Like all kosher websites the Jewish Virtual Library, or JVL, has an obligatory section on Holocaust denial. In this section there is a page where the JVL claims that they are refuting a ‘bible’ for Holocaust denial that was published by the Institute for Historical Review (IHR).
The JVL’s section on refuting Holocaust denial is just a mirror of the following page. That page is just a refutation of ‘IHR/Zündel’s “66 Q&A”‘. The site does not provide a link to the Q&A so I went to IHR’s website to look for it.
And I found the following statement issued by IHR. It turns out that the Q&A flyer does not represent the viewpoints of IHR, which is not even a Holocaust denial organization. Furthermore it is unknown who created the flyer in the first place. Another article on IHR says this about the flyer, “The only material issued or distributed by the IHR that you specifically cite is a flyer, “66 Questions and Answers on the Holocaust.” This decades-old, single sheet leaflet is inherently superficial, and anyway is in need of revision and updating.” To tout a single sheet flyer as a ‘bible for Holocaust denial’ is quite dishonest indeed.
There is no real need go into detail about Nizkor’s refutation of an out of date, single-paged flyer. Bad arguments against the Holocaust narrative do exist and this Q&A flyer does have some. This is probably why Nizkor chose to refute it. Compare this slimey underhandedness to what I do. I don’t go and find some obscure decades old Holocaust affirming flyer, I go after the ‘reputable’ sites. Holocaust Denial on Trial, The United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum (USHMM) and Holocaust Encyclopedia. If you want to get an idea of how well funded USHMM is check out their Annual Report with two pages full of donors that have given 1 million or more since 2021.
I also attack the site in question, the Jewish Virtual Library. The JVL us a project of the non-profit American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE). It’s not for lack of funding (although it pales in comparison to USHMM) that the JVL’s Holocaust denial refuting section couldn’t address actual Holocaust revisionists and their sound arguments.
Even though there is no real need to go into detail I will still go over a couple of points.
The following is the very first point of the flyer. There are men who claimed to have been Sonderkommandos and seen the aftermath of the alleged gassing, so it is incorrect to say no one witnessed any gassing. It is true that no contemporaneous documents explicitly talk about genocide and there are no documents that refer to homicidal gas chambers. There is a lack of physical evidence for the remains of 6 million people. It is also true that the cremation facilities in Auschwitz/Birkenau would have not been sufficient to cremate over a million bodies. However, why bring up piles of clothes? Piles of clothes, shoes, spectacles, etc, do no prove a genocide.
In point 57 ‘IHR’ is absolutely correct. Why fake a picture when you can just dishonestly label it to suit your needs? Although fakes probably do exist, the Soviets were kinda known for that sort of thing. There is no real way to tell how someone died from a photograph of a pile of dead bodies. In their reply Nizkor brings up the bad argument ‘IHR’ made about the pile of clothes to agree that a pile of clothes is proof of a genocide. It just isn’t. In the second paragraph Nizkor complains that ‘IHR’ makes a claim without evidence to back it up. That’s pretty rich considering Nizkor provides zero citations or references to outside sources in their replies. There is also the fact that ‘IHR’ did not actually state that pictures of dead Germans were used as Holocaust propaganda, they only said it was possible. Nowhere in Nizkor’s reply is a refutation to the charge that a picture of a pile of bodies cannot tell you that they were gassed in homicidal gas chambers or deliberately starved to death. This is because it is a plain fact and Nizkor can not argue it.
That’s right, Nizkor, repeating deplorable lies doesn’t make them true. And falsely accusing a country of mass genocide is about the most deplorable a lie can get.
