What is Holocaust Denial and Why Does it Exhist?
What is Holocaust denial and why does it exhist? This is far from being a
Don't use plagiarized sources. Get Your Custom Essay on
Holocaust Denial and Reasons of It Exist
Just from $13,9/Page
simple question, as it neccessitates a background knowledge of what the holocaust
really was and why there would be efforts to deny that it ever happened. In my paper, I
hope to explain some of the horrific aspects of the holocaust and provide ample facts
for proof that this terrible ordeal happened, then attempt to understand why holocaust
denial came about in the first place.
Attempting to prove that the holocaust never happened seems virtually
impossible given the known exhistance of concentration camps in Auschwitz, Belzec,
Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, and Westerbork, to name a few. In Martin Gilbert’s
“Holocaust Journey”, a professor and a group of students visit many of these former
concentration camps. In order to prove that the holocaust really did happen, first one
must understand why and how the holocaust came about.
It is important to note that the roots of the holocaust began years before the
holocaust actually took place.
One possible theory as to why there was anti-semitism
against the Jews is the scapegoat theory of prejudice. Because of the social and
economical depressions facing Germany at the time, the people of the country were
very susceptible to a powerful leader who promised to make them the superior race and
who provided them with a scapegoat as to why there is situation was so dismal. By
painting the Jews as a penny-pinching, money-taking, elitist class that was causing all
of Germany’s problems of the day, the people were easily led to believe that the Jews
were the reason that they faced hunger, poverty and a poor economy. One web site
that I visited that had a chronological order of events that led to the holocaust was
“Holocaust and Genocide Studies” at
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/chronology.html. Some of the events that led to the
holocaust that can be related to the scapegoat theory were the collapse of the Germany
economy due to hyper-inflation and Hitler’s drafting of his anti-semetic views in Mein
Keimf while he was imprisoned in 1923 and the collapse of the Great Coalition in
German government in 1929. The collapse of the economy and the government were
linked to the Jews because they were a convenient group to blame. The scapegoat
theory fits perfectly into the scenario of the holocaust and it is because of it that one can
understand why the common people supported the holocaust whether directly or
indirectly. The support of the common people is absolutely essential to cause
destrucution of this magnitude, and in order to obtain their support, a powerful leader,
such as Adolph Hitler must prove to them why the Jews are the cause of all their
Through the use of propoganda and powerful speeches, Hitler was able to prove
his point to the masses. In a time of extreme weakness in Germany, he was able to
grab these helpless individuals and make them believe that the Jews were and inferior
race and that only through their destrcution could the Germans once again become a
Now that we have established a sound theory as to why the holocaust occured,
it is now time to provide evidence that it happened. For instance, there are a wealth of
pictures available that were taken at concentration camps that show the terrible
conditions in which the Jews were forced to live and the horrific images of dead bodies
piled up on top of one another like so many dead animals. There are pictures of the gas
chambers, the mass graves, the human ovens. I was able to view a great many of these
pictures at the web site “The Holocaust Project” at
http://www.holocaust-history.org/hungarian-photos/. Among these photos were
pictures of tight living areas, forced labor upon the prisoners, and multuple pictures of
Jewish victims of the holocaust whether in concentration camps or in there place of
living. Among the more chilling pictures from the holocaust were the victims of
scientific testing done on these poor individuals and the mass graves that the Jews
were dumped into following their deaths at the concentration camps.
Other pieces of evidenc that prove the holocaust’s exhistance and severity are
the first-hand accounts delivered by individuals who survived the holocaust or people
who witnessed it. One website that contains a link to the stories of holocaust survivors
is “About.com” which can be reached at
http://holocaust.about.com/education/holocaust/. Here is a breif exert of one of the
first-hand accounts taken from the site: “In March, or April, 1944, we got the dreaded
notice that we had been selected for re-settlement further East. The train cars they took
us in were actually cattle cars…there was not much room between us and the roof…the
SS troops were on the roofs of the cattle cars shooting past the windows to discourage
people from sticking their heads out….” The story goes on to tell of how they were
stipped of all valuables and property by the Nazis and about the conditions in which
they were forced to live. This survivor also describes daily life at the camps and
portrays the grotesque images of the dead being piled up like “…cordwood, naked, and
without dignity.” He also speaks of the mass gassings and mass graves that holocaust
deniers attempt to prove did not exhist.
As it turns out, maybe because of mounting data and statistics to prove
otherwise, the goal of holocaust denial is not to deny the exhistance of mass camps for
the Jews, on the other hand, to belittle the horrible events that occured and to deny that
such staggering numbers of deaths could not be possible by means of gas chanmbers
and such. From simply reading books such as “Holocaust Journey” written by Martin
Gilbert, about the time he took his class on a tour of concentration camps, one has
ample proof that the holocaust occured and the camps exhisted.
“Holocaust Journey” is more of a journal than a novel and contains a day by
day, often minute by minute account of the trip he took with his students on a tour of
some of the concentration camps. They also visited traditionally Jewish communities
that dated back more than 500 years. “Each of them was uprooted and destroyed in the
course of those two years” (2). Gilbert provides some stories of people who perished
among the 6 million who died in the holocaust, perhaps in an attempt to create a
human face in light of such staggering numbers that can often erase the human face of
this genocide. He also tells the class (and the readers of course) about the number of
people taken from specific places to camps as they pass by or stop in them.
Interestingly enough, we find out, on page 25, that roughly 70,000 Germans were
killed in an effort to weed out the weaklings and to make the Germans a superior race.
“An estimated 10,000 German children under the age of sixteen were murdered by gas
On page 42, they visit a cemetary for Berlin Jews who were murdered in the
holocaust at the Heerstasse Jewish cemetary. This and many other cemetaries can
provide only small images of the vast number of Jews killed in the holocaust. On the
very next page, they visited one of the places where the “final Solution” was discussed.
Later on in the book, they visit the site of the concentration camp at Belzic. On
the gate are inscriptions that contain statistics on the number of Jews from certain areas
that were killed there. The book also contains a picture taken in Belzic of where the
mass graves were before the bodies were dug up, burned and the ashes were spread
out, most likely in an effort to erase evidence of the magnitude of deaths that occured.
I believe that “Holocaust Journey” is a good example of a work containing
evidence that makes it impossible to altogether deny that the holocaust happened, but I
also belive it to be a terrific example of how the Holocaust deniers are able to support
their theories. For example, by calling the genocide of millions of Jews “the final
solution”, they do not directly say that they are killing millions of Jews, so in effect,
their language can mask their exact intentions. Also, the burning of bodies and
spreading of ashes at Belzec is a great example of the Nazis erasing evidence to masks
the horrific magnitude of the holocaust. Because there is not a tremendous wealth of
tangible and direct evidence of the mass genocide as one might suspect, denying the
magnitude of the holocaust is not as trying a task as it might seem.
What is holocaust denial anyway? The Jewish Student Online Research Center
at http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/denial.html describes it as follows: “One
of the most notable anti-semetic propoganda movements to develop over the last two
decades had been the organized effort to deny or minimize the established history of
Nazi genocide against the Jews.” The goal of holocaust deniers is not to deny that
anti-semitism exhisted, but to deny that a mass organized killing program exhisted.
Holocaust denial is also known as holocaust “revisionism” and there are an
abundance of sites on the net that contain “revisionist” beliefs. Revisionism.Com at
www.revisionism.com is a web site that focuses on the belief that genocide did not
happen. It provides the site’s viewer with both audio and visual speeches on
revisionism from people who support this theory such as Ernst Zundel and David
Irving. Here is part of a speech by David Irving taken from the web site: “…eye
witness reports, the only evidence that can be used against us… the dissident historians.
I think they should be called “verbal testimony” or “oral statements” that is all they are,
There is a subtle difference between “verbal statement” on one hand, and “eye witness
report” on the other. That’s how they do it.” In other words, because of the lack of
physical evidence of mass murders, holocaust deniers or “Revisionsists” can claim that
the Jews were in internment camps similar to that of the ones the United States placed
the Japanese in during World War II.
Here is a god example of the goal of holocaust deniers and what they believe in.
This qoute was taken from “The Student Revisionist Resource Site” at
http://www.wsu.edu/~lpauling/”: “Revisionists are, in fact, Holocaust
DIMINISHERS, not deniers. They are questioners about what they believe are
significant exaggerations in the Holocaust tale, and they are critics of the view that
somehow this historical event is beyond discussion on pain of being placed in the
category of child-molester or worse, shunned by society, even fined and imprisoned by
some so-called free countries in the western world.” It goes on to say that Revisionists
do not deny that there were wrongs done to the Jews such as the wrongful stealing of
property, brutality and many deaths due to disease in poor conditions, yet they look to
diminish the terrible things that happened to the Jews by pointing to other horrible
aspects of World War II. They believe that what happened to the Jews was just ONE
of the terrible things that happened in the war, and far from the worst. Here is a
paragraph taken from the page that belittles what the Jews went through: “One needs
merely mention Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the deadly carpet bombing of German and
Japanese working class living areas, the Soviet of Germany in their 1945 advance, the
treatment of German civilians and German POW’s after the war. One could go on
almost ad infinitum in this recitation of atrocities. Fifty million – some say sixty million
– died as a result of the war. Was there more criminal behavior on one side than the
other?” By denying the mass killings of Jews and claiming they were victims of poor
conditions at the concentration camps which came from a lack of materials due to the
war costs, which in turn led to disease, holocaust deniers attempt to belittle the terrible
things that were done to the Jews by Nazi Germany before and after the war. They do
however, take blame for persecuting and robbing the Jews of their possessions, and in
addmitting so much, they may come off as being a group that is speaking the truth.
Now that we have established what holocaust denial, or “revisionism” is, we
may now examine why holocaust denial came about in the first place. Well, one
reason may be that due to the lack of physical evidence, it is easy for them to flat out
deny that it happened. But what are the gains from denying the holocaust? Denying
the holocaust ever happened is a terrible injustice to the not only the millions who
suffered and perished in the concentration camps, but the people close to them who
suffered along with them. It is considered by many to be a new form of anti-semitism
and one can only imagine the pain it causes to the families of holocaust victims and
especially the survivors. Imagine surviving this terrible ordeal and then having
someone belittle what happened to you, the grotesque things you witnessed, the grim
conditions, the hunger, the forced labor, the imminent threat of being killed alongside
many others. This is why the force of holocaust denial is so strong in terms of
anti-semitism, and that is often the goal of hate-orientated groups, to find the best way
There are also other benefits of white supremacists in denying the holocaust.
First and foremost, it is easier to gain support for their cause if they dont come off as
the animals that they are made out to be. Being associated with what happened during
the holocaust can turn away many potential followers who hate, but do not neccessarily
condone violence and killings. Another paragraph taken from the Student Revisionist
Resource Site is yet another example of belittle the Nazi treatment of the Jews. It is as
follows: “Contrary to Holocaust Mythology there was no attempt by Nazis, or anyone
else, to exterminate the Jews. There was an attempt, largely successful in the areas
controlled by the Axis, to expel the Jews from Europe. In the context of the 1990’s it
was a terrible undertaking. In adifferent context, the context of European history over
the last two millennia, the expulsion of the Jews from this region or that region was not
uncommon. Historically there seems to be something about the Jews that brings forth a
plenitude of animosity on the part of people amongst whom they live.”
By painting the Nazis as just another group trying to remove the Jews from
Europe, Revisionists can claim there is something about the Jews that makes them
undesirable and there is a reason that people dont want them around. This has another
along with diminishing the crimes the nazis committed, it feeds into the hatered of
Jews as well and makes it seem that this type of hatred has a just cause. Its as if they
are saying that “if everybody else hates the Jews, what is so wrong with us hating them