, such as Nazi symbols. Additionally, scholars have pointed out that countries that specifically ban Holocaust denial generally have legal systems that limit speech in other ways, such as banning hate speech. In the words of D. Guttenplan, this is a split between the "common law countries of the US, Britain, and former British colonies from the civil law countries of continental Europe. In civil law countries the law is generally more proscriptive. Also under the civil law regime the judge acts more as an inquisitor, gathering and presenting evidence as well as interpreting it"

Many Holocaust deniers claim their work falls under a "universal right to free speech", and see these laws as a confirmation of their own beliefs, arguing that the truth does not need to be legally enforced. Some people who do not deny that the Holocaust occurred nevertheless oppose such restrictions of free speech, including, despite her legal battle with David Irving, Deborah Lipstadt. In fact, most historians oppose such laws, including Raul Hillberg, Richard Evans and Pierre Vidal-Naquet. Other prominent opponents of the laws are Timothy Garton Ash, Christopher Hitchens, Peter Singer, and Noam Chomsky. An uproar resulted when Serge Thion used one of Chomsky's essays without explicit permission as a foreword to a book of Holocaust denial essays (see Faurisson affair).

At times, Holocaust deniers seek to rely on Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of expression, when faced with criminal sanctions against their statements or publications. The European Court of Human Rights however consistently declares their complaints inadmissible. According to Article 17 of the Convention, nothing in the Convention may be construed so as to justify acts that are aimed at destroying any of the very rights and freedoms contained therein. Invoking free speech to propagate denial of crimes against humanity is, according to the Court's case-law, contrary to the spirit in which the Convention was adopted in the first place. Reliance on free speech in such cases would thus constitute an abuse of a fundamental right.

Holocaust deniers claim that these laws are a form of censorship.

Other genocide denials

Main article: Genocide denial

Other acts of genocide have met similar attempts to deny and minimize, most notably the Armenian Genocide, which is denied by the Turkish Goverment, but also the Rwanda genocide and the Srebrenica massacres. Gregory H. Stanton, formerly of the US State Department and the founder of Genocide Watch, lists denial as the final stage of a genocide development: "Denial is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims."

Notable Holocaust deniers

• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
• Arthur R. Butz
• Wendy Campbell
• François Duprat
• Robert Faurisson
• Bobby Fischer
• Roger Garaudy
• Hutton Gibson
• Jürgen Graf

• Nick Griffin
• Richard E. Harwood
• Michael Hoffman II
• David Irving
• Hassan Nasrallah
• James Keegstra
• Fred A. Leuchter
• Norman Lowell

• Roeland Raes
• Paul Rassinier
• Ahmed Rami
• Germar Rudolf
• Fredrick Töben
• Mohammed Mahdi Akef
• Richard Williamson
• Mark Weber
• Ernst Zündel

References

About Holocaust deniers

• Richard J. Evans, "In Defense of History", New York: Norton, 1999
• Richard J. Evans, Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial, Basic Books, 2002 (ISBN 0-465-02153-0). As well as the story of the Irving case, this is an excellent case study on historical research.
• Charles Gray, The Irving Judgment, Penguin, 2000 (ISBN 0-14-029899-1). Actual text of the judgment in the Irving case.
• Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, Plume (The Penguin Group), 1994. Debunking Holocaust revisionism.
• Donald L. Niewyk, ed. "The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation", D.C. Heath and Company, 1992.
• Robert Jan van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial. ISBN 0-253-34016-0
• Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, "Denying History Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why do they Say it?" University of California Press ISBN 0-520-23469-3
• Michael Shermer, "Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of our Time", Freeman, New York 1997
• Michael Shermer, “Holocaust Revisionism Update: David Cole Recants/David Irving Says Churchill Knew About Pearl Harbor.” Skeptic 6, no. 1 (1998): 23-25
• Mr. Death, a documentary by Errol Morris.
• "Syrian Holocaust Denial" by Mohammad Daoud, Syria Times September 6 2000, retrieved November 08 2005
• "Anti-Semitism and Holocaust Denial in the Iranian Media" MEMRI Special Dispatch Series no 855, January 28 2005, retrieved November 08 2005
• "Palestinian Holocaust Denial" Reuven Paz, Peacewatch 21 April 2000, retrieved November 08 2005
• Abbot A., "Holocaust Denial Research Disclaimed", Nature, 368, 1994
• John C. Zimmerman, "Holocaust denial : demographics, testimonies, and ideologies" Lanham, Md., University Press of America, 2000
• John C. Zimmerman, “Holocaust Denial.” Los Angeles Times, 16 Jan. 2000, M4
• Jean Claude Pressac: "Les carences et incohérences du Rapport Leuchter" «Jour J., la lettre télégraphique juive», 12 decembre 1988
• Jean Claude Pressac, "Auschwitz: Technique and operation of the gas chambers", The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, New York 1989
• Jean Claude Pressac "Les Crématoires d’Auschwitz: La Machinerie Du Meurtre De Masse", CNRS editions, Paris 1993
• Pierre Vidal-Naquet, "Les assassins de la mémoire", La Découverte, Paris 1987
• Pierre Vidal-Naquet, "Qui sont les assassins de la mémoire?

in Réflexions sur le génocide. Les juifs, la mémoire et le présent", tome III. La Découverte 1995.

• Brigitte Bailer-Galanda, Wilhelm Lasek, "Amoklauf gegen die Wirklichkeit. NS-Verbrechen und revisionistische Geschichtsschreibung".Wien, 1992
• George Wellers, "A propos du «Rapport Leuchter» et les chambres à gaz d’Auschwitz", "Le Monde Juif", 134, 1989
• Till Bastian , "Auschwitz und die «Auschwitz-Lüge»". Massenmord und Geschichtsfälschung", Beck’sche Reihe München, 1994
• Francesco Germinario, "Estranei alla democrazia. Negazionismo e antisemitismo nella destra radicale italiana" BFS Editore, Pisa 2001
• Francesco Rotondi,"Luna di miele ad Auschwitz. Riflessioni sul negazionismo della Shoah", Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli, 2005
• Flores M., Storia, Verità e Giustizia, Mondadori, Milano 2001
• Valentina Pisanty, "L’irritante questione delle camere a gas. Logica del negazionismo", Bompiani, Milano 1998
• Ted Gottfried, "Deniers of the Holocaust: Who They Are, What They Do, Why They Do It", Brookfield Conn Twenty-First Century Books, 2001
• Henry Rousso, "Le dossier Lyon III : le rapport sur le racisme et le négationnisme à l’université Jean-Moulin", Paris, 2004
• Nadine Fresco "Les redresseurs de morts. Chambres à gaz: la bonne nouvelle. Comment on révise l'histoire", "Les Temps Modernes", 407, juin 1980
• Nadine Fresco, "The Denial of the Dead On the Faurisson Affair" 1981
• Georges Bensoussan "Négationnisme et antisionnisme: récurrences et convergences des discours du rejet", "Revue d'histoire de la Shoah", 166, mai-août 1999. Centre de documentation juive contemporaine 1999
• Valérie Igounet, "Dossier «Les terroirs de l'extrême-droite»:

Un négationnisme stratégique",Le Monde diplomatique (mai 1998)

• Pierre Bridonneau, "Oui, il faut parler des négationnistes", Éditions du Cerf 1997
• Yehuda Bauer “A Past that Will Not Go Away.” In The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck. Bloomington: Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Indiana University Press, 1998, 12-22
• Alan L. Berger, “Holocaust Denial: Tempest in a Teapot, or Storm on the Horizon?” In Peace, in Deed: Essays in Honor of Harry James Cargas. Ed. Zev Garber and Richard Libowitz. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998, 31-45.
• Joseph Dan, “Four Ways of Holocaust Denial.” In Bruch und Kontinuität: Jüdisches Denken in der europäischen Geistesgeschichte. Ed. Eveline Goodman-Thau and Michael Daxner. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995, 39-46
• Patrick Finney “Ethics, Historical Relativism and Holocaust Denial.” Rethinking History 2 (1998): 359-369.
• Jan Markiewicz, WOJCIECH Gubala, JERZY Labedz, "A Study of the Cyanide Compounds Content in the Walls of the Gas Chambers in the Former Auschwitz & Birkenau Concentration Camps", Z Zagadnien Sqdowych, XXX, 1994
• Patrick finney, “Ethics, Historical Relativism and Holocaust Denial.” Rethinking History 2 (1998): 359-369.
• Wayne Klein, “Truth’s Turning: History and the Holocaust.” In Postmodernism and the Holocaust. Ed. Alan Milchman and Alan Rosenberg. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 1998, 53-83
• Jonathan Petropoulos, “Holocaust Denial: A Generational Typology.” In Lessons and Legacies III: Memory, Memorialization, and Denial. Ed. Peter Hayes. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1999
• Werner Wegner: "Keine Massenvergasungen in Auschwitz? Zur Kritik des Leuchter-Gutachtens", in: Die Schatten der Vergangenheit. Impulse zur Historisierung der Vergangenheit, hg. v. Uwe Backes, Eckhard Jesse und Rainer Zitelmann, Propyläen Verlag, Berlin 1990, S. 450 – 476, ISBN 3-549-07407-7
• Jürgen Zarusky: "Leugnung des Holocaust. Die antisemitische Strategie nach Auschwitz. Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Schriften Aktuell – Amtliches Mitteilungsblatt". Jahrestagung 9./10. Nov.1999, Marburg. Auch als Internet-Veröffentlichung (pdf-Dokument) erhältlich.
• Martin Finkenberger/Horst Junginger (Hrsg.): "Im Dienste der Lügen. Herbert Grabert (1901–1978) und seine Verlage". Aschaffenburg : Alibri-Verl., 2004. ISBN 3-932710-76-2.
• Thomas Wandres: "Die Strafbarkeit des Auschwitz-Leugnens". Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-428-10055-7

By Holocaust deniers

• Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry, Newport Beach: Institute for Historical Review, 1994 (ISBN 0-9679856-9-2)
• Faurisson, Robert, My Life As a Revisionist, The Journal of Historical Review, volume 9 no. 1 (Spring 1989), p. 5.
• Ernst Gauss (Ed.), Dissecting the Holocaust: The Growing Critique of 'Truth' and 'Memory', Alabama: Theses & Dissertations Press, 2000 (ISBN 0-9679856-0-9)
• Jürgen Graf, Der Holocaust auf dem Prüfstand (1992)
• Richard E. Harwood, Did Six Million Really Die?" Noontide Press.
• Michael Hoffman II, The Great Holocaust Trial, (June,1985 - 2nd Edition) ISBN 0-939484-22-6
• Fred A. Leuchter,Robert Faurisson, Germar Rudolf, The Leuchter Reports: Critical Edition, Chicago, Theses & Dissertations Press, 2005 (ISBN 1-59148-015-9)
• Tiit Madisson, Holokaust. XX sajandi masendavaim sionistlik vale (Holocaust. The Most Depressing Zionist Lie of the XX Century; 2006)
• Germar Rudolf, The Rudolf Report: Expert Report on Chemical and Technical Aspects of the 'Gas Chambers' of Auschwitz, Chicago: Theses & Dissertations Press, 2001 (ISBN 0-9679856-6-8)
• Bradley R. Smith, Confessions of a Holocaust Revisionist, Los Angeles: Prima Facie, 1987 (ISBN 0-943415-01-2)

External links

Examples of websites denying the Holocaust or parts thereof

• Institute for Historical Review A leading Holocaust denial organization
• CODOH Bradley R. Smith's Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust
• VHO Vrij Historisch Onderzoek (Dutch for "Free Historical Research")
• David Irving's Action Report, Website of David Irving
• The Zundelsite, Website of Ernst Zündel
• cwporter, Website of Carlos Whitlock Porter
• World War II Revisionist FAQ from the website of Michael Hoffman II

Reports on and criticisms of Holocaust deniers

• The Nizkor Project — responses to Holocaust denial
• The Holocaust History Project — documents and essays on the Holocaust and its denial
• Holocaust Denial: An Online Guide to Exposing and Combating Anti-Semitic Propaganda Published by the Anti-Defamation League
• False Prophets, Fake Skeptics: Holocaust denial in our time - by Hajime Tokuno, discusses the style of arguments used by holocaust deniers
• Holocaust Denial on Trial, Documents and resources relating to the David Irving vs. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt trial
• History on Trial, the blog of Deborah Lipstadt
• Open Directory Project: Holocaust Denial: Opposing Views
• "No Planes and No Gas Chambers" How Holocaust deniers push hoaxes to sabotage the 9/11 Truth Movement
• The Jerusalem Post reporting on Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss visit to Iran, supporting their denial of the Holocaust.
• Holocaust Denial Versus 9/11 Truth Using Holocaust denial to discredit Researchers questioning the official account of 9/11.
• Holocaust Denial: A Global Survey - 2004 by Alex Grobman & Rafael Medoff at The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. Also available: 2003 Survey
• A New Form of Holocaust Denial
• Palestinian Holocaust Denial at ICT. April 22, 2000
• PA Holocaust Denial Written and Compiled by Itamar Marcus, also Holocaust Denial. TV Archives at Palestinian Media Watch
• Revisionist Photos: An artist's attempt to show the damage caused by Holocaust denial by digitally removing evidence of the Holocaust from historic photos.
• Memri TV The Holocaust Cartoon contest on Memri TV Iran, denying the holocaust had happened. Mentions Robert Faurisson's work.
• Defending History - an interview with Prof. Deborah E. Lipstadt on Holocaust denial
• Iran Holocaust Denial--Rewriting history to suit their political ends Showcasing moral contempt and opportunities to take action
• Holocaust denial as a tool of Iranian policy, Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S). December 25, 2006
• An open letter by a group of Iranian academics, writers, and artists regarding the Tehran Conference on Holocaust Denial Scroll down for English text and signatures.

Audio testimony of Holocaust survivors

• Audio Testimony of Dr. Walter Ziffer, Recorded April 11, 2004 Dr. Walter Ziffer, the last Holocaust survivor in Asheville, North Carolina as of April 11, 2004, discusses his internment in several camps, as well as the idea of Holocaust revisionism.

Holocaust Denial as state policy

• What Is Behind Iran's Advocacy Of Holocaust Denial?,
• Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism - The Iranian case
• Germany Moves to Silence Holocaust Deniers Across Europe
  • Germany's Pursuit of Holocaust Denial Resolution Hits Skids
  • German Holocaust Denial Case Proceeds as EU Moves on a Ban