Holocaust Denial & Distortion

Holocaust Denial & Distortion – by Raphael ben Levi

“The Nazi persecution of the Jews began with hateful words and  rhetoric that escalated to discrimination and dehumanisation, and culminated in genocide….The Holocaust shows that when one group is targeted, all people are vulnerable.” (USHMM)

In this session our focus will be on Holocaust denial and distortion, diverse groups of people who prefer to be named revisionists. They claim that even if the Holocaust did take place, the details have been grossly exaggerated. This topic is important for a variety of reasons not least because if revisionists ever gained credibility it could easily become the official narrative in generations to come.

Revisionism is rooted in antisemitism used to discredit Jews and push a  Neo-Nazi agenda that is alive and well in the world today. This movement rose its profile and came out of the shadows in 1980 with the emergence of the Journal of Historical Review and Institute for Historical Review. Since then, alongside many other voices that have aligned themselves to this narrative, it has been publishing articles that combat claims of accuracy regarding the Holocaust.

There are generally two different kinds of deniers: “hard” and “soft”. Hard deniers claim that the Holocaust was a hoax whereas soft deniers acknowledge that some form of atrocity took place, but it has been grossly exaggerated.

Holocaust deniers base many of their claims on three key details: questioning the numbers of Jews slaughtered, the supposed lack of physical evidence outlining direct orders to murder Jews, and that the existence of the gas chambers is a lie. We will be taking a closer look at these claims later on.

Most people think it’s only groups such as white supremacist movements or radical muslim nations and their proxies who deny the Holocaust. Scholars (such as Deborah Lipstadt) discovered that the validity of the Holocaust is questioned by a far greater number of people than this who are an established broad, international movement with “independent” research centres.

How is it possible that such movements exist and even legitimised (eg, by the SA gov) given the overwhelming evidence supporting the historicity of the Holocaust?The whole conspiracy flies in the face of truth-lovers where as one historian commented “…the attempt to deny the Holocaust enlists a basic strategy of distortion. Truth is mixed with absolute lies, confusing readers who are unfamiliar with the tactics of the deniers. Half-truths and story segments, which conveniently avoid critical information, leave the listener with a distorted impression of what really happened. The abundance of documents and testimonies that confirm the Holocaust are dismissed as contrived, coerced, or forgeries and falsehoods.” 

We see an excellent example biblically of “denying” eyewitness testimony in the incident of Yeshua’s healing a man born blind recorded in John 9. The man’s neighbours and others in the crowd were so amazed by the event yet were unwilling to accept his testimony of what Yeshua did so they brought the man to the religious hierarchy for examination. When presented, the man shared his testimony a second time. The remarkable thing was that even though the crowds, neighbours, and family knew that the man’s testimony was true, they still refused to believe his story (cf.,vs.18). They bowed instead to the tyranny of fear and intimidation: “18 The Judeans, however, were unwilling to believe that he had formerly been blind, but now could see, until they had summoned the man’s parents. 19 They asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?” 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind; 21 but how it is that he can see now, we don’t know; nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him — he’s old enough, he can speak for himself!” 22 The parents said this because they were afraid of the Judeans, for the Judeans had already agreed that anyone who acknowledged Yeshua as the Messiah would be banned from the synagogue. 23 This is why his parents said, “He’s old enough, ask him.”

We are here entering the realm where people had to choose between the One who is the Truth against he who is the Father of Lies. What persuades someone to deny the truth and instead embrace a lie ? In the biblical account just mentioned it was rooted in the element of fear and intimidation. But why was the religious hierarchy so determined to reject the truth that Yeshua had healed the blind man when the evidence was overwhelming? Can we begin to see connections here with Holocaust deniers?

Caiaphas the High Priest later summed things up with his famous comment: “50 You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” (John11) Holocaust deniers have a hidden agenda which they will protect and seek to preserve irrespective of whether it is the truth or a lie.

No doubt, there were additional reasons why those who rejected Yeshua didn’t want the event to be true, so they blocked it out. When Yeshua came face-to-face with people who rejected His miracles, even He was shocked (negatively) and, “wondered at their unbelief” (Mark 6:6). How could they look past the evidence and deny the proof that was staring them in the face?

In the same way we begin to see parallels between the rejection of the Holocaust and the rejection of Yeshua as Messiah – two entirely different events connected by one thread – a conscious rejection of the truth. From both a religious and historical perspective, the denial or distortion of history is an assault on truth and understanding. From a believer’s perspective, an assault on the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life are inseparable.

One of the most common responses to those who witnessed the flagrant and public anti-Jewish atrocities committed by the Nazis, was to deny any awareness of it. Others admit that they were powerless to protest it because all forms of protest would have resulted in both themselves and their entire family being shot. It was a very difficult moral position to be placed in and only a very few people had the courage to resist. Lutheran Minister and theologian, MARTIN NIEMÖLLER, captured this perfectly in a famous statement he made: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Ironically, Niemoller was initially a Nazi sympathiser and anti-Semite although this changed following a meeting with Hitler in 1934. He was known to say, “…whenever I chance to meet a Jew known to me …as a Christian, I cannot but tell him: ‘Dear Friend, I stand in front of you, but we can not get together, for there is guilt between us. I have sinned and my people have sinned against your people and against yourself.” (USHMM) 

From a collective and political front, there was no concerted effort by the Allies to rescue the Jews of Europe despite their knowledge of the ‘Final Solution’ and pleas of help, though it would have been a relatively easy thing to do.

Among those who were Holocaust spectators, many were sympathetic to the Nazis in their systematic slaughter of the Jews. Among this group, were those who participated in the Holocaust by default and others who welcomed the frequent financial incentives offered by the Nazis and ended up as economic mercenaries including this who became informers. There was no shortage of people who sought to profit from the dire circumstances of Jews trapped in the Furhrer’s stranglehold. Many cloistered anti-Semites now bragged openly about their affiliations. Others simply kept their heads down in order to lead a quiet life, beaten down by fear, intimidation and threats of severe reprisals by the Nazis for anyone who demonstrated the least sympathy and support towards the Jews. Again, whole families could be shot for just one member who donated the smallest of food provisions. In this sense, we must understand the climate of the times and it begs the question how we would act if faced with the same dilemma? This was an unenviable situation to be involuntarily placed in because to ignore the circumstances was the same as condoning them. As is often quoted, “Evil flourishes when good people do nothing.” The fact remains that the Holocaust could never have been implemented without the active cooperation of other groups and nations and whilst many people were horrified by the Nazi aggression there were plenty of others who were actively complicit.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the easiest way to deal with things from those who participated was to claim they were just following orders, block out the reality or insist that the whole thing was grossly exaggerated. This holds important significance for truth lovers to make sure that future generations will be presented with absolute, full and accurate verifiable information. No wonder that World Jewry has painstakingly collected and preserved all relevant data including first-hand and eye-witness accounts making it by far the most well documented historical event in modern history.

Notwithstanding, one must not neglect seriously examining the claims of Holocaust deniers in order to expose their false narratives. In this sense, knowledge is both power and empowerment.  Holocaust deniers can be basically divided into 4 categories:

▪ White supremacists and the far right, including Neo-Nazis;

▪ Pro-Palestine activists and militant Islamists who oppose the existence of Israel;

▪ Other anti-Semites;

• General conspiracy theorists.

All four groups seek to place their influence to bear through primarily inventing stories of a ‘staged’ Holocaust. Denial, distortion and misuse, relegates the reliability of history to mythology. But, seeing that the Holocaust is one of the most well-documented events in history, what is there to discredit? In almost all cases, these movements are driven entirely by a pathological hatred of Jews – anti-Semitism and build upon the premise that the Holocaust is simply a Jewish conspiracy. This view is nothing new but perpetuates a long-standing anti-Semitic and paranoid stereotype which has been instrumental in laying the groundwork for Jewish persecution throughout history. Their objectives are to reduce public sympathy for Jews, and undermine the legitimacy of the state of Israel which they claim was created as compensation for Jewish suffering during the Holocaust.

Deniers base their views on miscellaneous, loose and unverified statements that question the credibility of the Holocaust without supplying any verifiable alternative. Although the Nazi government tried all means available to hide evidence for mass murder (e.g., tearing down buildings and burning documents), overwhelming evidence remained which could not be concealed, including:

• Diaries and reports from high ranking Nazis such as Goebbels and Himmler that survived the war
• A myriad of reports from the concentration camps by guards and leaders describing the details of the death camps and ‘death vans’
• Public speeches on record from Hitler who made his intentions very clear publicly with regard to the “Jewish Question”
• countless oral and written first-hand testimonies from; 

• Concentration camp prisoners and ‘Sonderkommandos’ (prisoners recruited for corpse disposal)

• Railroad crews, civil servants, commanders and off-site soldiers and civilians

• Allied soldiers from various countries

• Humanitarian expeditions from various countries

• • • • • Testimonies from German soldiers collected by historians. Many thousands of German officers and guards were stationed at the camps in Poland, who were actively complicit with exterminating the Jews. Among those who were sent to trial, the majority confessed or testified to mass murder.

Death Toll and Census Data

Holocaust distortionists claim that the Jewish death toll in the Holocaust was significantly less than the six million contrary to the figure universally accepted by historians and academics and rather insist that the number was instead only around 300,000! According to censuses, there were about 6 million more Jews in Europe in early 1942 than there were at the German surrender in 1945.

The unthinkable event known as the ‘Holocaust’ has posed a challenge to theologians and philosophers. How to adequately define and effectively convey the full horror of it meaningfully and articulately has been unsuccessful because of the impossibility to relate to something which is unrelatable or to articulate something that is incomprehensible. Stalin once said that at the death of only a small handful of people, it is a tragedy, but when 20 million it is reduced to a statistic. The challenge for world Jewry is to raise the Holocaust above a statistic because to fail in this is to leave the door open for history to repeat itself. 

It is a sad reality that there are various evangelical thinkers who attempt to place Holocaust denial within a theological framework as a means to sanitise and even legitimise it. This group of pseudo-theologians distort Scripture to fit their mould yet still claim to be ‘born-again’ Christians. Sometimes, one can simply dismiss outrageous distortions made by such people as harmless, but here we find something fundamentally different bearing all the hallmarks of satanic deception.

These people attempt to add a spiritual dimension to Holocaust denial in order to make it appear credible to those without a knowledge base to check its validity. They state that Yeshua is the only path to salvation, yet are openly anti-Semitic and claim that Jews who believe they are God’s chosen covenant people are the true racists. Many claim that the 6 million number of Jews who perished in the Holocaust is a number chosen arbitrarily taken from Kabbalah, (a Jewish book of mysticism), which must be interpreted symbolically not literally. So too, it is with other historical events like the Six-Day War, the six-pointed Star of David (a satanic symbol), and the six main supposed death camps which they claim to be a “Holocaust myth.” According to them, people should not be surprised that Jews would lie. After all, Scripture states that, “who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ,” (1John 2:22) and claim that Jews are chief among liars. Therefore, it is not surprising that they did not hesitate to invent the Holocaust as well. 

The misappropriation of truth used by those who call themselves Christian Holocaust deniers is often creatively employed through combining false logic with half truth. For example, they claim that “…the real Holocaust… the real burnt offering is going to be when all of these Jews who don’t believe in Jesus Christ go to hell for eternity. That’s the oven that they ought to be worried about.” The statement is a truism that compares apples with pears, taking the Word of God totally out of context. It is alarming that those who identify as theologically-centred Holocaust deniers are gaining influence within several Christian movements, denominations, and organisations world-wide.

Bearing in mind the history of Christianity is filled with anti-Semitism it is perhaps nonetheless unsurprising yet also a grim contradiction and deception, for biblically it is impossible to love the Lord yet hate the Jewish people.

For centuries, the Christian Church persecuted Jews, crowding them into ghettos, forcing them to convert to Christianity, and implementing pogroms whenever it was expedient or economically convenient. Jews have been accused of ritually murdering Christian children, engaging in sorcery, poisoning wells and desecrating images of Yeshua to name but a few. From as early as the 2nd century AD the Church Fathers taught that all Jews were cursed because they had killed Christ. Although evidence for the Holocaust is overwhelming and universally accepted by historians, numbers are not lacking among supposed Christians who attempt to belie the facts.

I believe that Holocaust denial is just one of the many deceptions which Yeshua prophesied would mark the signs of the end times. Although we should not be surprised by the uprise in anti-Semitism in all its ugliness, we should also consider how we can oppose it firmly in a godly yet uncompromising manner.

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REFLECTIONS

1. What do you think are the motivations of the people who deny that the Holocaust ever took place, or for those who seek to distort the facts (revisionists)?

2. What do you consider are the most effective ways for combating such groups of people?

3. Imagine that you were a witness as a local resident living close to a concentration camp. Describe your feelings and how you would deal with the situation.

4. How could such a mass programme for the extermination of the Jews have been kept secret from those who were its victims?

5. Give some examples of false comparisons which Holocaust deniers use to promote their views.

6. What confidence can we have that in another hundred years history books will not be rewritten to support those who claim that the Holocaust was a myth?

7. What do you consider to be the most dangerous: Holocaust denial or Holocaust distortions? Explain.

8. How would you respond to those who murdered Jews in the Holocaust who claim they were only following orders?

9. Holocaust deniers have a hidden agenda which they will protect and seek to preserve against all opposition irrespective of whether it is the truth or a lie. What do you think it may be?