the holocaust

Bumbu Alexandra-LauraAmerican Studies, MA

The Holocaust – Indifference and Denial

The Holocaust, one of the biggest human genocides in history, has been at first

ignored by the Americans, who pretended that it did not exist, and then, after proofs of the

extermination of Jews came to surface, many tried to demonstrate that they were fake and that

the Holocaust did not really happen.

The Holocaust began with the decision of the Nazis to annihilate the Jews in the

territories to be taken from the USSR. When the German army opened its drive against the

Soviet forces on June 22, 1941, the frontline troops were followed closely by special mobile

units (Einsatzgruppen) that rounded up Jews and killed them in mass shootings. Following

this order, the Einsatzgruppen and associated support units murdered some 500,000 Jews

from eastern Poland and Russia between June and December, 1941. A second intervention in

the occupied territory, lasting from fall 1941 through 1942, annihilated close to 900,000 more

Jews. Hitler was not satisfied with these murders, so he ordered the systematic extermination

of all Jews who lived in the countries under Nazi occupation. The directive was issued on July

31, 1941, by Reich Marshal Hermann Goering who instructed Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the

Reich Security Main Office, to organize "a complete solution of the Jewish question in the

German sphere of influence in Europe". (Wyman, 1984, available at http://www.american-

buddha.com/lit.abandonjew.toc.htm )

Following this directive, the Nazis established six extermination centers in Poland, at

Chelmo, Belzec, Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibor and Auschwitz. The Chelmo extermination

center began its work in late 1941, using gassing vans as the main instrument of murder. The

victims were packed into enclosed trucks and suffocated by carbon monoxide from the

vehicles' exhaust systems. Gassing was done in these concentration camps mostly by carbon

monoxide fumes produced by stationary engines, except at Auschwitz, where the crystalline

Zyklon B (hydrogen cyanide, or prussic acid) was used. Nearly three million Jews gathered

from most parts of Europe were murdered in the six killing centers. (Wyman, 1984, available

at http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.abandonjew.toc.htm )

Although the whole Europe under the German sphere of influence was affected by the

Nazi’s decision to exterminate the Jewish population, official information that the Nazis were

systematically exterminating European Jewry was made public in the United States only in

November 1942 and even after this acknowledgement President Roosevelt did nothing about

the mass murder for fourteen months. Moreover, the American immigration policies were so


strict that by July 1941, America's gates were nearly shut. Only 21,000 refugees were allowed

to enter the United States during the three and one-half years the nation was at war with

Germany. Immigration was thus held to about 10 percent of the already small quota limits and

the administration justified this policy with the economic situation of the American society in

that period and the high employment rate. But these were not the only reasons. (Wyman,

1984, available at http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.abandonjew.toc.htm )

David Wyman states that the reasons for restricting immigration were also nativistic

restrictionism and anti-Semitism. (1984) His opinion is supported by the declarations of many

of the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, who stated their opposition to

the relaxation of the immigration laws very clearly. For example, Representative William

Elmer warned the House in October 1943 of "a determined and well-financed movement ... to

admit all the oppressed, Hitler-persecuted people of Germany and other European countries

into our country." Also, Senator Harold Burton believed the United States should channel

refugees "toward areas other than our own." He maintained that "there are many other places

in the world where there is much more room for their reception than there is here." These

quotes, presented by David Wyman in The Abandonment of the Jews. America and the

Holocaust, 1941-1945 support the idea that the very low immigration quotas were not

justified by the economic crisis, but mostly by the nativism and anti-Semitism that was widely

spread throughout America.

Moreover, Roosevelt did not do as much as it would have been expected from a man

with that much power, who could have aroused substantial public backing for a vital rescue

effort by just speaking out on the issue. Instead, he reluctantly agreed to talk with Jewish

leaders about the recently confirmed news of extermination in December 1942 and then

avoided all the Jewish requests to discuss the problem. Before his departure to Cairo in

November 1943, the Congress was already stirring about the rescue problem. When he

returned six weeks later, he faced the prospect of Ali explosive debate in Congress on the

administration rescue policies and the possibility of passing a legislation law that would call

on him to form a rescue agency. After he realized this, he established the War Refugee Board.

(Wyman, 1984, available at http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.abandonjew.toc.htm )

Although the War Refugee Board was a governmental agency, the President took little

interest in it. The board received little power, almost no cooperation from Roosevelt or his

administration, and grossly inadequate government funding. Because of that, the WRB was

mostly funded through contributions from Jewish organizations, which were, of course,

limited. But limited as they were, these contributions covered 90 percent of the WRB's costs,


which shows how little was the involvement of the government in this agency. But with all

the lack of cooperation from the president and the government, The WRB managed to help

save approximately 200,000 Jews and at least 20,000 non-Jews. (Wyman, 1984, available at

http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.abandonjew.toc.htm )

David Wyman states that Roosevelt’s actions, or more exactly inactions were

influenced by political expediency: “Most Jews supported him unwaveringly, so an active

rescue policy offered little political advantage. A pro-Jewish stance, however, could lose

votes. American Jewry's great loyalty to the President thus weakened the leverage it might

have exerted on him to save European Jews.”(1984) He continues by saying that the main

justification for Roosevelt's conduct in the face of the Holocaust is that he was “absorbed in

waging a global war. He lived in a maelstrom of overpowering events that gripped his

attention, to the exclusion of most other matters.” But nobody knows how he actually felt

about this problem or if his actions were driven only by political reasons or some personal

reasons also. (Wyman, 1984, available at


America’s indifference to the extermination of the Jewish people reached its peak

when, in 1944, the United States War Department rejected several appeals to bomb the

Auschwitz gas chambers and the railroads leading to Auschwitz, claiming that such actions

would divert essential airpower from decisive operations elsewhere. In other words, the mass

murders happening there were not as important as the need for air force in other matters. By

doing this, the American administration ignored once again the desperate need for saving

millions of Jewish people from a sure death. (Wyman, 1984, available at


Decades after the Holocaust ended, the issue still arouses debates, not only concerning

what could have been done to avoid it or to end it more quickly, but some also want to bring

into debate the truthfulness of the events. This denial, called also “revisionism”, plays on

classical anti-Semitic stereotypes: Jewish conspiracy and Jewish control of the media.

In Holocaust Denial, Kenneth S. Stern (1993) presents many of the theories that the

revisionists claim to be the real ones. To begin with, he presents a leaflet put into circulation

by the Institute for Historical Review, which is an organization whose primary purpose is to

disseminate views denying key facts of Nazism and the genocide of Jews and other victims.

The leaflet is a widely circulated question-and-answer material that has been translated into

German, Italian and Spanish and that asks questions like “What proof exists that the Nazis

practiced genocide or deliberately killed six million Jews?” “None,” the sheet proclaims.


“The only evidence is the testimony of individual 'survivors.' This testimony is contradictory,

and few 'survivors' claim to have witnessed any gassing. There is no hard evidence

whatsoever: no mounds of ashes, no crematoria capable of doing the job, no piles of clothes,

no human soap, no lamp shades made of human skin, no records, no credible demographic

statistics.” (Stern, 1993:2-3)

But the leaflet does not stop here. What is even more surprising is the fact that the

Holocaust deniers even call in question the existence of the gas chambers, the Nazi mean of

killing that horrified the entire world and whose existence was proved at the Nuremberg trials.

The leaflet proclaims that the gas chambers did not really exist, but a mortuary was modified

to look like one, right after the war: “Auschwitz, captured by the Soviets, was extensively

modified after the war and a mortuary was reconstructed to look like a large 'gas chamber.'

After America's leading expert on gas chamber construction and design, Fred Leuchter,

examined this and other alleged Auschwitz gassing facilities, he stated that it was an

'absurdity' to claim that they were . . . used for executions.” (Stern, 1993:3)

The revisionists acknowledge the fact that some Jews were incarcerated in places like

Auschwitz, but they claim these places were equipped with "all the luxuries of a country

club," including a swimming pool, dance hall, and recreational facilities. They also admit that

some Jews may have died, but this happened only as a natural consequence of wartime

deprivations, not because they were killed by the Nazis. (Lipstadt, 1993:27)

The supporters of the revisionism have spread their ideas so much that they even

convinced professors that what they say is true. Thus, in 1987, in Aurora, Colorado, public

high school teacher Dorothy Groteluschen told her students that the Holocaust was really a

“holohoax”, and distributed copies of an article entitled “Swindlers of the Crematoria”.

(Stern, 1993:10) Later, in 1990, Donald Hiner taught a Western Civilization 101 class at

Indiana-Purdue University. He said the Holocaust was a “myth”; that “the worst thing about

Hitler is that without him, there would not be an Israel”; and that “If the Holocaust really

occurred, you wouldn't have 2.5 million in Israel getting reparations.” (Stern, 1993:11)

These ideas were mostly popularized by Dr. Arthur R. Butz, an American professor at

Northwestern University who wrote The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. In his book, Butz

admitted that Jews were persecuted, but denied they were exterminated. The idea that many

people heard of Holocaust denial thorough Butz is sustained by Stern, who says that “People

who had never heard of Holocaust denial learned of it through the controversy surrounding

Butz, whose right of academic freedom was supported by Northwestern's faculty.” (1993:7)

But is interesting to see how people would believe anything a person with a Dr. in front of


his/her name says, even though they are not specialized in the field they are writing about.

This is also the case of Dr. Arthur R. Butz, who is actually a professor of electrical

engineering and computer science, who has nothing to do with history, but who wrote about it

and thus convinced many people that his ideas are real because he is a professor, so he knows

what he is talking about.

Deborah E. Lipstadt (1993) grants Butz’s success to the fact that he gave a different

tone to his book because he was willing to confront many issues most deniers had previously

ignored. This tone, she says, was one that was “clearly designed to disarm innocent readers

and enhance Butz's aura of scholarly objectivity. He criticized contemporary deniers,

describing The Myth of the Six Million, the American denial publication on which Richard

Harwood based much of his work, as full of "errors of fact." (1993:125) These

acknowledgements made people believe that his arguments are rational and that he is not just

a person who denies the existence of the Holocaust, but a person who questions the facts that

were not actually been proven.

These are just a few of the examples that promote Holocaust denial. In the books I

used as sources, the authors also present proof of Holocaust denial in newspapers, in the

classroom, on the campus, on radio and television, in libraries, courts and even in political

processes.

By looking at what happened during the Holocaust and how America reacted to this

episode in our history, we can easily observe that the problem has been at first ignored by the

Americans and then they just took some surface measures. Also, even though the trials in

Nuremberg have proved the existence of the Holocaust atrocities, there are many people who

try to demonstrate that they were fabricated and that the extermination of Jewish people did

not really happen. What is even more concerning is the fact that these “revisionists” tend to

gain more and more territory in the minds of the people, which could lead to a general denial

of one of the biggest human genocides in history, which means that this could happen again

since we learnt nothing from it.


Bibliography:

Lipstadt, Deborah, 1993, Denying the Holocaust. The Growing Assault on Truth and

Memory, Penguin Group, New York.

Stern, Kenneth, 1993, Holocaust Denial, The American Jewish Committee, New

York.

Wyman, David, 1984, The Abandonment of the Jews. America and the Holocaust,

1941-1945, available at http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.abandonjew.toc.htm

http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.abandonjew.toc.htm

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