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

Deborah E. Lipstadt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0452272742 | ISBN-13: 978-0452272743 | Publication Date: July 1, 1994

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 and other persecuted people in Nazi concentration camps is nothing but a hoax perpetuated by a powerful Zionist conspiracy. In this 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 has not only continued to gain adherents but has become an internationally organized movement. Lipstadt argues that this chilling attack on the factual record not only threatens Jews but could dramatically alter the way that truth and meaning are transmitted from one generation to another.

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 (July 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452272742
• ISBN-13: 978-0452272743
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #282,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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42 of 57 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

This review is from: Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (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.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

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

By 

RandyRP - See all my reviews

This review is from: Denying the Holocaust (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.

10 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So, Where Is the Conspiracy Actually?, February 20, 2007

By 

Kevin Currie-Knight "Education Grad Student" (Newark, Delaware) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (Paperback)

Those who deny or attempt to "revise" the history of the holocaust like us to believe that there is a vast conspiracy. As Lipstadt shows in this book, they commonly discount evidence discordant with their views as the product of a vast conspiracy of Jews and their minions. Eye witnesses lied. Documents were forged. It was a conspiracy of Jews (unless the evidence confirms their viewpoint, and then they don't question its legitimacy!) So Lipstadt's book is an exercise in irony. It takes those who cry, "conspiracy," and shows that it is actually they, rather than those they accuse, of perpetrating a conspiracy.

Thus, let me stress at the outset that this book is not an attempt to historically rebut the 'revisionists.' (That has been done so many times it is sad!) This book is literally an attempt to expose those revisionists who claim neutrality ("I'm just interested in historical scholarship.") and shows their true motives.

Just like "intelligent design theorists" who are trying to inject a bit of old-time religion into biology by claiming the scientific impartiality of their God hypothesis, Holocuast revisionists have been bombarding the general public with a revamped, quasi-intellectual image designed to make them look credible. But, as Lipstadt shows through some serious detective work, hardly any (if any at all) of these 'thinkers' are neutral at all.

Some are smart but have ill motives (like Ernst Zundel, who has a very blatant history of being a neo-nazi). Others might not have ulterior motives, but practice shoddy scholarship (like Fred Leuchter, who's "scholarship" and credibility brought to nill here.) Otheres are both, like Arhtur Butz, who expresses much anti-Jewish sentiment, writes as a historian, but teaches only electrical engineering! Hmm.)

To be sure, this book is quite literally a two hundred page ad hominem attack. As mentioned, Lipstadt doesn't delve into very much historical debunking of these revisionists. This book attacks their character and (lack of) methodology. It is an attempt to show that, contrary to their protestations, these scholars are very little interested in objective historical truth. They are phonies at worst and neo-nazis operating under a lame subterfuge at best.

And this is why I deduct a star. As interesting as this book is, it is easy to see that Lipstadt has every bit as much of an agenda as do her subjects. She is just as passionate as they. And it is hard to see this book as always fighting fair: it is, after all, a continued attack not on deniers' history, but on their character. (And as others have pointed out, Lipstadt hypocritically chastizes these 'historians' for not having training in history, even though she holds no PhD in the subject either.)

Be that as it may, I can only deduct one star becasue as whiny as Lipstadt can occasionally be, her subjects deserve what they are getting here, as they play the character assault game as much, if not more, than she does. (Remember how historians and eye-witnesses are frequently dismissed in their work as biased towards the Jewish conspiracy!)

To close, I should note that a great companion work to this one - that does tackle the 'revisionist' history - is Richard Evans' "Hitler on Trial." For those who don't know, Evans served as a historian in defense of Lipstadt when she was sued by 'revisionist,' David Irving. He was charged with going through Irving's works and debunking them point by point, which he did easily and well. As shown is Lipstadt's subsequent book detailing the trial, Evans was unbiased going into the trial, and thus, cannot be accused of having motives other than accurate history. (He told Lipstadt that he would review Irving's work, but could not garauntee that his history was bad, until or unless he found evidence that it was.) Where Lipstadt's book takes on the motives, Evans' book is a fascinating look at their (mis)use of history.

Buy both. And if you want, buy some books by revisionists, but I think you will be wasting as much time as buying a book on biology by a theologian.