Saturday, February 7, 2009

What makes someone a Holocaust denier?

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Ultraconservative Catholic bishop Richard Williamson apologized to the pope this week for his "imprudent remarks" concerning the Holocaust but did not recant.

The bishop accepts that some Jews died in concentration camps but claims that fewer than 300,000 were killed, rather than 6 million, and he denies that the Nazis used gas chambers. To be a Holocaust denier, do you have to deny the whole thing?



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3 comments:

The Lone Groover said...

I used to work with a guy called Bill about 20 years ago.

Bill was in his 70's, but had carried on working into his retirement.

He was among the first British troops to set foot in Auchwitz when it was liberated. Even 40+ years after the event, he could never talk about it without tears welling in his eyes at what he saw there.

When I see people denying that the holocaust happened, invariably for political reasons, I remember Bill.

I know who I'd rather believe.

"but claims that fewer than 300,000 were killed"...oh....that's alright then :-/

Israel may have much to answer for, but to deny the Holocaust is not just a slap in the face to them, it's a slap in the face of humanity.

Events like that transcend politics.

Chimp said...

What makes a holocaust? 300,000 dead? One million dead? Six million dead?
Is George Bush's invasion of Iraq a holocaust? He claims ONLY 100,000 died. International groups claim 1.3 million dead - mostly innocents.
Is Israel's killing of mostly civilians in Palestine a holocaust?
Or is Bush's and Olmert's killings racial and religious genocide?

The Lone Groover said...

There is no comparison between the examples you use (as awful as they are) and the systematic, production-line execution of 6 million people, also mostly innocents and civilians.

Whether the wars were justified or not is irrelivant. The scenarios are entirely different.