The Holocaust for dummies

Jonathan Kay

Holocaust deniers distort history yet often get the best of staged confrontations

DENYING HISTORY: WHO SAYS THE HOLOCAUST NEVER HAPPENED AND WHY DO THEY SAY IT? By Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman: University of California Press, 312 pp., $42.50

 Canadian Holocaust denier Ernst
Zündel admires the Third Reich

YOU will not find a more straightforward Holocaust book than Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It. The authors' basic argument is this: The extermination of six million Jews during the Second World War is a historical fact. Those who deny it are wrong.

It's hardly a provocative thesis. But ask yourself this: Would you be able to refute a Holocaust denier? The fact of the Holocaust is like the spherical Earth: Every reasonable person accepts it, but few can prove it. That is why Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer teamed up with historian Alex Grobman to write Denying History. They believe thinking people have a duty to fight Holocaust denial head on; and they want them to come to the battle armed with historical facts.

When the eyes of the public are upon them -- such as during the 1985 trial of Canadian Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, or the famous 1994 Donahue episode that pitted two Holocaust deniers against Shermer and an Auschwitz survivor -- deniers often get the best of staged confrontations. The most prominent deniers know a lot about the Holocaust, especially arcane subjects like the chemistry of Zyklon-B gas and the architecture of gas chambers. Many of the sound bites they spit out are quite true. It is a fact, for instance, that the Nazis never manufactured soap from Jewish bodies on a mass scale -- contrary to urban legend. Deniers are also correct when they claim that there is no known Holocaust order bearing Hitler's signature. David Irving, the on-again off-again denier who recently lost a defamation suit in Britain, has never had to make good on his $1,000 challenge to any historian who could produce such a document.

But, as Denying History makes clear, there is still a mountain of evidence proving the nature and scale of the Holocaust. The Nazis' use of gas chambers has been established by, among countless other sources, the 1946 Nuremberg confession of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, as well as the 250-page autobiographical manuscript he wrote while awaiting execution. The estimate of six million killed is supported by a spate of historical studies, and also by Nazi physician Wilhelm Höttl, who testified at Nuremberg that: "In the various concentration camps approximately four million Jews had been killed, while about two million were killed in other ways."

None of this evidence convinces the true denier, of course. He is, by necessity, a conspiracy theorist. To him, every confession was coerced, every photograph faked. As the authors of Denying History demonstrate in psychological profiles of today's most prominent deniers, they see the "holohoax" as a plot by Jews (or, "the traditional enemies of truth" as they are commonly referred to in denier circles) to discredit the Nazi regime and the German people. "There are certain aspects of the Third Reich that are very admirable [such as its eugenics and euthanasia programs] and I want to call people's attention to these," Zündel told Shermer and Grobman in an interview. What the Holocaust has done, he argues, is to "bar so many thinkers from re-looking at the options that National Socialism German-style offers."

It is tempting to mock these confused men (there is a great essay to be written on why there does not exist a single preeminent female denier). But Denying History betrays no contempt for its subjects. The authors believe everyone has a right to be heard; and they treat Holocaust deniers with clinical detachment. This attitude reflects the authors' position of intellectual strength. Hatred for Holocaust deniers is compounded by the helpless fear that the pseudo-historians' specious lies may spread. When one is armed with concrete knowledge, however, that fear is lessened and hatred gives way to pity.