The original fake news
As a big fan of both Israel and Poland, I felt the need to write this article. In her book 'Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory' Deborah Lipstadt looks at the history behind the holocaust deniers.
Lispstadt starts by saying that she sees it all as a pseudo-history promoted by anti-Semitic types, and it should be disregarded for the nonsense that it is.
Where did it all begin?
After World War II, Nazi sympathisers in America began to rise and come to prominence. A Professor of English at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania was the first to break ranks. He denied the Nazi's had any genocidal intent, and that Germany was compelled to admit to its crimes against humanity by the winning Allies. This indeed became the ball for the hard right. They indeed picked it up and ran with ever since.
Lipstadt does defend that the 6 million Jews killed were not gassed, but died from disease and the terrible state of conditions in the camps. Only 1.5 million were truly exterminated, which is around the population of Krakow, Poland today.
Auschwitz lies nearby as a permanent shadow on the city of Krakow, and now only tourists trail out in the busloads to see the death camps.
I find the deniers of the holocaust to be sympathisers of Nazism or of Fascism and/or terribly ignorant or just pretty damn stupid! What do you think? Comments below as always.
