Should holocaust denial be a crime?

In certain countries it is a crime punishable by prison to deny or belittle the holocaust. Should denial of the holocaust be a crime?



The Jerusalem Post
Nov 22, 2007 16:31
Vanity Fair sued over neo-Nazi interview
Talkbacks for this article: 21


An interview with one of Germany's most notorious neo-Nazis has landed Vanity Fair magazine in a heap of trouble.

Arno Lustiger, a Jewish historian and Holocaust survivor, has started proceedings to sue the magazine's German edition for publishing an interview with Horst Mahler, the former left-wing extremist who transformed into one of Germany's most rabid neo-Nazi public figures. The interview appeared in the Nov. 1 print and online editions.

Filed Nov. 7 and released to the public on Nov. 21, the suit notes that Mahler denied and belittled the Holocaust, which is illegal in Germany.

Attorney Uwe Lehmann-Brauns told the JTA on Nov. 21 that he was awaiting confirmation from Berlin's state prosecutor that the suit had been formally entered. Vanity Fair as yet has offered no response.

In the interview, conducted by journalist and former vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Michel Friedman, Mahler said that "Hitler was the liberator of the German people. He is demonized as the liberator of Satan."

The publisher had said he ran the interview to make Germans aware of the poisonous ideas in their midst, but Lustiger's attorneys said the motivation was immaterial.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195546701089&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

 

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I don't think it should, I classify it under the Freedom of belief.
Besides nobody seems eager to criminalize the Stalin holocaust, he killed millions of people.
What's the difference? Why is denying one criminal and the other is not?

 

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No, It shouldn't, No more than believing in the superiority of one race over another. Until they start harming anyone that is.
People can believe what they want.

 

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Thought police - Orwell must be saying "Told ya so..."

 

No being retarded and believing in things despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary isn't and shouldn't be a crime.

However I can understand the German mindset. The phrase "Never again" is one that they take very seriously and with good reason.

 

Only in Germany.

 

I know it's a crime in Lithuania too.

 

denying the Holocaust is not just being stupid or academically dishonest. it carries with it a very serious and heavy baggage. carrying that baggage is what really illegal.

 

What baggage?

 

It's no different than denying the Armenian Holocaust(term coined prior to WWII by Winston Churchill), the Yugoslavian Holocaust, the Ukrainian Holocaust, Soviet POW holocaust, German POW holocaust. We could go back to Mongol atrocities(denied by modern Mongols), to Christian atrocities(suger-coated by christians), Muslim atrocities(denied).

In the end, a thousand years from now only a historians and a few people who paid attention in grade school, will "know" about the Jewish Holocaust. The deniers of today do not matter, and this attention only makes them matter more.

 

A thousand years is a long time. But we all still know about the assassination of Juleas Caesar, so who knows. The Holcaust was a watershed moment in history that led to the formation of Israel and, therefore, to many of the troubles we're having in the middle east now. So it may be remembered for a long time to come.

 

if you want to orchestrate a new holocaust you need to deny the first. just like ahmadinejad is doing.

 

Doubt it. Most people remember their prom song and whomever they fucked last week and that's about it, in my opinion.

 

if the Holocaust didn't exist then how come Germany is paying them reparations money? how come Israel exists? Jews have been using this fake pretext to extort money from the world. look how vile they are. etc. etc.

it re-creates the blood libel, and if you want to know where this will lead, just look at more than 2000 years of Jewish persecution throughout history.

by contrast, denying the Rwandan genocide carries no baggage at all. no one will be mad at the Tutsis if it turns out that their genocide did not occur.

 

To deny the Holocaust in the face of such overwhelming evidence seems to be the same as believing in creationism in the face of evolutionary evidence.

I understand why countries make it illegal, but its not right.

 

Yes. There is only one real reason to deny it, and we all know what it is. I'd like such stupidity censored even if for no other reason than it is disgusting.

Has anyone even bothered to deny what Stalin did in the first place?

 

no.
no more than, say, denying that gravity exists or people breathe.

i feel that all opinions are valid, but when those opinions have been proven wrong then the holder should gracefully bow out. to continue when proven wrong is not only rude but intellectually dishonest.

 

Why does someone keep denying it?

 

Mr. Spock answered that.

 

??? Many regular every day people deny it ever happened.