I've been in two minds about posting in this thread - for I normally avoid Holocaust debates simply because they never saty "clean" - as nearly three pages of this thread shows But there are some points I'd like to pick up on...
First of all - the point made just above about visiting Auschwitz - the "camp" we see today if we visit ISN'T the GERMAN camp....it was almost eradicated by the Nazis; what is shown to the world TODAY as evidence of the Nazis' atrocities is actually the SOVIET RECONSTRUCTION of what used to be there during the war. The Russians used Auschwitz for many years postwar as an internment and labour camp! In fact, for far longer than the Nazis did...
By all means go and visit the place - but don't look upon the camp that's there now as anything more than a "memorial" to the victims of the Holocaust, it's not actually historical evidence of anything; if this was a criminal trial, the judge would say that "the evidence had been tampered with after the fact" because of the Soviets' reconstruction/rebuilding of what they thought was there - and for their OWN nefarious uses! :eek:
Secondly - it's best to always remember that Holocaust Denial comes in several diferent..."flavours" :eek: Yes, there are those that say it simply never happened, or that it simply didn't happen to the extent/numbers we think we know...
1/ There are those who seek to minimise the CRIME...by saying oh look, this was intelligent, learned Germans who carried this out, SS officers with university degrees etc. - so it can't have REALLY been that bad or out of order, can it?
2/ Along the same lines - there are those that attempt to minimise the GENOCIDAL aspect of it by saying "oh look - sure wasn't ALL of Europe rife with Anti-Semitism to one extent or another in the 19th and early 20th Centuries?" They don't seem to realise that this doesn;t make the Nazis less wrong....instead it makes a LOT of other nations and political social groups look as questionable as they!
3/ There are those who seek to minimise the MORAL crime by saying -"Oh look at what came out of it! Many discoveries were made, a lot of work into neurological illnesses, heart diseases etc. were made by the (butchering) researching doctors in the Camps." Yes they were - but that doesn't make the crimes involved any less.
The problem with banning Holocaust Denial is - some of these latter types of Denier are very insidious; they accept the numerical toll of the event.....but try to find some good in it! :eek: Making it a crime would force them underground, out of sight....passing it on from generation to generation like some sort of nursed greivance that THEY were presecuted because THEY were telling the truth!
Me, I prefer my enemies out in the open where I can knock them down. I don't want them out of sight and out of mind. I don't want them hiding away, growing their twisted perverted beliefs, for fear of prosecution - I want the VERY bright light of public oprobium to shine upon them.
You're right, of course. You and other posters have caused me to change my mind about imprisoning deniers. I'd still love to see them locked up but can see the sense in allowing them their privilege of free speech no matter how insulting or unpalatable that may be.
i'm not sure why you're arguing against my point...
I'd have thought it was rather obvious - I'm arguing against it because comparing holocaust denial to the silly moon landings conspiracy theory is completely ridiculous. It'd be quite funny if it wasn't so offensive.
It should only be a criminal offence if they also outlaw promoting other things that are non-factual nonsense. Belief in a God, ghosts and starsigns, being top of the list.
So basically it would seem that people have a right to think utter rubbish.
For historians - one of the the major issues with criminalising holocaust Denial in most of Europe is that it does make research into the Holocaust very difficult indeed!
Many academical, archival and other record-holding institutions have made it VERY difficult for researchers to access their records in case they are indeed Deniers looking for evidence to prove a point. They don't want to be unwitting acessories....!
In fact, many such institutions around the world have followed suit; when the large cache of Holocaust records at Bad Arolsen was opened 18 months ago - I and a number of others contacted the ICRC to find out how access was to be controlled; we were told that access control to the records had been turned over to the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem....but the ICRC expressed their confidence in writing to me and others that access would not be obstructed for authorised researchers...:eek:
"Authorised" by who, exactly??? :mad:
The Holocaust Denial rules have indeed made it difficult for researchers.historians STILL trying to establish a definitive death toll as a whole and for specific areas/populations; publication of results such as the Polish one mentioned above for Auschwitz opens researchers IMMEDIATELY under the new rules to accusations of Holocaust Denial...rather than simple historical accuracy! :eek: Many historians are simply now ignoring research into or writing about the event, for they just don't want to prejudice their careers!
For historians - one of the the major issues with criminalising holocaust Denial in most of Europe is that it does make research into the Holocaust very difficult indeed!
Many academical, archival and other record-holding institutions have made it VERY difficult for researchers to access their records in case they are indeed Deniers looking for evidence to prove a point. They don't want to be unwitting acessories....!
In fact, many such institutions around the world have followed suit; when the large cache of Holocaust records at Bad Arolsen was opened 18 months ago - I and a number of others contacted the ICRC to find out how access was to be controlled; we were told that access control to the records had been turned over to the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem....but the ICRC expressed their confidence in writing to me and others that access would not be obstructed for authorised researchers...:eek:
"Authorised" by who, exactly??? :mad:
The Holocaust Denial rules have indeed made it difficult for researchers.historians STILL trying to establish a definitive death toll as a whole and for specific areas/populations; publication of results such as the Polish one mentioned above for Auschwitz opens researchers IMMEDIATELY under the new rules to accusations of Holocaust Denial...rather than simple historical accuracy! :eek: Many historians are simply now ignoring research into or writing about the event, for they just don't want to prejudice their careers!
Yes simple maths Auschwitz official figure use to be 4.5 million and it was changed to just over one million.
Lies and propaganda were used to get people to go along with the murders.
The real death figure when this is taken into account is about 2 million.
Over a million people have died in Iraq since the occupation.
1/ Soldiers who ended up as POWs had the legal right to expect equitable treatment for POWs as laid down in the Hague and Geneva Conventions....not to be shot.
2/ ever heard of conscription? Young men in the belligerent nations of that period didn't actually often get the choice as to whether to go to war or not...
Yes some soldiers ended up in Concentration camps because of their legitimate attempts to escape. I saw one chap on a TV documentary give his honest and harrowing account of his time spent in one. He escaped but was recaptured months later and sent back. Fortunately the Nazis didn't realise he'd escaped and rather than admit this lapse just let it pass. The most amazing thing was that when got back to blighty no one wanted to know.
Yes simple maths Auschwitz official figure use to be 4.5 million and it was changed to million.
Lies and propaganda were used to get people to go along with the murders.
The real death figure when this is taken into account is about 2 million.
Over a million people have died in Iraq since the occupation.
SeeEmma - the legendary Auscwitz death toll plaque was actually removed in 1989, after MANY complaints as to its misleading wording...
Communist Polish and Soviet authorities maintained a figure "between 2.5 and 4 million", and the Auschwitz State Museum itself displayed a figure of 4 million killed, but few (if any) historians ever believed the Museum's four million figure. Raul Hilberg's 1961 The Destruction of the European Jews estimated the number killed at 1,000,000, and Gerald Reitlinger's 1968 The Final Solution described the Soviet figures as "ridiculous", and estimated the number killed at "800,000 to 900,000". A larger study started later by Franciszek Piper used timetables of train arrivals combined with deportation records to calculate 960,000 Jewish deaths and 140,000-150,000 ethnic Polish victims, along with 23,000 Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), a figure that has met with significant agreement from other scholars.
What's important to remember is that that @1million death toll is JUST for Auschwitz, not for the whole Holocaust :eek: Auschwitz was as I'm sure you know NOT the only death camp....
Yes simple maths Auschwitz official figure use to be 4.5 million and it was changed to just over one million.
Lies and propaganda were used to get people to go along with the murders.
The real death figure when this is taken into account is about 2 million.
Over a million people have died in Iraq since the occupation.
The numbers don't mean that much to me just the suffering involved and the way it came about. Over a million people have died in Iraq since the occupation means nothing to me without some understanding of how they died, how many were dying before the occupation and who was responsible for what.
Yes some soldiers ended up in Concentration camps because of their legitimate attempts to escape. I saw one chap on a TV documentary give his honest and harrowing account of his time spent in one. He escaped but was recaptured months later and sent back. Fortunately the Nazis didn't realise he'd escaped and rather than admit this lapse just let it pass. The most amazing thing was that when got back to blighty no one wanted to know.
MrQuirke - only officers had the right under the Conventions to attempt to escape, this right was NOT preserved for Other Ranks. Likewise ORs were obligated to work for the imprisoning Power, unlike officer prisoners who had to be requested to volunteer their services. Incarceration in a sonderlager was indeed reserved as a level of punishment for prisoners of war who refused to live by THEIR side of their obligations under the Conventions
SeeEmma (and Cosmo) - the figure that Polish authorities can ascertain from the surviving records they hold or have access to is @1.1 million....but noone has claimed that these records are 100% complete
But immediately after the war, Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp from for the years 1940 to 1943, said he was told by Adolf Eichmann that a total of some two and a half million Jews had been killed in gas chambers there and about half a million had died "naturally".
THAT is what the Holocaust Denial laws threaten - the ability of historians and researchers to continue to improve the historical accuracy of such figures unhindered.
I learnt about the holocaust in the 50s from a school friend whose father was a survivor. What he told me his father had told him still haunts my dreams.
I must admit I cannot therefore find any interest in what happens to anyone who denies the holocaust but ultimately I still think people should be free to say stupid things.
Saying the holocaust was a good thing on the other hand is clearly tantamount to inciting hatred and murder and should be illegal, indeed I suspect it is.
The numbers don't mean that much to me just the suffering involved and the way it came about. Over a million people have died in Iraq since the occupation means nothing to me without some understanding of how they died, how many were dying before the occupation and who was responsible for what.
One million or four million either way the number is mind-boggling.
Making it a crime to point out the correct number puts us on the slope of though crime.
Those who push the wrong number are using the dead to push they own agenda.
Once this becomes a crime disagreeing with climate change will become a crime and so on.
SeeEmma (and Cosmo) - the figure that Polish authorities can ascertain from the surviving records they hold or have access to is @1.1 million....but noone has claimed that these records are 100% complete
But immediately after the war, Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp from for the years 1940 to 1943, said he was told by Adolf Eichmann that a total of some two and a half million Jews had been killed in gas chambers there and about half a million had died "naturally".
THAT is what the Holocaust Denial laws threaten - the ability of historians and researchers to continue to improve the historical accuracy of such figures unhindered.
There is ONE thing I should say on the comparison of the Holocaust and deaths in Iraq...
No matter what the figures are...a genocide of crime against humanity should be measured for itself as a human tragedy - not in comparison to another death toll. Because such a comparison can minimise the real impact of one or the other event - which is very much akin to Denial
There is ONE thing I should say on the comparison of the Holocaust and deaths in Iraq...
No matter what the figures are...a genocide of crime against humanity should be measured for itself - not in comparison to another death toll. Because such a comparison can minimise the real impact of one or the other event - which is very much akin to Denial
1. A refusal to comply with or satisfy a request.
2.
a. A refusal to grant the truth of a statement or allegation; a contradiction.
b. Law The opposing by a defendant of an allegation of the plaintiff.
3.
a. A refusal to accept or believe something, such as a doctrine or belief.
b. Psychology An unconscious defense mechanism characterized by refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings.
4. The act of disowning or disavowing; repudiation.
5. Abstinence; self-denial.;););)
Absolutely. The fact that there have been other atrocities on a comparable scale - for instance, the Khmer Rouge killing a couple of million or so of their own countrymen - should not detract from the horrors of WW2.
Comments
You're right, of course. You and other posters have caused me to change my mind about imprisoning deniers. I'd still love to see them locked up but can see the sense in allowing them their privilege of free speech no matter how insulting or unpalatable that may be.
I'd have thought it was rather obvious - I'm arguing against it because comparing holocaust denial to the silly moon landings conspiracy theory is completely ridiculous. It'd be quite funny if it wasn't so offensive.
So basically it would seem that people have a right to think utter rubbish.
Many academical, archival and other record-holding institutions have made it VERY difficult for researchers to access their records in case they are indeed Deniers looking for evidence to prove a point. They don't want to be unwitting acessories....!
In fact, many such institutions around the world have followed suit; when the large cache of Holocaust records at Bad Arolsen was opened 18 months ago - I and a number of others contacted the ICRC to find out how access was to be controlled; we were told that access control to the records had been turned over to the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem....but the ICRC expressed their confidence in writing to me and others that access would not be obstructed for authorised researchers...:eek:
"Authorised" by who, exactly??? :mad:
The Holocaust Denial rules have indeed made it difficult for researchers.historians STILL trying to establish a definitive death toll as a whole and for specific areas/populations; publication of results such as the Polish one mentioned above for Auschwitz opens researchers IMMEDIATELY under the new rules to accusations of Holocaust Denial...rather than simple historical accuracy! :eek: Many historians are simply now ignoring research into or writing about the event, for they just don't want to prejudice their careers!
As has already been amply illustrated, this point is utter rubbish.
Yes simple maths Auschwitz official figure use to be 4.5 million and it was changed to just over one million.
Lies and propaganda were used to get people to go along with the murders.
The real death figure when this is taken into account is about 2 million.
Over a million people have died in Iraq since the occupation.
Yes some soldiers ended up in Concentration camps because of their legitimate attempts to escape. I saw one chap on a TV documentary give his honest and harrowing account of his time spent in one. He escaped but was recaptured months later and sent back. Fortunately the Nazis didn't realise he'd escaped and rather than admit this lapse just let it pass. The most amazing thing was that when got back to blighty no one wanted to know.
Two million Jews in Auschwitz alone.
A further four million or so Jews elsewhere in Nazi-occupied territories.
And that's just the Jews.
As I said earlier you can double it if you count POW's and non-Jewish civilians - including Germans.
Who has decided it is utter rubbish, and by what authority have they decided that
SeeEmma - the legendary Auscwitz death toll plaque was actually removed in 1989, after MANY complaints as to its misleading wording...
Communist Polish and Soviet authorities maintained a figure "between 2.5 and 4 million", and the Auschwitz State Museum itself displayed a figure of 4 million killed, but few (if any) historians ever believed the Museum's four million figure. Raul Hilberg's 1961 The Destruction of the European Jews estimated the number killed at 1,000,000, and Gerald Reitlinger's 1968 The Final Solution described the Soviet figures as "ridiculous", and estimated the number killed at "800,000 to 900,000". A larger study started later by Franciszek Piper used timetables of train arrivals combined with deportation records to calculate 960,000 Jewish deaths and 140,000-150,000 ethnic Polish victims, along with 23,000 Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), a figure that has met with significant agreement from other scholars.
What's important to remember is that that @1million death toll is JUST for Auschwitz, not for the whole Holocaust :eek: Auschwitz was as I'm sure you know NOT the only death camp....
The numbers don't mean that much to me just the suffering involved and the way it came about. Over a million people have died in Iraq since the occupation means nothing to me without some understanding of how they died, how many were dying before the occupation and who was responsible for what.
Sorry but your post is just plain wrong.
The Official Auschwitz Museum website currently claims the total number of Jews who were deported to Auschwitz to be 1.1 million
LINK http://en.auschwitz.org.pl/h/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=13
Here is a picture of the now removed numbers at Auschwitz .
MrQuirke - only officers had the right under the Conventions to attempt to escape, this right was NOT preserved for Other Ranks. Likewise ORs were obligated to work for the imprisoning Power, unlike officer prisoners who had to be requested to volunteer their services. Incarceration in a sonderlager was indeed reserved as a level of punishment for prisoners of war who refused to live by THEIR side of their obligations under the Conventions
It's still an estimation.
Is it just the Auschwitz part of my post that is 'plain wrong'?
I had already put a link to Yad Vashem earlier, but it doesnt seem like their figures will be believed.
But immediately after the war, Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp from for the years 1940 to 1943, said he was told by Adolf Eichmann that a total of some two and a half million Jews had been killed in gas chambers there and about half a million had died "naturally".
THAT is what the Holocaust Denial laws threaten - the ability of historians and researchers to continue to improve the historical accuracy of such figures unhindered.
I must admit I cannot therefore find any interest in what happens to anyone who denies the holocaust but ultimately I still think people should be free to say stupid things.
Saying the holocaust was a good thing on the other hand is clearly tantamount to inciting hatred and murder and should be illegal, indeed I suspect it is.
One million or four million either way the number is mind-boggling.
Making it a crime to point out the correct number puts us on the slope of though crime.
Those who push the wrong number are using the dead to push they own agenda.
Once this becomes a crime disagreeing with climate change will become a crime and so on.
The free web is already under attack.
Yes do you agree now?
No I don't.
I agree with you post.
This is not a nice subject either way.
Its not 1 million. The Guardian has a good article on IBC here (with IBCs data comparison to wikileaks data)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/31/iraq-body-count-2010-deaths
No matter what the figures are...a genocide of crime against humanity should be measured for itself as a human tragedy - not in comparison to another death toll. Because such a comparison can minimise the real impact of one or the other event - which is very much akin to Denial
1. A refusal to comply with or satisfy a request.
2.
a. A refusal to grant the truth of a statement or allegation; a contradiction.
b. Law The opposing by a defendant of an allegation of the plaintiff.
3.
a. A refusal to accept or believe something, such as a doctrine or belief.
b. Psychology An unconscious defense mechanism characterized by refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings.
4. The act of disowning or disavowing; repudiation.
5. Abstinence; self-denial.;););)