Online Holocaust Denial and Hate Podcast Series:

HDOT's new podcast recordings feature interviews with Dr. Saul Friedlander, Father John Pawlikowski and other leading scholars and intellectuals discussing Holocaust denial and online hate spech. Subscribe to the feed in iTunes to recieve new podcasts as we post them.

 

 

Further Reading:

How Holocaust Denial "Slips" into the Mainstream, Apr 30, 2010

 

In an article "Testing the Limits of Freedom of Speech" the author interviews Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, who was recently released from a German prison. The lead line of the article "An exclusive interview with one of Europe's most well-known political prisoners" sets the tone for the interview. Holocaust deniers are not vicious ideological narcissists who substitute ideology for history; instead, according to the author they are the victims and the exemplars of the "emptiness of such [free speech] claims within Europe."

Although the online Foreign Policy Journal, gives voice to a broad range of "leftist" values -- emphasizing colonialization, exploitation and other western crimes -- they are not primarily occupied with Jews or the "Jewish Question" (or even with Israel for the most part). Yet this interview, written and conducted by an Iranian journalist, not only provides a platform for the perverted world view of Ernst Zundel, but also gives voice to the author's own prejudice and disdain. At one point he asks Zundel how he reconciles the fact that the Holocaust did not happen with the claims of those who "personally witnessed the heart-rending demise of their parents in concentration camps and bone-crushing machines." Why does the author focus on 'bone-crushing machines'? I have read many about the tortures of the camps, the gas chambers, the cremation process, etc. They are the mainstays of public awareness of the Holocaust. The reference to 'bone-crushing machines' can only be meant satirically per my reading, as if to represent survivor claims as ludicrous. Each one of his questions not only frames the denier's answers as reasonable positions but even leads the answers by suggesting the false claims directly.

The interview is also a great example of the interwoven nature of much denial and anti-Israel sentiment, particularly in the Muslim world. Without any prior mention of Israel, the interviewer asserts that "Many Zionist websites have introduced you as a white supremacist." Even without defining "Zionist" it is clear from his usage that it is a slur. Furthermore, calling Zundel a racist, an antisemite and/or a white supremacist has nothing to do with one's opinion on the state of Israel, but is a straightforward description of his writings and statements.

Finally, I invite you all to take a look at the comments that follow the article. Although comments are often give voice to the most radical views on any given subject, these are not outside the realms suggested by the interview: they are its only logical outcome. Deniers are courageous: the US and Europe are controlled by unseen Jewish hands: the Holocaust could not have happened because "There was no budget. There was no plan. There was no extermination order from Hitler."