“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he does not exist.”
I think it is something along those lines. If people forget what murdering thugs these guys were they are not particularly on guard against them. This opens the door for the Nazis to gain broader acceptance instead of being marginalized thus granting them more power as a group.
For the likes of Iran I think they want to undermine support for Israel. There is a sense that Israel is allowed to continue, at least in part, as a sort of way for Europe/US to assuage some guilt over the Holocaust. Hitler was not the first to persecute Jews either so there was a sense that they need a place to call their own. Iran wants to say that is all bullshit, didn’t happen therefore at list one pillar of support for Israel is undermined. Also plays well at home in Iran so also props up the regime there.
I think the goal here isn’t to deny that jews were rounded up and murdered, but that their deaths weren’t necessarily anything significant or unique within the context of WWII, so it undercuts the foundation of Israel to some extent.
Holocaust deniers are trying to paint a picture of an international Jewish conspiracy. Anything bad that happens, the Jews are to blame. Who caused WW1? The Jews, who wanted to profit from arms dealing. Why did Germany lose WW1? Because the Jews sold them out. Why did Germany suffer such economic hardships after WW1? Because of Jewish bankers stealing all their money. And so on. The holocaust, according to them, is just one more lie of the evil conspiracy.
Just to throw extra sand into the deniers’ argument:
Israel is a reality now, regardless of what is found out about history. Its existence is no longer predicated on the Holocaust or any other historical pogrom. It exists because it has existed for the past six decades and it has a multigenerational native population. That’s all the excuse any nation has, or needs.
So, no. Holocaust denial cannot be understood on a rational basis.
I always figured it was a Jew-Judo move.
That is, they hate Jews … the holocaust was terrible … so lets blame the Jews for making everybody thing there actually was a holocaust. That way, they can get back to accusing them of running everything with a nice little tie-in.
True but Israel’s continued existence is heavily reliant on outside support. Knock a pillar for that support away and (maybe) the countries in the area that want to push them all into the sea might have a chance of succeeding.
There are several levels of “deniers” that might not be anti-semitic. First we have the reasonable point is that the numbers given are estimates and that a decent % of the non-Concentration camp German citizenry also died during the war. Certainly one can argue that the Holocaust might have caused the death of “only” 4-5 million Jews without being anti-semitic.
Next, the “deny” might be of the death camps, as opposed to the concentration camps. These people agree that millions died in the concentration camps, but deny there was any organized mass plan and attempt to murder all the Jews. Some of these people seem not to be anti-semitic, but just people who can’t wrap their head around that level of evil.
And of cource, I have seen the label of “denier” stretched to include those who insist millions of non-Jews died in the Holocaust too. In that last case, I would say I am a denier.
Oh and the “long time poster” who started the thread was a banned posted with 35 posts, who had been on the board for 2 days
I think what he’s saying is that some people lump in with “Holocaust Deniers” anyone who wants to bring attention to the Roma, Gays, etc who were rounded up and killed as well. There are those who want to focus all discussion of the German atrocities on the Jews to the exclusion of all other victims. If those people are calling him a “Holocaust Denier” then he would agree with them.
"And of cource, I have seen the label of “denier” stretched to include those who insist millions of non-Jews died in the Holocaust too. In that last case, I would say I am a denier." I do state that millions of non-jews died in the holocaust, as do most experts.
Don’t you agree that millions of Gays, politicals and Slavs also died in the Holocaust?
I think he was referring to having seen people who point out that millions of other people who were not Jewish were also exterminated labeled “Holocaust deniers” makes him a denier by that criteria.
Personally I’ve never seen or heard of that phenomenon but I’m Jewish and I always remember that plenty of non-Jews were killed in the camps. If that’s all it takes to be called a “Holocaust denier” then I’d fall into that (IMHO utterly silly) category as well.
I do. I’m sorry, it took a couple of extra readings for me to get what you were saying. It’s absurd that anybody would be called a Holocaust denier for pointing out that other people got murdered, too.
Well, it was in my youth at college and by two different Jewish guys. One claimed that only the Jews were singled out because of their race-religion-heritage, the rest were criminals or politicals. I asked about the Gypsies and Homosexuals, and he claimed that the Gypsies were criminals and it was a crime in Germany to be a Homosexual, thus, the Jewish Holocaust was unique and I might as well be a “denier” to insist that the Jewish portion of the Holocaust was not “unique”.
The other guy claimed that only the Jews were exterminated, that the others were not executed and that they were also treated better.:dubious:
Ok wait. So, the Nazis outlawed homosexuality and Gypsies, so when they rounded up all the gays and Roma it was only the execution of criminals. What if Hitler had made it illegal to be Jewish? Would that have made the extermination of the Jews ok?
I also wanted to say I think part of the reason they deny the holocaust is because they enjoy being persecuted, to an extent. The fact that it makes them so hated proves that the conspiracy is trying to silence them (at least in their own minds).
Of course the holocaust also included other groups - gypsies, communists, homosexuals, anyone who was against the Nazis, etc - but I don’t think any of those groups were as specifically hated by the Nazis. I mean, they began inundating children in schools with anti-Semitic propaganda from a very early age. They made a picture book called “The Poisonous Mushroom” which is all about Jews and how evil they are - they did no such thing with any other group. They held conferences to discuss the “Final Solution” with regard to the Jews specifically - they wanted to annihilate all Jewry from Europe - Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf (which I have skimmed through) makes it clear that the Nazi party’s hatred was primarily directed towards Jews. Other groups did die in the holocaust but I don’t think they were the target of the holocaust the way the Jews were. I think the Nazis just got so swept away with the killing frenzy that they started just killing anyone they didn’t like - but I think it was originally directed towards Jews.
As for the white-power neo-Nazi types who say that America should be an Aryan nation and that the Jews should “go back to Israel” - they’re always against Israel too. They don’t think Israel should exist, generally, and they think Israel is controlling America, etc. So really when they say the Jews should “go back to their homeland” but they don’t think that the Jewish homeland should exist, that just shows how weak their argument is.
