I was involved in the organisation of the 50th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz, while First Secretary at the British Embassy in Warsaw. The 50th did not receive anything like the media coverage given to the 70th, of which more later.
Senior British visitors to Poland invariably included a concentration camp on their itinerary, and from escorting people around I visited camps a great deal more often than I would have wished. I found the experience appalling and desolate. The first I ever saw was Majdanek and I recall that I just had to sit helpless and shivering for some time. One thing the experience left me with – including meeting survivors and both Polish and German eye-witnesses, and seeing the architects’ plans for camps – was a contempt for those who claim the whole thing did not happen, or was an accident, or was small scale.
It in no way diminishes the genocidal attack on the Jews to remember that a vast number of Poles also died in the camps, as well as gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled and disparate political prisoners. I tried sometimes to diminish the horror I felt at involvement with the camps, with attempts at humour. I was present at a meeting listing the guests of honour; the President of Lithuania was included. I whispered that he was coming to represent the camp guards. That was offensive, and I apologise. But there is a real problem that to this day Eastern Europe – including Poland itself – has not come to terms with historical truth about collaboration with anti-Jewish genocide and other attacks on minorities. I recommend this website, which tackles these issues very honestly and is well worth a lengthy browse.
It requires bigotry not to be able to understand why nationalist resistance movements against Russian occupation became allied with Germany during World War II. That would be reprehensible only in the same sense that allied collaboration with Stalin might be reprehensible, but for the added factor of enthusiastic collaboration with genocidal and master race programmes and fascist ideology. That is what makes the glorification of Eastern European nationalist figures from this period generally inappropriate.
I fear however that the real reason that the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz received so much more coverage than the 50th is a media desire to reinforce the narrative of the War on Terror and Western policy in the Middle East by invoking the spectre of massive anti-Semitism. There have been isolated but deplorable, apparently anti-Semitic attacks of a small-scale terrorist nature in France and Belgium in recent years. But to conflate this into stories of a wave of popular anti-Semitism in Europe is a nonsense. Maureen Lipman’s claim that she may have to leave the UK is not just silly but disingenuous. I do not believe she feels in personal danger of attack – there is absolutely no reason why she should – she is rather making a political point.
There are two factors which could exacerbate anti-Semitism at present. One is the appalling behaviour of Israel and its indefensible action in continually seizing Palestinian land and using its military superiority to dominate and occasionally massacre Palestinians. Regrettably, there are a very small minority of people who wrongly blame Jews in general for the actions of Israel.
The second factor is of course the terrible economic hardship wrought across the whole world by irresponsible banking practices, and the fact that the bankers luxury lifestyles were maintained at the cost of everybody else. There are still a tiny minority of people stuck in the medieval mindset associating banking with the Jewish community. There is in fact a very plausible argument that if any “race” has a disproportionate influence on the development and character of international banking since the mid eighteenth century, it is the Scots! But those who see banking as a racial issue are nutters.
You could construct an argument from these factors, and you could identify that anti-Semitic people do exist. They certainly do. They dominate the very small category of people who get banned even from this free speech blog. But are their opinions intellectually respectable, promoted in the mainstream or able to be expressed openly without fear of either social or legal consequences? No, no and no. Anti-semites are fortunately a tiny and strange minority. I might add that in my numerous and frequent social contacts in the British Muslim community, I have never encountered anti-Semitism (unlike, say, Poland and Russia where I encountered casual anti-Semitism quite frequently).
The final point, is of course, the conflation of anti-zionism with anti-Semitism. That seems to me the fundamental design of the media campaign exaggerating the scale of anti-Semitism at the moment. Yes, we must always remember the terrible warnings from history and it is right to remember those who died in the concentration camps, Jewish, Polish, Romany, Gay, Communist or any other category. But we should be aware of those who wish to manipulate the powerful emotions of horror thus evoked, for present objectives of the powerful.
“Making the denial of this historic event and no other, illegal, was a masterstroke, wasn’t it?”
Which country has done that?
@ Old Mark
To murder six million people in the five years of the war would require 2000 people every day be killed, and buried. Difficult when the ground is frozen hard.
Incineration of the bodies gets over that difficulty Fitzwalter – or are you one of those deluded persons who doubts the existence of crematoria in the camps ?
Have you seen the ovens, they resemble typical crematorium ovens not mass extermination capacity ovens. The more bodies you shove in the less effective the burning process until no burning takes place at all. A point raised by the revisionists that is not getting addressed.
The persecution of German Jews didn’t cause the Nazis. The Jews were simply an easily identifiable outgroup around which xenophobes and racial-purists could gather with evil intent. If something similar were to happen here, again in the current media climate, to which you obviously subscribe, I very much doubt the Jews would be the targets at all. Think Muslim Asians.
yes indeed and it started quiet early when they were persecuted in Norwich Leeds and elsewhere, 1411, so I believe.
Today you have only got to burn 3 mosques in Sweden and have some deluded idiots shoot up a magazine’s office in paris and you have 25.000 marching for Pegida, the police running amok everywhere in disarray, galvanising the MSM into platitudes.
And the fear that is being spread by Israel’s anti semitism towards Muslims is being turned into a crusade for the holy land.
If Elliot Shimon/Al Bagdhadi gets killed, doing such a good job as the wests chaotic divider, will he also be buried in Israel, with all honours?After all he is a good anti Semite and a Zionist, just as Netanyahu.
Maxter, yes I have seen them, on the strict instructions of the Allies occupying Germany, but your revisionism brought up here does not mean anything, it only relates to conflicting numbers. I was at school at the time, our day out in the countryside….
This does not destract from the murderous evil such an idea represented, the NSDAP was evil and those who are trying to question numbers and facts should start with their own history at home, go scratch the surface there and then come back and report on what you found.
If you are from the US, then there is much to find, the native American Indians were slaughtered by the millions, even more died from our retching diseases we introduced to America with our immigrants.
80-114 million, one cannot be sure, its somewhere in between. maybe you’d like to question these numbers?
We were such dumb shits that we did not realise that Indians immune system was not able to deal with our small pox and cholera and and, or did they? Did the Settlers know that the Indians died of their diseases?
No, off course not, these Injun’s were ignored and who cared what they died off, a bullet or cholera.
http://marauder.millersv.edu/~columbus/papers/grosso.html(Diseases)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTrbVf6SrCc (slaughters)
But beware, denial of Holocausts, or was it just one specific Holocaust we can’t deny here? is regarded as asking to be banned.
If someone were to post here saying “it’s not torture it’s enhanced interrogation” I would oppose them not because I support Muslims but because I oppose torture.
Missing the point, I’m afraid. Memorialising the holocaust in places that didn’t even have a hand in it isn’t going to prevent the peculiar set of circumstances (and I forgot punitive reparations for WW1, didn’t I?) which will, inevitably, again encourage the rise of fascism. No doubt a secondary consequence will be the persecution of an outgroup. Which we will all, I hope protest, though impotently. Making a fuss about holocaust denial is, as I suggested before, counterproductive for all but the fascists and the Israeli ambition for an exclusively Jewish demographic, and, in effect, theocracy, while it does nothing to address the underlying problem of excluding mad potential dictators from the electoral process without further castrating democracy
Which country has done that?
It really is time you learned to use Wikipedia for yourself, Fred. And – think of it – you might start doing links in support of your statements yourself. As I do not propose to do in this instance, so off you go.
Node; ““I am allowed to question the Rwanda genocide without people assuming I’m an anti-Tutsi Neo-Nazi.”
Maybe not for long, it’s presently illegal in France to question both the Holocaust & the Armenian Genocide, and there are plans now to include the Rwanda Genocide; once you make an exception for one, it becomes a slippery slope, and before too long, it will be impossible to legally discuss many historical events, and I wouldn’t at all be surprised if this included events like 9/11 or Charlie Hebdo.
Beyond O/T
Trust your action for democracy went off well, Nevermind. Was with you in spirit, if nothing else.
Anon : “Oh you poor chap. What is a Holocaust denier to do these days?”
There’s nothing I’ve said gives you any right to say that. Defending gender equality doesn’t make me a woman.
I’ve asked a very clear question about freedom of speech and both you and Fred have implied that makes me an anti-semitic holocaust-denying neo-Nazi. It seems to me you’re both illustrating my point rather than answering it – you’re attacking my right to ask that question. Well I’m asking it again, and how about answering it without calling me names, eh Fred?
Why am I allowed to question the circumstances of other genocides but not the Shoah/Holocaust?
@ nevermind
I question the official story of the holocaust due to the fact that the Zionists are doing exactly that to the Palestinians.
Everything that has happened in the middle east including the 9/11 event itself seems to benefit the only nuclear state in that region, namely Israel.
Did the Zionists not attack the USS Liberty under the flag of Egypt?
No doubt many died in the Nazi work camp,s but I should be free to question the original narrative where questions remain unanswered.
I live in Scotland but I distance myself from claiming to belong to any state…they are all corrupt. Citizenship is just another term for plantation worker.
@Nevermind –
You are so right about Norwich…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13855238
Edward 1 expelled the Jews in 1290, and they couldn’t live here openly until Cromwell’s time.
Node: “Why am I allowed to question the circumstances of other genocides but not the Shoah/Holocaust?”
You are allowed to, and right that you should be. I’m all for allowing you to expose yourself as a Holocaust denier and anti-Semite.
There is this thread on Medialens about the IDF and the Spanish UN peacekeeper.
DM: “Spain says Israeli fire killed peacekeeper in south Lebanon”
Posted by marknadim on January 29, 2015, 7:26 am
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-2930421/UN-Security-Council-meet-Israel-Lebanon-flare-up.html
~~
… but unsurprisingly on closer inspection, Israel was once again ‘responding’; funny, no mention of this being a clear announced response against Israel’s January 19th killing of Hezbollah fighters.
Posted by marknadim on January 29, 2015, 8:03 am, in reply to “DM: “Spain says Israeli fire killed peacekeeper in south Lebanon””
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/19/top-iranian-general-hezbollah-fighters-killed-israel-attack-syria
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1422516378.html
Announcement of response:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4620483,00.html
~~
First we heard ‘caught in the crossfire’, but there wasn’t any ‘crossfire’, except from Israel to Lebanon, because once Hezbollah had fired the anti tank missiles and hit the Israelis they’d hardly be waiting to receive the barrage of missiles and bombs the Israelis launched would they!
They said at first that Qadhafi had been ‘caught in the crossfire’ but never admitted when the truth was shown in videos that this was a total fabrication.
Does the UN move a motion condemning Israel’s careless ‘response’, leave alone its original act of extreme provocation – the assassination of Hezbollah men by drone strike?
Posted by David Macilwain on January 29, 2015, 12:12 pm, in reply to “DM: “Spain says Israeli fire killed peacekeeper in south Lebanon””
Further to my earlier comment, I stand corrected as apparently three years ago France overturned the law on the Armenian Genocide, but not on the Holocaust;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/11373991/Amal-Clooney-accuses-Turkey-of-hypocrisy-on-freedom-of-speech-in-Armenian-genocide-trial.html
You are allowed to…
Not on this blog. Not in Austria, Belgium, France, etc. And as Node hasn’t actually denied anything, but merely asks why someone questioning this event is apparently a legitimate target for abuse – abuse fully equivalent to calling a Jew a [insert perjorative epithet here] it might be nice if you answered his question without repeating the abuse.
Anon : “I’m all for allowing you to expose yourself as a Holocaust denier and anti-Semite.”
Those words aren’t magic, Anon, they won’t make me or my question disappear. For as long as you call me names rather than answer my question, I must assume that’s because you have no answer.
Macky : “Further to my earlier comment, I stand corrected as apparently three years ago France overturned the law on the Armenian Genocide, but not on the Holocaust”
Thanks for further illustrating my point, Macky. I think you’re right in your earlier comment that 9/11 and other key historical points will soon be declared “beyond question”. I believe that that is the underlying motive behind the political correctness movement – to establish the media’s right to define what is and isn’t acceptable thought, and to administer career-destroying punishment to transgressors.
He’s an amateur, Node. There was a guy on the Pravda forum* years ago called The Settler – and I think that’s what he was. He’d have given us all a hard time and been entertaining with it. Wish he was here. I liked him.
*Don’t bother. It’s crap nowadays.
Anon’s an amateur, not Macky, of course. Posts crossed.
I do not have any sympathy with people who deny that the Shoah happened. Or any other massacre, for that matter. But I do not believe that people should be prosecuted, fined, or jailed for stating an opinion. Who’s next? Me? Apparently the European Court of Human Rights agrees with me, because as Macky points out, Doğu Perinçek had his conviction for denying the reality of the Armenian genocide overturned by the Court in December 2014 on the grounds that his right to free speech was violated.
http://www.ibtimes.com/amal-clooney-armenian-genocide-case-5-things-know-about-dogu-perincek-hearing-1797548
It’s a horrible, hard question. I don’t think one can give a glib answer to it. But I think it’s actually more dangerous to persecute people who hold repugnant opinions than it is to show others that their opinions are repugnant, in the arena of public debate.
Kind regards,
John
“He’s an amateur, Node.”
Yes, it’s a pity. I want my views to be challenged intellectually so Anon is a big disappointment. I wonder where we could apply for a replacement?
I set the ball rolling here by asking what constituted Holocaust denial, since Wikipedia lists as an example any challenge to the 5.5 -6 million figure. Yet on a different page it lists numerous occurrences of the original 4 million at Auschwitz being revised down by historians, until the current figure, accepted by scholars and the Auschwitz museum, of 1.5 million.
Despite a lot of invective being thrown, no one has challenged those figures. I therefore conclude that the 6 million figure is not a historically accurate figure but more a totemic one of great emotional significance to many people.
Fair enough. I have nothing against people choosing to believe these figures even if they are not supported by historical research. I don’t think it should be against the law not to though.
Truth does not require legislation. The holocaust never happened, well if it did, it certainly escaped the knowledge of the Jews who compile the Jewish almanac, which shows nothing like a worldwide culling of Jews during the second world war.
KingOfWelshNoir
29/01/2015 2:20pm
Let’s imagine that the present laws in France and other places in Europe had been operating in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s.
In that case it seems to me highly likely that if a historian had stated that he or she did not believe that 4 million people had been killed in Auschwitz, but that the figure was closer to 1.5 million, he or she would have found himself or herself in jail for it.
I believe that to be wrong. I’m sorry, but I do.
Kind regards,
John
Does this suffice for our disbelieving resident troll?
In the news
Three killed as Israel and Hezbollah clash on Lebanese border
BBC News – 1 day ago
Two Israeli soldiers and a Spanish UN peacekeeper have been killed as Hezbollah militants traded fire with Israeli forces on the Lebanese …
UN peacekeeper from Spain killed in south Lebanon
Al-Arabiya – 5 hours ago
Two Israeli soldiers, UN peacekeeper killed in Israel-Hezbollah violence
Reuters – 15 hours ago
Yes I do have very good hearing.
By the way, although deponent verbs in Latin are passive in form but active in meaning in their other forms, the gerundive of a deponent verb is passive in meaning. Classical Latin: Gerunds and Gerundives, the Supine. So, even in Classical Latin, I am not sure that my use of vescendi would be wrong.
The leading Spanish newspaper El Pais is in no doubt that the Spanish soldier was killed by Israeli artillery fire:
There’s no business like Shoa Business.
Millions have visited Auschwitz, at roughly £25 quid a pop.
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g274772-i961-k5420044-Cheapest_price_for_Auschwitz-Krakow_Lesser_Poland_Province_Southern_Poland.html
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g274754-d275831-r25207170-Auschwitz_Birkenau_State_Museum-Oswiecim_Lesser_Poland_Province_Southern_Poland.html
Auschwitz, is a money making machine, that Rockerfeller would find hard to keep up with.
Interesting juxtaposition there, Lycias, illustrating what happened to Latin when people actually had to speak it; Spanish being the happy result. I imagine the Spanish don’t spend much time arguing about the gerundive.
As the chapter I linked to says, the gerundive was always peculiar to literary Latin. I don’t think deponent verbs survived into Romance languages, did they? (Classical Latin had the deponent sequor. Romance languages have seguir, suivre, etc.)
Well it seems that there’s a few of us here that don’t agree with the criminalisation of discussions/research/opinions about any historical event; shame that our Host doesn’t agree, despite being a keen advocate for Free Speech, but it’s his Blog, & his right to be as hypocritical as he likes.