# I don't understand holocaust denial **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 11, 2017, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963 "2017-03-11T23:15:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TGWATY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5e925/32.png) [@TGWATY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TGWATY)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/41 "2017-03-12T03:49:03Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > When people of reasonable intelligence and education levels deliberately reject well-established historical facts in order to embrace some conspiracy theory, it’s generally because they **want** to believe the conspiracy theory. Not because they simply couldn’t have known any better. Maybe at some unconscious level. We all have to watch out for that sort of thing. But I think that most of them are sincere in that they themselves aren’t aware of their own bias. I don’t have much experience with the holocaust topic but I’ve been following the paranormal and other various weird topics for a long time, and I can tell you those people are sincere. The Holocaust Deniers might be different. I don’t know. But that’s why i started from that assumption. ---
**Author:** ![TGWATY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5e925/32.png) [@TGWATY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TGWATY)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/42 "2017-03-12T03:52:34Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > You seem to be a bit confused about what the term “Holocaust denier” means. It doesn’t apply only to people who assert that the Holocaust never happened at all. > > People are Holocaust deniers if they challenge well-documented facts about the Holocaust with no credible evidence to back up their challenges. Hitler’s genocidal intentions and aims are among those well-documented facts, so yes, people who claim that they’re an open question count as Holocaust deniers. Yes, I know. That’s exactly why I said so-called holocaust deniers. The term is not used strictly for people who deny the holocaust happened. I think we are in agreement here. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/43 "2017-03-12T04:00:30Z")
> [@TGWATY](#): > > People get called Holocaust Deniers just for questioning whether gas chambers were used or not, vs deaths by gunshot, starvation, etc. Just questioning whether Hitler knew about it and intended it, even you agree with all the other facts and numbers, will get you lumped in with “Holocaust Deniers”. Hence the “so-called”. You don’t have to actually deny the holocaust happened to be called a Holocaust Denier. You’re being dishonest here Asking “Did they really use gas chambers?” does not get anyone accused of being a denier Perhaps you mean disputing that they used them, trying to present pseudo facts that it was not possible to gas XX people etc etc. That isn’t a question, that is refuting something for which exists witnesses and documentation. It’s simply creepy how much they documented for posterity, apparently entirely positive they were going to take over the world which would let them present these facts as a good thing, a difficult job they had to do for the betterment of the entire world. They used gas, they used bullets, they used starvation, they used beating, they used forced labor, they even buried people alive. And they thought they were so right, that they documented. You can not dispute Hitler knew about it, he micromanaged everything. He stopped openly signing his name to things after the uproar over the T4 euthansia program he ordered. The general population had a bit of a fit over that, so he public recalled the program, removed his name from it, but continued the program until 1945. Hitler not know, when he had to know and micromanage every tiny thing his field officers were doing? The exterminations were not some basement operation. You have to secure land to run the camps, you had to assign materials to build the camps You had to assign specially picked personnel to staff the camps You had to assign specially chosen officers to oversee the camps You had to provide dedicated trains and train schedules to fill the camps Camp inmates where carefully recorded and logged, they knew who was going where. Money had to be assigned to carry all this out, supplies had to be sent. None of that was being floated behind Hitler’s back, he was a nutbag and had to micromanage everything. And there may have been some kind of signed orders at some point, but i am sure that would have been one of the top priority things to destroy when they realized they were going to lose and began trying to destroy all evidence. He did an interview with Joseph Hell in 1922 _“Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews. As soon as I have the power to do so, I will have gallows built in rows Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, until all of Germany has been completely cleansed of Jews.”_ He said many other wonderful things, and gave many other orders as time went on Do you really doubt he had any idea, and was just being duped by a bunch of guys in SS uniforms or something? He was inventing his New World Order, to say he wasn’t is denying a lot of things. And nobody is going to quibble with you over numbers, if you are talking like 5.8million vs 6million etc because no one will ever know the exact to the man body count. But if you are going to try to refute approx 6million and trade it for 500,000, yes that is denial, you are denying the absolute scope and vulgar atrocity of it and reducing it to a small event. You say but if i ask XXX i am a denier, but you are not asking anything, you are refuting reality, do you not see that? ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/44 "2017-03-12T04:04:18Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > You just HAD to Godwinize this thread, didn’t you? 😛 Oh? Umm… It was unavoidable? Sorry ☹ ---
**Author:** ![TGWATY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5e925/32.png) [@TGWATY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TGWATY)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/45 "2017-03-12T04:12:05Z")
Weisshund, I appreciate your post but I am not disputing any of the facts about the Holocaust. I am not dishonest. I am genuinely under the impression that questioning any detail about _how_ the holocaust happened, even if you agree that it did happen, will get you labeled a holocaust denier. The actual facts of the holocaust are not in question here as far as I am concerned. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/46 "2017-03-12T04:29:12Z")
> [@TGWATY](#): > > I am genuinely under the impression that questioning any detail about _how_ the holocaust happened, even if you agree that it did happen, will get you labeled a holocaust denier. Cite? Can you show us evidence of somebody asking a good-faith question about some detail of the Jewish genocide, and making it clear that they acknowledge that the Jewish genocide happened, consequently getting called a “Holocaust denier” just for that question? ---
**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:** [March 12, 2017, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/47 "2017-03-12T04:31:56Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > There’s even an episode of the TV show _Quincy_ that addresses this. Some young neo-Nazi gets what for from an actual former Nazi who is proud of what he did, and it turns the young guy around (it’s not the only thing-- actually meeting and knowing some Jewish people, and of course, some Quincy magic are also necessary). It’s one of the better episodes from the “message” stage of the show, when it stopped being about a coroner solving murder mysteries, and started being a “crusade of the week” show. In that episode (“Stolen Tears”), the denier wasn’t a young guy, though. He was played by Norman Lloyd, who was in his late sixties at the time. A trivial point, to be sure, but this is exactly the kind of insignificant inconsistency that deniers (and conspiracy-theory-loving whackadoodles in general) love to jump on. ---
**Author:** ![TGWATY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5e925/32.png) [@TGWATY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TGWATY)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/48 "2017-03-12T04:43:39Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Cite? Can you show us evidence of somebody asking a good-faith question about some detail of the Jewish genocide, and making it clear that they acknowledge that the Jewish genocide happened, consequently getting called a “Holocaust denier” just for that question? Nope. it was just an impression I had about the loose application of the term Holocaust Denial. If pressed, I am willing to concede that the term is well-defined and its general use by the public coincides with that definition. That point has little bearing on my questions. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/49 "2017-03-12T04:56:08Z")
> [@Weisshund](#): > > Oh? > Umm… It was unavoidable? > > Sorry ☹ I was making a joke. No worries. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/50 "2017-03-12T05:21:26Z")
> [@TGWATY](#): > > And shouldn’t it be Jews that, even if not agreeing with Holocaust deniers, would sympathize with the wishful thinking behind it? The “wishful thinking” behind Holocaust denial is that the poor innocent Nazis are the victims of the cunning Jews, who made the whole thing up as part of their sinister plan to rule the world. Holocaust deniers have not kept this belief a secret, and finding this out would not have required much research on your part. Even reading the introduction to the [Wikipedia article on the subject](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial) would have been enough. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/51 "2017-03-12T05:33:05Z")
An uncle of mine was OSS, based in London and under the command of John Ford, the legendary Hollywood director. My uncle was good with cameras and had even serviced a lot of the movie cameras in Hollywood in the 1930s. Ford’s OSS unit in London worked with photography. I know my uncle sometimes was even on some of the flights that flew out to map the German lines. My uncle was one of the first in the world to see the Holocaust pictures. He had zero tolerance for Holocaust deniers. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/52 "2017-03-12T06:07:35Z")
> [@TGWATY](#): > > The first thing I don’t get is the hostile reaction to so-called holocaust denial. Suppose someone said, "Hey, everyone! I have evidence that it wasn’t 6,000,000 jews that died. It was only 600,000. Someone slipped in an extra 0 by mistake. " One quite understandable response to that would be “Whew! What a relief! We’re so glad that 5.4 million Jews did NOT die.” Another is, “Would that it were true. But unfortunately it is only wishful thinking. Unfortunately.” The response “How dare you suggest that less jews died!” is just weird. Never mind sending people to jail for it. The reason that the immediate response to Holocaust denial is rage is that every single person who has “questioned” the numbers has simultaneously published statements claiming that the numbers were inflated by Jews in order to get sympathy or for some other nefarious purpose. In other words, there has never been an analyst who went through the numbers and came up with a much lower number who was not also claiming that the number was seriously inflated for evil purposes. In point of fact, the 6 million is a rounded number. Between 1946 and 1948(?), three separate efforts were made to identify how many Jews were killed by the Nazis. The numbers at which they arrived, (going on memory), was between 5.45 million and 5.85 million. Raul Hilberg came up with the number 5.1 million in 1961. Lucy Dawidowicz came up with 5,933,900 in 1975. And Adolf Eichmann was noted, in 1961, as having estimated 6 million. Note, however, that none of those numbers (calculated in various ways: by subtracting post-war census numbers from pre-war census numbers; by analyzing records kept by the Nazis; by examining other sources of numbers) gets very far away from the six million figure. There is no “added zero” possible with so many different analyses by so many different persons. The numbers for the other groups were also calculated according to similar methods, giving an estimate between 5 million and 6 million for combined estimates of 11 million to 12 million. Given that every attempt to lower the number of Jews murdered has been accompanied by a statement accusing Jews of being evil or dishonest, it is not at all remarkable that anyone denying the magnitude of the crime would be immediately challenged or condemned for their behavior. > [@TGWATY](#): > > Then there is the other side: modern Nazis. If the historical Nazis hated Jews–which is certainly true whether or not they killed them—why would there be a correlation between holocaust denial and Nazi sympathy? There does seem to be a correlation there. At least some of the Holocaust deniers are Nazi sympathizers. If you were a modern Nazi and shared the view of the historical Nazi, wouldn’t you be PROUD of the killing of 6 million jews? Because that’s seriously an accomplishment. There are, indeed, modern Nazis who brag about the numbers of Jews murdered. However, anyone wishing to promote a political agenda is going to run into a brick wall if they try to promote the Holocaust as a good thing. They need to play down the number of people murdered so as to not offend people whom they are trying to recruit (or from whom they are seeking money). ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/53 "2017-03-12T15:13:42Z")
> [@TGWATY](#): > > No, the outrage is not understandable. Not to me. If it’s a matter of people being slanted away from what actually happened toward what they would prefer to have happened… well, I would think Jews and people who like Jews would sympathize with the people who lean towards the Holocaust did not happen. The outrage makes sense. If you don’t understand why someone would be outraged at someone denying an attack on them to make it easier to recruit people for a similar attack later, you should probably seek therapy. Imagine a gang kidnapped you and cut off your arm. You eventually got most of the gang convicted. Then some new people come along and join the gang, and insist that the arm-cutting-off never happened. One of them just says there’s no support for it, another one claims that since there’s a stump left you’re exaggerating what happened since it wasn’t the entire arm, and another says you’re just trying to milk the arm-removal for sympathy. > [@](#): > > I did not say anything in the OP regarding Jews sympathizing with Nazis. At least not that I intended to. Holocaust deniers are Nazis. Plain and simple. Expecting Jews to sympathize with Nazis makes no sense, and denying that holocaust deniers are Nazis is just rejecting basic reality. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/54 "2017-03-12T15:22:49Z")
> [@TGWATY](#): > > People get called Holocaust Deniers just for questioning whether gas chambers were used or not, vs deaths by gunshot, starvation, etc. Just questioning whether Hitler knew about it and intended it, even you agree with all the other facts and numbers, will get you lumped in with “Holocaust Deniers”. Hence the “so-called”. You don’t have to actually deny the holocaust happened to be called a Holocaust Denier. Holocaust deniers abuse the usual process of discussion and inquiry and play little games of saying just enough to avoid a direct accusation. There is no legitimate ‘just questioning’ going on, it’s part of a game that has been well documented for decades. Questioning whether Hitler knew about it and intended it means you’re ignoring reality for the purpose of supporting Nazism, so you get lumped in with Holocaust Deniers, which lumps you in with Nazis. Don’t act like a Nazi if you don’t want to be treated like one. ---
**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:** [March 12, 2017, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/55 "2017-03-12T16:21:34Z")
> [@TGWATY](#): > > Then there is the other side: modern Nazis. If the historical Nazis hated Jews–which is certainly true whether or not they killed them—why would there be a correlation between holocaust denial and Nazi sympathy? There does seem to be a correlation there. At least some of the Holocaust deniers are Nazi sympathizers. If you were a modern Nazi and shared the view of the historical Nazi, wouldn’t you be PROUD of the killing of 6 million jews? Because that’s seriously an accomplishment. > > Seems to me that a modern Nazi would be more likely to exaggerate the holocaust than diminish it. That is, if they hate Jews like their antecedents did. You have to have a corkscrewed mind to get it. Also reasoning the wrong way around helps. The “reasoning” goes like this : the West, by and large, while being as a whole intensely anti-Semitic up until 1945, issued a collective statement of “Oh. Um. Yikes. Owwwwkay” when the truth of the Holocaust became inescapable. Since then “anti-Semite” has become a slur, the Jews got their own country and you can’t publish virulently insane screeds about the “cosmopolite elites running everything” like you could in the 30s without being either laughed at, loathed at, or punched on live television. Which is a bummer, to a Nazi. And that’s where the corkscrew logic kicks in : since a) the post-Holocaust world is, by and large (and barring Eastern Europe), much less Jew-hatey than the pre-Holocaust world and b) the Jews manipulate everything behind the scenes to keep the White Man down ; then perforce c) the Holocaust must have been a Jewish plot all along. You’ll find all flavours of rot among neo-nazis, those who think “it’s all a hoax”, those who think “it happened but only just a bit and Them Jews have been milking it for more than its worth” and those who think “it’s all true but the Jews deliberately caused it to themselves”. Like, literally 6 million Jews up and decided to go and get themselves gassed, for Reasons. Some go as far as believing the \*whole \*of the Nazi regime is a Jewish plot to make racist nationalism look bad. Yeah. If that all seems illogical, convoluted, conspiracy-theorish or borderline insane to you, you’re just not pukka neo-nazi recruitment material, son. You have to feel in your bones that the Jews are nefariously plotting everything, like Tzeentch having gotten hold of the Death Note. After that, it all starts to make (non)sense. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/56 "2017-03-12T16:31:50Z")
For most of my adult life the Americans won WW2 and liberated Europe on D-Day. As recently as Steven Spielberg that was still the dominating cultural inference. A little keen skepticism on any subject where the loudest voices - or survivors, in this case - write the history doesn’t hurt. Especially when the victim narrative essentially built a nation state. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/57 "2017-03-12T16:47:58Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > For most of my adult life the Americans won WW2 and liberated Europe on D-Day. As recently as Steven Spielberg that was still the dominating cultural inference. > > A little keen skepticism on any subject where the loudest voices - or survivors, in this case - write the history doesn’t hurt. Especially when the victim narrative essentially built a nation state. You’re suggesting what, exactly… the Nazis are misunderstood? ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/58 "2017-03-12T17:07:49Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > For most of my adult life the Americans won WW2 and liberated Europe on D-Day. As recently as Steven Spielberg that was still the dominating cultural inference. > > A little keen skepticism on any subject where the loudest voices - or survivors, in this case - write the history doesn’t hurt. Especially when the victim narrative essentially built a nation state. :dubious: Do, go on… ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/59 "2017-03-12T17:37:37Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > For most of my adult life the Americans won WW2 and liberated Europe on D-Day. As recently as Steven Spielberg that was still the dominating cultural inference. I’m pretty sure that “Nazi’s Bad” is a result of Spielberg’s efforts. > [@](#): > > A little keen skepticism on any subject where the loudest voices - or survivors, in this case - write the history doesn’t hurt. Especially when the victim narrative essentially built a nation state. Hooo-boy. How about: **NO!** ---
**Author:** ![TGWATY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5e925/32.png) [@TGWATY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TGWATY)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/60 "2017-03-12T18:05:42Z")
Thanks to everyone who has replied. This has been very informative. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963.md?page=4)