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Holocaust Denial

Holocaust Denial. Adnan Alam Holocaust Literature Spring/2008 Dr. Victoria Harrison San Jose State University. Topics. What is Genocide? What is Holocaust Denial? Estimation of Jewish Losses Why Denying the Holocaust 5 Main Claims of Holocaust Denial Movement

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Holocaust Denial

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  1. Holocaust Denial Adnan Alam Holocaust Literature Spring/2008 Dr. Victoria Harrison San Jose State University

  2. Topics • What is Genocide? • What is Holocaust Denial? • Estimation of Jewish Losses • Why Denying the Holocaust • 5 Main Claims of Holocaust Denial Movement • History of Holocaust Denial • Fighting the Holocaust Denial • Freedom of Speech • Q&A

  3. What is Genocide? • The word: • Raphael Lemkin, Polish-Jewish lawyer, 1944 • Geno (race or tribe) and Cide (killing) • The United Nations Definition of Genocide “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:(a) Killing members of the group;(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”.

  4. What is Holocaust Denial? • Defining Holocaust Denial: • Holocaust denial is a propaganda movement which seeks to deny the reality of the Nazi regime’s systematic mass murder of six million Jews in Europe during World War II. • Why and How

  5. Estimation of Jewish Losses

  6. Why Denying the Holocaust • Racist, political and strategic reasons - Innate Antisemitism and Irrational Hatred - Special treatment of Jews - Interests of the State of Israel - Resurgence of Nazi policies - Over glorified stories of the German brutality during WWI • My own observation (in Bangladesh) - Religious belief: Jews can make you believe in anything - The politics of Israel: gaining sympathy with their stories

  7. 5 Main Claims of Holocaust Denial Movement • No Nazi policy or intention to exterminate Jews • Gas chambers weren’t used • Six million is just simply impossible • Jewish conspiracy • Establishing a Jewish homeland in Israel

  8. History of Holocaust Denial • Origin of Holocaust Denial - A state secret, verbal orders, euphemistic language - Red Cross visit: 1944, “Theresienstadt Ghetto” • Timeline - 1947: Maurice Bardèche, a French fascist - 1969: The Myth of the Six Million - 1977: David Irving offers “$1000 for evidence that Hitler knew about Auschwitz.” - 1988: The Templeton Prize goes to Dr. Inamullah Khan (the Secretary-General of the World Muslim Congress) - 1994: Irving was interviewed by Shermer. - 2000: Irving vs. Lipstadt - 2005: Irving was arrested in Austria

  9. Fighting Holocaust Denial • Nuremberg Trial - “The Nazi Concentration Camps” • Robert Jackson “unless record was made … future generations would not believe how horrible the truth was. ” • Robert Storey “The purpose of the Nuremberg trial was not merely, or even principally, to convict the leaders of Nazi Germany ... Of far greater importance, it seemed to me from the outset, was the making of a record of the Hitler regime which would withstand the test of history.”

  10. Fighting Holocaust Denial • Well Researched Publications 2000: Denying History, Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman 1993: Denying the Holocaust, Deborah E. Lipstadt

  11. Fighting Holocaust Denial • Evidences of Holocaust • Written Documents • Eyewitness Testimony • Photographs • The Camps themselves • Inferential Evidence

  12. Fighting Holocaust Denial

  13. Fighting Holocaust Denial

  14. Freedom of Speech • Questionable Publications - Neo-Nazi - Antisemitic - Holocaust Denial • Noam Chomsky • First Amendment

  15. Question & Answer • Works Cited: 1. The Holocaust Chronicle, p.599, p.621. Publications International, Ltd. 2. Lipstadt, Deborah E. Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on truth and Memory, p.65-83, p.157-182. The Free Press, New York, 1993. 3. Shermer, Michael, and Alex Grobman. Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why do They Say It, p.33, p.100, p.123 -228. University of California Press, Berkeley, 2000. 4. Shermer, Michael. “Giving the Devil His Due” eSkeptic March 2006. 5. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Combating Holocaust Denial: Origins of Holocaust Denial.” Accessed on April 25, 2008. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007273> 6. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Combating Holocaust Denial: Holocaust Deniers and Public Misinformation.” Accessed on April 25, 2008. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007272> 7. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Combating Holocaust Denial: Evidence of the Holocaust Presented at the Nuremberg.” Accessed on April 25, 2008. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007271> 8. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Combating Holocaust Denial: Origins of Holocaust Denial.” Accessed on April 25, 2008. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007147> 9. Vidal-Naquet, Pierre. Assassins of Memory: Essays on the Denial of the Holocaust, p.65-73 Columbia University Press, New York, 1992.

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