Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory
By Deborah Lipstadt.
New York: The Free Press, 1993. 278 pp., $39.95 (hb)
Reviewed by Phil Shannon
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/5117
Did the Holocaust — the systematic annihilation of 4-6 million Jews under Nazism — really happen? There are a bunch of sickos who say No. These Holocaust Deniers have usually been seen as grotesque novelties who go into anti-Semitic, racialist meltdown at the thought of Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracies. They are, however, as Deborah Lipstadt argues in Denying the Holocaust, more than a distasteful but harmless object of revulsion and curiosity.
Neo-fascist political groups are growing in Europe and murdering immigrants. Le Pen, leader of the neo-Nazi National Front in France, who argues that the Holocaust is "a mere detail of history", has got 15% of votes in elections. The fascist British National Party recently won a council by-election.
In Australia, the League of Rights, an "ardently anti-Semitic organisation" operating under the "facade of defending civil liberties", uses "conspiracy theories to attract economically vulnerable members of the working class", explaining to the unemployed that Jewish bankers are the cause of the recession. Fascism in power has happened in the past; it can happen again. Economic crisis is its breeding ground.
Holocaust Denial is a major part of the neo-fascists' armoury. As Lipstadt argues, by removing the ugly blot of anti-Semitic genocide, the Deniers hope to spruce up the image of fascism. For Lipstadt, preserving the truth about the Holocaust is important for resisting the rise of fascism again.
It is also important, she argues, as part of the broader task of preserving historical truth, for example about the Vietnam War or other crimes of the powerful against humanity, so that new crimes are not committed.
Essential to combating the Holocaust Deniers is exposing them "for exactly what they are: Neo-fascists, racists, anti-Semites". She documents the Deniers' extremist right-wing credentials, from the trashy pamphlets of the foaming-at-the-mouth fascists to the works of the more "scholarly" deniers like David Irving. At their core, the "respectable" Holocaust Deniers are no different from the neo-fascist groups — "they hate the same things — Jews, racial minorities, and democracy".
She regards Irving as "one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust Denial". Irving has described himself as conducting "a one-man intifada" against the Holocaust "myth", explaining the gas chambers of the concentration camps as a fictional creation of the British Psychological Warfare Executive in 1942. He has also claimed that The Diary of Anne Frank is a "propaganda hoax" written by a New York script writer and the girl's father after the war, a claim thoroughly demolished by Lipstadt.
Irving is, however, an old-style Denier. A self-described "moderate fascist", he speaks at neo-Nazi rallies in Europe and has a portrait of Hitler on his desk. Others have realised the necessity to be seen to "sever their overt ties to an array of neo-Nazi groups", often "claiming to deplore anti-Semitism" and to "protest that they are not out to defend Hitler; they are interested only in revising history so that it will convey the truth".
Whereas the early Deniers attempted to justify the Nazi persecution of Jews as something beneficial to the world, some of the more "sophisticated" now claim a disinterested search for truth. In the process, they have shifted the ground to more favourable terrain, claiming that it is a matter of their right to free speech which is at issue, not the conclusions they reach.
This approach has found some surprising defenders from people who are ardent anti-fascists, libertarians like Noam Chomsky, for example. Many campus newspapers in the US have run Deniers' advertising material, claiming that to "abridge" the rights of the Deniers "endangers the rights of all", that running the ads "strengthens the cause of free speech". Not all, fortunately, have been sucked in to supporting Deniers "in the name of free speech, free inquiry or intellectual freedom". Harvard's paper called Holocaust Denial material "vicious propaganda based on utter bullshit that has been discredited time and time again".
Lipstadt herself is opposed to granting the "anti-intellectual, pseudo-scientific arguments" of the Deniers legitimacy for debating status. She also notes the limitations of legal restrictions on Deniers' activities, restrictions which can be used against other, progressive, voices and which can turn the anti-Semitic hate-monger into a victim on the altar of free speech. She doesn't, however, want to "muzzle" the Deniers — "they have the absolute right to stand on any street corner and spread their calumnies".
Fascism is a matter of life and death for the vast majority of working people. The toll at the Nazis' hands was up to 6 million Jews, more than 2 million Poles, half a million Gypsies, a similar number of Soviet POWs, more than 100,000 mentally and physically disabled, scores of thousands of socialists, communists, trade unionists, gays and others deemed "inferior" or troublesome.
Should they come to power again, the fascists would not only abolish free speech and independent organisation for everyone; they would abolish the right to life itself for millions. Better to stop the resurgent fascist menace under the flag of Holocaust Denial on the hustings before being forced to another war, and another Holocaust.
Lipstadt's book is valuable in exposing the Deniers' bogus historical techniques. But beware her concessions to Zionism, the colonialist ideology responsible for the dispossession of the Palestinians. Holocaust Deniers are opposed to the state of Israel and Zionism simply because they are anti-Semites. Opposing the Deniers does not mean that whatever they are against (e.g. Zionism) we should be for.
The High Court has recently lifted the ban on the entry of David Irving into Australia. Lipstadt's book should prove useful in preparing a hot welcome for him.