The use of gas chambers in several camps has been disputed by historical revisionists. Whether or not you subscribe to the revisionist point of view (I do, to some extent) -, it does not follow that Jews were not victims of mass-murder. For example, in ditches.
The numbers of reported casualties are probably massively inflated. It does not follow that there was no genocide, just that some are inflating the numbers for various reasons, by all kinds of people. Some are heavily misguided, some are profiteers, some lack intellectual curiosity and parrot what they've heard.
There are now generations of Jews who were raised around the idea of their parents/grandparents being holocaust survivors. Some got this from the family members themselves, many others got it from the education system and the media. This is somewhat similar to American blacks and slavery. I don't see people going around saying American blacks were never slaves, but there are certainly revisionists calling for re-evaluation of the supposed facts (as there should be) and regretfully they've always been targeted by regressives. So you've got black people now saying they are a descendant of slaves. Many make this claim without substantiating it. Some for social clout, some are misguided, still others for some combination of these motivations. Furthermore, even if they were slaves, there are wildly different levels of hardship a slave could go through and still be considered a slave. Same story with the Jewish host here. Doesn't mean there was no genocide.
There are organizations and individuals who make use of the holocaust for profit or to gain power. This grievance industry is shameful and regrettable. Doesn't mean there was no genocide.
There wouldn't be nearly as many Holocaust deniers as there are if half the points you made could be said out loud without a full "SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!"
The unquestionable nature of it has created a very exploitable thing both for victim credits and ideology. Which isn't as impossible to notice as it should be, so when someone notices they are getting lied to/exploited they attempt to say something.
Which then creates the cycle of "they shut me down, what are they trying to hide" and it just spirals out of control.
The unquestionable nature of it has created a very exploitable thing both for victim credits and ideology
This is the important part of it, to me. I blame a lot of our modern problems on worship of victims (which promotes unhealthy behaviors like aspiring to weakness). I wonder if we'd be where we are now if idle revisionist chatter surrounding WW2 was treated like all other variants of revisionism.
David Cole's Republican Party Animal is a fascinating insider's take on this. As a (Jewish, Zionist) holocaust revisionist he explains in detail the lengths people went to shut him down, slander him and disassociate from him. Including physical violence and even a bounty on his head (Irv Rubin from the JDL). Pretty quick read, too, if you can stomach the writing style.
In my university, we covered the Holocaust and Holocaust denial. The conclusions of myself and my friends (I even think our teacher was of a similar opinion. He was a bit based as, because he was a historian of fascism, he was adamant that Trump wasn't a fascist) is that even though Holocaust denial is a tad bit absurd, trying to shut it down just makes it worse, and it's already a bit iffy silencing people for disagreeing with you.
It is vital to make the distinction between Holocaust revisionism and Holocaust denial. They are absolutely not one and the same, and it's just another case of using language to delegitimize.
And even worse, the deniers have some point. It has been over exaggerated and drummed up to levels far beyond reality, often by those who weren't there just as much as any of us.
Which means even if you want to shut them down, you can't because they have small chunks of lies on your side that holds them up just as much as the reality proves them wrong.
That pretty much sums up my views on the holocaust and gas chambers.
It wasn't any neonazi propaganda that made me skeptical of the gas chamber claim, but the simple observation that every 'concentration camp' was liberated by Americans and British, and every gas chamber equipped 'death camp' was liberated by the Soviets.
I don't trust a communist government to tell the truth about what their average citizen eats breakfast, let alone something as serious as this.
the simple observation that every 'concentration camp' was liberated by Americans and British, and every gas chamber equipped 'death camp' was liberated by the Soviets.
While it doesn't address the trustworthiness of the Soviets, there is a simple explanation for why that would be the case: because the Soviets attacked from the east, which is where the undesirables were. There are cultural differences between France and Germany, but they are both sons of the Frankish Carolingian empire. Specific French minorities were considered untermenchen, but not entire populations like the Slavs.
Also, the East was "lebensraum" annexed territory, far from the eyes of a German citizenry that might be a bit uncomfortable with the mass murder of millions.
Several points to make here.
The use of gas chambers in several camps has been disputed by historical revisionists. Whether or not you subscribe to the revisionist point of view (I do, to some extent) -, it does not follow that Jews were not victims of mass-murder. For example, in ditches.
The numbers of reported casualties are probably massively inflated. It does not follow that there was no genocide, just that some are inflating the numbers for various reasons, by all kinds of people. Some are heavily misguided, some are profiteers, some lack intellectual curiosity and parrot what they've heard.
There are now generations of Jews who were raised around the idea of their parents/grandparents being holocaust survivors. Some got this from the family members themselves, many others got it from the education system and the media. This is somewhat similar to American blacks and slavery. I don't see people going around saying American blacks were never slaves, but there are certainly revisionists calling for re-evaluation of the supposed facts (as there should be) and regretfully they've always been targeted by regressives. So you've got black people now saying they are a descendant of slaves. Many make this claim without substantiating it. Some for social clout, some are misguided, still others for some combination of these motivations. Furthermore, even if they were slaves, there are wildly different levels of hardship a slave could go through and still be considered a slave. Same story with the Jewish host here. Doesn't mean there was no genocide.
There are organizations and individuals who make use of the holocaust for profit or to gain power. This grievance industry is shameful and regrettable. Doesn't mean there was no genocide.
There wouldn't be nearly as many Holocaust deniers as there are if half the points you made could be said out loud without a full "SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!"
The unquestionable nature of it has created a very exploitable thing both for victim credits and ideology. Which isn't as impossible to notice as it should be, so when someone notices they are getting lied to/exploited they attempt to say something.
Which then creates the cycle of "they shut me down, what are they trying to hide" and it just spirals out of control.
This is the important part of it, to me. I blame a lot of our modern problems on worship of victims (which promotes unhealthy behaviors like aspiring to weakness). I wonder if we'd be where we are now if idle revisionist chatter surrounding WW2 was treated like all other variants of revisionism.
David Cole's Republican Party Animal is a fascinating insider's take on this. As a (Jewish, Zionist) holocaust revisionist he explains in detail the lengths people went to shut him down, slander him and disassociate from him. Including physical violence and even a bounty on his head (Irv Rubin from the JDL). Pretty quick read, too, if you can stomach the writing style.
In my university, we covered the Holocaust and Holocaust denial. The conclusions of myself and my friends (I even think our teacher was of a similar opinion. He was a bit based as, because he was a historian of fascism, he was adamant that Trump wasn't a fascist) is that even though Holocaust denial is a tad bit absurd, trying to shut it down just makes it worse, and it's already a bit iffy silencing people for disagreeing with you.
It is vital to make the distinction between Holocaust revisionism and Holocaust denial. They are absolutely not one and the same, and it's just another case of using language to delegitimize.
And even worse, the deniers have some point. It has been over exaggerated and drummed up to levels far beyond reality, often by those who weren't there just as much as any of us.
Which means even if you want to shut them down, you can't because they have small chunks of lies on your side that holds them up just as much as the reality proves them wrong.
That pretty much sums up my views on the holocaust and gas chambers.
It wasn't any neonazi propaganda that made me skeptical of the gas chamber claim, but the simple observation that every 'concentration camp' was liberated by Americans and British, and every gas chamber equipped 'death camp' was liberated by the Soviets.
I don't trust a communist government to tell the truth about what their average citizen eats breakfast, let alone something as serious as this.
While it doesn't address the trustworthiness of the Soviets, there is a simple explanation for why that would be the case: because the Soviets attacked from the east, which is where the undesirables were. There are cultural differences between France and Germany, but they are both sons of the Frankish Carolingian empire. Specific French minorities were considered untermenchen, but not entire populations like the Slavs.
Also, the East was "lebensraum" annexed territory, far from the eyes of a German citizenry that might be a bit uncomfortable with the mass murder of millions.