True? False? The Holocaust? - ProvokatoR magazine

True? False? The Holocaust?

on 10-05-2007 03:59

Published in : , Politics

by Allen Middlebrooks

We all alter, doctor, deny, embellish or even fabricate the truth at times. But the adulteration of an authenticated and accepted truth can be far more alarming. Most scandalizing is when it concerns the forced relocation or attempted elimination of an entire population.

From Madrid to Moscow, the mid 1930s to late 1940s were witness to the forced expulsion, enslavement, torture and slaughter of tens of millions. That this occurred for citizens and soldiers, innocent and involved, to peoples of arbitrary nationality is certain. Accepted as truth by most of the world is the persistent pursuit by many members of the Nazi-regime and its apologizers to forever alleviate Europe of the ‘Jewish question’ via the implementation of an organized ‘Final Solution’- the Holocaust.

David Irving

What is apparently becoming increasingly debatable are the levels and limits of these atrocities and the nomenclature appropriate to describe them.

Professionals, utilizing uniform methodology, have a rich tradition of such reevaluation: historical revisionism. This necessary tradition implies a thorough revision of previously acknowledged conclusions based upon the original empirical evidence and any newly discovered facts.

Dissenters of this actuality claim a disproportionate recognition of and retribution for the atrocities enacted by the victorious Allies and liberated peoples, and maintain that the mantle of Holocaust with a capital ‘H’ is misleading and manipulative.

Bradley Smith

David Irving, one of the most prominent, out-spoken Holocaust "revisionists" asserts* that not only have self-taught historians such as himself "successfully destroyed many areas of the [Holocaust] legend," it is the "legend" which has "obscured the truth and [therefore] needs to be dispassionately researched." By who remains uncertain. Both Irving, and Bradley Smith, another publicly vocal revisionist, do not hold degrees in History or any related field, and in the case of the latter, never attended university.

Ten European nations, including the Czech Republic, and Israel, have laws of various severity against Holocaust denial. Turkey’s entry into the EU may be hindered by its refusal to acknowledge the Armenian genocide of WWI. To be sure, fault should be found with the fact that much of the world supports efforts to limit such denial yet fails to push for similar measures condoning the Armenian genocide of the nineteen-teens and twenties. Although some nations, such as France, favor legal recognition of this documented genocide in order for EU membership talks to proceed, many nations, including the US and UK feel that to do so would harm other "areas of interest".

Beneš Decrees

Before the Czech Republic's entry into the EU was assured, there were inquiries into whether the Beneš Decrees and the expulsion, relocation and murder of Germans in the 1940s, and more importantly, the Czech governments continued refusal to fully condemn it, would present an area of contention. That there remains a certain level of hypocrisy in selective-recognition of genocide (remember Srbenica?) is troubling but to deny that the Holocaust inflicted upon European Jewry and others during WWII did not occur to the magnitude and in the nature of which is widely accepted is erroneous. Sure, one's memories and recollections are based upon subjective insights and perceptions, but a collective past, as documented by verifiable evidence of various forms from independent sources and witnesses, is difficult to dispute.

*http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Dresden/Greek_Interview.html

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