Holocaust Deniers Beware!

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Statements like: “I am not so sure that the French Revolution really took place” or “I often wonder if Hiroshima wasn’t an invention to get the attention of the world community”would never be taken seriously by bona fide historians. These are as ludicrous as saying that the Holocaust never happened or that it was hugely exaggerated. Unfortunately, the past seventy years have seen their share of pseudo-historians and Holocaust revisionists as well as deniers. The effort they had to put into erasing such an event from the chronicles of modern history should discourage them but they kept going with their revisionism coupled with various conspiracy theories about the Jews controlling the world banks, governments, media outlets and of course Hollywood.
When we line up the infamous culprits in Holocaust denial, it takes no time to realize that their common denominator is the delegitimization of Israel and complete eradication of worldwide Jewry, a lethal by-product of anti-Semitism.
Take Louis Farrakhan, the leader of Nation of Islam for instance. While he is not much of a role model to the vast majority of Americans, he was recently quoted saying:

“I don’t know how many Jews were killed. I know something happened in Nazi Germany, and if it’s one million, two million, three million; it’s one million, two million, three million too many. But to deny a person the right to challenge your articulation of numbers and to put you in jail if you deny aspects of the Holocaust… You can’t speak about Jews. You can’t criticize Jews. If you do, you’re an anti-Semite.”1

Current president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also on the roaster of Holocaust deniers and revisionists. He has repeatedly made public speeches in the Middle East and to the United Nations where he arrogantly ridiculed the Holocaust while threatening to perpetrate another one on the Jews (but wait, if it never happened, why would there be “another” one?). He was quoted about the Holocaust on CNN saying: “Whatever event has taken place throughout history, or hasn’t taken place, I cannot judge that. Why should I judge that? I say researchers and scholars must be free to conduct research and analysis about any historical event,”

Additionally, he told his own people at Tehran University that:

“The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false … It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim,”

English writer and historian David Irving has devoted most of his adult life to promoting Hitler, the Third Reich and the denigration and denial of the Holocaust. Irving first stated that Hitler knew nothing about the Holocaust. It would be like saying that presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon knew nothing about the Vietnam War. Eventually, Irving went full force into Holocaust denial and even sued Jewish author Deborah Lipstadt who boldly exposed him in her book Denying the Holocaust. After a long battle in court, Irving lost.

Holocaust denial will not stop any time soon. While we must be careful not to abuse the Holocaust and turn every statement containing the words “Jews”, “Israel” or “Holocaust” into reasons to accuse the messengers of anti-Semitism, we must be extremely vigilant, yet ethical as we expose them.

As I write this, we are just about a month away from Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). I have lived with WWII parents in Paris half of my life and have heard numerous times from my mother how she saw the Gestapo snatch her dad from her apartment when she was only 15, to never see him again as he perished in Auschwitz. I am very aware of the reality of the Holocaust and yet, I was taken aback when I just found out the results of a research project headed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

It was about 13 years ago when a team of their researchers started to gather data from about 400 different sources about the Holocaust, Camps and Ghettos of the 30s and 40s. Based on their preliminary studies and available records, they had estimated the number of ghettos, labor camps, concentration camps and extermination camps at about 7,000.

They just published their findings and the numbers are not 7,000 but over 42,500. While I am not even convinced that such a statement is even possible to make, we are now forced to realize that the horrors of the Holocaust just got a lot worse if not in intensity, most definitely in numbers. The researchers are just about to publish data that will put the numbers of all Holocaust victims (Jews, Gypsies, invalids, handicapped, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other minorities) at about 20 million.

This is without a doubt a major slap in the face of revisionists and deniers. It also brings to the forefront of this tragedy of mankind a group that I have long considered as guilty as the perpetrators, and that is the “by-standers”.

I have said before that: A bystander who does nothing only facilitates the work of a perpetrator.

Considering the new findings about the 42,500 camps and ghettos, not only more people had to be well aware of the events but possibly more by-standers might have been more than just watching. In any case and as the evil posse of Holocaust deniers will continue to defy logic and history in their attempt at erasing the Holocaust from our collective memories, we must not be indifferent and we must fight back.

The recent findings by the team from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are a major victory in the battle against Holocaust deniers, but the sad part is that only 70 years after the Holocaust we would even have to fight such a battle!

The road to Auschwitz was built by hate but paved with indifference!

Abraham Joshua Heschel

1. Holy Day of Atonement Keynote Address, Part 2, Mosque Maryam, Chicago, Illinois 10/21/12

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