# A question about Holocaust deniers **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 7, 2012, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985 "2012-10-07T14:46:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/41 "2012-10-08T20:31:58Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Icke believes in the truth of the Protocols and blames the Holocaust on “Rothschild Zionists”, and an Illuminati cabal that took over Judaism. So what? That’s not incompatiable with the lizard theory. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/42 "2012-10-08T20:45:54Z")
There’s an interesting philosophical conundrum: if you believe that the world is secretly run by space lizards who _pretend_ to be Jews, does that make you anti-Semitic? (Assuming, of course, that you don’t believe \*all \*Jews are space lizards.) ---
**Author:** ![aaelghat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c5a1d2/32.png) [@aaelghat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aaelghat)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/43 "2012-10-08T21:01:17Z")
IANAHD, but one thing I’ve noticed is that the holocaust which was over 70 years ago is very well known, but people are much more unaware of modern days genocides. The 1994 [Rwandan Genocide](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide) killed a million people. Presumably 1.7 - 2.5 Million people died in 1975 in [Pol Pot (Cambodial)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot). 1.5 Million also supposedly died in 1975 in the Ethiopia genocide. So, one reason someone may want to examine the numbers is to put the holocaust in perspective with other genocides. Here is a list of the [worst genocides of the 21st and 20th centuries](http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html). I’ve always thought part of the point of remembering the past (e.g. the holocaust) is to prevent it from happening again. I think the world could pay a bit more attention to the genocides that are happening today to people of “undesirable” ethnicities and religions. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/44 "2012-10-08T21:06:21Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > There’s an interesting philosophical conundrum: if you believe that the world is secretly run by space lizards who _pretend_ to be Jews, does that make you anti-Semitic? > > (Assuming, of course, that you don’t believe \*all \*Jews are space lizards.) That is effectively what he does believe, and I would say no. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/45 "2012-10-09T01:43:55Z")
Side note: while I certainly don’t minimize the impact of the Holocaust on the Jewish population, why do we so commonly see “six million” given as the death figure for the Holocaust as a whole, when that was the figure for Jewish victims, and there were about the same number of Gypsies, Poles, and other “undesirables” slaughtered who are mentioned much less often? Almost seems that the non-Jewish victims don’t matter as much. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/46 "2012-10-09T02:48:28Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > So what? That’s not incompatiable with the lizard theory. So, it’s kind of crazy to say somebody’s not antisemitic when he says that the Rothschild run Illuminati controls world banking, entertainment, and has set up Zionism and founded Israel to promote their evil attempts at world domination. Somebody doesn’t stop being antisemitic when he says, “Oh, I don’t dislike ALL Jews. Just the Jewish secret masters of the world who are, by the way, also cannibal shapeshifting lizards.” ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/47 "2012-10-09T02:53:24Z")
Jon Ronson did a show on Icke years ago. Whereas I don’t think they came out and said Icke was an anti-semite it seems that a huge amount of his audience, especially in North America, was down to the fact that people believed he was using the term lizard as a code word for Jews. It’s been years since I saw it but it’s here if anyone wants to have a look: [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2912878405399014351](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2912878405399014351) His show on Icke was, I believe, part of a series he had begun on political and religious extremists. One thing he found in common with these disparate groups of extremists is they all believed in a secret organisation that ruled the world, and usually Jews were in the mix there somewhere. It was after realising this he put these different threads together in a book called Them, which is an entertaining and illuminating read. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/48 "2012-10-09T03:13:54Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > You do realize that Holocaust deniers are mostly people who hate Jews, right? There are probably a few who are just nutty conspiracy theory types, but most of them think the Nazis had the right idea. There was at least one Nazi I ran onto in the Internet who did not deny the Holocaust and didn’t exactly support it but acted as if it was a minor mistake of Hitler’s, not probably the bloodiest programme of mass murder in history. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/49 "2012-10-09T03:17:39Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > Side note: while I certainly don’t minimize the impact of the Holocaust on the Jewish population, why do we so commonly see “six million” given as the death figure for the Holocaust as a whole, when that was the figure for Jewish victims, and there were about the same number of Gypsies, Poles, and other “undesirables” slaughtered who are mentioned much less often? Sloppiness and a lack of paying attention in history class. But it’s also true that Jewish groups have worked very hard to keep awareness of the Holocaust alive (since they feel their survival partly depends on it) and other groups have not had that kind of awareness, perhaps because they’re more disparate and because they aren’t seen as the Nazis’ primary targets. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/50 "2012-10-09T05:57:22Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Sloppiness and a lack of paying attention in history class. But it’s also true that Jewish groups have worked very hard to keep awareness of the Holocaust alive (since they feel their survival partly depends on it) and other groups have not had that kind of awareness, perhaps because they’re more disparate and because they aren’t seen as the Nazis’ primary targets. Also, for the Jews, the Holocaust wasn’t just something that happened to people like you, it happened to your blood relatives. A disabled guy in Washington would likely be horrified at what was being done to disabled people in Berlin, but the disabled people in Berlin weren’t his aunts, uncles, cousins, &c. (Obviously, this doesn’t apply to the Romani.) Too, there weren’t many spokespeople for the other groups at the time. Gays were still being actively discriminated against in most of the rest of the world, and the disabled were largely ignored. Since the Jews were, by and large, the only ones talking about what had happened to them for several decades after the war, the narrative of the Holocaust as a crime against Jews became fixed in the public consciousness. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/51 "2012-10-09T06:06:08Z")
> [@JohnnyMac](#): > > I’m currently reading _The Lampshade_ by Marc Jacobson (which seems quite pop and not entirely thoroughly researched, but entertaining all the same), and I’ve got up to the part where he interviews a Holocaust denier. There’s a question that’s been rattling around in my head about Holocaust deniers for some time, so I thought I’d see what Dopers had to say about it. > > Now, from what I understand Holocaust deniers don’t tend to deny the whole thing: they say that the numbers were much less than the mainstream historical record, they say gas chambers were never used, that kind of thing. But they don’t deny work camps, starving, beatings, or the Nazi rhetoric and wishes - at least, not that I’ve seen. So here’s my question…why does it **matter**? > > IANAHD, I believe these things happened as history tells us. But to be perfectly, bluntly honest (and I feel like this may be an unpopular opinion), I really don’t care if it was six million Jews (Roma, Poles, LGBT, mentally ill…) killed, or only two million. Those kinds of numbers, to be quite frank, are much too large for me to get my head around. I don’t care if the method of execution the Nazis used was gas chambers, or if they killed people using the butt of a rifle. The details of it all seem to me to be entirely beside the point. > > Surely the really **important** facts here are very, very simple - and surely we all agree on them? The Nazis decided that large numbers of people and classes of people were not human, so they killed them in extremely nasty ways. It was shocking and terrible and something we should remember and learn from, so history doesn’t repeat itself (while we’re at it, we might remember just who it was who invented concentration camps, and that these things can happen right here at home - but that’s off the topic). > > So why does anyone feel that the “fact” the numbers of people killed in the Holocaust are lower than the historical record tells us important enough to devote so much time and effort to? No counter-argument here regarding the “lower-than-historical-record” estimate of 6 million. You’re going to have to look up very reliable estimates, not just accounts of witnesses and survivors. But you’re right. It hardly matters if the accepted figure if off by 1.0 million. The point “deniers” are making is Jews and Jew sympathizers keep dwelling on the holocaust every time the race issue is touched and keeps white pride/supremacists at bay each time. “I lost three relatives to the chambers…” is a nice way to jolt someone. Basically that’s how I would see it if I were in the shoes of a surviving nazi. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/52 "2012-10-09T07:40:02Z")
I just think ALL the victims deserve to be remembered, not just one group. ☹ No, I have no known personal connection to any Holocaust victim, so this isn’t me grinding a personal axe, just feeling sorry for the overlooked. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/53 "2012-10-09T11:07:28Z")
One of the major differences between what happened to Jews and other groups (except the Romany), though, was that in that case, it was an attempt at extermination of a people. If you were disabled, or a Jehovah’s Witness, or a Polish intellectual, or openly gay, or a pacifist, or whatever, the Nazis would move against you, but only in the case of Jews and Romany was the Nazi ideology, “This is a distinct group of people we need to wipe out, root and branch, man, woman, and child.” vs, “These people are doing or believing things that interfere with our goals, so we need to kill them.” ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/54 "2012-10-09T12:32:23Z")
Dead is dead. It makes no difference to the dead whether they were killed because they belonged to a specific group or because of some other reason. The Jewish genocide was by no means particular exceptional in a historic context or particular relevant today. The Soviet communists killed 10-20 million, the Chinese communists 60+ million, other Chinese groups killed other two digit million Chinese, the Mongolians supposedly killed 20 million of a much smaller population, the Cambodian communists killed 25% of the population, the Turks killed 90% of the Armenian population, at other times they had murdered the Greeks, in Rwanda the Hutsi killed a million Tutsi (or else it was the other way round) with long knives, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/55 "2012-10-09T12:45:56Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > The Jewish genocide was by no means particular exceptional in a historic context or particular relevant today. I suggest that it is exceptional and relevant today in part _because_ of the existence of genocide denial (the only other instance on your list which features persistent denial, the Armenian genocide, has continued relevance for a similar reason). If people can’t acknowledge past atrocities and learn from them, the potential exists for repeating them. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/56 "2012-10-09T13:06:00Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I suggest that it is exceptional and relevant today in part _because_ of the existence of genocide denial (the only other instance on your list which features persistent denial, the Armenian genocide, has continued relevance for a similar reason). > > If people can’t acknowledge past atrocities and learn from them, the potential exists for repeating them. The Soviet murders are widely denied, and so are the Chinese communist genocides, even by official state propaganda. The Cambodia genocide is still denied by various people. Isn’t there a Chomsky debate around here somewhere. Don’t know if anybody denies the Rwandan genocide, probably few people in the West on account that we really don’t give a damn. Sweden carried out a genocide on ethnic Danes at one time during their history. Very few Swedes know about that. What is relevant is dependent on your historic viewpoint. There was an amusing controversy in the EU a few years back, where the Germans and French wanted their various Nazi and holocaust denial rules enshrined in EU legislation; some East European countries wanted communist symbols and denial of communist genocides outlawed. The Germans didn’t see any particular problem with the communists and didn’t want it criminalization, whereas the East Europeans kinda went doh to the Nazi criminalization: ancient history that nobody cares about, but the communist are current events. They couldn’t agree, so it all came to nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/57 "2012-10-09T14:10:07Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > The Jewish genocide was by no means particular exceptional in a historic context or particular relevant today. That’s a very pat answer. Other posters have already discussed some elements that made the Holocaust a unique genocide (including its use of “modern” methods and its location in the heart of Europe), and you’re downplaying its scope somewhat by comparing unlike events. It’s true that dead is dead, of course, but that doesn’t address why some mass murders might be better remembered or have a larger effect than others. > [@](#): > > in Rwanda the Hutsi killed a million Tutsi (or else it was the other way round) with long knives, and so on. It was the Hutu killing the Tutsi, and you surely could have looked it up. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/58 "2012-10-09T16:54:44Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > The Soviet murders are widely denied, and so are the Chinese communist genocides, even by official state propaganda. The Cambodia genocide is still denied by various people. The above are certainly massacres carried out by governments and qualify as genocide under some definitions - but not under the 1948 UN definition of genocide, which characterized it as deliberate attempts to eliminate people on ethnic, religious, racial or national grounds. In addition, apologists for the above mass killings (such as exist today) are acting typically for political motivations, not to promote hatred and create a climate for renewed oppression (as is the case with Holocaust denial). Even in the situation of Armenian genocide denial, it appears the primary deniers (the Turkish government) are acting not so much out of loathing of Armenians as a misplaced sense of national pride. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/59 "2012-10-09T19:04:05Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > The above are certainly massacres carried out by governments and qualify as genocide under some definitions - but not under the 1948 UN definition of genocide, which characterized it as deliberate attempts to eliminate people on ethnic, religious, racial or national grounds. Yes, but the 1948 definition was specifically drawn up in such a way to exclude the atrocities in the Ukraine so that Stalin would vote in favor of it. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985/60 "2012-10-09T19:26:52Z")
Much as I hate blaming things on the Cold War as there is a lot of BS that gets pinned on it, such as the nonsense of the bombs being dropped to intimidate Stalin; it’s notable that in mentioning other victims of the Holocaust that so far homosexuals, Roma, Jehovah’s Witness, Poles and others have been mentioned, nobody has yet mention what was the second largest group of victims of the Holocaust by far: [Soviet POWs](http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007178), over 3.3 million of whom were murdered. Regarding Holocaust denial, it’s just more ‘proof’ in the minds of those who believe and promote it that the Jews are the sneaky, devious liars that they have already decided they are. If instead of 6 million being killed in murder factories like Auschwitz, only ‘perhaps’ 1 or 2 million died in the vagaries of war, then the Germans weren’t that different than the US in the way the Japanese were treated. After all the Jews were enemies both of Germany and of the world at large; see how duplicitous they were to manufacture the hoax of the Holocaust in order to get their own state in Israel? At least that’s my take on some of the warped thinking that goes into Holocaust denial. At least I haven’t heard them referred to as ‘revisionists’ in a while; their hijacking of the term historical revisionism led to the term meaning ‘lying’ in the public eye for a long while and I imagine still does to a good extent. There is nothing inherently wrong or negative in historical revisionism; when new facts come to light or new theories are proffered, our understanding of history is revisited, something that respectable historians do all the time. Holocaust denier’s attempt to hijack the term to cover their blatant attempts to promote falsehood has soiled the term, perhaps beyond repair. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-holocaust-deniers/636985.md?page=4)