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Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory Paperback – July 1, 1994
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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.
Such notions used to be 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 now, in the first full-scale history of Holocaust denial, Deborah Lipstadt shows how—despite 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. 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.
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJuly 1, 1994
- Dimensions6 x 0.76 x 9 inches
- ISBN-109780452272743
- ISBN-13978-0452272743
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“Important and impassioned... A comprehensive account of Holocaust denial, particularly from an American perspective and particularly for the reader with little prior knowledge of the subject. It rigorously traces the movement's roots and development both in this country and abroad, describes the ways the deniers have managed to focus attention on their arguments in both educational institutions and the news media, and explores the susceptibility of Americans, as well as others, to their arguments.”—Walter Reich, New York Times
“Lipstadt, who has been sued for libel by Holocaust denier David Irving, was the first to call attention to the rapidly expanding movement to deny that the Holocaust ever took place. In this groundbreaking analysis, she profiles the deniers and explains their viewpoints and exposes the rabid anti-Semitism at the heart of Holocaust denial and the very serious threat it poses.”—Donna Seaman, Booklist
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Product details
- ASIN : 0452272742
- Publisher : Penguin Publishing Group; Reprint edition (July 1, 1994)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780452272743
- ISBN-13 : 978-0452272743
- Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.76 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #360,361 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #147 in Jewish Social Studies
- #356 in History of Judaism
- #627 in Jewish Holocaust History
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"...denial is such a disturbing subject, but Dr. Lipstadt gives a very engaging account of the evolution of a sub-industry of lies and the liars that..." Read more
"...She has written many books regarding the Holocaust. This book was recommended and it is an amazing testament of the unrelenting furor she has..." Read more
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"This is a carefully researched and well written study of what holocaust deniers and revisionists have been saying and writing since the late 1940s...." Read more
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"This book traces the history of Holocaust denial. Convincing and well-researched, Lipstadt's study is a solid work on the formation and significance..." Read more
"This is a carefully researched and well written study of what holocaust deniers and revisionists have been saying and writing since the late 1940s...." Read more
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If you have someone in your life that is denying these events, I suggest this book. It, along with other research, will tell you the truth and allow you to at least attempt to convince someone on the subject
Lipstadt gives enough attention to the deniers' arguments that anyone who believes in or wants to refute that stuff would do well to read this book. She refutes some of the main arguments and shows the lack of qualifications and credibility of some of the characters involved in Holocaust denial, such as Fred Leuchter.
She has some interesting things to say about why people deny the Holocaust, such as the sheer unbelievability and horror of it. Worth quoting:
"Rationally one would like to assume that, since Leuchter has been exposed as a man without the qualificatons necessary to perform this analysis[of the gas chambers], and since his work has been demonstrated to be scientifically and methodologically fallacious, the destiny of the Leuchter Report would be the dustbin of history. But the Holocaust and, to only a slightly lesser degree, Holocaust denial itself remind us that the irrational has a fatal attraction even to people of goodwill. It can overwhelm masses of evidence and persuade people to regard the most outrageous and untenable notions as fact."p. 181.
I have a few minor quibble with Lipstadt. For example, she says that the University of London has no record of Richard Harwood as either a member of the staff or student body. In Harwood's tract, Did Six Million Really Die, it says he is "with the University of London," but it also clearly states that Richard Harwood is a pseudonym, so of course that university would have no record of him.
Top reviews from other countries
Why do people deny the Holocaust? Why, despite the insurmountable weight of evidence that approximately six million Jews were murdered as part of a policy by the Nazi regime, do people insist that the historians have it all wrong? This is the question that Lipstadt provides a clear answer to in tracing the development of holocaust denial from the post-war years to the 1990s. How did this movement come about? Well, the evidence of Nazi brutality presented at Nuremberg obviously did not look good for defenders of National Socialism. It also cast doubt on the ethical validity of the pre-war arguments for adopting an isolationist approach to foreign affairs. The original response by many in these two groups consisted not so much of denial, but attempts at moral equivalency and suggestion that the horrors were a by-product of war rather than a deliberate operation. It was only after the 1950 publication of Paul Rassinier’s 'The Lie of Ulysses', in which he expressed doubt at the existence of gas chambers, that elements of the far-Right cottoned on to the potential usefulness of denying the genocide in its entirety. A few thousand perhaps died of disease in camps, but the blame for the poor conditions that allowed this could be blamed on Allied bombings. Other than that, the whole thing was a swindle designed to blame the Axis for crimes that were either never committed or which were perpetrated by the Allies. The original attempts at this by neo-Nazis were semi-literate, crude and too openly regretful in their belief that six million Jews had not been murdered. Gradually the outright antisemitism began to be toned down and the appearance of historical respectability was increasingly adopted.
This is, as Lipstadt emphasizes, a façade. The proposition that the Holocaust did not happen (or denial of the central tenants of the Holocaust) is only tenable if one believes in a powerful Jewish conspiracy that has been able to hoodwink a gullible public for the past seventy years. Despite the protest of deniers to the contrary, Holocaust denial is explicitly antisemitic and rests entirely on the belief in the existence of powerful nefarious Jews plotting how to con the goyim. There are not two equal sides on whether the Holocaust happened: The historical evidence is clear that it did. The other side is dependent entirely on fabrication. Historical revisionism it most certainly is not. The central thesis of Lipstadt’s book is that Holocaust denial bears absolutely no resemblance to real history, whether mainstream or revisionist.
As Lipstadt explores the main figures and organizations that have promoted Holocaust Denial, it becomes undeniable that, aside from one or two oddities, antisemitism is the motivating factor. The evidence of history in reaching such a conclusion is irrelevant; it can be dismissed or embraced as long as it fits into the conspiratorial narrative. Sometimes this sinister obsession has resulted in people with unquestionable talent as maverick historians, namely David Irving, moving from the edge of revisionism into outright denial.
This is an important book. Holocaust denial continues to be a pillar of neo-Nazi ideology, but it has become disturbingly visible amongst adherents of other ideological positions, some of which are no longer quite so fringe. Islamist groups openly embrace the antisemitic narrative of denial, and the sadly mainstream anti-Zionist Left are not shy in flirting with it. Deborah Lipstadt was right to publish this book and was right to stand by it when challenged in court. My opinion is that an updated version, taking into account developments over the past twenty-five years, is overdue. The assault on truth and memory is unfortunately growing.
Okay but there is no "other" side - There is no debating the Holocaust - IT HAPPENED - There's too much documented information about it
You can debate the causes and effects of the Holocaust but you can't debate whether it happened or not
Its like saying you want to debate Slavery - Tons of documented information and artifacts so how can you say it never happened
What do these people think - 6 million people just got up and moved to Antarctica

