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 denial, see Examination of Holocaust denial.

Holocaust denial (commonly called Holocaust revisionism by its supporters) is the belief that the Holocaust did not occur as it is described by mainstream historiography. Key elements of this belief are the explicit or implicit rejection that, in the Holocaust:

• The Nazi government had a policy of deliberately targeting Jews, people of Jewish ancestry, and the Roma (also known as Gypsies) for extermination as a people;
• Over five million Jews were systematically killed by the Nazis and their allies.
• Tools of efficient mass extermination, such as gas chambers, were used in extermination camps to kill Jews.

In addition, most Holocaust denial implies, or openly states, that the current mainstream understanding of the Holocaust is the result of a deliberate Jewish conspiracy created to advance the interest of Jews at the expense of other peoples. For this reason, Holocaust denial is generally considered an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. Because of this, Holocaust denial is also illegal in a number of European countries, as their governments hold that it is motivated by an anti-Semitic and anti-democratic agenda.

Holocaust deniers themselves do not accept "denier" as an appropriate term to describe their point of view, preferring the term "Holocaust revisionists" instead. They are nevertheless commonly labeled as "Holocaust deniers" to differentiate them from historical revisionists by those who consider their goal to be not historical inquiry using evidence and established methodology, but rather to try to prove that the Holocaust did not occur, regardless of historical evidence.

Terminology: Holocaust Denial or Holocaust Revisionism?

The term "denier" (also but less often in English "negationist") is objected to by the people to whom it is applied, who prefer "revisionist," though most scholars contend that the latter term is 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, historical revisionism is the approach that 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.

Holocaust "deniers" maintain that they apply proper revisionist principles to Holocaust history, and therefore the term Holocaust revisionism is appropriate for their point of view. Their critics, however, disagree and prefer the term Holocaust denial. Historian Gord McFee writes in his essay "Why 'Revisionism' Isn't":

"Revisionists" depart from the conclusion that the Holocaust did not occur and work backwards through the facts to adapt them to that preordained conclusion. Put another way, they reverse the proper methodology […], thus turning the proper historical method of investigation and analysis on its head."

In general, the term Holocaust denial fits the description at the beginning of this article, while the term Holocaust revisionism is ambiguous, in theory ranging from Holocaust denial to standard historical techniques applied to examine aspects of the Holocaust that have been understudied. However, because the latter term has become associated with Holocaust deniers, mainstream historians today generally avoid using it to describe themselves. Though they do not use the term revisionism, historians do continue to study and revise opinions on aspects of the Holocaust, though no reputable historian has challenged the basic scale and outlines of the event. In the words of historian Donald Niewyk from 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 historian 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 made by Holocaust deniers

Holocaust deniers make the following claims, though not all Holocaust deniers make all of the claims listed:

• Nazis did not use gas chambers to mass murder Jews. Small chambers did exist for delousing and Zyklon-B was used in this process, but larger chambers were not built, or would not have worked if built.
• Nazis did not use cremation ovens to dispose of extermination victims. The amount of energy required to fire the ovens far exceeded what the energy-strapped nation could spare in wartime. The cremation ovens that existed would have been too small for this purpose and the reason there were cremation ovens at all was they were put in to provide cremation services for the deaths from natural causes and disease epidemics that could reasonably be expected in a high-density work camp.
• The figure of 5-6 million Jewish deaths is an exaggeration, and many Jews who actually emigrated to Russia, Britain, Palestine and the United States are included in the number.
• Many photos and much of the film footage shown after World War II was specially manufactured as propaganda against the Nazis by the Allied forces. For example, one film, shown to Germans after the war, of supposed Holocaust victims were in fact German civilians being treated after Allied bombing of Dresden. Pictures we commonly see show victims of starvation or typhus, not of gassing.
• Claims of what the Nazis supposedly did to the Jews were all intended to facilitate the Allies in their intention to enable the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and are currently used to garner support for the policies of the state of Israel, especially in its dealings with the Palestinians.
• Historical proof for the Holocaust is falsified or deliberately misinterpreted.
• There is an American, British or Jewish conspiracy to make Jews look like victims and to demonize Germans. Also, it was in the Soviet interest to propagate wild stories about Germany in order to frighten related nations into accepting Soviet rule (Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.). The amount of money pumped into Israel and reparations from Germany alone give Israel a strong incentive to maintain this conspiracy.
• The overwhelming number of academics and historians are too afraid actually to admit that the Holocaust was a fiction; they know they will lose their jobs if they speak up.
• The "official" research into the Holocaust is inherently biased because it is considered immoral, and it is often illegal, to attempt to question its extent. For example, 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 be persecuted. This violates the basic principles of scientific method and calls the results into question.
• The Holocaust pales in comparison to the number of dissidents and Christians killed in Soviet gulags, which Holocaust deniers 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 are easily confused with the legitimate debate of functionalism versus intentionalism:

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

Holocaust denial examined

Holocaust denial ignores or minimizes the tens of thousands of pages of documentation and photographs prepared by Nazis themselves that survived the war. Pictured is a map titled "Jewish Executions Carried Out by Einsatzgruppe A" from the December 1941 report by the commander of a Nazi death squad. Marked "Secret Reich Matter," the map shows the number of Jews shot in the Baltic region, and reads at the bottom: "the estimated number of Jews still remaining is 128,000." The many Einsatzgruppen reports detail over 1.5 million people killed in open air executions alone.

Main article: Examination of Holocaust denial

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 among the informed 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 of 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 tons of 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.

Thus, there is little debate among scholars whether the Holocaust occurred, or to its magnitude, 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. Numerous accounts have been given (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, and 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 almost all scholars, there has been a substantial debate on the right way to respond to deniers. Since the contentions of Holocaust denial — that the Holocaust did not happen — are contradicted by a deep historical record, many scholars worry that to debate Holocaust denial is to make it appear a legitimate field of inquiry.

A second group of scholars, typified by 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 arguments and false claims of Holocaust denial groups.

History of Holocaust denial

Research into Holocaust Denial has revealed that 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

Scholars credit the very first Holocaust deniers as the Nazis themselves. Historians have documented evidence that Heinrich Himmler instructed his camp commandants to destroy records, crematoria and other signs of mass extermination of human beings, 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). Shortly after the war, denial materials began to appear. For example, an early proponent of Holocaust denial was Francis Parker Yockey, an American admirer of Hitler whose book Imperium, a purported "philosophy of history and politics" filled with anti-Semitic analysis, was published in 1962.

The case of Harry Elmer Barnes

Also eventually taking a Holocaust denial stance in the later years of his life was Harry Elmer Barnes. Barnes is an unusual case because he was at one time a mainstream historian with liberal credentials. 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 movement

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The KKK: Nazi salute and Holocaust denial

The beginnings of modern-day Holocaust denial are somewhat obscure. Public challenges to the historical accounts of the holocaust first began to appear in the 1960s, with French historian Paul Rassinier publishing The Drama of the European Jews in 1964. Rassinier was himself a Holocaust survivor (he was 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. Critics and opponents of revisionism, however, note that Rassinier's own anti-Semitic views influenced his viewpoint and that Buchenwald was not a death 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.

A prominent early Holocaust denier was the American historian David Hoggan, who wrote a book in 1961 called the Der Erzwungene Krieg (The Forced War), which was primarily concerned with the origins of World War Two, but 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 Holocaust denial movement grew into full strength 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, seen as the basis of much of the deniers' arguments, 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". 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

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 section319{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 established his own Web site to publicize his viewpoints. In January 2002, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal delivered a ruling in a complaint involving his website, found 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; under whose laws he could be prosecuted for disseminating hate propaganda.

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. But 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, some of whom were neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

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Book cover: Denying The Holocaust.

David Irving and the Lipstadt Affair

In 1998, then best-selling British self-taught historian 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 presiding judge, Charles 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 was 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" comes from 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 picked up by Holocaust deniers who believe the Holocaust was faked for the purpose of financial and political gain. Finkelstein's work is rejected by much of the mainstream Jewish community as well as many scholars.

In Belgium, Filip Dewinter, the charismatic leader of currently the country's largest political party Vlaams Belang (formerly named Vlaams Blok, Flemish Block) was involved in the Flemish nationalist youth group NSJV whose prime campaign was promoting and defending Holocaust denial. In 2001, Roeland Raes, the party's ideologue and vice-president 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 had to disband. Immediately afterwards, it only legally restarted under the new name Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) with the same leaders and the same membership.

In the Muslim world

Holocaust denial is relatively new to the Muslim world, 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."

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 Oriental College in Moscow, 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."

In recent times, Holocaust denial has grown rapidly in Muslim countries. In the Middle East, individuals from the Syrian and Iranian government, as well as Palestinian political groups (Hamas) have published and promoted 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"

Ahmadinejad and Iran

In a December 2005 speech, Iranian President Mahmoud 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. "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," he said. 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. Lately, it has been reported that Ahmadinejad is inviting well-known Holocaust deniers, most especially Robert Faurisson, to address a conference to "examine the Holocaust."

On 24 April 2006, he called on Jews in Israel to go back to their countries of origin and allow the Palestinians to return to their homelands. "Anti-Semitism in Europe has forced Jews to leave their countries of origin, but what they did instead was occupy a country which is not theirs but that of Palestinians," Ahmadinejad said in a press conference in Tehran. He then went on to again demand a free evaluation of the real extent of the Holocaust "in order to find the ultimate truth." A senior official in the Israeli government charged the Iranian president of offering a "Nazi-type solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Public reactions to Holocaust denial

Recently, a number of public figures and scholars have increasingly spoken out against Holocaust denial. The Holocaust Research Center director Dr. William Shulman described the denial "…as if these people 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."

Laws against Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial is illegal in ten European countries: France (Loi Gayssot), Belgium (Belgian Negationism Law), Switzerland (article 261bis of the Penal Code), Germany (§ 130 (3) of the penal code), Austria (article 3h Verbotsgesetz 1947), Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Poland (article 55 of the law creating the Institute of National Remembrance 1998); it is also illegal in Israel. 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, 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. Another prominent opponent of the laws is 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: Criticism of Noam Chomsky. 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.

Notable Holocaust deniers

• Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi
• Arthur R. Butz
• Bobby Fischer
• David Irving
• Hassan Nasrallah (http://www.memritv.org ,clip 1023)
• Hisham Abd al-Rauf
• Ernst Zundel
• Hutton Gibson, father of actor Mel Gibson
• Jürgen Graf
• Jüri Lina
• Mahmoud Abbas
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
• Michael Hoffman II
• Mohammed Mahdi Akef
• Norman Lowell
• Paul Rassinier
• Richard E. Harwood
• Robert Faurisson
• Roger Garaudy
• Tiit Madisson
• Wendy Campbell

Other genocide denials

Other acts of genocide and atrocity have met similar attempts to deny and minimize. The list of these acts is extensive and proof is often difficult to obtain, either because governments are involved in the denial or because there is debate whether the occurred atrocities can be considered genocide. For example, Ward Churchill, a controversial scholar and activist in the area of Native American studies, asserts that the concept of holocaust denial applies to the minimization of the significance of attempted extermination of other victims of the Nazi holocaust such as Gypsies and to the marginalization of other "holocausts" such as the near elimination of Native Americans.

Some other examples are:

• The death toll of the Great Chinese Famine caused by the government of Mao Zedong was higher than China's death toll in the Second World War. This could only be proved some decades later with demographic evidence;
• The Nanjing Massacre (1937) by the Japanese army has been denied by many Japanese politicians, such as Ishihara Shintaro;
• The Armenian Genocide by Turkey is denied by the Turkish government. Although some Turkish writers are being persecuted for going against the state's official standpoint concerning the massacre, the situation might change complexion in the coming years, mainly as a result of Turkey's attempt to join the European Union;
• The Ustaše genocide by the Croats, who killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs during WWII in Jasenovac and other places, was denied by Croatian president Franjo Tuđman and by many others in present day Croatia.
• The mass-killings organized by the Khmer Rouge in Democratic Kampuchea (today Cambodia), now almost universally regarded as genocide, were sometimes denied or minimized by contemporary commentators, primarily on the political left. Critics of Noam Chomsky accuse him of doing such. Chomsky's position was based largely on his prior objections to the Khmer Rouge's opponents, whom he considered imperialists. Chomsky now refers to what happened in Cambodia as a genocide (see Criticism of Noam Chomsky);
• The Indonesian genocide in East Timor during its occupation of the country between 1975 and 1999 was also denied. The figure of 200,000 dead, first put forward by the Catholic Church in East Timor in 1982, accounted for nearly a third of the original population of nearly 700,000. This figure was rejected by the Indonesian government as an exaggeration , as was the figure of 180,000 in a report by East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in January 2006;
• The Bosnian Genocide by Bosnian Serbs is still denied by most Serbs and others although it has gained acceptance at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) through the court case entitled Prosecutor vs. Krstic (see Srebrenica Massacre).

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."

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 0465021530). 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 0140298991). 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 0253340160
• Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, "Denying History Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why do they Say it?" University of California Press ISBN 0520234693
• 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 3932710762.
• Thomas Wandres: "Die Strafbarkeit des Auschwitz-Leugnens". Berlin 2000, ISBN 3428100557

By Holocaust deniers

• Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, Newport Beach: Institute for Historical Review, 1994 (ISBN 0967985692)
• Faurisson, Robert, My Life As a Revisionist, The Journal of Historical Review, volume 9 no. 1 (Spring 1989), p. 5.
• Jürgen Graf, Der Holocaust auf dem Prüfstand (1992)
• Richard E. Harwood, Did Six Million Really Die?" Noontide Press.
• David Irving, The War Path (1978) ISBN 0670749710
• Michael Hoffman II, The Great Holocaust Trial, (June,1985 - 2nd Edition) ISBN 0939484226
• Tiit Madisson, Holokaust. XX sajandi masendavaim sionistlik vale (Holocaust. The Most Depressing Zionist Lie of the XX Century; 2006)

External links

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 controversial Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel
• Website of Carlos Whitlock Porter
• World War II Revisionist FAQ from the website of Michael Hoffman II
• Imperium Europa Website of Norman Lowell, leader of the Malta-based racialist organisation Imperium Europa

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
• 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.
• History on Trial, the blog of Deborah Lipstadt
• How To Be A Revisionist Scholar — a piece originally posted January 3, 1996 on the alt.revisionism newsgroup that spoofs various claims by Holocaust deniers
• 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

Satire on the modes of argumentation employed by Holocaust deniers

• The Mad Revisionist

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 interment in several camps, as well as the idea of Holocaust revisionism.