Recently, powerful voices descended upon “Holocaust Deniers”.
Why did world leaders find it necessary to speak out against “Holocaust Deniers”? What is it about the “definition” of Holocaust that might cause some to want to deny it?
Is there a definition of Holocaust?
Holocaust
1. The mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime from 1941 until 1945
Wordweb
The above definition of the Holocaust should be extremely difficult to deny. But that definition does not quantify the Holocaust.
The below definition of Holocaust by Wikipedia might cause questions. Perhaps there are elements in the below definition that one might disagree with. Perhaps “gas chambers” moves closer to a “confrontational definition” of Holocaust.
“Holocaust” and “Shoah” redirect here. For other uses, see Holocaust (disambiguation) and Shoah (disambiguation).
The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστον (holókauston): holos, “whole” and kaustos, “burnt”), also known as Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, Latinized ha’shoah; Yiddish: חורבן, Latinized churben or hurban[1]) is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, allies, and its collaborators.[2] Some scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the Nazis’ systematic murder of millions of people in other groups, including ethnic Poles, the Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, gay men, and political and religious opponents,[3] which would bring the total number of Holocaust victims to between 11 million and 17 million people.[4]
The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages. Legislation to remove the Jews from civil society was enacted years before the outbreak of World War II. Concentration camps were established in which inmates were used as slave labor until they died of exhaustion or disease. Where the Third Reich conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings. Jews and Romani were crammed into ghettos before being transported by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the majority of them were killed in gas chambers. Every arm of Nazi Germany’s bureaucracy was involved in the logistics of the mass murder, turning the country into what one Holocaust scholar has called “a genocidal state”.[5]
How did it all start?
Pope Lifts Excommunications of 4 Bishops:
Pope lifts excommunications of 4 bishops, including bishop who denied the Holocaust
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press Writer
Vatican City January 24, 2009(AP)
Pope Benedict XVI has lifted the excommunications of four traditionalist bishops, including that of a Holocaust denier whose rehabilitation sparked outrage among Jewish groups. …
And afterwards:
BBC NEWS
Pope condemns denial of Holocaust
Pope Benedict XVI has said the suffering of Holocaust victims must never be denied as he visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.
“May the names of these victims never perish. May their suffering never be denied, belittled or forgotten,” he said in the midst of survivors.
The pontiff began his trip to the Holy Land by saying in Tel Aviv that anti-Semitism was totally unacceptable. …
What did the Bishop say that earned him world-wide condemnation?
Bishop Richard Williamson was quoted as saying:
“I believe that the historical evidence is hugely against 6 million having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler,”
http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5301&Itemid=80
Judging from the reaction of religion and politics, one must be very, very careful of speaking what one believes – especially about the Holocaust. In religion, of course, belief can reach “cherished” levels.
But it is rare to see, even religion, force a belief – especially a non-religious belief on someone. If a man of the cloth publically denies the existence of the deity, then one might expect an uproar. But blasphemy, the word, makes only rare visits to the public’s conscience.
The religious-political power seems to have settled upon the current understanding of Holocaust – and “woe be unto the individual” who strays from the official definition.
Religion and politics were in the fray. Science was not. Scientists can find water on a planet million of light years away. Scientists can find artifacts from earth’s civilized populations long ago buried.
And yet, it is a real problem finding evidence of gas chambers that may have caused as many as 6,000,000 deaths right here on planet earth – yesterday – if compared to light-year measurement. That is really strange!
Perhaps the “powers that be” are likely satisfied with the current understanding of the meaning of the Holocaust. And anyone who questions the proffered definition is anti-Semitic.
There is something BAD WRONG here.
