Tag Archives: Hitler

Holocaust Denial: Deceptive hatred

I found the following paragraph on the Anti-Defamation League website regarding the topic of Holocaust denial:

“Holocaust denial, which its propagandists misrepresent as “historical revisionism,” has become one of the most important vehicles for contemporary anti-Semitism. It is the invention of a collection of long-time anti-Semites and apologists for Hitler…”  http://www.adl.org/holocaust/introduction.asp

This is a significant problem facing the worldwide Jewish community.  The logic is simple.  You can’t fight the battle to make sure it never happens again if you have to fight the battle of whether or not it happened in the first place.  Hitler’s Germany persecuted the Jews of Europe in systematic fashion.  In my upcoming book, “Jew Face: A story of love and heroism in Nazi occupied Holland”, I show how the Nazis destroyed most of the Dutch Jewish community in incremental fashion, ultimately murdering 104,000 of what was a community of close to 150,000 people.  The concept of Holocaust denial can only be seen as ultimately having  the same goal.  The evidence is clear.  The photographs are there, the names are there, the personal accounts have been given.  To anyone other than the avid anti-Semite, there is no doubt that these atrocities took place.  It is my hope that by getting the attention of as many people as possible, I am helping increase awareness of what took place.  For if we allow acts of barbarism to be forgotten, we increase the chances of them happening again and again.  Not only to the Jewish people, but to innocents all over the world.


Why is shock important?

When writing a book about a time so significant and devastating to the Jewish people, one has a moral responsibility to acknowledge and honor those who perished from the brutality and suffered the horrors perpetuated by one of the most, if not the most evil governments in the history of civilization.  On the surface this seems to be an uncomplicated task, but when confronted with decisions on how to present the story, one must use their own judgment in choosing the means that best accomplish the goals set out in putting pen to paper.

Once on a visit to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I made the comment that although I live my life almost entirely different than the Hasidic Jews that live there, I love going there because when I walk through the neighborhood I realize that with all the death and destruction Hitler orchestrated against the Jewish people, in the end he did not win.  Nazi Germany is long gone and the specific threat that it posed to the very existence of the Jewish people no longer exists, but the war of the anti-Semite against the Jewish people has not ended and still needs to be fought.  The attempt at intellectualizing Holocaust denial and the efforts by those who wish to accomplish this on a global scale threatens the Jewish people in a deceptive and methodic way.  Little by little there is a danger that more and more people will choose to believe that it did not happen and that 6 million Jewish lives were not killed by Hitler’s Germany.  In writing this book, and titling it “Jew Face”, even at the risk of offending some of my fellow Jews, I do so with the purpose of getting the attention of as many people as possible.  The alarming title will startle people, but if it gets many to read what happened and be aware, then it has served a positive purpose.

You can’t fight fire with smoke.  You must fight fire with fire.  And if giving this book a title that shocks people and makes them interested in its content I increase awareness of what truly took place, I have been successful in accomplishing the book’s most important task.  Honoring the victims and helping the world never forget what took place.