# Holocaust Denial? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2019, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762 "2019-11-21T07:43:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2019, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/61 "2019-11-24T04:22:15Z")
If someone writes a book claiming they are a Holocaust survivor, how would we know they are telling the truth? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2019, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/62 "2019-11-24T04:54:08Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > If someone writes a book claiming they are a Holocaust survivor, how would we know they are telling the truth? I don’t know, but if the text relies heavily on the use of leet, I’d have my suspicions. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2019, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/63 "2019-11-24T05:23:11Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > If someone writes a book claiming they are a Holocaust survivor, how would we know they are telling the truth? Same way as any other history book. Review it closely for internal consistency. Cross-check with known historical facts. Review the sources or citations. Check any documentary sources it cites. Does it hang together overall as a consistent account. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2019, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/64 "2019-11-24T14:51:40Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I just want to point out that a non-trivial number of white supremacists/neo-Nazis/Holocaust deniers do not, in fact, consider Jews to be “white people” even if a large number of them have pale skin. I’m not sure how they arrive at that notion. Christian Identity movement. The theory holds that white people are the true Israelites, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. > **[Christian Identity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Identity)** > > Christian Identity (also known as Identity Christianity) is an interpretation of Christianity which advocates the belief that only Celtic and Germanic peoples, such as the Anglo-Saxon, Nordic nations, or people of the Aryan race and people of kindred blood, are the descendants of the ancient Israelites and are therefore God's "chosen people". It is a racial interpretation of Christianity and is not an organized religion, nor is it affiliated with specific Christian denominations. It emerged No... Jewish people are the cursed descendants of Cain, the serpent seed. > **[Serpent seed](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_seed)** > > The doctrine of the serpent seed, also known as the dual-seed or the two-seedline doctrine, is a controversial and fringe Christian religious belief which explains the biblical account of the fall of man by stating that the Serpent mated with Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the offspring of their union was Cain. This event resulted in the creation of two races of people: the wicked descendants of the Serpent who were destined for damnation, and the righteous descendants of Adam who were destined ... Everyone’s talked about the racist and anti-Semitic aspect of these “hard right” nutbag groups. The third leg of that stool is anti-Federalism. I think it is important to remember these groups did not spring up recently. They have evolved over generations and the underlying philosophies aren’t just random crazy. It’s a particular kind of non-random highly organized crazy ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2019, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/65 "2019-11-24T17:09:12Z")
[Then there are the Khazars](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Khazar_myth): > [@RationalWiki](#): > > The Khazar myth holds that Ashkenazi Jews (i.e., those descended from an Eastern European bloodline) are not ethnically Jewish at all, but descend from the inhabitants of the medieval Turkic Khazar Empire. Myth-makers often harness this idea in attempts to discredit Zionism and/or to explain why the British/Aryans/Blacks/Arabs/insert race here, and not the Jews, are the REAL “chosen people” of the Bible. > > [snip] > > _The Thirteenth Tribe_ is a book written in 1976 by Arthur Koestler, claiming that Ashkenazi Jews were descended from Khazar converts to Judaism.[2] The author apparently had the best of intentions, and thought that by establishing Khazar descendance rather than from the Jews of Jesus’ time and area, the “Christ-Killer” accusations would end and Antisemitism would disappear.[3] It is, of course, still propagated, and believed, by a range of people who want to hate the Jews, claim “lost tribe” status for themselves, or both; the usual argument runs “Those people who claim they’re Jews aren’t really Jews, they’re Khazars, and _my group_ is the real lost tribe, which therefore proves something” as if being a member of a so-called “lost tribe” proved anything at all, least of all the existence of those tribes what got themselves lost to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2019, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/66 "2019-11-24T18:47:03Z")
Fredirich Nietzsche called Antisemitism not a mental disorder but a “brain disease” from which his sister suffered - he had first-hand experience. I can’t disagree. We know that religious frenzy stems from cerebral malfunctions. Ethnic hatred could see similar causation. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/67 "2019-11-25T15:43:24Z")
> [@MortSahlFan](#): > > Despite that, Irving is still an expert on WWII (especially since he speaks German). He had a few more fans after Christopher Hitchens befriended, defended, and said he was the ultimate “authority” I’m not aware of Hitchens ever describing him as the “ultimate authority” on anything and certainly not the holocaust. I doubt Hitchens would even recognise the concept of any human as an “ultimate authority”. Irving was (and is still in many cases) considered a serious historical source in some areas, a fucking nutjob in others. Hitchens did not agree with Irving on his holocaust views but he did defend his right to publish and spoke out against his conviction for what he thought and what he might be about to say. His was a defence of free speech, not an endorsement of the speech itself. As for “befriending” him, I’ll leave it to reader to decipher[Hitchens own words](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-20-bk-144-story.html). Seems to me like Hitch did what Hitch did. He reached out to learn more but at no point does it read like a cosy buddy-buddy relationship. So best to be clear with the facts I think. People might get the wrong impression from what you wrote and think that Hitchens had some sympathy towards holocaust-denial. He did not. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/68 "2019-11-25T16:07:43Z")
> [@MortSahlFan](#): > > Despite that, Irving is still an expert on WWII (especially since he speaks German). He had a few more fans after Christopher Hitchens befriended, defended, and said he was the ultimate “authority”. He is an asshole, but it is what it is. I think its why so many inside Hitler’s circle let him interview him - they “trusted” him. And we should take Hitchens’ word on who’s the ultimate authority on history as valid because… ? Last I checked, Hitchens didn’t have any background whatsofuckingever in history or historical research. Historians almost unilaterally jettisoned Irving’s ass decades (plural) ago. He might have been a mere “controversial figure” at some point in the 70s or 80s but he’s moved well into outright crackpottery since. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/69 "2019-11-25T16:16:08Z")
And by “unilaterally” I of course meant “unanimously” ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/70 "2019-11-25T16:42:03Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I’m not aware of Hitchens ever describing him as the “ultimate authority” on anything and certainly not the holocaust. I doubt Hitchens would even recognise the concept of any human as an “ultimate authority”. Irving was (and is still in many cases) considered a serious historical source in some areas, a fucking nutjob in others. > Hitchens did not agree with Irving on his holocaust views but he did defend his right to publish and spoke out against his conviction for what he thought and what he might be about to say. His was a defence of free speech, not an endorsement of the speech itself. > > As for “befriending” him, I’ll leave it to reader to decipher[Hitchens own words](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-20-bk-144-story.html). Seems to me like Hitch did what Hitch did. He reached out to learn more but at no point does it read like a cosy buddy-buddy relationship. > > So best to be clear with the facts I think. People might get the wrong impression from what you wrote and think that Hitchens had some sympathy towards holocaust-denial. He did not. I’m saying that certain personalities with fans have influence. Here’s one video I hate censorship. That’s all. Hitchens was DEAD wrong on Iraq (and some of his fans decided it must be a just war if HITCH is for it), but I don’t want him banned, even though that endorsement of the war might have prevented more resistance. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/71 "2019-11-25T17:00:52Z")
> [@MortSahlFan](#): > > I’m saying that certain personalities with fans have influence. Here’s one video > > > I hate censorship. That’s all. Hitchens was DEAD wrong on Iraq (and some of his fans decided it must be a just war if HITCH is for it), but I don’t want him banned, even though that endorsement of the war might have prevented more resistance. I’m not sure what you are trying to say with a link to that video, it doesn’t seem to contradict anything I wrote. As for his views on the second Iraq war, I’m not sure how it is possible to come to definitive conclusion one way or the other as there is no way to know what happens if Saddam’s dynasty remains in power. ---
**Author:** ![Ispolkom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47774/32.png) [@Ispolkom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ispolkom)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/72 "2019-11-26T03:44:48Z")
> [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](#): > > It’s not limited to white supremacists. Here in Minneapolis, my Congressperson is a non-white, non-Christian woman, and she is a holocaust denier. Of the Armenian holocaust, at least, based on her recent vote on that. When did Ilhan Omar deny the reality of the Nazi murder of millions of Jews? ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/73 "2019-11-26T06:09:09Z")
> [@Ispolkom](#): > > When did Ilhan Omar deny the reality of the Nazi murder of millions of Jews? If you turn your head sideways, squint really hard, and ignore the statement she released explaining her vote, you can get to where she “denied the Holocaust”. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/74 "2019-11-26T15:33:37Z")
> [@Ispolkom](#): > > When did Ilhan Omar deny the reality of the Nazi murder of millions of Jews? Not what anyone said. She voted “present” when a vote to recognize the Armenian Genocide, a holocaust mostly forgotten these days, came up. _That_ is a form of denial. Refusing to recognize something is a form of denial. Interestingly, she was the _only_ Democratic Representative to vote against it. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/75 "2019-11-26T15:57:22Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > I put it in Great Debates, because I assume it will spark one. > > But why do white supremacists almost always deny the Holocaust? I don’t need a cite. And I say “almost always”. But in reality, I never saw one who didn’t. > > Why do they do it? It seems to be pretty universal for them, as I said. What is their point? And purpose, for that matter? > > :):):)🙂 So the first and most fundamental thing we need to understand about nazis is that they lie. Constantly. There is no “truth” to them, there is only power. They are very clear and explicit about their intention to lie to the “normies”, couching every statement in performative irony that allows those who aren’t neo-nazis to think “edgy humor” and those who are to think “I agree with that”. Any attempt to engage with their views honestly or earnestly is a failed effort, because most of them know full well that what they actually propose (a white fascist ethnostate) is going to be incredibly unpopular. So what they do doesn’t really need to make sense in terms of their beliefs, or their convictions, because they lie about what both of those things are _constantly_. So. With that in mind, why deny the holocaust? What purpose does it serve? I honestly don’t have much to add to what people have already mentioned (rehabilitating the nazi image, furthering paranoid conspiracy theories about jews, etc.). What comes to mind for me is epistemic strategy, relating to both the “[Big Lie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie)” and “[Firehose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood)” schools of propaganda. To contest every point, to clog the airwaves with so much bullshit that determining the truth becomes difficult. In that environment, fascists, who always are better at speaking the language of moral certainty than the language of facts, tend to do considerably better than liberals. > [@Velocity](#): > > Well, there is considerable overlap between anti-Semitism and white supremacism (why, I don’t know - most Jews are white), so, something such as the Holocaust that boosts the cause of the Jews (in the PR sense) is obviously something white supremacists will object to. “Whiteness”, as a concept, is not well-defined. It certainly has never had much to do with skin tone - just ask the Irish and Italians who were treated as non-white in the past. Throughout history, whiteness has been used not as a racial categorization, but as the _absence of racialization_. White people are the people who don’t have some discriminated-against racial category. And when “white” people stop treating you as different, you are, effectively, “white”. Jews? Jews were not seen as white. And to modern white supremacists, they still usually aren’t. > [@Jragon](#): > > Also note that White Supremacy and White Fascism is essentially a death cult that progressively more narrowly defines “white” based on the predominant prevailing identities of the people in charge as they get more power. So they may even allow some “useful” POC when they’re low on power to be in their sphere, but once they get power those get purged (either from the party/positions of power or literally in the sense of genocide or exile), and then Italians get purged, and then Irish People, and then… say… the Spanish, then the French etc etc until suddenly only Baltic people or German people or English people or someone who can prove they’ve never had any non-what-is-now-defined-as-white ancestry going back 5 centuries or whatever are “white”. There’s always an increasing standard of “purity” among white supremacist communities. This usually ends up extending to other marginalized people too, such as the disabled, or gay people or trans people. _hi-fives in Danskin_ > [@MortSahlFan](#): > > Despite that, Irving is still an expert on WWII (especially since he speaks German). Imagine a hypothetical “expert” on the Napoleonic wars who, despite the accuracy of any other claims he made, also insists that Napoleon rode a fire-breathing dragon into battle at Waterloo. Once it becomes clear that he’s not joking and legitimately believes this, do we keep calling him an “expert”, or do we shake our heads and laugh him out of the room? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/76 "2019-11-26T16:05:47Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > _That_ is a form of denial. Refusing to recognize something is a form of denial. Here is her statement on the vote - [Rep. Ilhan Omar Statement on H.R. 4695 and H.Res. 296 | Representative Ilhan Omar](https://omar.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-ilhan-omar-statement-hr-4695-and-hres-296) While I disagree with her reasoning, I don’t see it as a denial in any meaningful way. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/77 "2019-11-26T16:36:02Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Here is her statement on the vote - [Rep. Ilhan Omar Statement on H.R. 4695 and H.Res. 296 | Representative Ilhan Omar](https://omar.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-ilhan-omar-statement-hr-4695-and-hres-296) > > While I disagree with her reasoning, I don’t see it as a denial in any meaningful way. Her statement breaks down into “The evidence isn’t in yet” and “Other bad things happened”; the first is a lie, and the kind of lie used by denialists, and the second is irrelevant when discussing her vote about _that_ bad thing. So she denied the Armenian Genocide and threw up chaff when people called her on it. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/78 "2019-11-26T17:39:15Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Her statement breaks down into “The evidence isn’t in yet” and “Other bad things happened”; Where does she say “The evidence isn’t in yet”? She wrote > [@](#): > > It should be done based on academic consensus outside the push and pull of geopolitics. I don’t see that as questioning the evidence, just a statement that consensus doesn’t come from a political vote. I can see a way to read that as questioning the evidence, but it comes off as a pretty stretched reading IMO. You may feel differently. The “Other bad things happened” part is true, but I agree with you that it’s poor reasoning to use that to avoid voting on this issue. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/79 "2019-11-26T17:43:25Z")
Congress ignored this for over 100 years, and I think some are looking for any reason to hate Rep. Omar. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762/80 "2019-11-26T18:00:15Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Her statement breaks down into “The evidence isn’t in yet” and “Other bad things happened”; the first is a lie, and the kind of lie used by denialists, and the second is irrelevant when discussing her vote about _that_ bad thing. So she denied the Armenian Genocide and threw up chaff when people called her on it. I concur, I mean “whataboutism” isnt a good reason. I mean there are still some arguments that the Armenian horror wasnt quite \*technically \*a "genocide’, but she didnt use them. Oddly, since there are strong arguments that the deaths and dwindling of the US Natives wasnt a “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such” or a \*“planned systemic genocide”. \* I mean you could apply "genocide’ to the Fire bombing of Germany or the bombing of Japan too. Nuking Japan was certainly a _“acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such”._ Let’s not overuse the term. Mind you, I do think that the Armenian situation does qualify. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holocaust-denial/843762.md?page=5)