How Do People Seriously Deny the Holocaust?
The Holocaust is a systematic, state-supported destruction of nearly 6 million Jews and many other victims of the Germans and their collaborators during World War II. However, it seems to have appeared an indisputably terrifying historical period, nowadays it becomes easier to meet such a term as “Holocaust denial.”
Denying the Holocaust began almost immediately after the first homicides. Nazis used euphemisms to describe the process of murder, thus they could deceive their victims and the public till the last minute (Rees, 2005). It appears that “Holocaust deniers” refuse reliably established facts about this horrible moment in the world history. Deniers, the ranks of which include anti-Semites and those who oppose the existence of Israel, claim that the Holocaust was invented by Jews to arouse sympathy in the world and create a Jewish state. They insist that during the Second World War 6 million Jews were not killed, and that Germans were the victims of the Zionist conspiracy aimed at extorting huge sums of money by deception. The deniers declare those documents about the destruction, which had been found, to be postwar counterfeits. They interpret the term “final solution of the Jewish question” as resettlement or deportation, but not destruction. Advancing the slogan, which came up with the representative of the Holocaust denial movement, David Irving: “Sink the Auschwitz!” they are not ready to accept the presence of gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, since this camp is the very core of the Holocaust itself and the symbol of Jews’ suffering (Pelt, 2002).
David Cesarani, a famous professor, whose works are based on Jewish history, especially Holocaust, asserts: “Holocaust denial is not just about the past; it’s about now and it’s about the future. It’s about rehabilitating Nazism. It might appear academic for us, but in parts of Europe it’s a vital issue” (Moss, 2000). To crown it all, it is impossible to change our past, but there is a possibility of changing our attitude towards it, consciously summing up previous experience, hence simultaneously creating basis for bright future.
Works Cited
Moss, S. (2000). History’s verdict on Holocaust upheld. the Guardian. Retrieved 3 March 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/apr/12/uk.irving5
Pelt, R. (2002). The case for Auschwitz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Rees, L. (2005). Auschwitz. London: BBC Books.
