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Ok Dakka.
Today i was bored on wikipedia. I had recently discovered the Random article button. I was happily spamming away on this, finding many interesting pages, when I stumbled upon this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial . At first a went: "Wait, What?" and then i continued reading, to discover people actually deny the Holocaust! How could this be? There are Testimonies from survivors of concentration camps, there are records of prisoners, how could one deny it?
What are your thoughts on this Dakka?

My personal opinion is that people who do genuinely deny the holocaust are complete and utter feth-wits...

That's pretty much all there is to it. Some people are just stupid...

Note for the MODs: If required I will edit/re-word this - let me know... I don't particularly want to offend anyone here... Although I am sure no-one here is quite that stupid

There are people who believe (or disbelieve) in all sorts of nonsense. Check out the Armenian genocide and the continuing denial of it by Turkey...

Poll this in the ME and see what you find. the results would be interesting or sad depending on your viewpoint.

The really kinda disturbing thing is that in some countries, you can be arrested and charged with a crime for holocaust denial(!).

While I think holocaust deniers are clearly dumbasses of the highest order, I also am horrified by prosecuting crimethink.

Depends what you mean by Holocaust denial. When I did history at school the Nazis had killed 6 million (approx) in concentration camps, about 3.5million were jews. Now it's 6 million jews alone plus extras.

I do think its been given more press than it's due and for the record I'm anti-zionist.

I guess my logic is a bit fallible as it's sort of 'no smoke without fire' but there seems to be such a hoo-hah about this as opposed to other atrocities that I'm extra skeptical.

I thought that was pretty much just Germany, where denial was actually a crime.

Some extreme Right-wing people and people with anti-semitisitic views believe in that the Halocaust does not exist. People have denied many things including the Mooon Landing and Osama's death. On another subject. There have been far worse purges in history yet we do not condemn Cambodians, Christians, Spanish or USSR as much as the Nazis for example. I am digusted but not shocked because it is human nature to do such acts.

The biggest example of holocaust denial is Iran as a whole and well...since they want Nuclear weapons...

That isn't a good combination and it says alot about what kind of people they are.

rockerbikie wrote:Some extreme Right-wing people and people with anti-semitisitic views believe in that the Halocaust does not exist. People have denied many things including the Mooon Landing and Osama's death. On another subject. There have been far worse purges in history yet we do not condemn Cambodians, Christians, Spanish or USSR as much as the Nazis for example. I am digusted but not shocked because it is human nature to do such acts.

Not sure your analogies work. For example, I don't condemn Cambodians, nor do I condem Germans, the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot (and Nazis and Hitler) on the other hand I do. I think you will find plenty of folks who condemn Stalin and crew for the slaughters and starvations they perpetrated.

Mr Hyena wrote:The biggest example of holocaust denial is Iran as a whole and well...since they want Nuclear weapons...

That isn't a good combination and it says alot about what kind of people they are.

The upper echelons of their nation have a president who is a holocaust denier. The entire nation is not in the same boat, but there is probably a significant amount of the population that, because of Israel's reputation, would believe that the Holocaust did not happen or is greatly exaggerated.

rockerbikie wrote:Some extreme Right-wing people and people with anti-semitisitic views believe in that the Halocaust does not exist. People have denied many things including the Mooon Landing and Osama's death. On another subject. There have been far worse purges in history yet we do not condemn Cambodians, Christians, Spanish or USSR as much as the Nazis for example. I am digusted but not shocked because it is human nature to do such acts.

Add in the current President of Iran to that list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CptJake wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:Some extreme Right-wing people and people with anti-semitisitic views believe in that the Halocaust does not exist. People have denied many things including the Mooon Landing and Osama's death. On another subject. There have been far worse purges in history yet we do not condemn Cambodians, Christians, Spanish or USSR as much as the Nazis for example. I am digusted but not shocked because it is human nature to do such acts.

Not sure your analogies work. For example, I don't condemn Cambodians, nor do I condem Germans, the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot (and Nazis and Hitler) on the other hand I do. I think you will find plenty of folks who condemn Stalin and crew for the slaughters and starvations they perpetrated.

Agreed.

Frazzled wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:Some extreme Right-wing people and people with anti-semitisitic views believe in that the Halocaust does not exist. People have denied many things including the Mooon Landing and Osama's death. On another subject. There have been far worse purges in history yet we do not condemn Cambodians, Christians, Spanish or USSR as much as the Nazis for example. I am digusted but not shocked because it is human nature to do such acts.

Add in the current President of Iran to that list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CptJake wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:Some extreme Right-wing people and people with anti-semitisitic views believe in that the Halocaust does not exist. People have denied many things including the Mooon Landing and Osama's death. On another subject. There have been far worse purges in history yet we do not condemn Khmer Rouge , Christians, Spanish Inquistion or USSR as much as the Nazis for example. I am digusted but not shocked because it is human nature to do such acts.

Not sure your analogies work. For example, I don't condemn Cambodians, nor do I condem Germans, the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot (and Nazis and Hitler) on the other hand I do. I think you will find plenty of folks who condemn Stalin and crew for the slaughters and starvations they perpetrated.

Agreed.

Then you will have to add the current President of Zimbabwe on the list as well.

rockerbikie wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:Some extreme Right-wing people and people with anti-semitisitic views believe in that the Halocaust does not exist. People have denied many things including the Mooon Landing and Osama's death. On another subject. There have been far worse purges in history yet we do not condemn Cambodians, Christians, Spanish or USSR as much as the Nazis for example. I am digusted but not shocked because it is human nature to do such acts.

Add in the current President of Iran to that list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CptJake wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:Some extreme Right-wing people and people with anti-semitisitic views believe in that the Halocaust does not exist. People have denied many things including the Mooon Landing and Osama's death. On another subject. There have been far worse purges in history yet we do not condemn Khmer Rouge , Christians, Spanish Inquistion or USSR as much as the Nazis for example. I am digusted but not shocked because it is human nature to do such acts.

Not sure your analogies work. For example, I don't condemn Cambodians, nor do I condem Germans, the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot (and Nazis and Hitler) on the other hand I do. I think you will find plenty of folks who condemn Stalin and crew for the slaughters and starvations they perpetrated.

Agreed.

Then you will have to add the current President of Zimbabwe on the list as well.

I'm ok with that.

The only question you could honestly argue is just how many people were murdered by the Nazis. I don't think alot of countries at the time took a census of their populations, and/or alot of records were destroyed by the fighting (and carpet bombings) all across Europe.
So, it's honestly impossible to say with 100% certainty that 5 million Jews + 2 million 'other nationals' for example were killed. All we know is that a disgusting amount of innocent people were ruthlessly exterminated for no reason other than their nationality/sexual orientation.

I think most people seem to place the holocaust as the worst crime in mordern history because of how well the Nazi's documented it. All the paperwork & communications between the camps & party leadership, the bank inventories of the things they took from the dead and of corse, the films made by the Nazi's themselves and the allies as they liberated the camps.
It's one thing to hear about something this horrible happened half a world away, but it's entirely different when you can see physical images of the half starved survivors, the atrocities and tortures commited against them and the ways the Nazi's would wholesale slaughter them.

What holocaust? Where? I don't believe you.

AustonT wrote:What holocaust? Where? I don't believe you.

It is in the old Dark Millennium expansion for the second edition of 40k. I believe it was a level 3 Force power.

Ouze wrote:The really kinda disturbing thing is that in some countries, you can be arrested and charged with a crime for holocaust denial(!).

While I think holocaust deniers are clearly dumbasses of the highest order, I also am horrified by prosecuting crimethink.

Considering that the War split Germany in half for 50 years and caused a huge black mark on their collective memory, it's actually pretty sensible. I don't think there's much clamour for the ban to be removed, at any rate.

Japan also waffles between acknowledging and outright denying their war atrocities up to now

USA? Mai Lai was a secret for a while

My country? the 1970s is still a controversial topic

people seem to not want to own up to the gak they do

I'll just quote Eisenhower:

"The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they [there] were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said that he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit [to Gotha] deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.”

Well considering that if you public deny it, then your plane stops to refuel in Poland, you get dragged off the plane and sent to prison for 10 years... It's enough of a reason to raise some eyebrows about a cover up for some people.

Not that I deny it or anything, my great grandfather apparently died in a concentration camp.

There are sadly alot of incredibel silly people on this world. That is why some fools still denies this

Having visited the remains of Auschwitz (Sp?) and having spoke personall with several survivors and seeing the tatoo's and hearing the stories I'd say that if it's a "hoax" then it's the most well executed and maintained one in the history of the world. Talk about commitment on the part of the "actors"!

(In case you can't tell I think it's ridiculous people would try to claim this didn't happen. The documentation is extensive and to many American troops liberated people outside of these camps and brought the story home. And remember that back then even Americans were pretty anti-semetic).

It's like any conspiracy theory. Some people simply reject the position of consensus due to a psychological quirk. Others leap on that for personal advantage.

I read a theory once that conspiracy theories are evidence that ideas, like genes, might be valuable later even if not useful now. If you look at mutations, they are the source of progress. You put up with a lot of bad changes before the good stuff exists. Even things that long ago were eliminated can reappear. Look at the dorsal fins of both dolphins and fish. For hundres of millions of years, those genes laid dormant before being useful again.

the theory is that ideas shouldn't disappear, to prevent ideological homogenity. Group think is essentially inbreeding, when you look at ideas ad being analagous to genes. Now, groupthink isn't always bad. We all agree that murder is bad. so, the resistence to consensus opinions could be an evolutionary attempt to simply preserve ideas in case they might be useful later.

Interesting analogy, Polonius. It's worth pointing out that human ideas, unlike genes, have moral implications. Spinning Holocaust denial, or intelligent design, or whatever as a form of intellectual vigilance is at best itself intellectually immature and at worst simply reprehensible.

There are two types of Holocaust denial, only one of which grabs the attention unfortunately.

1. Those who deny the Holocaust took place at all.

2. Those who deny non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

The second is truly as much a problem as the first. Its one thing to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust, its another to airbrush out non-Jewish victims in order to generate a myth of 'uniqueness in suffering'.
Sadly this occurs rather a lot, even to the extent to protests against memorials that are inclusive of other victims of the Holocaust.

The only value in this is to foster a belief that Jews and by extension Israelis have a special mandate to act aggressively against perceived hostility. I frankly find that a dangerous sentiment , one that soils international relations and sparks racism. As the generation that witnessed the events passes away a sanitised story is easier to swallow and thus risks becoming a permanent problem.

I've never once heard of anyone saying only Jews were put in the camps.

Holocaust denial is a propganda technique utilised by Neo-Nazi factions of the modern day. They hope to swing sympathy to their cause by saying that the Nazis before them weren't actually that bad, and that it's your government producing anti-Nazi propaganda to keep them out of power. So basically, they want to convince you there wasn't a holocaust so they can gain power and do it themselves.

Manchu wrote:Interesting analogy, Polonius. It's worth pointing out that human ideas, unlike genes, have moral implications. Spinning Holocaust denial, or intelligent design, or whatever as a form of intellectual vigilance is at best itself intellectually immature and at worst simply reprehensible.

Well, that's why there is a difference between an inherent inability to be persuaded on an issue, and choosing a stance for political/moral/financial gain.

Cranks are cranks, essentially. But sometimes cranky ideas are useful to jerks.

And that's the danger: because people have a fear of groupthink, that doubt enters people's minds. If there was power to be gained denying the mood landings, somebody would do it. You need only look a the "Birther" movement to see how the process works: cranks and other true believers drag an idea into the sunlight, opportunists jump on it, and doubt inflames the mob.

feth me, so much beating around the bush here.. Its like you guys want Matty to get banned again!

Seeing nobody has said the mind numbingly obvious answer in less than a hundred words, there are basically only three types of holocaust deniers, but really only two because most fall under the umbrella of number one.

1. General Anti semites, skinheads, neo-nazis etc.. pretty much anyone who says so because it makes Jews look bad.

2. Some Muslims (see above)

3. Stupid people.

In a nutshell, the only people that deny it do so because they dislike Jews. They say loads of daft gak, Jew lies, Jew plot, Jew conspiracy, whatever.

And then there are the (much easier to like) ignorant fools who didn't take history class at school.

Pick one, cos seriously. That's fething it. If you like Jews and you went to school, you don't deny the holocaust.

Don't thank me, I live to serve.