Replacing Holocaust Denial as a Concept

The elements of Holocaust Denial are (the questioning and ultimately) rejection of any of the following:

a) that the Nazi government had a policy of deliberately targeting Jews and people of Jewish ancestry for extermination as a people;

b) that between five and seven million Jews were systematically killed by the Nazis and their allies;

c) and that genocide was carried out at extermination camps using tools of mass murder, such as gas chambers.

Note that is quite easy to be accused of Holocaust Denial should you point out that:

1) The Madagascar Plan (formulated in 1940) is evidence of an intention by the Nazis to expel rather than exterminate. The 'Wannsee Protocol', to a few, contains little that links the conference directly to the Holocaust. The statements in it are open to interpretation, especially the phrase 'final solution'. But very many believe that it was a very clear statement of intent and that the Holocaust followed on from this meeting and document. Hitler himself did not attend the Wannsee Conference of 1942.

2) The figures are in dispute and may be lower.

3) Bishop Richard Williamson and David Irving are convinced that, although there were gas chambers for de-lousing concentration camp inmates, to systematically exterminate Jews using cyanide gas would have required air-tight doors and be very dangerous for those who came to empty the chamber of corpses later. They have repeatedly stated that no such air-tight gas chambers have been found and doubt their existence.

4) No one is denying that many Jews died at the hands of Nazis. What is in dispute is whether they died of exhaustion, disease and the conditions of the camps, or whether they were systematically exterminated. If they were being systematically worked to death, then there is surely at least a slave-master's interest in keeping one's slaves alive so that they may continue working?

You may be very wrong if you think you can discuss these matters in mixed company and escape accusations of Holocaust Denial. Those who question or deny all or any of the above elements would be Holocaust Deniers according to the following circular logic:

If you are a Revisionist (one of those who question the Intentionalist Official Version) you are by definition a Reductionist (ie one of those who would wish to reduce the culpability of Hitler and the Nazis).

If you are Reductionist, you are by definition a Holocaust Denier and therefore an Evil, Racist, Fascist Nazi Sympathiser and Unfit for Decent Society.

You may be accused, convicted and jailed, as David Irving was, if you live in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland. So beware when you discuss, if you dare, any of the points outlined in (a), (b) and (c) above.

(The BNP will not be touching that issue with a barge-pole because they do not wish their leader, if he were to become MEP, to be jailed. Why they would wish to spend time, energy and the hard-earned money of their hard-working donors in order to participate in an institution they have already declared a hostility to and a wish to withdraw from is of course one of The Great Mysteries of British Politics.)

http://www.holocaust.nu/printnow.aspx?aid=310

NOTES ON TERMINOLOGY

THE INTENTIONALIST SCHOOL adheres to the "purist teaching" that was produced at the Nuremberg trials, which - to summarize briefly - asserts that the extermination of the Jews originated exclusively from Hitler's initiative.

THE FUNCTIONALISTS, however, hold the position that the alleged exterminations had occurred and progressively increased, as it were by force of circumstance.

"HOLOCAUST" originally derived from the Greek word holókauston, meaning a "completely (holos) burnt (kaustos)" sacrificial offering to a god. Its Latin form (holocaustum) was first used with specific reference to a massacre of Jews by the chroniclers Roger of Howden and Richard of Devizes in the 1190s. Since the late 19th century, it has been used primarily to refer to disasters or catastrophes.

The biblical word SHOAH (also spelled Sho'ah and Shoa), meaning "calamity," became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the 1940s. Shoah is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the word holocaust, as a Greek pagan custom.

60 years on, isn't it about time we rationalised the terms of debate so that recent history may be discussed honestly and openly, without the cloud of Holocaust Denial hanging over anyone brave or naïve enough to attempt to do this?

Vote: Should we replace the concept of "Holocaust Denial" with "the Functionalist v Intentionalist debate"?

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