I'm currently taking a Holocaust History class. One of our only two assignments was to write a paper proving that the Holocaust did or did not happen, and we had to address both sides of the argument in the paper. I have attached the paper itself, with the proper protections, if you are interested in reading it.
I have always been a believer that the Holocaust happened, and have been appalled upon hearing that some denied it. Even the President of Iran claims that it is only a conspiracy by the Jewish people. In researching for my paper, I was shocked at what lengths these so called "Revisionists" will go to to disprove the Holocaust. I was not able to address all of their issues in my paper, since I really didn't feel like writing a 20 page paper when I was only required to write 10 pages (and the meat of my paper turned out to be 12 pages).
To deny the Holocaust is to say that millions of lives were lost for no reason. We must fight so that atrocities such as the Holocaust never happen again. More than 6 million people were murdered by Germany during World War II, simply because they were not a certain race. These murders were not terrorist attacks... they were systematic killings. Other atrocities that I did not even mention in my paper were also done, such as experiments to see how long a human could survive in sub-freezing water, or without food. It further scares me that much of medicine today is reliant on the studies that Nazi physicians performed on people they deemed subhuman.
Many will probably argue about the killings that constantly occur in Africa, or the violence seen in Iraq. I'm sorry, but the Holocaust is a greater crime than those. The violence in Iraq is sort of a civil war. It is horrible, but it is not state sanctioned. The killings in Africa, even if they are state-sanctioned (I do not know enough on this topic to correctly categorize them), are not the same because these countries are not modern states.
I encourage people to learn about this horrible period in history while we can still listen to those that suffered firsthand. Those survivors of the concentrations camps in Poland. By the time my children are old enough to understand the severity of this event, all the survivors will be dead. It must be remembered, so that this never happens again.
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I also am a firm believer in the Holocust and don't get why people believe it didn't happen and try to make other's believe the same. I will be reading your paper but I don't have time at the moment.
The best way to a man's heart is really through his stomach, that way you don't have to deal with that pesky rib cage!
~Anomous
As a fellow historian I share your concerns. I strongly believe all students should receive at least an elementary understanding of the holocaust before they finish high school. It is a shocking reminder of the fallacy of our modern notion of 'progress': the Third Reich considered itself the most progressive society theretofore, and yet here we are still bandying this term about today, even in website titles. The word is extremely problematic; but that is another matter.
What I'd like to say is that the Holocaust presents a unique problem to the historical discipline. Now I would be insulted if someone misconstrued what I am about to argue as evidence of my denial of the Holocaust. It would take a particularly odious sort of person to make such a disgusting & reprehensible claim in the face of insurmountable evidence. The problem -- in which the Holocaust is often dragged into -- concerns narrativity.
It should be obvious to anyone that in the Western tradition, historical writing always takes the form of narrative construction; we have Aristotle & Hayden White to thank for pointing that out. Without delving too far into the realm of theoretical gobbledygook, let's just remember that the historian, through a mimetic process, arranges events taken from historical reality in accordance with a praxis (roughly: unifying action) so as -- & this is the important part -- to fit his plot (muthos). More simply, facts cannot speak for themselves -- they are selected and arranged in a certain way by the historian so as to convey his meaning.
That being said, it should be obvious that there are an infinite number of ways to interpret an historical event. Suppose you could amass every single hard, verifiable, incontrovertible fact concerning, say, the ethnic cleansings in the Yugoslav, with the intent to create a completely objective, disinterested historical account. It doesn't matter how many or how reliable the facts are: in creating an historical interpretation, you are creating a narrative -- that is to say you are creating a plot. It is unavoidable.
Now, oftentimes when this sort of historiographical theory is used in attempting new approaches to history, detractors bring out the heavy artillery: the Holocaust. The argument is made that such theory allows for the Holocaust to be denied in some perverted way. From a theoretical standpoint this may be true, but of course only a truly twisted individual could even imagine making such a claim. Nevertheless, the Holocaust, as utterly horrifying as it was, should not be allowed -- nor should any historical event -- to silence alternate approaches to historical understanding.
I can only hope no one has glanced over what I wrote and assumed I'm a crazy anti-semite out to spread hatred.
NT
Yeah, I think history needs to constantly be reviewed. Still, I find it amazing hard to believe that there are large numbers of people that completely deny that the Holocaust took place. I dealt primarily with Robert Faurisson in my essay, because a couple of his articles made some points that I could refute well with my background (I'm more of a scientist than a historian, so half of my paper, practically, deals with the chemistry of the gas used in the gas chambers). But, if anyone is interested, the Journal of Historical Review usually takes the position that the Holocaust didn't happen, as that was sort of the foundation in which is was made.
~C
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I have jewish people on one side of my family and am polish catholic on the other.. so I think that goes with out saying that I know the holocaust exist. My boyfriend's grandfather died not too long ago and was a soldier in the war. He had taken nazi commander items off the soldiers he killed to sell back home. It was the worst religious purging ever
History is written by the victor, and the looser is evil, that is how it has always been.
Did the Holocaust happen? Depends on what you mean by Holocaust. If it refers to the Gas Chambers, my opinion is no. Look, there are all sorts of claims that have already been disproved, Such as the Human Soap/Lampshades, not to mention that the Auschwitz total keeps coming down...from four million to the current number of one million. Now I'm sure some of you will say, what's the difference between four and one million, well...it's huge, it tells me that historians have not been doing their work. So much for the documented side of this history part. If I wanted to explain all the problems with the current believe of the holocaust, I would be sitting here for weeks, but let me give you all a few to ponder over.
Fact #1-There is no order from the German government or Hitler that talks about, or mentions the mass killing/genocide of Jews, not one document.
Fact #2-There is no evidence of any gas chamber...anywhere, and I'm sure someone will say "What about the one in Auschwitz", well, it's not a gas chamber, it's a bomb shelter, thats why it is right next to the camp garrison. I am also fairly positive that this alone doesn't convince you, so let me quote Raul Hilberg, the most respected Jewish American Holocaust Historian. At the trial of Ernst Zundel, when being cros examined by Zundel's Lawyer. The question to Hilberg was, "What scientific or physical evidence exists that there were ever gas chambers, or that a single person was ever gassed in Auschwits" His answer was "None".
Don't take my word on it, look it up your self.
If you want to see what science will do to the holocaust, take the time to watch this four hour program split up in to thirty sections.
After watching this, you will never look at the Holocaust the same, do you have the courage?
This is why it is made illegal in so many countries to even question it.
http://www.onethirdoftheholocaust.com/
Did you even read my paper? I never once mentioned human soap, though I know a claim like that exists. As for the argument about the Auschwitz number changing... that number wasn't done by historians, but by (Soviet, I think) forces that were using the camp as propaganda. For what, I don't know.
Fact #1 - Ok, seriously, Hitler was a dictator. He didn't HAVE to write any orders. If someone did something that he didn't like, he'd punish them. Furthermore, there is documented evidence that some sort of order was given, and that the Nazi regime did in fact want the Jews and other races exterminated. Not just removed, but exterminated. The Jager report goes into detail about how Jews were mass murdered. The widely known Euthanasia program was responsible for the death of more than 70,000 mentally ill, Jews and non-Jews alike. Read the paper for more.
Fact #2 - A report by Markwiecz (I probably slaughtered that name, despite writing it about 10 times in my paper) shows trace amounts of cyanide on the walls of the 'gas chamber'. If this was just a bomb shelter, as you say, then why was there cyanide on the walls? And if you go with the typical 'fumigation' story, note that the same scientist studied the walls of barracks and found MUCH HIGHER concentrations of the gas than in the gas chamber. And while the gas chambers were the most used tool to kill, many were killed in other ways, and there is plenty of evidence showing that (see the Jager report, if you don't believe me).
I don't agree with those that say that the Holocaust didn't happen. I can't see how people would believe this in light of all the evidence that I saw. My paper only covers a few points that I could manage with my own research in the short time that I had to write the paper. I'm not saying it should be made illegal to say that the Holocaust didn't happen, I'm just saying that I think you're wrong.
I am aware that you didn't mention the the human soap, I was just giving you an example, btw, it wasn't just a claim, it was used during the Nuremberg trials to convict people, and people were sentenced to life in prison for that. It wasn't until 1996 that the holocaust museum in Israel finally admitted that it was not true, they knew it wasn't real for all these decades, but still presented it as holocaust evidence.
As for the numbers, you are correct, it was done by the Soviets, as a matter of fact, it was the Soviets that made the whole holocaust claim to start with, keep in mind, all the so called death camps are in what was Soviet controlled Europe, that by in it's self should make you wonder, funny how only Soviet controlled concentration camps were death camps, none of the other hundred+. What the Historians did was give their full support to the Soviet claims, including this one, http://www.polskieradio.pl/polonia/article.asp?tId=40422&j=2
This is just one more example, there are many more just like this one, do take the time to read this current news article just released by Polish new agency(It's in English)
As to Fact #1, again, there is no document in existence that came from Hitler or any other German to kill all the Jews, I repeat, it does not exist, it never has. I have researched the Holocaust for years now, and I have never seen it, now has a credible person ever acknowledged it.
However, there is a order given by Himmler.
Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Concentration Camps issued orders on December 28, 1942, that "The death rate in the concentration camps must be reduced at all costs" (Reitlinger, "The Final Solution"). The camps had been hit with a deadly typhus epidemic that spread by fleas and body lice. Stomach pain, high fever, emaciation and death can quickly follow. All of the camps were factories and the loss of workers was hurting war production. Inspector of the camps, Richard Glucks responded to Himmler's order on January 20, 1943, "Every means will be used to lower the death rates" (Nuremberg Tribunal Document No. 1523).
On April 10, 1943, Oswald Pohl, head of the Economic Administration Office of the camps issued a letter stating that persons with tuberculosis were being sent to the camps resulting in the "shockingly high mortality figures" (Nuremberg Documents). Later, on September 30, 1943, Pohl was able to show that the camp death rate had been reduced from 8.5% in July, 1942 to 2.8% in June 1943. The German SS arrested Buchenwald Commandant, Karl Koch in 1943 for mistreating and even executing some prisoners. After an investigation Koch was found guilty by SS Judge Konrad Morgen and shot. Does this sound like a policy of "extermination?"
After the War, with suspicion rapidly rising about the holocaust claim, a committee of Jewish leaders from New York and Paris met with communist leaders in Warsaw. There they established the "Committee for the Investigation of War Crimes and War Criminals". It was after this meeting that the announcement was made that all gas chambers were located in Poland.
Hitler was a dictator, but that does not mean you don't have to write orders when you are controlling a 8,000,000 man army. I mean you can't be serious that a huge army is willing to follow hearsay orders, are you?
As for Fact #2
There is not one report on traces of Cyanide, but four of them.
That's right, four tests were done, three of them came back negative!!!
The only one that showed any traces of Cyanide, was the one done by the camp Administration it self, I bet you didn't know that!
Just so you know, I have been to this so called gas chamber, and there is no traces of Prussian blue, if you don't know what that is, I suggest you read up on it, it needs to be there to prove that Zyklone-B was used, no Prussian blue, no gas chamber!
Just in case you don't know this either, there is only one building in Auschwitz that is the so called gas chamber, so let me show you something.
The people you are using who claim that they found traces of Cyanide are lying, they could not have found any, for the simple fact, that this so called gas chamber was build after WWII!!!
""Major French Magazine Acknowledges Auschwitz Gas Chamber Fraud
One of France's most influential and reputable magazines, L'Express, now acknowledges that "everything is false" about the Auschwitz "gas chamber" that for decades has been shown to tens of thousands of tourists yearly.
"Auschwitz: The Memory of Evil," a lengthy article by journalist and historian Eric Conan, a dedicated anti-revisionist, appears in the January 19-25, 1995, issue, pages 54-73 (and in the Jan. 26 international edition). L'Express is a liberal large-circulation weekly news magazine, similar in format to Time or Newsweek.
L'Express also reports that, after a five-year battle among the "experts," Polish president Lech Walesa has decided that the new, revised number of dead to be inscribed on the Birkenau monument will be 1,500,000. (For years the monument proclaimed 4,000,000 Auschwitz deaths.)
Generally speaking, writes Conan, there have been many obvious falsifications in the Auschwitz and Birkenau camp sites. Stefan Wilkanowicz, vice-president of the International Committee of the Polish government's Auschwitz State Museum (and director of an influential Polish Catholic periodical), says:
The biggest blunders have been rectified but the principal discussions are never-ending and far from being settled. I can even say that essential debates, distressing, sometimes unexpected, are only beginning.
About the famous "gas chamber" in the Auschwitz I camp, Conan writes:
In 1948, when the Museum was created, Crematory I was reconstructed in a supposed original state. Everything in it is false [Tout y est faux]: the dimensions of the gas chamber, the locations of the doors, the openings for pouring in Zyklon B, the ovens (rebuilt according to the recollections of some survivors), the height of the chimney. At the end of the 70s, Robert Faurisson exploited those falsifications all the better because at that time the Museum officials balked at admitting them. An American revisionist [David Cole] has just shot a video in the gas chamber (still presented as authentic): one may see him questioning the visitors with his "revelations" [Emphasis added.]
In spite of this, Conan goes on to report, there are no plans to alter anything there. With regard to the famous "gas chamber," a staff member of the Museum directors' office, Krystyna Oleksy, says: "For the time being we are going to leave it in the present state, and not give any specifics to the visitors. It is too complicated. We'll see later on.""
As I have already said, Raul Hilberg admits that no physical or scientific evidence exists of any person having ever gassed, and he is the foremost authoritative person in the USA on the holocaust, bar none.
How do you explain the descriptions of the soldiers freeing Buchenwald? The lampshades of human tattoos? the Warsaw Uprising? Exactly where were the six million or four million or even 1 million jobs that the Jews were employed in? Did all 4 million nonJews disappear because of tuberculosis or because they were gypsies,Romanians, disabled, or other?
my history teacher said that those who dont believe the Holocaust happened think its some big propaganda scam. To me, I think it happened. How else do you explain over 6 million deaths in Europe? Nearly all the Jews of Poland dying? Hitler wasnt exactly a god towards the end. He's one of those people who make everybody else think they're doing something good but very few people knew the true plan. Birkenau, Auchwitz and several other camps wouldnt exist if it werent for the Holocaust. They're reminders of how cruel we can be to those who arent like us. Elie Wiesel and Anne Frank wouldnt be famous if it werent for the Holocaust because Elie survived it and Anne Frank died in a concentration camp during it. The world is ignorant of problems that dont seem to affect them.
Seeing as how I researched this rather in depth, I'll tell you what I've seen as the majority of the reasons for why people deny the Holocaust.
1) More than just the Jews died... why should we focus on them when millions of Soviets also died? What about the homosexuals, the gypsies, the handicapped (who were rather overtly killed, by the way)?
2) There were no death camps... people died from malnutrition and poor sanitary conditions. The 'gas chambers' were used to disinfect clothes and bedding from the prisoners.
That sums up the majority of them. Yes, there are some who just flat out deny it, but any scholar will back up their information with more than "It's a Jewish conspiracy!" The Holocaust is only remembered because of the gas chambers, and the deaths that ensued (remember, Anne and her family didn't die from the gas chambers... they died from the diseases around the concentration camp itself).. The United States had concentration camps for the Japanese and Japanese Americans during WWII, yet that isn't often taught in school. THAT is a problem that the world is ignorant about, not the Holocaust. If there weren't an obvious malicious attempt to kill the Jews via the gas chambers, the Holocaust wouldn't be remembered today. At least, not nearly to the degree that it is.
So yes, those camps would exist without the Holocaust, because the Holocaust was the gas chamber part of it. Each of those was also a concentration camp. To varying degrees, perhaps, but a concentration camp none-the-less.
~C
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I, too, took a History of the Holocaust course at my college. I am a third-generation Jew, who lost several family members during the Holocaust. These are members that even my dad's parents never got to meet before they passed on. Additionally, I am a historian, and can understand both sides of the argument on whether or not the Holocaust took place, although I obviously side with the Holocaust taking place.
If you even look at anti-Semitic websites, there are places over in Asia and Europe that are still, to this day, recruiting for neo-Nazis and trying to prove that the Holocaust didn't take place. I recently talked to a local Holocaust survivor for a project I've been working on, and to hear her story again and again is just shocking. Each time it impacts me more and more. She has documents, that in each of her lectures to classes, she clearly states "People say the Holocaust didn't happen. I have documents...documents that prove otherwise. Tell them to come to me, and I'll show them these documents. Documents that my brothers were numbered and killed in Auschwitz. Documents that deported my sisters and I. Documents that prove the Nazis did this to us."
Also, if you're looking for something else that will help with additional research for your paper, check out the film Night and Fog. It was made in the 1950's and you'll have to get it in English subtitles because it is a foreign film. But it tells of the atrocities. Not of the atrocities towards Jewish people, but of the atrocities as a whole during the Holocaust. The point of the filmmaker was to prove that this event took place, but not to prove that it took place against the Jews.