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Holocaust Deniers

Rick Casillas
The Commuter

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

To live in denial is to embrace ignorance; such is the path of those conspiracy theorists that renounce the Holocaust as a hoax, fabricated to further advance the interests of the Jewish people.

Alas, this is no new thing to the American people as our society is riddled with those that refuse to deal with reality, instead retreating to the bliss of their caves to look at pictures of the World Trade Center and pick apart axioms of daily life.

Do not misunderstand me: I believe strongly that you should question the well you draw your information from. It is a basic principle of journalism to check your sources at every turn. But despite the myriad of evidence gathered by our own military, allies and the well documented extermination of the Jewish people by the Nazi regime, still some exercise their right to transform free speech to free stupidity.

German law forbids Holocaust denial with a maximum 5 year penalty set in place for those that incite racial hatred. According to an article by the BBC, “Germany hopes to make Holocaust denial a crime across the EU as part of a package of laws it wants to introduce during its presidency of the bloc.” Berlin has even considered outlawing Nazi symbols like the swastika from being displayed. A dangerous line to dance on considering the suppression of information contributed so heavily to the atrocities of the Holocaust in the first place.

Websites for organizations like the “Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust,” who tout themselves as ‘historical revisionists,’ host essays and conspiracy theorists that debate every detail of the ‘holocaust hoax’ from gas chambers to the ‘Jewish controlled Media,’ further proving that intelligence does not equate wisdom.

That every single shred of evidence, from firsthand accounts to U.S. soldiers stumbling across concentration camps themselves and documenting what they found, operating a hoax at the level of something like the holocaust is unfathomable.

No government, no matter how secretive or well run, could possibly keep such a thing intact. That would require the absolute silence of millions, an impossible feat as we have learned countless times in our own country – from Watergate to Monica Lewinsky, people ALWAYS talk.

Denying the memory of those 6 million victims is akin to killing them a second time, thinly disguised prejudice that denies the rest of us a valuable lesson in the worst of humanity and its capacity for hatred. So arm yourselves with knowledge during Holocaust Remembrance month and fight against ignorance.

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