Editing Holocaust denial (section)

==Reactions to Holocaust denial==
In 2022, the [[United Nations]] adopted a resolution aimed at combating Holocaust denial and antisemitism. The resolution was proposed by Germany and Israel.<ref>{{Cite news |date=January 20, 2022 |title=UN defines Holocaust denial in new resolution |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60072506 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |archive-date=March 24, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220324224821/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60072506 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Scholars===
{{See also|Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt}}
Scholarly response to Holocaust denial can be roughly divided into three categories. Some academics refuse to engage Holocaust deniers or their arguments at all, on grounds that doing so lends them unwarranted legitimacy.<ref>{{cite book |author-link1=Wilhelm Heitmeyer |first1=Wilhelm |last1=Heitmeyer |first2=John |last2=Hagan |title=International Handbook of Violence Research |publisher=Springer |year=2003}}</ref> The second group of scholars, typified by the American historian [[Deborah Lipstadt]], have tried to raise awareness of the methods and motivations of Holocaust denial without legitimizing the deniers themselves. "We need not waste time or effort answering the deniers' contentions," Lipstadt wrote. "It would be never-ending.... Their commitment is to an ideology and their 'findings' are shaped to support it."<ref>Deborah Lipstadt, 1992 interview with Ken Stern of the American Jewish Committee</ref> A third group, typified by the [[Nizkor Project]], responds to arguments and claims made by Holocaust denial groups by pointing out inaccuracies and errors in their evidence.<ref name=66-q&a>{{cite web|title=Holocaust denial – The IHR's Questions & Answers, and Nizkor's Responses|url=http://www.nizkor.org/features/qar/qar00.html|work=[[Nizkor Project]]|access-date=September 28, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202230742/http://www.nizkor.org/features/qar/qar00.html|archive-date=December 2, 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=Robert L. |last1=Hilliard |first2=Michael C. |last2=Keith |title=Waves of Rancor: tuning in the radical right |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |year=1999 |isbn=0-7656-0131-1 |page=250}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=Daniel |last1=Wolfish |first2=Gordon S. |last2=Smith |title=Who Is Afraid of the State?: Canada in a World of Multiple Centres of Power |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-8020-8388-9 |page=108}}</ref>

In December 1991 the [[American Historical Association]], the oldest and largest society of historians and teachers of history in the United States, issued the following statement: "The American Historical Association Council strongly deplores the publicly reported attempts to deny the fact of the Holocaust. No serious historian questions that the Holocaust took place."<ref name=":0" /> This followed a strong reaction by many of its members and commentary in the press against a near-unanimous decision that the AHA had made in May 1991 that studying the ''significance of the Holocaust'' should be encouraged. The association's May 1991 statement was in response to an incident where certain of its members had questioned the reality of the Holocaust. The December 1991 declaration is a reversal of the AHA's earlier stance that the association should not set a precedent by certifying historical facts.<ref name=":0">{{cite web |url=http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/1991/9112/9112RES.CFM |title=AHA Statement on Holocaust Denial |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100201141606/http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/1991/9112/9112RES.CFM |archive-date=February 1, 2010 |publisher=[[American Historical Association]] |access-date=October 11, 2013}}</ref> The AHA has also stated that Holocaust denial is "at best, a form of academic fraud".<ref name="adaaha">{{Cite book |last1=Gerstenfeld |first1=Phyllis B. |last2=Grant |first2=Diana Ruth |title=Crimes of hate: selected readings |publisher=[[SAGE Publications]] |page=190 |year=2004 |isbn=0-7619-2943-6}}</ref>

Literary theorist [[Jean Baudrillard]] described Holocaust denial as "part of the extermination itself".<ref>Golsan, 130</ref> Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner [[Elie Wiesel]], during a 1999 discussion at the [[White House]] in Washington, D.C., called the Holocaust "the most documented tragedy in [[recorded history]]. Never before has a tragedy elicited so much witness from the killers, from the victims and even from the bystanders—millions of pieces here in the museum what you have, all other museums, archives in the thousands, in the millions."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/resources/millennium.html |title=Millennium Evening with Elie Wiesel |work=[[PBS]] |date= April 12, 1999 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405050622/https://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/resources/millennium.html |archive-date=April 5, 2023}}</ref>

Deborah Lipstadt's 1993 book, ''[[Denying the Holocaust]]'', sharply criticized various Holocaust deniers, including British author [[David Irving]], for deliberately misrepresenting evidence to justify their preconceived conclusions. In the book, Lipstadt named Irving as "one of the more dangerous" Holocaust deniers, because he was a published author, and was viewed by some as a legitimate military historian. He was "familiar with historical evidence", she wrote, and "bends it until it conforms with his ideological leanings and political agenda". In 1996, Irving filed a libel suit against Lipstadt and her publisher, [[Penguin Books]]. Irving, who appeared as a defense witness in [[Ernst Zündel]]'s [[R. v. Zundel|trial]] in Canada, and once declared at a rally of Holocaust deniers that "more women died in the [[Chappaquiddick incident|back seat of Edward Kennedy's car]] than ever died in a gas chamber at [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]]",<ref>{{cite web |title=Irving v. Lipstadt |url=http://www.hdot.org/trial |website=Holocaust Denial on Trial |access-date=September 29, 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100927204545/http://www.hdot.org/trial |archive-date=September 27, 2010}}</ref> claimed that Lipstadt's allegation damaged his reputation. American historian [[Christopher Browning]], an expert witness for the defense, wrote a comprehensive essay for the court summarizing the voluminous evidence for the reality of the Holocaust, and under cross-examination, effectively countered all of Irving's principal arguments to the contrary.[96] [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] historian [[Richard J. Evans]], another defense expert witness, spent two years examining Irving's writings and confirmed his misrepresentations, including evidence that he had knowingly used forged documents as source material. After a two-month trial in London the trial judge, [[Charles Gray (judge)|Justice Charles Gray]], issued a 333-page ruling against Irving, which referred to him as a "Holocaust denier" and "right-wing pro-Nazi polemicist".<ref>{{cite web |last=Bazyler |first=Michael J. |title=Holocaust Denial Laws and Other Legislation Criminalizing Promotion of Nazism |url=http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/insights/pdf/bazyler.pdf |website=International Institute for Holocaust Studies |publisher=[[Yad Vashem]] |access-date=September 29, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111105153114/http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/insights/pdf/bazyler.pdf |archive-date=November 5, 2011}}</ref>

[[Ken McVay]], an American resident in Canada, was disturbed by the efforts of organizations like the [[Simon Wiesenthal Center]] to suppress the speech of the Holocaust deniers, feeling that it was better to confront them openly than to try to censor them. On the [[Usenet]] newsgroup ''alt.revisionism'' he began a campaign of "truth, fact, and evidence", working with other participants on the newsgroup to uncover factual information about the Holocaust and counter the arguments of the deniers by proving them to be based upon misleading evidence, false statements, and outright lies. He founded the [[Nizkor Project]] to expose the activities of the Holocaust deniers, who responded to McVay with personal attacks, slander, and death threats.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.protocol.gov.bc.ca/protocol/prgs/obc/1995/1995_KMcVay.htm|website=Order of British Columbia |title=Biography: Kenneth McVay |access-date=June 30, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516081625/http://www.protocol.gov.bc.ca/protocol/prgs/obc/1995/1995_KMcVay.htm |archive-date=May 16, 2008 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Public figures===
A number of public figures have spoken out against Holocaust denial. In 2006, UN Secretary-General [[Kofi Annan]] said: "Remembering is a necessary rebuke to those who say the Holocaust never happened or has been exaggerated. Holocaust denial is the work of bigots; we must reject their false claims whenever, wherever and by whomever they are made."<ref>{{cite news |work=[[BBC News]] |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4653666.stm |title=Annan condemns Holocaust denial |date=January 2006 |access-date=February 14, 2006 |archive-date=September 6, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170906210833/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4653666.stm |url-status=live}}</ref> In January 2007, the [[United Nations General Assembly]] condemned "without reservation any denial of the Holocaust", though Iran disassociated itself from the resolution.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=21355&Cr=holocaust&Cr1 |title=UN Assembly condemns Holocaust denial by consensus; Iran disassociates itself |work=U.N. News Centre |publisher=[[United Nations]] |date=January 26, 2007 |access-date=June 28, 2017 |archive-date=November 26, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171126010350/http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=21355&Cr=holocaust&Cr1 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In July 2013, Iran's then president-elect Hassan Rohani described Ahmadinejad's remarks about the Holocaust and Israel as "[[hate speech|hate]] rhetoric"<ref>{{cite news |agency=DPA |date=July 7, 2013 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.534337 |title=Ahmadinejad touts Holocaust denial as great success of his tenure |newspaper=[[Haaretz]] |access-date=March 23, 2014 |archive-date=July 17, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150717185816/http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.534337 |url-status=live}}</ref> and in September 2013 [[Hassan Rouhani|Rohani]] stated that "The Nazis carried out a massacre that cannot be denied, especially against the Jewish people" and "The massacre by the Nazis was condemnable. We never want to sit by side with the Nazis...They committed a crime against Jews — which is a crime against ... all of humanity."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/25/20693723-irans-rouhani-on-holocaust-a-massacre-that-cannot-be-denied |title=Iran's Rouhani on Holocaust: 'A massacre that cannot be denied' |first1=Andrea |last1=Mitchell |first2=Tracy |last2=Connor |work=[[NBC News]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130927154909/http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/25/20693723-irans-rouhani-on-holocaust-a-massacre-that-cannot-be-denied |archive-date=September 27, 2013}}</ref> While declining to give a specific number of Jewish victims, Iranian analysts suggested that "Rouhani pushed the envelope as far as it could go ... without infuriating the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other conservatives back home."{{R|Saeed Kamali Dehghan}}

===Former Auschwitz SS personnel===
Critics of Holocaust denial also include members of the [[SS-Totenkopfverbände|Auschwitz SS]]. Camp physician and SS-''[[Untersturmführer]]'' [[Hans Münch]] considered the facts of Auschwitz "so firmly determined that one cannot have any doubt at all", and described those who negate what happened at the camp as "malevolent" people who have "personal interest to want to bury in silence things that cannot be buried in silence".<ref>Frankfurter, Bernhard. ''Die Begegnung. Auschwitz-Ein Opfer und ein Täter im Gespräch''. Vienna, Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, 1995, p. 102. cited in [[Robert Jan van Pelt|Jan van Pelt, Robert]]. ''The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial''. [[Indiana University Press]], 2002, p. 291.</ref> [[Zyklon B]] handler and SS-''[[Oberscharführer]]'' [[Josef Klehr]] said that anyone who maintains that nobody was gassed at Auschwitz must be "crazy or in the wrong".<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Demant |editor-first=Ebbo |title=Auschwitz&nbsp;– "Direkt von der Rampe weg...." Kaduk, Erber, Klehr: Drei Täter geben zu Protokoll |language=de |trans-title=Auschwitz&nbsp;- "Straight from the ramp..." Kaduk, Erber, Klehr: Three perpetrators testify |page=114 |location=Hamburg |publisher=Rowohlt |date=1979 |isbn=3-499-14438-7}}</ref> SS-''Unterscharführer'' [[Oswald Kaduk]] stated that he did not consider those who maintain such a thing as normal people.<ref>''Drei Deutsche Mörder. Aufzeichnungen über die Banalität des Bösen'', Germany 1998 (filmed in 1978). Directed by Ebbo Demant, produced by [[Südwestrundfunk]].</ref> Hearing about Holocaust denial compelled former SS-''[[Rottenführer]]'' [[Oskar Gröning]] to publicly speak about what he witnessed at Auschwitz, and denounce Holocaust deniers,{{sfn|Rees|2005|p=300}} stating:

{{blockquote|I would like you to believe me. I saw the gas chambers. I saw the crematoria. I saw the open fires. I was on the ramp when the selections took place. I would like you to believe that these atrocities happened because I was there.{{sfn|Rees|2005|p=301}}<ref name="Online 2005">{{cite news |title=An SS Officer Remembers: The Bookkeeper from Auschwitz |newspaper=[[Der Spiegel]] |date=May 9, 2005 |url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/an-ss-officer-remembers-the-bookkeeper-from-auschwitz-a-355188.html |access-date=April 22, 2016 |archive-date=March 2, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070302085046/http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,355188,00.html |url-status=live}}</ref>}}

===Holocaust denial and antisemitism===
Holocaust denial is given as an example of antisemitism in the [[Working Definition of Antisemitism]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Holocaust Remembrance Press Release |url=https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/sites/default/files/press_release_document_antisemitism.pdf |publisher=Romanian Chairmanship |date=May 26, 2016 |access-date=April 15, 2018 |archive-date=October 24, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171024070944/https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/sites/default/files/press_release_document_antisemitism.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref> adopted by the [[International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance]] as well as the United Kingdom, Israel, Austria, Scotland, Romania, Germany and Bulgaria. The European Parliament voted in favor of a resolution calling for member states to adopt the definition on June 1, 2017.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/EU-Parliament-votes-in-favor-of-adopting-antisemitism-definition-494479 |title=EU Parliament votes in favor of adopting antisemitism definition |work=[[The Jerusalem Post]] |date=June 2017 |access-date=February 24, 2019 |archive-date=July 18, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180718001345/https://www.jpost.com//Diaspora/EU-Parliament-votes-in-favor-of-adopting-antisemitism-definition-494479 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Fact Sheet: Working Definition of Antisemitism |url=https://holocaustremembrance.com/sites/default/files/fcat_sheet_working_definition_of_antisemitism.pdf |publisher=[[International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance]] |date=October 24, 2017 |access-date=August 17, 2020 |archive-date=July 13, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180713161250/http://holocaustremembrance.com/sites/default/files/fcat_sheet_working_definition_of_antisemitism.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.momentmag.com/defining-anti-semitism-conversation-eu-coordinator-combating-anti-semitism/ |title=Defining Anti-Semitism: A Conversation With the EU Coordinator on Combating Anti-Semitism |date=June 28, 2017 |access-date=April 15, 2018 |archive-date=June 18, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180618025721/https://www.momentmag.com/defining-anti-semitism-conversation-eu-coordinator-combating-anti-semitism/ |url-status=dead}}</ref>

The ''Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity'' defines Holocaust denial as "a new form of anti-Semitism, but one that hinges on age-old motifs".<ref name=EGCAH45>{{cite book |quote=Holocaust denial is a new form of anti-Semitism, but one that hinges on age-old motifs. |first=Dinah |last=Shelton |title=Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity |publisher=Macmillan Reference |date=2005 |page=45}}</ref> The [[Anti-Defamation League]] has stated that "Holocaust denial is a contemporary form of the classic anti-Semitic doctrine of the evil, manipulative and threatening world Jewish conspiracy"<ref name=ADLguide>{{cite web |url=http://www.adl.org/Holocaust/theory.asp |title=Introduction: Denial as Anti-Semitism |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604020743/http://www.adl.org/holocaust/theory.asp |archive-date=June 4, 2011 |website=Holocaust Denial: An Online Guide to Exposing and Combating Anti-Semitic Propaganda |publisher=[[Anti-Defamation League]] |access-date=August 27, 2009}}</ref> and French historian [[Valérie Igounet]] has written that "Holocaust denial is a convenient polemical substitute for anti-semitism."<ref name=Igounet>{{cite news |last=Igounet |first=Valérie |url=http://mondediplo.com/1998/05/08igou |title=Holocaust denial is part of a strategy |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190613014018/https://mondediplo.com/1998/05/08igou |archive-date=June 13, 2019 |work=[[Le Monde diplomatique]] |date=8 May 1998}}</ref>

According to Walter Reich, psychiatrist and then a senior scholar at the [[Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars]], one-time director of the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]], and now professor of international affairs at [[George Washington University]]:

{{blockquote|The primary motivation for most deniers is anti-Semitism, and for them the Holocaust is an infuriatingly inconvenient fact of history. After all, the Holocaust has generally been recognized as one of the most terrible crimes that ever took place, and surely the very emblem of evil in the modern age. If that crime was a direct result of anti-Semitism taken to its logical end, then anti-Semitism itself, even when expressed in private conversation, is inevitably discredited among most people. What better way to rehabilitate anti-Semitism, make anti-Semitic arguments seem once again respectable in civilized discourse and even make it acceptable for governments to pursue anti-Semitic policies than by convincing the world that the great crime for which anti-Semitism was blamed simply never happened—indeed, that it was nothing more than a frame-up invented by the Jews, and propagated by them through their control of the media? What better way, in short, to make the world safe again for anti-Semitism than by denying the Holocaust?<ref name=ReichNYT>{{cite news |last=Reich |first=Walter |author-link=Walter Reich |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/11/books/erasing-the-holocaust.html |title=Erasing the Holocaust |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=July 11, 1993 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230628213512/https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/11/books/erasing-the-holocaust.html |archive-date=June 28, 2023}}</ref>}}

The French historian [[Pierre Vidal-Naquet]] described the motivation of deniers more succinctly, explaining, "One revives the dead in order the better to strike the living."<ref name=Vidal-NaquetMotivations>{{cite book |author-link=Pierre Vidal-Naquet |last=Vidal-Naquet |first=Pierre |url=http://www.anti-rev.org/textes/VidalNaquet92a/part-4.html |chapter=A Paper Eichmann (1980)&nbsp;– Anatomy of a Lie: On the Revisionist Method |title=Assassins of Memory |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |date=1992 |access-date=August 27, 2009 |archive-date=September 5, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180905180131/http://www.anti-rev.org/textes/VidalNaquet92a/part-4.html |url-status=live}}</ref> German political scientist [[Matthias Küntzel]] has argued, "Every denial of the Holocaust... contains an appeal to repeat it."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Küntzel |first1=Matthias |title=Holocaust Denial: The Politics of Perfidy |date=2012 |publisher=[[De Gruyter]] |isbn=978-3-11-028821-6 |language=en |chapter=Judeophobia and the Denial of the Holocaust in Iran}}</ref>