Holocaust Denial

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Like the Flat Earth Society, Holocaust Denial groups still exist. How do you view this belief, and in your opinion what does it reveal about the contemporary society?</p>

2

<p>I don’t see how anyone can deny the holocaust. </p>

<p>I guess the fact that some deny the holocaust just reinforces that there are some people who are just vincibly ignorant.</p>

3

<p>Holocaust denial is the most ignorant belief possible about the 20th century. Many things can be questioned and denied, but the Nazi Holocaust is not one of them - millions and millions of records kept, the death camps still standing, the survivors, the trials - they all point to one thing: the Holocaust existed.</p>

4

<p>There was a lovely, moving segment on NPR this morning about a group of internees in Camp Terezin who kept their spirits up by rehearsing Verdi’s Requiem. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5421347[/url]”>Verdi's Requiem Revived as WWII Tribute : NPR;

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<p>don’t worry, the President of Iran is sure that there was no holocaust. I’m sure he’s telling the truth.</p>

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<p>Holocaust denial is not merely ignorant, IMO, it involves a sort of willful and despicable twisting of history and truth. It is also offensive to use the term “holocaust” to describe anything that is not the systematic, state-engendered and supported effort to wipe out a race or group of people merely because they are members of that group.</p>

7

<p>Well, in some countries (Germany and Austria for starters) it is not only ignorant but illegal to deny the Holocaust. Which is why David Irving is sitting in jail in Austria right now.</p>

8

<p>While I abhor Irving’s views, I respect his right to free speech. I think it was wrong to sentence him to jail.</p>

9

<p>basically, people who deny the holocaust would be like having people say that slavery in america never existed.</p>

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<p>Or that Bill Clinton didn’t kill half a million children in Iraq.</p>

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<p>There’s a specialist by the name of Ferber who wrote a book on children and their sleep issues. One of the topics was the monster under the bed. Ferber says that kids at a certain age crystallize their fears of the outside world into this monster lurking in the closet, under the bed, or a robber outside the window. They’re terrified. He recommends that we not deal with the monster, which the child created in the same way they sometimes create imaginary friends; but rather their fears.</p>

<p>I’m not sure, but sometimes I think it’s the same with conspiracy fanatics, whether it’s the people who deny the Holocaust or other types (the Montana survivalists ranting about the black helicopters come to mind). It’s not the Holocaust or “those people” trying to take over and turn us into One World that is the problem so much as it is their deep-seated fears of the world we live in. They don’t understand it, and they don’t feel part of it. So they create the monster under the bed. But that’s just my current theory.</p>

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<p>hayden,</p>

<p>I dont think it’s a “monster under the bed” issue at all.</p>

<p>I think that there are some hateful anti-semites out there that have actually convinced themselves that the Jewish people made up the holocaust. When people “hate”, they will convince themselves of anything – including participating in a holocaust or denying its existance.</p>

<p>That is why in my earlier post I said that these people are vincibly ignorant… they should know the truth, the truth is easily available to them, it’s just that they have another (hateful) agenda and their sinful pride prevents them from believing what is true. </p>

<p>Those of us who pray, might want to pray that the hardened hearts of these people be softened.</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if this eventually happened here. There are some small strange ignorant fringe groups everywhere.</p>

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<p>Like the ignorant people who think that Bush executed 9/11.</p>

15

<p>It is commonly accepted that over 30% of those killed were not even jewish, merely threats to the purity of Hitler’s aryan dream:</p>

<p>5.1–6.0 million Jews, including 3.0–3.5 million Polish Jews
1.8 –1.9 million non-Jewish Poles
500,000–1.2 million Serbs killed by Croat Nazis
200,000–800,000 gypsies
200,000–300,000 people with disabilities
80,000–200,000 Freemasons
100,000 communists
10,000–25,000 homosexual men
2,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses</p>

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<p>choc…</p>

<p>Yes, I know that many non Jews were killed as well, but the number is so large for Jewish people since they were the focus of absolute extermination. And, I know that many people were executed for helping Jewish families/children hide and for refusing to participate in nazi evil.</p>

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<p>Deny the holocaust? That’s purely malicious. But lets not kid ourselves. We as have believed in ridiculous things; eugenics, left brain-right brain, nuclear winter, global warming, socialism, UFOs landing on earth, conspiracy theories, massive species extinction, belief that malaria was caused by ‘bad air’, ridiculing Pasteur’s theory of germs, creationism…the list goes on.</p>

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<p>It’s one thing to question/deny “theories” or things that are not easily and clearly proven (global warming, etc). It’s another to deny the Holocaust just out of anti-semitism and pure hate.</p>

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<p>marite, I certainly agree that as much as I disagree with Irving he should have free speech. I think these laws against Holocaust denial were passed in the aftermath of the war and are difficult to get changed. Some people, domestically but especially internationally, would view it as a bad sign if Germany and Austria got rid of the laws. But I don’t think they are enforced that stringently, I cannot say I could name any other cases, but Irving rather provoked the Austrian government.</p>

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<p>I’m actually doing project for this in English</p>