HOLOCAUST DENIAL* Denial of the truth of the Holocaust comes in three modes. One mode is seldom recognized: bracketing the SHOAH with other mass murders in history. This mode of generalization flattens out the specificity and denies the uniqueness of the Holocaust. Unpleasant ethical, moral and theological issues are thereby stifled. The Holocaust is swallowed up in the mighty river of wickedness and mass murder that has characterized human history since the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. From the balcony - a perch often preferred by the privileged and/or educated - all violence down there seems remote. A second mode of denial is. encountered as an expression of Jewish preciousness. More or less bluntly, the position is taken that the Holocaust cannot be understood by a person who is not a Jew. This is a very dangerous posture, for by it the gentile - whether perpetrator or spectator - is home free. Why should he accept responsibility for an action whose significance, he is assured by the victims, is outside his universe of discourse? The third mode of denial, in nature and expression more often in the public view, is intellectually less interesting. Like the thought world of its purveyers, it is marked by banality. What interest does a thinking person have in debating whether or not the earth is flat? Nevertheless, the third mode of denial is alive and well. In large areas dominated by Christian, Jewish or Muslim fundamentalism, the facts are denied. In pristine condition, none of the three great monotheistic religions has need to deny the *by Franklin H. Littell, Ph.D., D.Theol., Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies, Temple University; Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey Holocaust Denial Holocaust. Across generations, however, dogmas accumulate and texts are lifted out of their historical context. An ideology distorts the original narrative. Facts are twisted to serve a conclusion already reached. Apologetics triumphs over careful reflection on what really happened. As a pioneer in the adaptation of the scientific method to the study of history put it, ironically, in the pre-scientific approach "only the future is certain; the past is always changing." Denial of the facts of the Holocaust has nothing to do with the evidence: ideology is all-controlling. If sectors of Christianity, Islam and Judaism can be infected by Holocaust denial, denial presented in fairly sophisticated language, what wonder then if it flourishes in the puerile and intellectually poverty-stricken world of neo-Nazis, "Aryan Nation" adherents and members of the John Birch Society? Eisenhower's Warning Before the United States declared war and became a belligerent in World War II, considerable sectors of the population were pro- German. American Nazis paraded by the thousands in cities with German-American concentrations like Jersey City, Milwaukee and Chicago, and when they stopped to hear demagogues orate they gave the Nazi salute. Father Coughlin, popular radio priest with an audience of 35 million, was pro-German and antisemitic. Americans did not: go to war because of hatred of Nazism: they went to war when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor left them no other choice. Holocaust Denial Although both the State Department and the defense establishment were seriously penetrated during the war by Communist agents, the American people as a whole thought of Communism as an external threat. The impending confrontation with Soviet expansion into Western Europe took precedence over all other issues. German officials in all zones of the occupation - Russian, British, American and French - took advantage of the change of subject. The topic that had been most prominent in the Niirnberg Trials at the war's end was Nazi criminality, including the brutalization of conquered nations and the mass murder of Jews. By 1948 major attention in the West was being given (again) to the crimes of the Soviets. Although occasional note was taken of Stalin's record of antisemitism and genocide of the Jews trapped in his expanding empire, major attention was focussed on the military confrontation in Germany, in the Balkans, in the Middle East and in the Far East. In this political climate, a good many German Nazis of intermediate rank were rehabilitated and retained in their positions in government, schools, universities and the professions - by the Russians and by the Western allies. Before he left his command in Germany to pursue a successful political career in the United States, General Eisenhower expressed his concern that the concentration camps and the related crimes might be forgotten. He reported to General George C. Marshall in Washington that the conditions were beyond power of description. He wrote that although General Patton could not bring himself to enter a camp, he himself did so in order to be able "to give first- 3 Holocaust Denial hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda'."* In a later cable to General Marshall he urged that prominent public leaders, including Congressmen and editors, he sent over "to leave no doubt in their minds about the normal practices of the Germans in these camps."** General Eisenhower's fears were justified. The historical record is being challenged. With but few exceptions, the challenge is coming precisely from circles that were Nazi fellow-travelers and apologists. Changing the Past Historical "revisionism" is hardly a challenge to the mind. But it is a political challenge of some significance. It is not an inexplicable phenomenon, a marginal incident. On the contrary: like the Holocaust itself, historical "revisionism" is an utterly logical development. In origin, sponsors and spokesmen it fits a pattern. The fountain source of historical "revisionism" is Paul Rassinier. His Le Drame des Juifs Europeen was published in Paris in 1964 (English translation published 1973) . Rassinier's work has been copied again and again. Even precise phrases have been lifted intact by imitators. *he Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, IV (Johns Hopkins, n.d.), p2616 **Ibid., p2623 Holocaust Denial Rassinier opens with a frontal attack on Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews (1961) . Professor Hilberg's book has been very important -in the expansion of Holocaust studies. Rassinier lightly dismisses Hilberg with the notation, "I find that he is a collaborator in the Jewish Encyclopedia Handbooks, and that explains everything."* Rassinier's interests are political and ideological rather than academic or scientific. To summarize - 1. Witnesses to the Holocaust and its significance are attacked: in addition to Professor Hilberg - Golo Mann, Rolf Hochhuth, Otto Dibelius, Hans Rothfels, Martin Niemoeller, Kurt Gerstein, Robert Kempner, Raphael Lemkin, Hannah Arendt, Salo Baron, Mr. Justice Jackson. Approved sources include writers in the antisemitic magazine, The American Mercury, and such authors as John 0. Beaty, writer of an antisemitic tract, The Iron Curtain Over America (1963). 2. Most Jews did not perish but escaped Europe alive. If people died, it was due to Allied bombing (pl5f). 3. The Allies prevented a negotiated peace by demanding Unconditional Surrender (plO). 4. The Russian camps are much bigger and much worse. 5. The source of historical misunderstanding and political disaster is "the international Zionist Movement." *Rassinier, Paul, The Drama of the European Jews (Silver Spring MD: Stepping3tones Publ., 1975), p22. Actually, the remark tells us nothing about Professor Hilberg, bur. it reveals a great deal about high school teacher Rassinier. Holocaust Denial The revisionist camp is a swamp of endless copying, repitition, plagiarizing, exchange of quotations. Among minor items are Die Auschwitz Luge (1973), sponsored by Manfred Roeder, a neo-Nazi politician whose actions were found criminal by West German court. Did Six Million Die (1974) attracted some attention, although its author was hard to locate and identify. The booklet claims that "at present he is with the University of London, " but the authorities there have no knowledge of him. The author and tract are tied in to the National Front, a fascist movement in Britain. The Myth of the Six Million was published anonymously in 1968; its second edition in 1974 was fairly widely circulated in the right wing. It begins with an effort to refute Lemkin's Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1943) , the book that gave us the word and the concept of "genocide." The author moves on to make a vicious attack on Raoul Wallenberg, and continues with themes now trite: 1. International Zionism controls the governments of the world. 2 . Witnesses to the Holocaust are attacked personally, among them Kurt Gerstein and Rudolf Hoess. 3. The Allied demand for Unconditional Surrender is condemned. 4. Goebbels, Hitler and Himmler are exonerated of guilt. 5. Both the Wansee Conference of 20 January 1942 and the killing of Jews by Einsatzgruppen are denied historicity. Holocaust Denial Such were the books- that circulated chiefly in America's spiritual underworld, advertised in publications of the KKK, American Nazi Party, Christian Nationalist Crusade, etc. Not until an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Northwestern Unviersity, Arthur R. Butz, published his book in 1976 was there any attention given historical "revisionism" in journals and newspapers read by educated people. The Butz book excited a controversy, not because of its shopworn themes but because of the way the University avoided its responsibilities to truth and truth- telling. The President of Northwestern took the easy way out: he publicly abhorred Butz' actions, noted that Butz had tenure, encouraged the setting up of an elective course on the Holocaust, and pressed on to other and easier administrative tasks. Butz' points are shopworn. The book excited attention because of his connection with a major university. In his Foreword to The Hoax of the Twentieth Century (Historical Review Press, Richmond/Surrey) Butz reveals his political intention.