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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MartinHarper (talk | contribs) at 11:08, 26 August 2003 (Zundel). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Is it fair to single out the Middle East for publishing works? Quite a lot of stuff being done is European and North American - David Irving, for example, and Zundel or whatever the name is. I think this needs to be said for NPOV. -- April

While I agree with this sentiment in principal, it seems that the material being published in the Americas and Europe is still relegated to a fringe element, while books and pamphlets published in the Middle East have a semi-official status in some of these countries and are used within the context of the larger dispute between Israel and many of the Arab states. Nevertheless, I agree that Ernst Zundel and others like him should be mentioned. Danny

The article states: " Saudi Arabia used to put a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in each hotel room. The Protocols are not used or taken seriously by Holocaust Revisionists." If they're not used by Holocaust revisionists, then what's the point of even mentioning it here?

The point is that Holocaust Revisionism is different from Arab anti-Semitism. --Clutch 14:06 Oct 28, 2002 (UTC)

This paragraph is a recounting of historical fact: "Due to the extremely rapid collapse of the Nazi forces at the end of the war, attempts to destroy evidence were for the most part unsuccessful. After their defeat, many tons of documents were recovered, and many thousands of bodies were found not yet completely decomposed, in mass graves near many concentration camps. The physical evidence and the documentary proof included records of train shipments of Jews to the camps, orders for tons of cyanide and other poisons, and the remaining concentration camp structures. Interviews with survivors completed the picture. Therefore, these revisionist views are rejected by virtually all serious historians of the period. "

First of all, it is not a statement of opinion, it is something that actually happened. Bodies were found, documents were uncovered, survivors told their stories. Edward R. Murrow gave a radio account that was famous in itself when he said, "Murder was done at Buchenwald." It is also a fact that revisionist views are almost universally rejected.

I will repeat this: It is not an opinion, it is a fact. It is also something that Holocaust revisionists have repeatedly tried to deny, disprove (with no success), and discount. In fact, the historical evidence is so strong that the revisionists have proactically given up trying to argue against it. This very article on Holocaust revisionism includes two major instances where, instead of trying to disprove historical evidence, the revisionists have reverted to libel, slander, and abuse of the legal system to attack their perceived enemies -- the alt.revisionism newsgroup affair and the Lipstadt lawsuit.

The evidence debunking Holocaust revisionism is important and relevant, because it shows that Holocaust revisionism is made up of little more than lies and conspiracy theories. It is therefore necessary, if not essential, in this encyclopedia entry. And this is furthermore used to support the article with this statement: Therefore, these revisionist views are rejected by virtually all serious historians of the period. -- Modemac

The facts that you present are excellent material for debunking the Holocaust Deniers. However those particular facts don't get at the heart of the revisionist argument at all. They are great at SOUNDING like they debunk the revisionists, but they don't. Come on, I know you can do a better job of debunking than that. The facts you present as debunking the revisionists are in fact items that the revisionists themselves do not deny or take issue with. When you just wave your hands around instead of presenting real debunking evidence, you just lend credibility to what the revisionists say. I can't let you lend them that credibility. --Clutch

Rather than taking this personally, Clutch, perhaps you can show us what a "better job of debunking"; is supposed to be. Quite frankly, there is no better way to debunk a bad argument (such as Holocaust revisionism) than by using the truth. This is hardly lending credibility to revisionism; indeed, it shows revisionism to be little more than lies and propaganda (as I have already said). Oh, and how about stating your opinion here on talk before wiping out things you don't agree with, instead of after? - -- Modemac

I don't know what the best approach is to debunk the revisionists, except on a point by point basis. But I don't like seeing a debunking being done wrong, and lowering the tone of the Misplaced Pages. I could be at a party and say afterward "Fred wore a green lampshade". The facts you presented are equivalent to a debunker coming along and saying "There were a hundred people at that party, and they drank all the punch, therefore what you say happened is wrong!" --Clutch

By the way, kudos go to 217.158.106.127 for trying to present a balanced view of the matter. -- Modemac

I have added a framework for point-by-point debunking, which is important here. We know these claims are nonsense, but this does not mean we need not present an argument against them.

"20:54 Nov 7, 2002 . . Clutch (reply to Modemac, and removing unattributed comment)" -- Clutch, Misplaced Pages does not have any bias against anonymous contributions or comments, especially on Talk pages. However, it is considered very rude to "remove"/delete others' comments from Talk pages, even when they are anonymous. Please don't do this.

I have a bias against it. When people stick in comments without attribution, they all get jumbled together, and I can't make out the narrative flow, or even tell when "voices" change; I can't tell whether it was one person that wrote two consecutive paragraphs, or two different people. This has an impact on how I reply to them. I'm sure others share this bias, or there wouldn't be so many people who DO politely attribute their comments. If you are going to reinsert unattributed comments, please at least be kind enough to add in their proper attribution while you are at it. --Clutch

You mean the way "63.231.52.76" did when he/she repeatedly deleted the contributions everyone else was putting into the Jehovah's Witnesses article? -- Modemac

Clutch, I often agree with your reasons. However, the Misplaced Pages community as a whole permits anonymity. Personally, I think it's very important to respond to ideas on their own merits, rather than to who is stating them. Unless Misplaced Pages as a whole changes the standard for anonymous posting, many people (including me), will continue to be "anonymous". But again, please don't delete comments on Talk, even when anonymous. Thanks.

Yeah, Clutch, not for nothin' but it's not about you! No one cares what you think or I think. We are trying to make an encyclopedia here, and if you want to help: all is well and good. Same goes for RK. --Ed Poor

I know we want to be NPOV here, but Holocaust denial is such a peculiar thing, "the belief that Germany did not kill millions of Jews, but certainly should have for making up a lie that Germany killed millions of Jews". I state the position crudely because I have never been able to understand what is the sense or function of Holocaust denial in the overall anti-Semitic scheme of things. Ortolan88 08:37 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

It's hard to understand the reasons associated with hatred. I suppose hatred is, at bottom, completely irrational.

But Jews seem to have attracted a lot of hatred. This hatred has taken the form of discrimination, segragation and genocide.

Often people feel a need to justify their attitudes or actions. So, after doing something "bad" we either say it was really "good" or deny having done it at all.

• He hit me first.
• We were just playing
• I was only kidding.
• Fight? What fight?

As for as making restitution for past misdeeds, if the deed never occurred, how can I be required to make restitution? If Jews weren't nearly wiped out in Europe, why should anyone requite that injustice by giving the more fertile land in Palestine?

I know this is awfully simplistic, but I daresay much of the rhetoric about these issues aren't entirely rationally based. Ed Poor

Oh God. This is the sort of article I dread. I agree with its premise, that Holocaust denial people are a bunch of neo-fascist apologists and nutters. But how do you write an NPOV article on this rubbish? Certainly this isn't it. Facts should convince people, not rhetoric and this article is too POV to be of any use in undermining the 'deny the holocaust' industry. It has all the subtlety of a 'brick through the window', overplays terms (kill, murder, genocide - yet they all happened, but if you lay it on this thick, readers are going to dismiss the article as biased and so worthless.) and throws up all sorts of irrelevances; when it comes to the holocaust, petty flame wars on net talks are irrelevent. It needs pruning, rewriting and toning down. When toned down, it stands a far better of chance of actually convincing people about just how loopy holocaust deniers really are. STÓD/ÉÍRE 04:32 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

Removed the following

With the advent of the Internet in the 1990s and early 21st century, a small number of Holocaust deniers found a worldwide audience for their writings. Certain supporters of Holocaust denial made names for themselves by repeatedly (critics say "endlessly") re-posting their writings over and over in many Usenet newsgroups, sparking vicious flame wars. These online arguments appeared to be eternal and unending, because the supporters of Holocaust denial refused to particiate in logical discussions and repeatedly stated that the Holocaust was a hoax, refusing to admit the existence of the considerable evidence disproving their statements. In the end, the holocaust denial faction was largely ignored and killfiled online.

1. Internet rows are irrelevent to this article, certainly when written like this. If it should be covered, it needs to be NPOVed.

1. When it comes to the issue of holocaust denial, flame wars are about as irrelevant to the serious issue of the article as it can be. So what if there are flame wars? There are flame wars on just about everything on the net, from the war in Iraq to Kylie Minogue's bum size. Bringing in flame wars to an article like this trivialises the top (though the person who added in this no doubt never meant to)

1. the last line is POV. That doesn't mean it isn't right, but NPOV means showing the evidence and letting the reader see for themselves, not have the author state something as gospel.

1. 'critics say endlessly' - another POV piece that simply undermines the NPOV the article should have.

This paragraph throws up largely irrelevant information in an emotive form and a clear POV that undermines whatever chance the article has of undermining the nutters who deny the holocaust. Show the evidence, don't state things as fact. STÓD/ÉÍRE 04:43 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

The revisionists claim that their assertions cannot be as easily refuted. Most historians disagree with them, saying that the evidence clearly disproves their assertions.

Well, yeah. The first sentence says "holocaust revisionists believe in the claims they are making. The second sentence says "most historians don't", which is already covered in another paragraph. DanKeshet

not supported by any officially approved, tenured, or government funded historians.

What's an "officially approved historian" when she's at home? Martin

There is a major problem with this article. Someone wrote a paragraph, and has substantially misunderstood the very topic. The article currently states that "Holocaust revisionism is distinct from Holocaust denial, the assertion that the Holocaust never happened at all. Holocaust revisionists see themselves as part of a tradition of historical revisionism - the reexamination of widely-accepted historical theories."

No, this is totally wrong. The author is confused by what the term "revisionism" means. In normal use, "revisionism" refers to a very normal and well-accepted part of historical scholarship. It is the revisiting of old topics to look at them in a new light. In this sense of the word, all mainstream historians, and all Jewish groups, totally approve of new research on the Holocaust; some of this can fairly be called "historical revisionism concerning the Holocaust." The problem is that anti-Semitic Holocaust deniers have been trying to appropriate this term for themselves. They refer to all of their Holocaust denial as "historical revisionism". What this article currently is in gross error on is the fact that all mainstream historians agree that these so-called "historical revisionists" are not practicing legitimate historical revisionism at all, but are rather using false advertising to promote Holocaust denial. The good news is that our article on historical revisionism already makes this distinction. We just need to make this same distinction here, and then merge the pages on holocaust revisionism and holocaust denial. RK 19:31, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I suggest the material on "Holocaust revisionism" be reverted back to the "revisionism" page, because the term "holocaust revisionism" is more prevalent and widely used than "holocaust denial." The latter may be more accurate, but "revisionism" is the term most often looked for when people do research into this subject. --Modemac 00:11, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

A Google web search showed me that "Holocaust denial" shows up 26,400 times, while "Holocaust revisionism" only shows up 5,200 times. This ratio is also about the same when doing a Google newsgroup search for these terms. RK

---

Not wanting to be too controversial, Holocaust denial is part of a much larger phenomenon of "denial of genocide" that can be discerned nearly every time an act definable as genocide occurs. For instance, the Armenian genocide, the massacre of Native Americans, and the Porajmos all have detractors in certain circles. Deborah Lipstadt has written on the general topic and found certain common features of all denials of genocide. Personally, I think it would be a fascinating article and would like to write it, but I can see how some people might be upset by it. Is there anyone who would resent such an article. If so, please give your grounds so that they can be discussed. If not, I intend to start working on it over the weekend. Danny 00:29, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Sounds interesting. But be careful about bringing in the issue of Native American Indians. The vast majority of them died out from contact with European germs long before most Europeans got greedy about taking their land. The few cases of provable genocide were very small scale (which doesn't make them any less heinous) and these took place over a century after most Native Americans had already died. At the time that most Native Americans were dying from European diseases, the vast majority of North America was totally unknown to Europeans. They didn't even know about the existence of most Native American villages that were wiped out! European germs travelled far beyond the footsteps of any European explorer. Also, there was no plan by any european nation for the extermination of the Native Americans; we now know that none of them even had the faintest idea of how many millions of American Indians there were. Of course, there was a nationwide policy by the USA against Indians that included theft, occupation, attacks, massacres, etc., and those government sanctioned actions certainly were done on purpose. (BTW, I am not at all opposed to describing the known instances of germ warfare against Indians. But those come from a much later time, after the American Indians were already over 90% gone.) RK 00:38, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Negationism is junk, but it purports to be on that topic. Martin 00:48, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Suggested readings on this new topic:

The "Unique" Intentionality of the Holocaust, in Post-Holocaust Dialogues, Steven T. Katz, New York University Press, 1983

Quantity and Interpretation - Issues in the Comparative Historical Analysis of the Holocaust, in Historicism, The Holocaust and Zionism, Steven T. Katz, New York University Press, 1992

Some responses:

RK: There were plans by the Americans themselves to eradicate complete peoples. As for European nations, Bartolomeo de las Casas gives a chilling contemporary account at the time of Spanish conquest. And genocide, no matter the scale, remains genocide, even if only 10 percent are left. Deloria and Stannard both provide detailed accounts of genocide against Native American peoples (they are not a homogeneous group), but these are generally glossed over in American textbooks, if not entirely ignored.

True. I am working on stressin only a finer point: Americans did not plan to eradicate the original Native Americans Indians of North America. It was just impossible, as the vast majority of them were already dead long before the United States ever existed. (This fact wasn't known until the 1970s, but it is well established now.) No nation, European, let alone the USA, attempted genocide on the combined Native American Indian tribes. However, as I said before, the USA did engage in horrible policies against the remaining Native Americans, but this was over a century, in some cases two centuries, after most Native Americans were dead. Also, I agree with you that the Europeans did horrible things and killed many, many Native Americans. It certainly belongs in the topic being discussed here. Further, I certainly have never imagined that the Native Americans were homogenous. Finally, I also agree with you that most American high school history textbooks shamefully gloss over this subject. I think we are in agreement on these issues. I just want to avoid the common historical anachronism. RK 01:06, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Martin: I do not understand your comment.

Meanwhile, Turkish denial of genocide resulted in the refusal in Hollywood to film Werfel's Musa Dagh. President Tudjeman of Croatia wrote books denying Croat complicity in the massacre of Serbs. The question is, then, why are people so hesitant to accept genocide as a historical phenomenon? Are there common features in each instance, beside a need to defend one's own nation against charges of a horrific crime? It can be a fascinating, if also a disturbing topic. Danny 01:02, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The Negationism article purports to be on "the denial of historic crimes", including genocide. But, as far as I can tell, it's junk. However, if you write a decent article on genocide denial, you might want to redirect that article to it. Also, you might care to skim through it to check whether or not it is in fact junk, since I'm no expert. Martin 01:08, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Okay, Martin, I agree with you. RK, here is some information, and I am leaving out Central and South America for the moment:

• 1607: Powhattan Confederation of contemporary Virginia exterminated by Jamestown settlers in a series of "total wars". Population reduced from and estimated 200,000 to just 3,000.
• 1637: The Pequots of New England fell victim to a war of extermination, followed by the Wampanoags, Narrangansetts, Abenakis, Mohegans, and Niantics. Yes, these people were already decimated by disease, but in all instances, the wars were against the survivors.
• 1641: Dutch governor Willem Kieft offers a bounty on any Indian scalp brought to him.
• 1729: The Natchez nearly exterminated in a war against the British.
• 1730: The Fox ... ditto.
• 1763: 100,000 Ottawas died of smallpox, from intentionally infected blankets.

After the Revolution, the American Army maintained the British bounty system, supported by state governments (i.e., Texas) and private individuals (i.e., California). Bounty was awarded for proof of a dead Indian. 1836: 100,000 Mandans die of smallpox from intentionally infected blankets. I am intentionally leaving out the "little" massacres (Wounded Knee comes to mind, as do Bad Axe River and Sand Creek), and I am leaving out the Trail of Tears, with 50 percent fatalities for the Cherokee (the Chickasaws and Creeks faired slightly better with 25 and 35 percent respectively). I am also avoiding most of California, where the native population was decimated during the Gold Rush. The fact that many also died as a result of "unintentional infection" (and even that is questionable, given the cases of the Mandan and Ottawas) does not make these any less cases of genocide. The problem is that denial of genocide is pervasive. That is what I would like this new article to be about. (And notice that I have not mentioned the Jews once...) Danny 01:31, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Zundel

Zündel established his own Web site to publicize his revisionist viewpoint. In response, the German government blocked off access his site for all German citizens.

This seems to be wrong. Access to the site is available in Germany. -- JeLuF 09:13 25 May 2003 (UTC)

Based on JeLuF's comment, I removed this sentence. Martin 11:08, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)