Current Events > Are there actually people who believe the Holocaust didn't happen?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Or are they just trolling online?

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I think there are those who outright disbelieve it, and others that say nonsense like, Theres no way Hitler killed 6 million Jews, it was likely closer to 2 million as if that somehow lessens the evil of the act.

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Yes

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We even have some of them on CE.

They "question the numbers" and other obvious slimy "work arounds" they think people will buy, but no one does.

Obviously no one on CE denies it, and despite them being warned/suspended for it any accusations are a witch hunt, so made up.

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While there are people who sincerely believe that, they're also the type to be so far down the lunatic bin that they probably genuinely believe other complete nonsense conspiracy shit like reptilians or that Hitler is still alive.

Most people who say it are pushing an agenda to make antisemitism more acceptable.

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DespondentDeity posted...

I think there are those who outright disbelieve it, and others that say nonsense like, Theres no way Hitler killed 6 million Jews, it was likely closer to 2 million as if that somehow lessens the evil of the act.

Both are intended to downplay and "deny" it, whether they're "just asking questions," downplaying the numbers, or outright denying it. It all serves the same purpose for them

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The more extreme types who argue that everything is a social construct have an awfully hard time reconciling their beliefs with the Holocaust, though they usually know better than to deny it.

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We have an elected official who thinks California wildfires are the result of Jewish space lasers. Nothing, and I mean nothing is off limits for what crazy people will believe.

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I've never known anyone who outright believed it didn't happen, though I have known people who question the extent of it. Never really quite figured out what they're trying to get at - the numbers they quote are still utterly horrific so they don't exactly vindicate anyone, and they generally scale down all the numbers so it's not even like they could be going for a "the biggest victim was actually [other group], not the Jews" narrative.

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There's plenty of people that believe all kinds of crazy shit

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A lot of people, unfortunately. Half the world has never heard of it or denies it happened.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/the-world-is-full-of-holocaust-deniers/370870/

Only 54 percent of the world's population has heard of the Holocaust.

Only a third of the world's population believe the genocide has been accurately described in historical accounts. Some said they thought the number of people who died has been exaggerated; others said they believe it's a myth. Thirty percent of respondents said it's probably true that "Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust."

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Funkydog posted...

We even have some of them on CE.

Im legitimately surprised. Honestly that should be banable. Its completely and utterly offensive.

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DJquackquack posted...

Im legitimately surprised. Honestly that should be banable.

It should be, yes. But somehow repeat offenders typically get a softer punishment than those who call them out for it.

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s0nicfan posted...

A lot of people, unfortunately. Half the world has never heard of it or denies it happened.

There's a huge difference between "never learned about it / don't know about it" vs "actively denies it despite knowing the facts". The former may be a failure of the wider education system depending on where this person lives (though it must be taken into account some people simply don't live in places where good education is available to everyone), but it isn't any fault of the person themself. Only the latter are morons.

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@JBaLLEN66 can you weigh in here?

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Funkydog posted...

We even have some of them on CE.

Can't mention them by name though otherwise you get banned

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DJquackquack posted...

Or are they just trolling online?

I mean, if flat earthers truly exist?

That being said, I think most doubters question the number rather than the act. And, to be fair (yeesh), at the time of the first trials after the war, I think they specifically mentioned that the court wouldnt be trying to ascertain an exact number of victims. And the numbers that came later are somewhat speculative, I guess. I mean, theres some play with the numbers. Probably not a lot. But whenever you dont have an exact account of all the victims then its going to create doubters who take it to the extreme.

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BeyondWalls posted...

That being said, I think most doubters question the number rather than the act.

See my earlier post. This serves the same purpose for them as a rhetorical move.

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TheRadiant posted...

Can't mention them by name though otherwise you get banned

It would be a witch hunt after all. They(all the users who definitely don't do it) are innocent, despite being warned/suspended for denying the various genocides. And if they mention it first, responding is bringing it up out of the blue.

I don't blame the vast majority of the mods mind. They aren't the ones who decide it's not ban worthy, and do typically warn/suspend them when they forget to be "sly enough"

Still disagree with their stance to punish those who call said deniers out when it's the current topic of discussion though.

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Lorkhaj posted...

See my earlier post. This serves the same purpose for them as a rhetorical move.

Probably for most.

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It really doesn't matter what anyone thinks or says at this point. We have the photos and documents to prove it was really fucked up.

Does it matter if it was 6 million Jews or 6 thousand?

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At least one mod

Holocaust deniers generally know they're full of shit, and their denial is 99 to 100% malicious. However, the liberal focus on the Holocaust does give them an open opportunity to deflect to it when confronted with the overwhelming threat of their political philosophy, because all they have to do is put a foot of doubt in the door and fascism is legitimized ever slightly. If the Holocaust is only one of the thousands of atrocities that fascists have committed, they have less to stand on, but generally only the Holocaust is ever focused on because its the one people know about. Beating back fascists requires more than just historical knowledge of the Holocaust; we need to be more educated about *everything* that fascists do, and more importantly, not play fucking debate games with them when what they need is harsh social and legal suppression.

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is this holocaust denial denial

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Garioshi posted...

is this holocaust denial denial

https://youtu.be/sacn_bCj8tQ

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DJquackquack posted...

https://youtu.be/sacn_bCj8tQ

I mean I get that it's a joke but this is pretty much the polar opposite of German attitudes toward that period of history (the far-right aside) lol

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Lorkhaj posted...

I mean I get that it's a joke but this is pretty much the polar opposite of German attitudes toward that period of history (the far-right aside) lol

Lol. I know. Germany is actually super humble and forthright with it. They dont white wash their history at all, and severely punish Nazi sympathizers.

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IShall_Run_Amok posted...

Holocaust deniers generally know they're full of shit, and their denial is 99 to 100% malicious. However, the liberal focus on the Holocaust does give them an open opportunity to deflect to it when confronted with the overwhelming threat of their political philosophy, because all they have to do is put a foot of doubt in the door and fascism is legitimized ever slightly. If the Holocaust is only one of the thousands of atrocities that fascists have committed, they have less to stand on, but generally only the Holocaust is ever focused on because its the one people know about. Beating back fascists requires more than just historical knowledge of the Holocaust; we need to be more educated about *everything* that fascists do, and more importantly, not play fucking debate games with them when what they need is harsh social and legal suppression.

This. People need to be more aware of what fascists have been doing in the US for the last 40 or so years. The amount of people who know nothing about people like George Lincoln Rockwell and his American Nazi party, Louis Beam, Robert Matthews and The Order, James Mason, and William Pierce is not a good sign.
Alongside shit like this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Smith_sedition_trial

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LeoRavus posted...

Does it matter if it was 6 million Jews or 6 thousand?

Well... that's a loaded question. It certainly doesn't matter to the people who's lives were destroyed. But I have always felt like we owe it to history to be as factual as possible.

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ScazarMeltex posted...

The amount of people who know nothing about people like George Lincoln Rockwell and his American Nazi party, ... is not a good sign.

I mean, it's kind of a good sign.


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s0nicfan posted...

Some said they thought the number of people who died has been exaggerated; others said they believe it's a myth. Thirty percent of respondents said it's probably true that "Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust."

this attitude is not unique to any one war crime.

the japanese government does this with nanking. their war criminals also eacaped trial thanks to USA. and although they claim to have apologized, they continue to honor their war criminals as heroes. CE's attitude towards this has been "the killings happened decades ago, its got nothing to do with the current gov. stop posting about it."


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@JBaLLEN66

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Hey, ModLogic is deflecting to WW2 Japan while WW2 Germany is being discussed. He made fun of me for saying he does that. :(

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I have to believe that theyre trolling

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s0nicfan posted...

A lot of people, unfortunately. Half the world has never heard of it or denies it happened.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/the-world-is-full-of-holocaust-deniers/370870/

Call me woefully under-educated on statistics, but can a sample size of 53,000 reliably tell us what nearly 8 billion people are thinking?

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BeyondWalls posted...

Well... that's a loaded question. It certainly doesn't matter to the people who's lives were destroyed. But I have always felt like we owe it to history to be as factual as possible.

That's true, but there is a huge difference between questioning it when new evidence comes up that actually challenges the current narrative (ie: actual historical research), vs just "some random website with truth in the name told me this with no evidence".

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I saw a funny sesame street meme where cookie monster was in a library looking like he was having a meltdown and the caption was something about him demanding holocaust books be moved to the fiction section...

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Criminalt posted...

Call me woefully under-educated on statistics, but can a sample size of 53,000 reliably tell us what nearly 8 billion people are thinking?

Depending on how the study was designed, there's a very good chance it's at least in the right ballpark. The original study text would likely also confirm what the margin of error / confidence is (ie: rather than giving a flat "Y% of people believe it", it'd be more like "we are [95% or 99%] sure that the correct figure is within X% of Y%". Or in other words - they would present it as that they're very confident about the figure falling within a certain range (usually a very high level of confidence, and a relatively small range, but the key thing is they don't try to claim it's either definite or exact).

It's one of those things that seems counterlogical, but if it's done the right way, it actually can be surprisingly close to an accurate figure.

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Trumble posted...

It's one of those things that seems counterlogical, but if it's done the right way, it actually can be surprisingly close to an accurate figure.

I'm a little cynical about a survey conducted by a PR agency (First International Resources) on behalf of the ADL. I think there are concerns about the client being told what the client wants to hear, and the client presenting the message in the way it wants it heard.

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Criminalt posted...

I'm a little cynical about a survey conducted by a PR agency (First International Resources) on behalf of the ADL. I think there are concerns about the client being told what the client wants to hear, and the client presenting the message in the way it wants it heard.

Ah yeah, the ADL being involved is definitely a yellow flag. Not a red one, but a yellow one for sure - they're very prone to blowing things out of proportion (to the extent that some things that were originally satirical, the ADL have gone on so hard about that the same things are now legitimately used as hate symbols). I don't know the finer details of how statistics achieves these goals, but the best way to figure this out for sure would be to have someone who does look over the actual data (and the collection methodology). If those aren't available, that would at that point be a red flag.

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Mind you, I wouldn't necessarily find it that shocking if half the world's population hasn't heard about the Holocaust -- especially in countries in sub-Saharan Africa, for example (the region is home to roughly one in every eight people alive on the planet) which struggle to get their population into a secondary level of education.

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