The Denial of Holocaust Denial

Robert Faurisson's Case for Revisionism

by Charles Stanford

“In France it is perfectly lawful to proclaim unbelief in God but it is forbidden to say that one does not believe in the “Holocaust”, or simply that one has doubts about it. The punishment may run to as much as a year’s imprisonment and a fine of €45,000”

— Robert Faurisson

“In Germany doubting the veracity of the official version of the Holocaust is a thought crime punishable with up to five years in prison”

— Germar Rudolf

What is the number one taboo subject today in Western society? At different times the average person would perhaps have singled out the topics of homosexuality; the relations between the different races; illegal immigration; even questions of sex generally. Today, to cast doubt upon global warming/climate change is almost out of bounds. However, the present writer’s nomination for number one goes, without a shadow of a doubt, to the Holocaust. Professor of sociology, Dr. Robert Hepp, puts it very well indeed:

Occasional experiments that I have conducted in my seminars convince me that “Auschwitz”, the most well-known site of the Holocaust, is strictly ethnologically speaking one of the few taboo topics that our “taboo-free society” still preserves (see Franz Steiner, Taboo (1956), p. 20ff.). While they did not react at all to other stimulants, “enlightened” students who refused to accept any taboos at all, would react to a confrontation with “revisionist” texts about the gas chambers at Auschwitz in just as “elemental” a way (including comparable physiological symptoms) as members of primitive Polynesian tribes would react to an infringement of one of their taboos. The students were literally beside themselves and were neither prepared nor capable of soberly discussing the presented theses. For the sociologist this is a very important point because a society’s taboos reveal what it holds sacred. Taboos also reveal what the community fears...”

The Holocaust is not only at the head of the taboo subjects, but arguably a secular religion, concerning which no adverse comment at all is allowed. One can pour scorn on the Catholic Church and very little by way of criticism will be said. Mount an attack on Western civilization generally and the cognoscenti will likely praise you. Try saying that the value of a society should be judged in terms of how it treats the most vulnerable, those in the womb and the elderly and infirm, and you will be floored by the abortion crowd and the supporters of euthanasia. Both of the latter will very often include doctors of course, the very persons from whom you would expect support and assistance. And don’t expect the young people to line up behind you either. To take just one example, in the country of Ireland, supposedly known for its traditional values regarding issues of life, crowds of young women went out into the streets to cheer the pro-abortion referendum result there. However, if you dare to say a single word casting the slightest doubt on any aspect of the Holocaust story, you will be immediately castigated as an irreparable anti-Semite and subjected in many countries to criminal sanctions, loss of employment, and social scorn.

Writing about the Jews, both in relation to the Holocaust and other matters, has often been a problematic task. For example, when the names of those two great characters, Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton, are mentioned these days, this is always accompanied by a reference to their supposed “anti-Semitism.” Sadly, it is also the case that the crucial distinction to be made in relation to the Jews on the part of a Christian is often misunderstood. Anti-Semitism is a racial concept, in the sense of hatred of the Jews because of immutable and ineradicable racial characteristics. This is utterly wrong and something that has always been repudiated by the Church. However, it is necessary for a Christian, in view of the belief of that faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ, to be anti-Jewish in the sense of opposing beliefs and actions of Jews which operate as a consequence of the Jewish rejection of Christ. The present article firmly maintains that vital distinction. It acknowledges the fact that many Jews try sincerely to live up to the moral law. Nevertheless, it is the case that the Jews rejected Logos, the reason for the universe and its redemption, and so rejected Christ, the Supernatural Messiah, in order to support anti-Christian revolutionary movements. This rejection of Logos has been a feature of Jewish history and has led directly to cultural subversion and collapse of the moral order.

To turn to the question of the Holocaust, then, one crucial matter that has to be understood is that no one holds the view often characterized as “Holocaust denial” in the sense of denying completely that there was ever any persecution of the Jews at that time. Of course, there was. In fact, at any moment in history evil things have been done and the Jews have been the subject of such things. There have been bad words and actions: slander, libel, internment, deportations, pogroms, even massacres. But these things have happened to other people as well, and in great numbers. In addition, the Jews are not blameless themselves, since no human beings are. Christians have persecuted Jews, but Jews have also persecuted Christians. As mentioned earlier, one can identify in history what can be called a Jewish revolutionary spirit, notably at the very foot of the Cross, and significantly again in more recent times, for example, in the make-up of the leaders of the Bolshevik forces in the Russian revolution of 1917 and their contribution to that event. Of course, in addition the totally secular mindset has also persecuted both creeds and others, perhaps to an even greater degree, and in the inevitable maelstrom of human activity, been also on the wrong end of certain bad actions.

What is needed is a recognition of human imperfection, but also a recognition that an objective investigation of empirical issues can arrive at the truth. This applies to all historical events and the question of the Holocaust is no exception. Yet, so often, an attempt is made these days by Jewish organizations to hold this particular matter as being beyond dispute. This approach is not even confined to the Jews, although it has become more inevitable from that source. On November 1, 2005, unanimously and without a vote, the representatives of the 191 nations then making up the United Nations adopted – or let be adopted – an Israeli-drafted resolution rejecting “any denial of the Holocaust as an historical event, either in full or part.” Already, at the trial of Ernst Zündel in Canada in 1985 for publishing a false statement about the Holocaust, the judge went so far as to take judicial notice of the existence of the Holocaust, which made any evidence, of whatever kind and however strong, utterly irrelevant. This is ridiculous. A trial, or any examination of a set of facts, should be decided on the reliability and weight of the evidence.

As Christians we must love our enemies. But love must be based on truth. And we faltering human beings are prone to error and sin. This applies to all of us all of the time. But something seems to have happened here. As Christians we have to acknowledge that Christians have not always been worthy of their faith in their attitudes and actions in respect of the Jews. However, I do not honestly see a similar attitude on the part of many Jews, and certainly not on the part of organizations that purport to represent the Jewish perspective. All too often these days these Jewish authorities claim implicitly that anti-Semitism is not dislike of Jews, but rather amounts to anything that Jews dislike. This, of course, makes for chaos and the impossibility of any dialogue and discussion at all. The problem resulting from this is that if anyone….

[…] This is just an excerpt from the December 2021 Issue of Culture Wars magazine. To read the full article, please purchase a digital download of the magazine, or become a subscriber!

(Endnotes Available by Request)