- Holocaust Denial
- This is the claim that the genocide of the Jews during World War II did not occur at all or that the Holocaust did not happen in the way historians have recorded it. Holocaust deniers reject the claim that Nazi Germany had a deliberate policy to exterminate the Jews of Europe or that mechanisms of mass killing, such as gas chambers or death camps, ever existed. Rather, Holocaust deniers claim that the Nazi concept of the Final Solution meant only the emigration of the Jews, not their annihilation. Referring to the Holocaust as a hoax, they deny that six million Jews were killed during the war, and claim that the Diary of Anne Frank is a forgery. Holocaust deniers view the Holocaust as part of a Jewish conspiracy to advance the interest of Jews, such as using the Holocaust to justify the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East, and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. For this reason, Holocaust denial is generally considered to be anti-Semitic. The motivation for Holocaust denial may be to rehabilitate the image of Adolf Hitler and his ideology of Aryan superiority. To prove that the Holocaust was a fabrication would restore not only Hitler to his rightful place in history but also racial theory as a legitimate subject for public discourse.In the United States, Willis Carto was a leading figure in the thenpostwar Holocaust denial movement. In 1969, he founded Noontide Press, which published The Myth of the Six Million by David Hoggan, the first major book stating that the Holocaust was a lie promoted by a Jewish-led conspiracy. Noontide Press soon became the major publisher of anti-Semitic, Holocaust denial, and racist literature in the United States. Professional historians criticize the methodology of the Holocaust deniers as being based on a predetermined conclusion that ignores extensive historical evidence to the contrary.
Historical dictionary of the Holocaust. Jack R. Fischel. 2014.
