Holocaust Deniers Gather in Iran

From the pages of The New York Times

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Holocaust Deniers and Skeptics Gather in Iran


TEHRAN, Dec. 11 — Holocaust deniers and skeptics from around the world gathered at a government-sponsored conference here today to discuss their theories about whether six million Jews were indeed killed by the Nazis during World War II and whether gas chambers existed.

In a speech opening the two-day conference, Rasoul Mousavi, head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Institute for Political and International Studies, which organized the event, said it was an opportunity for scholars to discuss the subject “away from Western taboos and the restriction imposed on them in Europe.”

The foreign ministry had said that 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries were scheduled to take part. Among those speaking today are David Duke, the American white-supremacist politician and former Ku Klux Klan leader, and Georges Thiel, a French writer who has been prosecuted in France over his denials of the Holocaust.

Mr. Duke’s remarks late this afternoon are expected to assert that no gas chambers or extermination camps were actually built during the war, on the ground that killing Jews that way would have been much too bothersome and expensive when the Nazis could have used much simpler methods, according to an advance summary of his speech published by the institute.

“Depicting Jews as the overwhelming victims of the Holocaust gave the moral high ground to the Allies as victors of the war, and allowed Jews to establish a state on the occupied land of Palestine,” Mr. Duke’s paper says, according to the summary.

One of the first scheduled speakers, Robert Faurisson of France, also called the Holocaust a myth created to justify the occupation of Palestine.

The conference is being held at the behest of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who likewise called the Holocaust a myth last year, and repeated a well-known slogan from the early days of the 1979 revolution in Iran, “Israel must be wiped off the map.” He has spoken several times since then about a need to establish whether the Holocaust actually happened.

Most of the speakers at the conference today praised Mr. Ahmadinejad’s comments.

Bendikt Frings, 48, a psychologist from Germany, said he believed Mr. Ahmadinejad was “an honest direct man,” and said he had come to the conference to thank him for what he had initiated.

“We are forbidden to have such a conference in Germany,” he said. “ All my childhood, we waited for something like this.”

Toben Feredrick, from Australia, said Mr. Ahmadinejad has opened an issue “which is morally and intellectually crippling the Western society.”

“People are imprisoned in Germany for denying the Holocaust,” he added.

Mr. Feredrick said he was jailed for six months in 1999 because of his ideas, and that a court in Germany has ordered him arrested if he speaks out publicly again denying that the Holocaust took place.

Other Western “revisionists” presented what they called new facts about the Holocaust at the conference, which also attracted attendees from some ultra-Orthodox Jews belonging to anti-Zioinst sects that reject the state of Israel. One participant wearing the traditional long black coat and hat of such groups wore a badge saying: “A Jew, not a Zionist.”

It was not entirely clear how the lineup of speakers at the conference was set. The Institute’s website had invited scholars and researchers to submit papers in advance for consideration, but revealed little about how they were evaluated. The Iranian foreign ministry also provided little information about participants, saying that it feared they would be prosecuted by their home countries.

The conference included an exhibition today of various photos, posters and other material meant to contradict the accepted version of events, that the Nazis murdered millions of Jews and other “undesirables” in death camps during the war. New captions in Persian on some familiar photos of corpses at the camps argued that they were victims of typhus, not the German state.

Anti-Zionist literature, including a 2004 book by the American author Michael Collins Piper, about Zionist influence in America, was offered for sale to visitors at the conference. So, apparently, was a video recording of 12 Holocaust survivors telling their stories, suggesting that the views represented at the conference may not have been entirely one-sided.

The conference prompted outrage in the West. The German government summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires in Berlin to complain. The French Foreign Minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, warned that the conference would be strongly condemned if it propagated claims denying the Holocaust.

Iran also organized an exhibition last summer of cartoons about the Holocaust, which outraged Jews inside Iran and out.

Iranian Jewish leaders reacted angrily to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust-denying comments last year, issuing a statement saying that his words were spreading fear among Jews in Iran.

“We consider the Holocaust as a fact and a disgrace for humanity,” Haround Yashayai, a leading voice among Iranian Jews, said today. “We cannot say that such a conference cannot be held here. We have condemned similar events in the past, and see no reason to condemn it again.”

Can you believe this? How can people deny something as terrible as the Nazi's genocidal actions?

Writing off minor bits of history is one thing, but claiming that 6 million Jews died of other means and not because the Nazis wanted them dead is outrageously ignorant.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

When a debate can't take place somewhere, it usually ends up taking place elsewhere. Same fucking thing, except you don't have any control over it anymore.

Denying Holocaust is a crime in my country. You can't even publish a book hinting at it. What this means to me is that having an objective point of view on that topic is impossible.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

What do you mean by having an objective point of view on that topic? It's a fact that the holocaust happened. The only alternative point of view would be denial.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

If you can't make hypothetical considerations of this kind (which I think could be interpreted as "hinting at"), then you are hampering objectivity.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Rock

What do you mean by having an objective point of view on that topic? It's a fact that the holocaust happened. The only alternative point of view would be denial.

lol, manicheism.

I don't even want to enter the debate itself as, again, both you and I have only one voice telling us what happened and how. I'm just saying the fact the "what" and "how" are not arguable makes our Democratic countries look bad. I wish we could just leave all history to historians.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I heard an Iranian ambassador say something along the lines of "We are testing the belief that the Holocaust occurred, and that if it did, exactly how many jews died in it's duration." So they aren't denying that it occurred outright, because otherwise they wouldn't entertain the possibility that it did in fact happen. I think they are contesting the figures too. People never seem to recall the huge numbers of gypsies, homosexuals, africans and other ethnicities that also perished in the death-camps.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by niki

I don't even want to enter the debate itself as, again, both you and I have only one voice telling us what happened and how. I'm just saying the fact the "what" and "how" are not arguable makes our Democratic countries look bad. I wish we could just leave all history to historians.

Outright denial and arguing the "what" and "how" are two entirely different things, though.

I still refuse to see how denying the holocaust is synomymous to an objective point of view.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Rock

I still refuse to see how denying the holocaust is synomymous to an objective point of view.

I just said that the fact it is forbidden to have any stance differing from the official one on this issue is indeed damaging the objectivity any intellectually honest person could have on said issue.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

...Wow..

I've heard of Holocaust deniers but...what about the people who survived those concentration camps? Were they disillusioned? Were they lying? To me, that's really hard to accept...

Anyway, I'm a strong believer that the Holocaust did happen. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of the prisoners in the concentration camps died by starvation and typhus rather than gas chambers and firing squads, but I don't understand how others can see and think otherwise. Still, I'd like to read some papers and explanations why the Holocaust didn't happen according to our history.

How ya doing, buddy?

niki, I understand what you're saying, and I don't think that it should be illegal for anyone anywhere to be as loud as they want to discount the Holocaust.

But that's so besides the point now. Do you actually believe that the Holocaust didn't happen?

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Hachifusa

niki, I understand what you're saying, and I don't think that it should be illegal for anyone anywhere to be as loud as they want to discount the Holocaust.

But that's so besides the point now. Do you actually believe that the Holocaust didn't happen?

How is that beside the point?

And if I have to fucking write it for you brain rapists: No, I don't think the Holocaust didn't happen.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Also, the distinction between a death from typhus and a death by gas chamber is completely immaterial. There WERE concentration camps in which lots and lots of people died, and the nazis put people there. It seems to me that either way they're culpable. I mean, sure you can squiggle around to make an argument that perhaps the fact they died indirectly of poor care means the nazis didn't actually commit a hate crime thus somewhat absolving (?) the jews of part of their victimization. But by that point you've as good as admitted that something bad happened, and really only exacerbate the situation by trying to quibble over details.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

If they can get off saying that the Typhus wasn't intentional then the blankets we gave the Indians with smallpox was accidental, too.

I was speaking idiomatically.

true it'll be impossible to get close to life numbers, but the number "widely accepted" is in my opinion a highly exaggerated one. How the holocaust occured will definitely shed some light on the numbers. Yes it has occured, but was it as horrible as it's publicised? Who knows.

REGARDLESS ; not being able to discuss the subject objectively just because some laws prevent the mere mention of it is enough to arouse some suspicion(sp?) in me. Don't you find it corny too? Anything can be debated and argued upon, why not this?

Double Post:
Also, Avalokiteshvara's post is a perfectly sound opinion. This should be viewed with a logical approach no matter what.

Double Post:
Also, Avalokiteshvara's post is a perfectly sound opinion. This should be viewed with a logical approach, not a finger-pointing one, no matter what.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

So are there any transcripts of the conference?

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by BigHairyFeet

What facts or evidence are you basing your numbers on? To me, you sound like someone who hasn't even read into the death camps. You're just putting out vague assertions that aren't backed up with some sort of fact, so read a bit. I'd have to take up what you're saying when you doubt the horror of the holocaust. How can you refute thousands of eye witness accounts from the countries involved, from soldiers, from survivors, and from documentation recovered from the camps, including books which listed inmates who had died (the numbers branded to their arms were recorded), and from gas, a bullet, typhus, etc.?

This is what I find most disturbing:

There could be a huge conspiracy involving more than one million soldiers. There could be corruption and coverups going up all the way to the presidential level. There could be millions of forged documents, and camps built for show. Millions of people could have been spirited away from their homes by these governments, murdered, piled into heaps inside "gas chambers", photographed, and then burned, or lined up above the mass grave they'd just finished digging and been shot in the head, to save them the trouble of lifting you up. There could be thousands of "survivors" (really actors), being paid large sums of money by the Russians and Americans and Poles to lie to the world.

That [i]is[/is] what you're saying, I hope you realize. Do you honestly believe what you're saying sir? You're not just doubting the mountains of evidence, you are discrediting humanity. After seeing what they saw, soldiers, officers, survivors, photographers...who would want to let it be discussed? Who would want some fucking neo-Nazis 60 years later trying to discount what those men and prisoners saw with their own eyes?

You see, that's the problem with the Holocaust topic. Most people can't talk about it without raising their voice, throwing big words like "humanity" and calling anyone not just politely acknowledging the whole thing a neo-nazi.

I'm just talking about the end of you post, btw. The rest are absolutely legitimate questions. I will just answer that the fact CryHavoc has actually researched a lot matters not in the end, since he's not allowed to have a different theory anyway.

The fact *governments* and not historians had to make laws to basically say "there is the Holocaust that one shall not question, and then there are all those thousands of minor genocides" is what's truly disturbing, if you ask me.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by BigHairyFeet

Some of the more vocal revisionists/deniers, such as David Irving, do point that out, niki. I would believe they were sincere if their efforts were more about raising the profiles of "minor" genocides, and less about lessening the awareness of the Holocaust by giving it another name, or no name at all. It's a ridiculous point to debate, since it's based on the fact that Nazis tried to wipe out a race. Prove they didn't before we rename it.

I don't know if they wanted to wipe an entire race so much as get it out of Europe. Do you? I'm not saying it changes much to the atrocities which took place, but it's still historian material to discuss.

I guess my point of view is exacerbated by the fact I live in a country where people like this David Irving aren't even allowed to exist. When an historical issue arises, usually by someone writing a book, what happens? People write other books, opposing facts to facts and detailing their sources. That's how it supposed to work in any non-dictatorial country.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by BigHairyFeet

The last quote demonstrates how Hitler's desire to drive the Jews out of Germany was his first goal; his second goal (extermination of all Jews), just began in Europe (obviously), and would have extended to the countries he mentioned once he controlled Europe.
Your position is very difficult to maintain when there's literally dozens of quotes by Hitler or his top henchmen regarding the destruction of the worlds Jews.

My position? It is common historical knowledge that the Nazis had deportation plans before coming up with extermination ones.

Besides, and if I haven't made it clear already (sigh), my position in this thread is not to question historical facts concerning the Holocaust, but the way the issue is dealt with by governments and the reasons why it has to come to such extremes that such a meeting has to take place where it has.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Would you rather have this gathering of Holocaust deniers take place somewhere in Europe?

Do you seriously believe the participants of this meeting to have "objective opinions" on the subject? It's a political instrument for Ahmadinejad and a welcome opportunity for extremists to spread their Antizionist and Neonazi propaganda.

How ya doing, buddy?

This is almost as bad as people denying we landed on moon and the Flat Earth Society. There are thousands of documents with the names of the victims. The Nazis were very thorough and kept alot of records. The concentration camps are still there and have been converted into museums. Allies soldiers have witnessed it as well and there are survivors.

I think the denial of the holocaust stems more from a dislike of Jews and wanting to discredit them. I wonder how would the Nazis of that day react to this. I bet they would livid at trying to disprove their 'accomplishments'. There is no real ground for this kind of discussion other than some predujuice propaganda against the Jews. It's completely asinine.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

My mother once said that the only good thing about the Nazis was how neatly they kept up with the paperwork regarding their atrocities and that only Germans could be that anal or for that matter stupid about formalities.

Anyway, I seriously doubt that even in Germany, a historian will get into trouble for discussing details about the Holocaust, if it is clear that his one and only agenda is the pursuit of historical fact. The major aspects are just not up for discussion because as BigHairyFeet already stated, the evidence is there and it is numerous. Nobody is going to get excited about the question whether there were 2000 or 2500 bodies in mass grave #469 as it does not change the bigger picture.

Most people gathering in Iran for that congress and the people who are arrested for their publications regarding the Holocaust on the other hand want to change that bigger picture, not for the sake of historical fact but with an ideological or political agenda. So if this grave disregard of human dignity constitutes a serious crime in several countries, what is wrong with that? Having more broader laws to cover the denial of likewise undisputed atrocities would be the fairer approach, of course, but I certainly do not feel my freedom of speech to be impaired by the laws which exist.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Rock

Would you rather have this gathering of Holocaust deniers take place somewhere in Europe?

Do you seriously believe the participants of this meeting to have "objective opinions" on the subject? It's a political instrument for Ahmadinejad and a welcome opportunity for extremists to spread their Antizionist and Neonazi propaganda.

No shit. Fucking read what I say, for Christ' sake. This is becoming tiresome.

Originally Posted by niki

Besides, and if I haven't made it clear already (sigh), my position in this thread is not to question historical facts concerning the Holocaust, but the way the issue is dealt with by governments and the reasons why it has to come to such extremes that such a meeting has to take place where it has.

So no, I would'nt wish those people to have their little circle-jerk conference in Europe. What I would want though, is that we don't add fuel to their fire and don't give them an excuse for gathering together because we don't let them have an opinion.

Let them speak, like any free citizen is free to, and have a horde of historian destroy all they write by opposing cold solid facts, and not some stinky censorship law.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

There are certain things that should not be covered under freedom of speech. Denying the Holocaust is one of them, because it's always connected with racism.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Devoxycontin

Wouldn't it be better to just laugh these people off than to create laws to forbid their freedom to speak their mind? Regardless of how ignorant they sound? This is a slippery slope being created. And honestly who cares about their motivations. It's setting a bad precedent.

that's what they did with Hitler

How ya doing, buddy?

Thread: The Holocaust is serious business

mindOverMatter: "But Hitler!"

Jam it back in, in the dark.