Holocaust Denial in Australia

Antisemitism has always evolved, and Holocaust denial is just the latest manifestation of that process. The real motives behind Holocaust denial are antisemitism, wider racism, and the rehabilitation of Nazism. The logic of the deniers is, if the Nazis genocide against the Jews makes Nazism unacceptable in today's climate, then whitewashing this crime could make their doctrine once again acceptable. This pernicious political goal, rather than any pursuit of historic facts or legal rights, is what Holocaust denial is about.

In advancing their Holocaust denial claims, most deniers steadfastly deny any antisemitism, but this is completely at odds with their repeated and ongoing expressions of it. For example, the president of the Holocaust-denial advocacy group, the Australian Civil Liberties Union, has claimed that four Australian Prime Ministers' wives have been of Jewish descent and this 'explains many things that are happening here'. Under the banner of The Adelaide Institute, another publisher of Holocaust denial has complained 'how difficult it is for the Jews to abandon their hate-filled Talmudic tradition'.

The Denial
Clearly antisemitism is an integral part of the philosophy of Holocaust denial. The deniers assert that the Holocaust did not happen, and that there must be a massive worldwide Jewish conspiracy to perpetuate the fraud that it did. Some groups go so far as to suggest the Nazi death camps were virtual holiday camps where inmates were enjoyed swimming pools, post-offices, theatres, concert halls, libraries and even brothels.

Deniers (also called "Revisionists") deny the mass murder of the Holocaust, the killing of a million children, parents whose children were physically taken from their arms never to be seen again and children who survived but never again saw their parents. Survivors of the Shoah (Holocaust), many of whom until this day wake up every night with nightmares, are told by the deniers that their experiences never occurred. People who were deported from their homes in cattle carts and whose names were replaced with tattooed numbers on their arms are now told they are frauds. It wasn't enough that they lost loved ones, homes and all they knew; now even that loss is denied.

Deniers' assertions are predicated on highly selective use of information. A claim about the small number of Jewish deaths, for instance, is based on entries in the Auschwitz register, even though the register was only used for those who were sent to work and not those selected for immediate gassing.

Second, they distort what information is available. The deniers' claim of there having been 6.5 million Jews in Europe prior to World War II, for example, is based on a Chambers Encyclopedia entry that gives this figure for the Jews in Europe, excluding Russia and countries not under Nazi domination in 1939. Yet it was from these (excluded) territories where enormous numbers of the victims came.

Third, they fail to address the glaring inconsistencies in their logic. For example, they claim that Zyklon B could not have been used to gas Jews because it would have threatened the Germans who were doing the killing. This is then contradicted by their explanation that it was used only for delousing purposes, as if the people exposed to it in this way would be immune to its life-threatening danger.

While such views cause bewilderment, bemusement and dismay to true historians, civil libertarians and sensible individuals, they brings nods of approval from the other far-right fringe dwellers with whom Holocaust deniers have close ties.

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