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Holocaust denial

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Did Six Million Really Die? by Richard Harwood (a.k.a. Richard Verrall)

Holocaust denial, or Holocaust revisionism as it is referred to by its supporters, is the belief that the Holocaust did not occur as it is defined by mainstream historiography. Key elements of this belief are the explicit or implicit rejection that, in the Holocaust:

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 to inflate the number of Jews dead. For this reason, Holocaust denial is generally considered an antisemitic 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 antisemitic and anti-democratic agenda.

Most historians and scholars reject Holocaust denial as "grounded in hatred, rather than any accepted standards of assertion, evidence, and truth"[1] and a "pseudoscience" that "rejects the entire foundation of historical evidence,"[2] instead motivated by a "blatantly racist"[3] ideology.

While a few Holocaust deniers have training as historians, some of their most prominent representatives have been shown in court to have a pattern of falsifying historical documents (e.g. David Irving) or deliberately misrepresenting historical data (e.g. Ernst Zündel). This history of Holocaust deniers distorting, ignoring, or misusing historical records has led to almost universal condemnation of the techniques and conclusions of Holocaust denial, with organizations such as the American Historical Association, the largest society of historians in the United States, stating that Holocaust denial is "at best, a form of academic fraud."

Similarly, Public Opinion Quarterly, summarizing the work on the subject done by a range of historians including Jaroff, Lipstadt, Riech, Ryback, Shapiro, Vidal-Naquet, Weimann, and Winn concludes "No reputable historian questions the reality of the Holocaust, and those promoting Holocaust denial are overwhelmingly anti-Semites and/or neo-Nazis." (Vol. 59, p. 270) Holocaust deniers insist that they do not deny the Holocaust, preferring to be called "Holocaust revisionists". They are nevertheless commonly referred to as "Holocaust deniers" due to the fact that they deny the veracity of the commonly held historical definition of the event.

Terminology: Holocaust denial or Holocaust revisionism?

The term "denier" is objected to by the people to whom it is applied, who prefer "revisionist". Most 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 criticised 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. As the historian Gordon McFee wrote 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 Holocaust revisionism ranges from holocaust denial through the belief that only minor corrections are required to Holocaust history. However, because the latter term has become associated with Holocaust deniers, mainstream historians today generally avoid using it to describe themselves.

Beliefs of 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.
  • 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 irresponsible 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 biased academics and historians are too afraid to actually admit that the Holocaust was a fiction; they know they will lose their jobs if they speak up.
  • In any event, the Holocaust pales in comparison to the number of dissidents and Christians killed in Soviet gulags, which Holocaust deniers usually attribute to Jews.

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.
Documents such as the Wannsee Conference protocols, the Einsatzgruppen reports, and many other original materials have overwhelmingly demonstrated the centralized planning and knowledge of the Holocaust by most upper echelons of the Nazi leadership. Historians continue to debate how widespread the knowledge of the Holocaust was in German society and government, and how the decisions to implement the Final Solution evolved, but the centrally-planned nature of the Holocaust, and the role of the Nazi leadership in its planning and execution, has not been subject to any doubt by scholars or historians.
While to date no such specific "Führerbefehl" has been found, there is no necessity for it to exist in order to establish that Hitler was aware of the Holocaust. In addition, particularly in the context of the Wannsee Conference, it has been proven that the upper echelons of the Nazi regime did indeed give orders that resulted in the Holocaust.

Holocaust denial examined

Main article: Holocaust denial examined

Public denial of the Holocaust is a criminal offence in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland, and is punishable by fines and jail sentences.

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. One of the first published revisionist works (though the word "revisionist" was not used to describe it) was Friedrich Meinecke's The German Catastrophe (1950), in which he offered a brief defense for the German people by blaming industrialists, bureaucrats and the Pan-German League for the outbreak of World War I and Hitler's rise to power. Meinecke was openly anti-Semitic; nonetheless, he was a respected historian. Another 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 later 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

File:KKK holocaust a zionist hoax.jpg
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; more importantly, he was arrested in Germany in 1943, and had long since been transferred to Poland by the time the extermination was fully in progress.

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.

Institute for Historical Review

In 1979 the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) was founded by the neo-Nazi 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 travelling to the Middle East in an attempt to forge closer ties with extremist groups there. IHR spokespersons have been reported to have met with Arabs suspected of involvement with terrorist groups. [4]

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. (Journal for Historical Review, 1993, 13, 5, p. 32)

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 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, and was the subject of editorials in major newspapers such as The New York Times. CODOH's newspaper ad campaign has fallen into inactivity since 2000, because most campus papers now reject the ads as a matter of course and the 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.

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 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 crime for which he was commited was an infringement of 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 INS arrested him in Tennessee 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.

The Lipstadt affair

File:Denying the holocaust.jpg
Book cover: Denying The Holocaust

In 1998, the best-selling British 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 British 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.

Some journalists called the verdict a blow to free speech, although others pointed out that it was Irving who had initiated legal action for damages from the publication of Lipstadt's work, and hence no one's speech was restricted.

Ahmadinejad remarks

In a December 2005 speech, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the Holocaust was "a myth" that had been promoted to defend Israel, ramping up his rhetoric and triggering a fresh wave of international condemnation. "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 the entire nation of Israel to be relocated to Germany, Austria or the United States, as he holds those nations responsible for the formation of a Jewish State in Palestine. [5] The remarks instantly provoked a firestorm 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. [6] Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal called Ahmadinejad's remarks "courageous" and declared that "...Muslim people will defend Iran because it voices what they have in their hearts, in particular the Palestinian people." [7] In the United States, the Muslim Public Affairs Council condemned Ahmadinejad's remarks. [8]

Public reactions to Holocaust denial

Seven European Union member countries including France and Germany have passed laws making the denial or minimization of the Holocaust a crime. [9] 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 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.

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 [10][11][12]. Denials of the Holocaust have been regularly promoted by various Arab leaders and in various media throughout the Middle East. [13][14] 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. [15] 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" [16] Holocaust-denial literature is also sold at white-supremacist bookstores run by immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel.[17]

Many Neo-Nazi groups and people associated with them believe that the Holocaust never occurred.

Many Jews protest that Holocaust denial trivializes the suffering caused to victims of the Holocaust when it juxtaposes it with accounts of the Germans (most estimates are 500,000 to 2 million, but some Holocaust deniers put the figure as high as 10 million) who died of starvation and from Russian violence immediately after WWII. They argue that this is an attempt to make the Germans feel they do not deserve full blame for the war crimes of the Nazis, on the basis that the Soviets, British, and Americans committed similar war crimes without repercussions. This position is based on the work of James Bacque, Ernst Mayo, and others.

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 book by Norman Finkelstein, a Jew and the son of Holocaust survivors. He fully accepts the fact that the Holocaust occurred, but believes that its memory is being dishonestly exploited. However, his term has also been picked up by Holocaust deniers who believe the Holocaust was faked for the purpose of financial and political gain, although that usage is much less frequent. Finkelstein's work is rejected by the much of the mainstream Jewish community as well as many scholars.

Spokespersons for Holocaust deniers have claimed that the deniers are often "persecuted" for their beliefs. This stems from the widespread negative reaction to Holocaust denial in the general public. Holocaust deniers have stated that they have received personal threats and even been assaulted, as happened in an incident known as the Faurisson affair.

Other genocide denials

Other acts of genocide and atrocity have met similar attempts to deny, to minimize, or to hush up. 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 on whether the occurred atrocities are genocide or not. The toll of the Great Chinese Famine caused by the government of Mao was higher than the toll of the Second World War in China but could only be proved some decades later with demographic evidence. Some other examples are:

Genocide Watch [18] lists denial as the eighth and final stage of a genocide development. Sometimes the motivation for genocide denial is to avoid disturbing opinions, and sometimes it is strictly nationalist, or ideological. Ward Churchill, a scholar and activist in the area of Native American studies, asserts that the concept of holocaust denial applies to minimization of the significance of attempted extermination of other victims of the Nazi holocaust such as Gypsies and to marginalization of other "holocausts" such as the near elimination of Native Americans.

The Holocaust Research Center director Dr. William Shulman described the denial "…as if these people were killed twice." [19]

Notes

  1. ^ Alan Milchaman, editor, Postmodernism and the Holocaust Rodolphi, June 1998.
  2. ^ Ronald J Berger, Fathoming the Holocaust Aldine, 2002
  3. ^ Charles Maier, The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust and German National Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 64.

References

About Holocaust deniers

  • Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, Plume (The Penguin Group), 1994. Debunking Holocaust revisionism.
  • 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.
  • Sergio Troncoso, The Nature of Truth, Northwestern University Press, 2003. A philosophical novel about righteousness and evil, Yale and the Holocaust.
  • Mr. Death, a documentary by Errol Morris.
  • "Syrian Holocaust Denial" by Mohammad Daoud, Syria Times September 6 2000, retrieved November 08 2005
  • "Antisemitism 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
  • Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies Holocaust CNN, December 8, 2005
  • "Iranian leader denies Holocaust". December 14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

By Holocaust deniers

  • Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, Newport Beach: Institute for Historical Review, 1994. This is a standard work of Holocaust revisionism, but not a good place for beginners to start.
  • Lyle Burkhead, Six Reasons Six reasons given for denying the specific claim that gas chambers were used to kill Jews.
  • Faurisson, Robert, My Life As a Revisionist, The Journal of Historical Review, volume 9 no. 1 (Spring 1989), p. 5.

Websites denying the Holocaust or parts thereof

Websites criticizing Holocaust deniers

Audio testimony of Holocaust survivors

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