Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory [Paperback]

Deborah E. Lipstadt (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 1, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0452272742 | ISBN-13: 978-0452272743 | Edition: 1st Plume Printing

The denial of the Holocaust has no more credibility than the assertion that the earth is flat. Yet there are those who insist that the death of six million Jews in Nazi concentration camps is nothing but a hoax perpetrated by a powerful Zionist conspiracy. Forty years ago, such notions were the province of pseudohistorians who argued that Hitler never meant to kill the Jews, and that only a few hundred thousand died in the camps from disease; they also argued that the Allied bombings of Dresden and other cities were worse than any Nazi offense, and that the Germans were the "true victims" of World War II. For years, those who made such claims were dismissed as harmless cranks operating on the lunatic fringe. But over the past decade they have begun to gain a hearing in respectable arenas, and now, in the first full-scale history of Holocaust denial, Deborah Lipstadt shows how - despite tens of thousands of living witnesses and vast amounts of documentary evidence - this irrational idea not only has continued to gain adherents but has become an international movement, with organized chapters, "independent" research centers, and official publications that promote a "revisionist" view of recent history. One sign of the movement's disturbing resonance is the rise of such figures as the Holocaust denier David Duke to national prominence. Holocaust deniers have also begun to make common cause with radical Afrocentrists such as Leonard Jeffries of New York's City University, who retails racist myths about the Jews; and a recent campaign of ads in college newspapers calling for "open debate" on "so-called facts" about the Holocaust suggests a bold new bid for mainstream intellectual legitimacy. Lipstadt shows how Holocaust denial thrives in the current atmosphere of value relativism, and argues that this chilling attack on the factual record not only threatens Jews but undermines the very tenets of objective scholarship that support our faith in historical knowledge.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A forceful analysis of attempts to deny the Nazi Holocaust. Lipstadt (Religion/Emory University; Beyond Belief, 1985--not reviewed) traces the history of Holocaust revisionism and contends that it can no longer be ignored, showing how Holocaust-deniers, once dismissed as a lunatic fringe, have been growing in numbers and influence during the past 20 years. Citing groups like the Institute for Historical Review, publications like The Spotlight, politicians like David Duke, and academicians like Leonard Jeffries, Lipstadt presents numerous examples of attempts to prove that the extermination of six million Jews is a hoax; that only a few thousand Jews died in the camps from disease; that the Allied bombings of German cities were worse than any Nazi offense; and that the ``true victims'' of WW II were the German people. These distortions of recorded history, argues the author, threaten to undermine our Western rationalist tradition and to legitimize the politicization of history. To Lipstadt, the common thread among Holocaust deniers is a ``purely anti-Semitic diatribe'' portraying Jews as victimizers. Self-declared scholars like Arthur R. Butz (whose credentials are in electronics) claim that Jews used the world's sympathy after the war to ``displace'' another people, establish the nation of Israel, and ``steal'' billions in reparations from their German and Western ``cash cows.'' Lipstadt argues vehemently against giving revisionists a forum in the name of free speech or freedom of the press, and she details the efforts of California revisionist Bradley Smith, who pushed a ``Holocaust was a hoax'' campaign in college newspapers throughout the US. Lipstadt contends that ``the responses to Holocaust denial by both students and faculty graphically demonstrate the susceptibility of an educated and privileged segment to the kind of reasoning that creates a hospitable climate for the rewriting of history.'' An important, well-documented study that deserves attention. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Plume; 1st Plume Printing edition (July 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452272742
• ISBN-13: 978-0452272743
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #443,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 64 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, but ignores growing assault in Arabic media June 10, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This is a good book on a subject whose importance is clear and evident. Professor Lipstadt targets the deniers and presents superb arguments that they are motivated by hate and bigotry. The author, a confident character, faced the trial against her courageously and won.

Lipstadt's outlook, however, is Euro-centered: She only studied holocaust denial in Europe and North America. Characters like Irving and Garaudy are very popular in the Arab world, especially in Egypt. Moreover, Prof Lipstadt ignored Arab individuals who deny the holocaust in the Arabic media. These individuals are considered intellectuals in Arab society, and their message of hate is very popular, primarily because almost all writing about the Holocaust by scholars like Elie WIesel, Walter Laqueur, and Martin Gilbert, is censored, and certainly never ever translated into Arabic. In fact, after the Irving trial, Al Ahram, the most prestigious daily in Egypt and the Arab world, published an interview with David Irving. The interviewers presented David Irving as a victim attacked by sharks, with Professor Lipstadt, whose picture was shown, as one of the sharks. Al Jazeera television network regularly hosts Arab and other holocaust deniers.

Though she is confident, Professor Lipstadt does not seem to be aware that she is being abused in prestigious papers such as Al Ahram and AlJazeera television station. She needs to realize that this is a grave matter, and she cannot afford to be so Euro-centered. She should add a chapter on Arab Holocaust deniers and republish the book. Not only that, she should arrange to have her book translated into Arabic, so that the 300 Million Arabs get a chance to read the truth.

Her study of Arab journalists and scholars should also include another phenomenon related to the Holocaust that is almost exclusively Arab: Applauding the Final Solution. Al Akhbar's Ahmed Ragab, probably the most popular columnist in Egypt, very recently thanked Adofph Hitler for embarking on the final solution and killing nearly six million Jews, but chastised him for not doing a complete job. Applauding the Final Solution coexists very comfortably with denying the Holocaust in Arab milieus, as absurd as this may sound.

10 of 17 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Another "Inportant but Flawed" review December 3, 2009

By RandyRP

Format:Hardcover

Having read more than 200 books involving the Holocaust, I find Lipstadt in general to be somewhat unique in the sense that some of her work shows great insight, for example her essay in the Non-Bombing of Auschwitz book, kudo's.
On the other hand at times she seems somewhat troublesome, for example calling Jimmy Carter a "soft core" denier because he did not discuss the Holocaust in his book about Isreali/Palestenian relations, well it's simple over the top. While many disliked Carter's book (or mainly the title, little pith between the pages) to call him a "soft core denier" is to diminish what denial really is. Has she ever read David Ben-Guiron's memiors ?? He to does not discuss the Holocaust, does this make him a "soft core" denier, hardly so.

Now onto the book, what first troubled me was her treatment of the earlist so-called deniers and her description of events imediately after the war. There were people that were extremely vocal about what the allies were doing. The Expulsion and the fact that many supported the Morganthau Plan (which was at least partially initiated) was at the time controvesial to say the least. Yet rather than laud those who stood against our intial tyranical policies, she diminishes the atrocities the allies committed, and conflates people like Freda Utley with "true deniers" like Arthur Butz ???...

Her discussion of the "college ads" controveries was also somewhat puzzling. On one hand she is an advocate of free speech, which I applaud, on the other she seems to fail to realize that free speech means some will adopt the shady tatics the ads employed. However where she really missed the boat is that she acknowdelges that on every campus that the controversies took place, enrollment in Holocaust history courses INCREASED. She failed to understand, that the deniers engage in tactics that actually helped people learn aout the Holocaust, not deny it.

Her discussion of "relativism" is also somewhat troublesome. While Ernst Nolte is certainly controversial, and I don't admire him, she sweeps up Joachim Fest into the equation too ?? Yes while it is wrong to equate the Holocaust with the Expslion, it is equally wrong to suggest that one is a denier for doing so. In this sense she is arguing moral equivalencies, not historical facts. If this is the case one could suggest: What is worse, Evil (Nazi's) committing evil ?? or Good (Allies) also comitting evil (albiet a different type of evil) ??.

Lastly, today, to her cresit she has acknowleged that her postion on the uniqueness of the Holocaust has "lessened somewhat". Yet this book seems to be wriiten at a time prior to that. Like Yehuda Bauer, today she suggests "unpreceedented" rather than "unique". While the two are somewhat synonymous. Yehuda Bauer in his book "Rethinking the Holocaust" does a masterful job of stating his case. But most importantly he takes great care not to diminsh other victims of other genocides. While I SERIUOSLY DOUBT, Lipstadt intended to diminish other victims of other genocides, her comparative analysises nonethless, at least to me, came of that way. For example, while she acknowledges the Stalin killed more victims (which is actually debatable), she claims his violence was "random", which in fact is incorrect and shows little insight or compassion. While I find the Holocaust to be unique, one must exercise great care not to make falacious arguements that diminish others.

Sadly, based on many of the one star reviews this book has recieved, it shows how important the topic IS. I applaud her passion in combating denial, but question whether she casts too wide of a net. At times she shows great insight and at others fails to see the forrest for the trees. Perhaps a three star review is too harsh, but then agian perhaps I had higher expectations.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Lest you be mislead... May 21, 2012

By N. Perz

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Lest you be mislead by the 1-star "reviews": the purpose of this book is not to refute Holocaust deniers. Lipstadt does not attempt to "prove" that the Holocaust happened. She doesn't need to. The evidence is already in existence and well documented. Rather, the purpose is to give the reader an overview of the emergence of the Holocaust denial industry. She is also not attacking all historical revisionism. "Revisionism" has become a slur that is hurled by persons who are ignorant of historiography as a way of attacking any new research or theories. Holocaust deniers are not "revisionists" because they are not historians--they are propagandists.

Example: people can (and do) have very meaningful disputes over the causes of the American Civil War, what happened, and why. If, however, someone were to enter into the discussion and argue that the American Civil War never happened and that the Civil War "myth" was part of a conspiracy by African-American organizations to milk society for reparations, that person would be laughed out of the room. Yet, when these hacks make the same claims about the Holocaust, some people are actually willing to take them seriously.

Part of the problem is the indoctrination of our pluralistic culture. We are trained to be tolerant of differing viewpoints and beliefs--which is not a bad thing. The bad part is when this translates into people accepting all views as being equally good. They are not. There are "bad" ideas, meaning ideas or beliefs that are not based on reason and facts. This is why we have free speech and the "marketplace of ideas" so that people can separate the serious ideas from the garbage. Holocaust denial is no more about history than are book by people claiming that aliens built the pyramids, that ancient Atlantis ruled the world and planted the seeds of all ancient human civilizations, or that 9/11 was a CIA plot.

The only way that views like this can gain any kind of foothold is when people become so ignorant of the facts that they are unable to distinguish what in nonsense and what is scholarship. With the last of the eye-witnesses to the Holocaust passing away, the frauds will have a much easier time confusing people.

This is why I recommend this book; not because it is especially well written or insightful (it isn't) but because it would be a mistake for hack pseudo-history to gain legitimacy just because of our collective forgetting of the facts.

Recommended.