General / Off-Topic According to some people, the holocaust didn't happen.

glynie

glynie
What do you guys make of this?

Personally I believe the Holocaust did happen. I've visited the Auschwitz camp that still stands. It was a harrowing and sobering experience. However I was showing Schindler's List to a friend recently whom had never seen it, and I don't remember precisely why but we decided to google one particular element of the story afterwards. One link led to another and before we knew it, we were reading a page somewhere which claimed that basically the genocide (the whole notion of mass extermination of people using gas chambers) was faked.

Anyway, I found the whole thing offensive. It seems to me that not only is it grossly disrespectful to make claims like that if they aren't true, but trying to fake something like that in the first place would require the cooperation of countless people - lies upon lies - that it would be a giant conspiracy and the camp I visited had some kind of hidden agenda to create the deception. It seems ridiculous to me...yet this whole idea seems to be gaining momentum. Occasionally I'll see someone saying the same thing. For example I recently read an argument on a YouTube video which made brief mention of the gas chambers, and again, several people claiming that the gas chambers never really existed and it was all fake.

So, I just want to throw this whole subject out there for discussion and see what response it gets. Are more of you sharing this opinion, and if not, what're your feelings on the matter?
 

Yaffle

Volunteer Moderator
Yaffle
Quite bizarre.

It's one thing to argue the existence or otherwise of events in antiquity (the Biblical Great Flood for example) as there are no contemporaneous notes about them. It's another to argue when there are endless first person accounts, films, documents (I worked on part of the dormant account tracing exercise in Switzerland years ago) that surround this particularly awful part of human history.

Denying the existence of something does not make it vanish or any less real. Try denying the existence of the sun for a while. It may work overnight, but...
 

glynie

glynie
Yaffle said:
Try denying the existence of the sun for a while. It may work overnight, but...
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lol aye.

Actually I've pretty much just finished going over that link you posted. That guy is mental. I dunno how people could believe his nonsense...but what troubles me more is why anyone would want to believe him! What's the agenda there? Why would you choose to believe the holocaust didn't happen when it's not only such a ridiculous idea to deny it but also it's such an utterly offensive and perverse attitude to have?
 

Iskariot

Iskariot
glynie said:
What do you guys make of this?

Personally I believe the Holocaust did happen. I've visited the Auschwitz camp that still stands. It was a harrowing and sobering experience. However I was showing Schindler's List to a friend recently whom had never seen it, and I don't remember precisely why but we decided to google one particular element of the story afterwards. One link led to another and before we knew it, we were reading a page somewhere which claimed that basically the genocide (the whole notion of mass extermination of people using gas chambers) was faked.

Anyway, I found the whole thing offensive. It seems to me that not only is it grossly disrespectful to make claims like that if they aren't true, but trying to fake something like that in the first place would require the cooperation of countless people - lies upon lies - that it would be a giant conspiracy and the camp I visited had some kind of hidden agenda to create the deception. It seems ridiculous to me...yet this whole idea seems to be gaining momentum. Occasionally I'll see someone saying the same thing. For example I recently read an argument on a YouTube video which made brief mention of the gas chambers, and again, several people claiming that the gas chambers never really existed and it was all fake.

So, I just want to throw this whole subject out there for discussion and see what response it gets. Are more of you sharing this opinion, and if not, what're your feelings on the matter?
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Holocaust deniers mostly all have the same type of depraved disgusting ultra right political views or agendas, are anti-Semitic, or are just simply stark raving mad.
 
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Cotic

Cotic
glynie said:
lol aye.

Actually I've pretty much just finished going over that link you posted. That guy is mental. I dunno how people could believe his nonsense...but what troubles me more is why anyone would want to believe him! What's the agenda there? Why would you choose to believe the holocaust didn't happen when it's not only such a ridiculous idea to deny it but also it's such an utterly offensive and perverse attitude to have?
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Intelligence (or a lack thereof) is cited as the primary reason for conspiracy theorists falling for the tripe that they do. They simply have this inability to to see the leaps of logic people employ in their theories.
It's certainly a strange phenomenon, they like to think they fall into the "question everything" group but then adhere to a single theory as though their life depends on it.
 
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Surfinjo

Surfinjo
That there was mass murder of civilians on an industrial scale during WW2 is a matter of historical fact. The evidence is perhaps more conclusive than most historical events.

The problem comes with the politicisation of these disgraceful events. Emotive terms such as Holocaust for example. Worse, the application of the term 'Belief' which necessarily involves an aspect of faith. There is no need for any faith to accept the reality of the WW2 mass murders, just common sense.

In the last 50 years there have been several instances of similar mass murders, including Cambodia, Rwanda, Sudan and the Balkans. Yet none have received anything like the notoriety as has been rightly attributed to the mass murders of WW2

But for my part, what I find especially appalling is the way so many countries have adopted Holocaust day to remember the disgusting murders of Jews in WW2, yet scant mention, if any, of the 20 million non-Jews.

We are destined to repeat what we fail to remember. The last 50 years seems to bear that out.

http://hmd.org.uk/
 

Arry

Arry
It happened, I don't need to be convinced. My granddad was one of the 1st allied soldiers into one of the camps; he had a film and photos. At the age of about 10, I had been naughty, stealing food from the pantry and said I was hungry. So he showed me the film, about 20 minutes. Will never forget it.

Those that try to pretend these things did not happen, are just lying to themselves and others. Normally to try and justify raciest beliefs and actions.
 

Hell Razor5543

H
Channel 4 showed a film called "Night Will Fall" that had footage from when the camps were liberated. Truly harrowing. Channel 4 also did something I have not seen them do before; no advertisement breaks. If I had my way every person show have to watch it at least once, to see what humanity is capable of, and to make sure it cannot happen again. I have seen it twice, and it hurt just as much on the second viewing.

I have found a link to one version of the film;

http://documentaryheaven.com/night-will-fall/
 
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Soliluna

Soliluna
What is weird about holocaust denial, is that in some areas it is a crime to deny it.

If ever there was a way to make the denial seem plausible - that is it.

People being imprisoned and fined for a thoughtcrime, it's laughable. Particularly if you consider that people were locked up because of their beliefs or thoughts during the War, beliefs and thoughts ranging from political affiliation (like being a Socialist) to religious beliefs. It sounds like the type of law you might hear being used in North Korea. Forcing people to accept a viewpoint or be imprisoned regardless of whether the viewpoint is widely accepted is pretty barbaric. Is it not enough to educate or shun the people doing it? Sending them to prison and fining them though? Pathetic.

It's also a pathetic concept, that gets far too much attention - much like the wars themselves. Right now, thousands of people are dying around the world and people don't lift a finger to do anything about it, crimes on a smaller scale but similar in the sadism and evil required to commit them are being perpetrated constantly and have been constantly since we existed yet most people do absolutely nothing - except maybe talk about it like we do here or buy a pin to wear on Remembrance day. "Remembrance days" are the worst. We seriously need a day to remember such a significant event in history? To honour and mourn our lost friends, family, countrymen and worldly brothers and sisters? We can't do that everyday? Madness.

Right now there is a racist egotist running for President of the US, displaying worrying similar views to that of Hitler and his co-conspirators. Wanting to tag all Muslims in a database - wanting to build a wall to separate his people from those of central and Southern America. At what point do we draw a line as a society and say "No" to these types of extreme views?

The fact that such extreme nationalist views are supported in the mainstream by a presidential candidate while people are being fined and imprisoned for denying the holocaust in other countries in the "West" is hilariously ironic - but also incredibly scary. Obviously I wouldn't expect Trump or even Cruz to be locked up or fined for their draconian and bizarre ideologies but I would expect people to band together and commit to preventing someone like Trump from running for any office because of their dangerous and unacceptable world views.

So what do I think of it? I have no doubts that such things were committed, they're committed all the time. We live in a world full of sick and evil psychopaths, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.

But I greatly dislike the celebrations of the term "Holocaust" and special days for remembrance of wars. I think they are racist - the holocaust focusing entirely on the plight of the Jewish people seemingly ignorant to the other half that were systematically executed - the other ethnic groups, the homosexuals, the other religious communities, the disabled, Slavs, Socialists, Jehovas Witnesses etc. Similarly with the wars - we remember and celebrate people who died only in wars that we were involved in and see the need to do this on particular days of the year - as if the rest of our calendar is too busy and the rest of the world too unimportant for us to offer them our thoughts.
 

Patrick_68000

Patrick_68000
I do not know. I was not born and I have not seen directly. But I saw the concentration camp of Natzweiler-Struthof in Alsace (France), and I read the testimonies in the books on Auschwitz and Buchenwald. When I look at the humanity and its atrocities (Bosnia, Rwanda, the massacre of Armenians by the Turks etc ...), I want to believe that the Holocaust has existed

7949168.jpg
 

FuzzySpider

FuzzySpider
Soliluna said:
What is weird about holocaust denial, is that in some areas it is a crime to deny it.

If ever there was a way to make the denial seem plausible - that is it.

People being imprisoned and fined for a thoughtcrime, it's laughable. Particularly if you consider that people were locked up because of their beliefs or thoughts during the War, beliefs and thoughts ranging from political affiliation (like being a Socialist) to religious beliefs. It sounds like the type of law you might hear being used in North Korea. Forcing people to accept a viewpoint or be imprisoned regardless of whether the viewpoint is widely accepted is pretty barbaric. Is it not enough to educate or shun the people doing it? Sending them to prison and fining them though? Pathetic.

It's also a pathetic concept, that gets far too much attention - much like the wars themselves. Right now, thousands of people are dying around the world and people don't lift a finger to do anything about it, crimes on a smaller scale but similar in the sadism and evil required to commit them are being perpetrated constantly and have been constantly since we existed yet most people do absolutely nothing - except maybe talk about it like we do here or buy a pin to wear on Remembrance day. "Remembrance days" are the worst. We seriously need a day to remember such a significant event in history? To honour and mourn our lost friends, family, countrymen and worldly brothers and sisters? We can't do that everyday? Madness.

Right now there is a racist egotist running for President of the US, displaying worrying similar views to that of Hitler and his co-conspirators. Wanting to tag all Muslims in a database - wanting to build a wall to separate his people from those of central and Southern America. At what point do we draw a line as a society and say "No" to these types of extreme views?

The fact that such extreme nationalist views are supported in the mainstream by a presidential candidate while people are being fined and imprisoned for denying the holocaust in other countries in the "West" is hilariously ironic - but also incredibly scary. Obviously I wouldn't expect Trump or even Cruz to be locked up or fined for their draconian and bizarre ideologies but I would expect people to band together and commit to preventing someone like Trump from running for any office because of their dangerous and unacceptable world views.

So what do I think of it? I have no doubts that such things were committed, they're committed all the time. We live in a world full of sick and evil psychopaths, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.

But I greatly dislike the celebrations of the term "Holocaust" and special days for remembrance of wars. I think they are racist - the holocaust focusing entirely on the plight of the Jewish people seemingly ignorant to the other half that were systematically executed - the other ethnic groups, the homosexuals, the other religious communities, the disabled, Slavs, Socialists, Jehovas Witnesses etc. Similarly with the wars - we remember and celebrate people who died only in wars that we were involved in and see the need to do this on particular days of the year - as if the rest of our calendar is too busy and the rest of the world too unimportant for us to offer them our thoughts.
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The Holocaust is especially troubling because it tells of a time, a time that is within the lifetimes of people alive and well today, when an entire race nearly became extinct in Europle because of hatred. It tells us of industrialized disposal of human life on an unimaginable scale, all done by ordinary people who showed up to work in the morning and went home to their families in the evening. It's a powerful cautionary tale about the power of propaganda, and the fact that, no matter how enlightened and technologically advanced a civilization might be, they are still capable of degenerating into a culture of monsters given the right sort of influence.

It wasn't just the actual killings that were horrific, it was the entire process that surrounded it. The crushing of Jewish gravestones to make gravel for driveways, the mass graves, or the use of Jewish people for scientific experiments. In this place, and at this time, certain people were no longer even thought of as people. They were either used or their lives ended and their remnants discarded, in an attempt to completely obliterate them from history as if they had never existed.

That is pretty unique. Genocides happen, invasions and attrocities. War crimes are committed to this day by our own countries. But we're not out to make entire cultures disappear.

To deny this happened is basically to deny the terrible evil that befell millions of people in Europe for whom humanity failed, and calling that a crime is no bad thing as far as I am concerned.
 

Mephane

Mephane
Surfinjo said:
But for my part, what I find especially appalling is the way so many countries have adopted Holocaust day to remember the disgusting murders of Jews in WW2, yet scant mention, if any, of the 20 million non-Jews.
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Part of the reason for that is that some of these groups have been persecuted or discriminated against in other countries and even after WW2. For example (link to wikipedia, forums censors one word and thus breaks the link):
  • People who are homosexual.
  • Communists and anyone else with a strongly left-wing political opinion.
  • Physically or mentally disabled people.
  • And a group that was in particular low regard even among the victims imprisoned inside the concentration camps: the so-called "asocial" ("Asoziale" (plural) in German, a term the     s either coin themselves or at least used abundantly), i.e. people who were long-term unemployed.
  • etc.


Still today there lies a stigma on most of these categories. Homophobia still hasn't been completely overcome and they cannot even marry in most places in the world. "Communist" is still used as an insult in some countries. The unemployed are still widely regarded as lazy* and deserving of their plight (and if you prove otherwise, you quickly end up being sorted into the "communist" category).

(*Heck, even if all the prejudice were based in fact, if they were really "just lazy" and it were "their own fault", I still reject the idea that this would justify the way they are often treated, which ranges from kafkaesque at the benign end to totally inhumane on the other end of the scale.)

The memory of the concentration camps puts a mirror in front of all of us, because these very atrocities were justified with prejudice that still prevails today.
 
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