Thomas Dalton - Debating the Holocaust - A New Look at Both Sides

This is a book about the Holocaust and about two competing views of that event. On the one hand we have the traditional, orthodox view: the six million Jewish casualties, the gas chambers, the cremation furnaces and mass graves. We know about the death camps. We are told about incriminating documents, photographs and hard evidence. Countless books and films reiterate the conventional view. Historians can call on thousands of surviving witnesses to give us eyewitness accounts. Traditionalists have the weight of history on their side.

On the other hand, there is a small, renegade band of writers and researchers who refuse to accept large parts of this story. They explicitly challenge the conventional view of history. Researchers who do such work are generally known as revisionists . They seek to revise the orthodox account of some past event. Holocaust revisionists, however, are a special breed. They challenge not simply historians, but an entire infrastructure dedicated to maintaining and promoting the standard view. They present counter-evidence; they expose inconsistencies; they ask tough questions. And they are beginning to outline a new and different narrative.

Thus has emerged something of a debatea debate of historic significance. This is no peripheral clash between two arcane schools of thought regarding some minutia of World War II. It is about history, of course, but it also speaks to fundamental issues of our time: freedom of speech and press, the operation of mass media, manipulation of public opinion, political and economic power structures and the coercive abilities of the State. It is an astonishingly rancorous and controversial debate with far-reaching implications.

Most of the public is only dimly aware of this debate, if at all. Nearly everyone knows that six million Jews were killed by the Nazis, and that gas chambers were used in the killing. But few have any idea about the origins of this story, its rationale and its justification. Fewer still know of the serious questions that have been raised against the traditional view; if they have heard of them, it is in the context of a few right-wing neo-Nazi anti-Semites who are trying to attack the Jews by questioning the Holocaust. And not more than a handful of individuals truly understand the depth of the revisionist attack on the mainstream view.

The fact that so few are aware of what may be called the Great Holocaust Debate is perhaps unsurprising. Much has been invested in the conventional story. Textbooks and encyclopedias have been written about it. Historians have staked their personal reputations on it. Politicians have passed laws defending it. And wealthy and powerful interest groups have good reasons to sustain it. In short, very few of those in positions of influence want to acknowledge any kind of legitimate debate. There is no incentive to publicize it and strong pressure to avoid it. Those in the public eye know that, should they broach this subject, they will suffer the consequences. Advertisers will drop out. Financial backers will disappear. They may be sued. They will lose access and perhaps their jobs. They will be shunned. They will be vilified. And it will all be legal.

Despite this overwhelming influence of orthodoxy, the many problems of the Holocaust story refuse to be suppressed. Time and time again, in small and often unexpected ways, cracks in the traditional view appear. A surprising admission, a foolish statement, a slip of the tongue, a blatant absurdity; and those troubling questions arise once again. Today, more people than ever suspect that all is not well with the standard view of the Holocausthence the need for a book such as this.

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The Great Debate is marked by a striking partisanship. The traditional story is defended primarily by survivors, Jewish writers and researchers, and those who suffered at the hands of Nazi Germanyin other words, by people with a self-interest in sustaining the dominant view of a genocidal Nazi regime and an innocent and victimized Jewish people. Of the thousands of books on the subject, the vast majority are by Jewish authors. The revisionist perspective, by contrast, is promoted by a very small number of people: primarily Germans, people of German origin, and those inclined to be pro-German or anti-Jewishagain, not an unbiased group. Charges of lies, conspiracy and hoax are frequently launched by both sides. This leaves the average person in a quandary: he is faced with partisan advocates on both sides, and rarely, if ever, gets a complete and balanced picture.