Over 30 years ago, historian and social critic Deborah Lipstadt
wrote a powerful book, Denying the Holocaust, warning the public about
the dangers of this pernicious ideology. This year, I was drawn to this
book because debates are raging again, this
time amplifying across social media, about the truth of World War II, what
happened in the death camps, and how we sift out the truth from the lies.
I wasn’t expecting to agree with her on everything. She’s an
unabashed liberal, progressive, even. Her ideological bent was crystal clear
when President Joe Biden nominated her as US Special Envoy to Monitor and
Combat Anti-Semitism in 2022, for
which she received unanimous confirmation. During her confirmation hearing,
Republican members confronted her over a number incendiary, inflammatory, even
libelous statements that she had published about them as well as then former
president Donald Trump. One of her targets, Wisconsin US Senator Ron Johnson, confronted
her about her nasty remarks directed at him over the January 6th incident.
She didn't look very good trying to defend the indefensible, and she ultimately
apologized. She ultimately got the job
because Democrats control the US Senate at the time, and no one wanted to
appear opposing the fight against anti-Semitism, no matter the appointment.
Despite her current left-wing bent, Lipstadt is a fierce
defender of freedom of speech. During an Oxford Union
speech in 2016, she declared that Holocaust deniers should have the freedom
of speech, including the right lie about history. However, historians must have
the right to call them out for their dishonesty, too.
As for her book, her extensive research and discussion on
the Holocaust, the Denialist industry, the tactics used by the Deniers come off
as very current, even though she wrote the book three decade ago. Indeed,
underneath the surface of seeming scholarship and respectability, once finds a
morass of bitterness and bigotry against a group of people. Their relentless
determination to blame Jews for all the ills of the world comes out in page
after page among Holocaust deniers, even if they have Ph.Ds. and claim that
there works is exhaustive research.
Before talking about specific deniers—institutions and
individuals—Lipstadt announces in her first chapter that she refuses to debate
Holocaust deniers. They are repugnant not merely for holding noxious views, but
for their deliberate refusal to recognize the copious archives, research, and
data affirming the horrific systemic slaughter of six million Jews under Hitler’s
Third Reich. In her view, a debate with a denier is to legitimize their views
as serious scholarship or opinion.
Throughout her book, I reflected on that notion, and I found
that it does have some merit. You don’t debate people who have no serious
regard for truth, evidence, integrity, or process. Why give them a platform?
Then again, the survivors, the historians, the archivists all have a
responsibility to debunk the lies and keep telling the truth.
Throughout the book, her political bent was crystal clear,
which is the only defect. She spent a great deal of time attacking right-wing
interests and organizations for promoting Holocaust denial. She criticized
patriot groups, liberty groups, and even the John Birch Society in the same
sentence as discredited Holocaust denial organizations. I know many John
Birchers, and they are not hostile to Israel nor do they traffic in Holocaust
denial.
I wonder what Lipstadt is responding to the growing
anti-Semitism on the left. From the Democratic Party’s growing demonization of
Israel, to the repeated attack against Jews as “privileged members of the
intersectionality hierarchy”, including the recent decision by civil rights
attorney Alan Dershowitz to leave the Democratic Party over its overt
anti-Semitism, the Left has transformed into the repository of Holocaust
minimalism and outright denialism.
Of course, there's one other problem fundamental to her
work. She treats Nazis and national socialists as right wing. Reviewing the
Nazis’ politics and policies policy, it’s clear that they were a left-wing
ideology, complete with the nationalization of industries, universal health
care schemes, gun control, massive government spending, and an abusive expansion
of the state to undermine individual liberties. In this regard, sadly, Deborah Lipstadt
engages in a little revisionism of her own. Yet her bias does not negate
that dangers of Holocaust denial and the necessary responses to combat it.
Putting aside the criticisms, Deborah Lipstadt's book was
very informative. I learned about the incredible work of Mel Mermelstein, a
Holocaust survivor who lived through Auschwitz, immigrated to the United
States, settled in Long Beach, California and then took on the challenge from
the notorious Holocaust denier pseudo historical journal the Institute for Historical
Review. The specific account is fascination: the IHR offered $50,000 to
Holocaust survivor who could prove that Jews died in gas chambers. Mermelstein
took the challenge, even though many Jewish groups had discouraged him. Not
only did he win the contest, but he took IHR to court and forced them to pay a
larger award for pain and suffering! Leonard Nemoy started in a TV
movie retelling the story.
Lipstadt goes to great length to document it not just the
truth of the Holocaust, but the extensive research behind it, and she even goes
into length how Holocaust deniers exploit and distort the evidence to push
their destructive, false narrative. She calls out specific pamphleteers,
and how all too often they merely reference each other to create this cloud of
credibility around their work.
She pays considerable attention and elucidates true
historical revisionism. When it comes to interpreting the facts of history,
revision is not only essential, it’s endemic. Historians are always piecing
together the evidence before them, seeking patterns and searching out causes
and effects. What revisionism cannot do, Lipstadt affirms, is change the facts,
ignore the truth, or lie about the evidence itself. Holocaust deniers routinely
engage in those vile practices.
Also to her credit, she spends an entire chapter castigating
college newspapers around the country who printed advertisements from Holocaust
deniers. Many of the newspapers, their editing boards, and the administrators
at the respective campuses engaged in an extensive, rigorous debate about whether
freedom of speech should require the newspapers to print the ads. This section
of her book was particularly intriguing, because she did a thorough job of
exploring the different points of view, even though she was critical of many of
them.
She maintained that no newspaper should have posted the
advertisements. Since in her view, such publication would lend credence and
legitimacy to Holocaust denial views. Furthermore, some of the advertisers gave
the impression that the deniers were offering only a difference of opinion.
No—they were categorically lying, like claiming that 2 + 2 = 5 or that George
Washington never existed. That is not a matter of opinion or interpretation,
Lipstadt affirms. Furthermore, private newspapers have the right and
responsibility not to print lies, nor are they bound by the First Amendment to
print everything submitted to them.
After reading Denying
the Holocaust, I appreciated Lipstadt calling out the cowardice and
collusion of the universities and printing houses. Her takes against the
Holocaust denial industry are relevant today. We should appreciate her stand
for truth, even if her politics is misguided or just plain wrong.
