Holocaust trivialization

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Holocaust trivialization refers to any comparison or analogy that diminishes the scale and severity of the atrocities that were carried out by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.[1] The Wiesel Commission defined trivialization as the abusive use of comparisons with the aim of minimizing the Holocaust and banalizing its atrocities.[2] Originally, holocaust meant a type of sacrifice that is completely burnt to ashes; starting from the late 19th century, it started to denote extensive destruction of a group, usually people or animals. The 1915 Armenian genocide was described as a "holocaust" by contemporary observers.[3]

Auschwitz to oppose nuclear weapons and Al Gore citing Kristallnacht in defence of the environment.[5]

In the words of Holocaust survivor and memoirist Elie Wiesel, "I cannot use [the word 'Holocaust'] anymore. First, because there are no words, and also because it has become so trivialized that I cannot use it anymore. Whatever mishap occurs now, they call it 'holocaust.' I have seen it myself in television in the country in which I live. A commentator describing the defeat of a sports team, somewhere, called it a 'holocaust.' I have read in a very prestigious newspaper published in California, a description of the murder of six people, and the author called it a holocaust. So, I have no words anymore."[6]

Notable cases

Historikerstreit

See also: Historikerstreit

During the Historikerstreit, many scholars believed the position taken in the

Nazi propaganda.[7]

Historian Thomas Kühne writes that "[t]he more provocative historians were in doing so and the more they thereby questioned the uniqueness, or the peculiarity, of the Holocaust, the more their work was met with resistance or even disgust, most prominently and controversially the German Ernst Nolte in the 1980s."[8]

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Main articles: Palestinian genocide accusation and Nazi analogies § Israel
See also:
Holocaust inversion

Comparing the

Shoah to describe Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, among other abuses.[9]

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) condemned the United Church of Canada for trivializing the Holocaust. According to the CIJA, the United Church of Canada published a document[10][11] in which they placed a statement decrying the "loss of dignity" on the part of the Palestinians, attributed to Israel, promptly after a similar statement acknowledging "the denial of human dignity to Jews" in the Holocaust.[12]

During a visit to Berlin, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Olaf Scholz that "Israel [had] committed….50 massacres, 50 slaughters, 50 holocausts" after he was inquired if he would apologize for the Munich massacre by Palestinian terrorists. Scholz stated in a message to the Bild newspaper that "for us Germans, any relativization of the Holocaust is unbearable and unacceptable."[13][14]

After Brazilian President

Lula da Silva compared Israeli actions during the Israel–Hamas war to the Holocaust, Dani Dayan, the chairman of Yad Vashem museum, said the comments represented blatant antisemitism and "an outrageous combination of hatred and ignorance," further stating that "comparing a country fighting against a murderous terror organization to the actions of the Nazis in the Holocaust is worthy of all condemnation." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Lula's comments by saying "The words of the President of Brazil are shameful and alarming. This is a trivialization of the Holocaust and an attempt to harm the Jewish people and Israel's right to defend itself."[15]

Post-Communist states and Holocaust memory

See also: Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism § In political discourse

According to political scientist

post-Communist states in an attempt to erase fascist crimes and local participation in the Holocaust, and use their imagery to represent real or imagined crimes of Communist states. Subotić discussed specific examples in Croatia and Serbia, but governments across the region "have used public monuments, museums, and memorials to nationally appropriate the memory of the Holocaust, and use it to produce a new visual remembrance of their 20th Century past that supports their myths of nationhood."[16] According to Subotić, this form of historical revisionism of the Holocaust and post-Communist memory "has become so mainstream and state sponsored that in 2018 Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović called for the creation of an international commission to determine the truth about the camp between 1941 and 1945, 'but also after' – indicating that the narrative that Jasenovac was a communist camp after the war was now accepted at the pinnacle of power."[16]

A report by the

Holocaust victims, as was done in The Black Book of Communism, as an attempt at Holocaust trivialization.[2] The Historical Museum of Serbia put on the highly-publicized exhibition "In the Name of the People – Political Repression in Serbia 1944–1953", which according to Subotić "promised to display new historical documents and evidence of communist crimes, ranging from assassinations, kidnappings and detentions in camps to collectivisation, political trials and repression" to actually show "random and completely decontextualised photographs of 'victims of communism', which included innocent people but also many proven fascist collaborators, members of the quisling government, right-wing militias, and the Axis-allied Chetnik movement." Another more damning example is the well-known photograph of prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp, which was displayed in the section devoted to a Communist-era camp for political prisoners on the Adriatic island of Goli Otok, describing it as "the example of living conditions of Goli Otok prisoners", and not correcting it even after the misrepresentation was exposed. Only after an outcry from Holocaust historians, a small note was taped underneath the display caption that read: "Prisoners' bunk-beds in the Dachau camp."[16]

In New Directions in the History of the Jews in the Polish Lands (2018), historian Dan Michman laments that "[f]rom the perspective of today, one can say that the pendulum has even moved so far in emphasizing Eastern Europe from June 1941 onward, and first and foremost its killing sites as the locus of the Shoah, that one will find recent studies which entirely marginalize or even disregard the importance to the Holocaust of such essential issues as the 1930s in Germany and Austria; the persecution and murder of Western and Southern European Jewry; first steps of persecution in Tunisia and Libya; and other aspects of the Holocaust such as the enormous spoliation and the cultural warfare aimed at exorcising the jüdische Geist."[17]

Double genocide theory

See also: Double genocide theory

The double genocide narrative holds that there were two contemporary genocides of equal weight, a

Stalinist one. Michael Shafir calls the double genocide theory a form of Holocaust obfuscation,[18] while Carole Lemée sees it as a symptom of persistent antisemitism.[19]

In The Holocaust/Genocide Template in Eastern Europe, Ljiljana Radonić writes that the double genocide theory proposes the existence of an equivalency between communism and Nazism. Radonić posits that this theory and charges of Communist genocide both come from "a stable of anti-communist émigré lexicon since the 1950s and more recently revisionist politicians and scholars" as well as the "comparative trivialization" of the Holocaust that "results from tossing postwar killings of suspected Axis collaborators and opponents of Tito's regime into the same conceptual framework as the Nazi murder of six million of Jews", describing this as "an effort to demonize communism more broadly as an ideology akin to Nazism."[20]

Red Holocaust

The term red Holocaust was coined by the

European Jews."[24]

In "Secondary Anti-Semitism: From Hard-Core to Soft-Core Denial of the Shoah", German political scientist Clemens Heni [de] writes: "Contrary to the hard-core version, soft-core denial is often not easily identifiable. Often it is tolerated, or even encouraged and reproduced in the mainstream, not only in Germany. Scholars have only recently begun to unravel this disturbing phenomenon. Manfred Gerstenfeld discusses Holocaust trivialization in an article published in 2008. In Germany in 2007 two scholars, Thorsten Eitz and Georg Stötzel, published a voluminous dictionary of German language and discourse regarding National Socialism and the Holocaust. It includes chapters on Holocaust trivialization and contrived comparisons, such as the infamous 'atomic Holocaust', 'Babycaust,' 'Holocaust of abortion', 'red Holocaust' or 'biological Holocaust.'"[25]

Social media

Some trends on

fancy dress, and TikTok banned the hashtag Holocaustchallenge.[5]

Soviet and Ukrainian Holocaust

See also: Holodomor genocide question

According to Elazar Barkan, Elizabeth A. Cole and Kai Struve, there is competition among victims in constructing a "Ukrainian Holocaust". They say that since the 1990s the term Holodomor has been adopted by

Nazis killed only 6 million Jews. They further posit that the term Holodomor was "introduced and popularized by the Ukrainian diaspora in North America before Ukraine became independent", and that "the term 'Holocaust' is not explained at all". It has been used to create a "victimized national narrative" and "compete with the Jewish narrative in order to obscure the 'dark sides' of Ukraine's national history and to counter accusations that their fathers collaborated with the Germans".[26]

American investigative journalist Jeff Coplon posits that there is a

Holocaust' might compete with a Holo-hoax.' With the term 'Holo-hoax' referring to the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews."[27]

Coplon reports opinions of expert

Soviet collectivization, and veteran Sovietologist Roberta Manning of Boston College, as rejecting "Conquest's hunt for a new holocaust". Eli Rosenbaum, who was general counsel for the World Jewish Congress and former director of the Office of Special Investigations (United States Department of Justice), observed that "they're always looking to come up with a number bigger than six million. It makes the reader think: 'My god it's worse than the Holocaust.'"[27]

Russian invasion of Ukraine

Further information:
Disinformation in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine § Allegations of Nazism, and Fascist (insult)

Yad Vashem (Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust) criticized the Kremlin's claim that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was aimed at the "denazification" of Ukraine, as false and a trivialization of Holocaust history.[29][30] According to philosopher Jason Stanley, this reflects an antisemitic conspiracy theory which casts Russian Christians, rather than Jews, as the true victims of Nazi Germany.[31] The Fortunoff Archive for Holocaust Testimonies also condemned the invasion and described Putin's rhetoric as Holocaust trivialization,[32] and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum denounced Putin's abuse of Holocaust history.[33][34]

On 21 March 2022, Ukrainian president

Volodymyr Zelensky was criticized by Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center for creating a false equivalence between the Russian invasion and the Holocaust, while Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett found the comparison of the two events to be inappropriate.[35]

See also

References

  1. ^ Foxman, Abraham H. (27 January 2014). "Inappropriate Comparisons Trivialize the Holocaust". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  2. ^ a b Friling, Tuvia; Ioanid, Radu; Ionescu, Mihail E.; Benjamin, Lya (2004). Distortion, negationism and minimization of the Holocaust in postwar Romania (PDF). International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. pp. 47, 59.
  3. ISBN 978-1-4008-6558-1
    .
  4. ^ Gerstenfeld, Manfred (28 October 2007). "The Multiple Distortions of Holocaust Memory". Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  5. ^ a b Rudrum, David (16 March 2021). "Why Holocaust Trivialisation Isn't Trivial". The Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  6. ISBN 978-3-63-140428-7
    . Retrieved 2 December 2020 – via Google Books.
  7. ISBN 978-0-19-164774-1
    . Retrieved 2 December 2020 – via Google Books.
  8. S2CID 143701601
    .
  9. ^ "Backgrounder: Gilad Atzmon". Anti-Defamation League. 30 January 2012. Archived from the original on 12 May 2012. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  10. ^ "Government Advocacy Around Palestine and Israel". United Church of Canada. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  11. DOCX
    (Microsoft Word))    . 41st General Council. United Church of Canada. 1 August 2012. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  12. The Canadian Jewish News
    . Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  13. ^ "In Berlin, Abbas says Israel committed 'holocausts' against the Palestinians; Scholz grimaces silently, later condemns remarks". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
  14. ^ "Palestinian President Abbas skirts apology for Munich attack". AP NEWS. 16 August 2022. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
  15. ^ Lazar Berman (18 February 2024). "Israel livid as Brazil's Lula says Israel like 'Hitler,' committing genocide in Gaza". The Times of Israel.
  16. ^ a b c Subotić, Jelena (18 November 2019). "How Holocaust Memory was Hijacked in Post-Communist States". Balkan Insight. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
  17. ISBN 978-83-944262-9-3
    .
  18. ^ a b Shafir, Michael (Summer 2016). "Ideology, Memory and Religion in Post-Communist East Central Europe: A Comparative Study Focused on Post-Holocaust". Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies. 15 (44): 52–110. Quote at pp. 64 and 74.
  19. doi:10.3917/ethn.182.0225
    .
  20. ISBN 978-1-000-71212-4
    .
  21. ISBN 978-3-492-04119-5
    .
  22. ^
    doi:10.1111/j.1467-8675.2009.00526.x
    . A coining of communism as 'red Holocaust,' as had been suggested by the Munich Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, did not find much ground, neither in Germany nor elsewhere in international discussions.
  23. ISBN 978-0-803-29000-6
    . Retrieved 2 December 2020 – via Google Books.
  24. ISBN 978-0-253-03274-4
    . Retrieved 2 December 2020 – via Google Books. Quote at p. 46.
  25. JSTOR 25834800
    .
  26. ISBN 978-3-86583240-5
    . Retrieved 2 December 2020 – via Google Books.
  27. ^ a b Coplon, Jeff (12 January 1988). "In Search of a Soviet Holocaust". Village Voice. Retrieved 30 November 2020 – via Montclair State University.
  28. ISSN 2292-7956
    . Retrieved 4 September 2021 – via Holodomor Research and Education Consortium.
  29. ^ Gross, Judah Ari. "Yad Vashem chief: Russia trivializing Holocaust with false 'denazification' claim". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  30. ^ "Yad Vashem Statement Regarding the Russian Invasion of Ukraine". www.yadvashem.org. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  31. ^ Stanley, Jason (26 February 2022). "The antisemitism animating Putin's claim to 'denazify' Ukraine". The Guardian.
  32. ^ "On the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin's Abuse of Language". Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. 2 March 2022. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  33. ^ Snyder, Timothy. "Putin's Hitler-like tricks and tactics in Ukraine". The Boston Globe. The Boston Globe.
  34. ^ "Museum concerned about loss of life". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 25 February 2022. Retrieved 25 February 2022.
  35. ^ "Israelis Reject Zelenskyy's Holocaust Comparisons". Voa News. 21 March 2022.

Further reading

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Holocaust_trivialization&oldid=1219471888"