Holocaust Denial Trivia Quiz

Answer: False

There is no disagreement among professional historians about the fact that the Holocaust took place. Disagreements are about such matters as when it began, how detailed the early planning was, the nature of Hitler's personal role and the like. However, Holocaust deniers often claim that History departments in the West teach an 'official' (allegedly Jewish) version of events.

The American Historical Association (AHA) has a policy of not certifying that events did or did not occur, as otherwise it would be inundated with trivial and ill-formulated, often unanswerable questions. In 1991 its adherence to this policy led to misunderstandings with regard to its position on the Holocaust, and later that year the Council of the AHA unanimously agreed on this statement, which was published:

'The American Historical Association Council strongly deplores the publicly reported attempts to deny the fact of the Holocaust. No serious historian questions that the Holocaust took place.'

Answer: That the Nazi regime went to great lengths to hide the Holocaust

During the genocide most of the documents relating to it were marked 'Geheime Reichssache', which was the highest level of secrecy. As the Allied armies advanced towards and into Germany the SS systematically destroyed physical and documentary evidence of the Holocaust, for example, by blowing up gas chambers and crematoria. They even went to the trouble of grassing over the sites of the extermination camps at Belzec and Treblinka (which had ceased operating in 1943).

As is well known, the Nazi regime also used all kinds of euphemisms for the genocide.

Answer: Revisionists

Holocaust denial is a dogmatic rejection of the evidence for the Holocaust, not a 'revising' reinterpretation. The deniers reject the entire (or almost the entire) factual basis: in this respect what they are doing is very different from asking a question like, 'How useful is the concept of feudalism?' They never make any serious attempt to find out what became of the large pre-war Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe; and if some difficulty arises in the course of research on, say, Treblinka, they tend to say things like, 'The camp never existed' or 'It was only a transit camp'. They do not abide by the rules of scholarly and rational discourse.

Incidentally, almost none of the better known Holocaust deniers has a BA in History, let alone a higher degree in History.

Answer: They claimed that it was doubtful whether Anne Frank had ever even existed

The most determined of these deniers continued to doubt that Anne Frank had ever existed, even after Simon Wiesenthal succeeded in finding the man who had arrested the Franks and the others hiding in the annexe - Karl Silberbauer, who vividly recalled the arrest and his surprise that the occupants of the annexe had managed to stay hidden for so long.

Like most published diaries, that of Anne Frank was edited for publication, but a facsimile of the full version - complete with crossings-out, omitted words and Anne Frank's own alterations - is also available for anyone who wants to study it.

Answer: The Daily Express

Some of the deniers cite this sensational headline as if it were a reliable source. If one reads the article, not just the headline, it emerges that it reports proposals for a boycott of German goods and services. Moreover, this proposal was not adopted as policy by any major Jewish organization in Britain. The article also refers to developments in Germany as 'this revival of medieval Jew-baiting' - a point that the deniers do not mention.

The headline was used by the Nazis as a justification for their boycott of Jewish businesses on 1 April 1933. In other words, the whole thing was seen at the time as an economic matter.

The deniers exploit the fact that most people have little detailed knowledge of the Holocaust. Jews were first sent to concentration camps in large numbers (simply for being Jews) in November 1938 following the Night of Broken Glass. If the Nazi regime had regarded the Jews as enemy aliens in the usual sense, then waiting for well over five years to 'intern' them would have made no sense at all.

Answer: The autobiography itself

So, the deniers say that the reference to 'torture' shortly after his arrest was itself obtained under torture! This goes well beyond cherry-picking. There is never any discussion of why they treat one small part of the memoirs as reliable and the rest as not. In fact, they don't even acknowledge this absurdity.

The autobiography refers to beating to ascertain his identity, and to the use of alcohol and beatings to obtain a confession shortly after his arrest by the British, but the notion of captors torturing a man to write an autobiography beginning with details of his childhood and his early upbringing is simply fantastical.

Answer: He did not see any extermination at Buchenwald

Of course he didn't see exterminations at Buchenwald: it was a very harsh concentration camp, but not an extermination camp. The death toll at Buchenwald was certainly high - an estimated 56,545 prisoners, of whom about 13,500 perished on the death march when most of the camp was evacuated. If the SS statistics on the number of prisoners entering the camp are correct, about 24% of the prisoners were killed. The number of Jews killed at Buchenwald is estimated at 11,000. (See both the English and German Wikipedia articles on Buchenwald, accessed on 7 February 2011).

Rassinier's statement illustrates the importance of distinguishing between ordinary concentration camps and extermination camps. (The popular term 'death camp' muddies the waters, implying any Nazi camp with a high death rate).

Answer: That it was invented in order to gain support for the creation of the state of Israel

In the 1950s, before the plight of the Palestinians had become an international cause célèbre, the early Holocaust deniers claimed that the Holocaust was blackmail for squeezing money out of the West German government.

Answer: He was suing Penguin Books Limited and Deborah Lipstadt for alleged libel

Some in the media seemed to think that David Irving was on trial himself. He chose to sue - and lost. Of course, if you sue for defamation you put your own reputation on the line, but you do so by choice, and it is not the same as facing a criminal charge.

Contrary to a widespread misconception, there is no law in Britain against Holocaust denial.

For a fascinating account of the case, see Richard J. Evans, "Telling Lies About Hitler: The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial", Verso, London and New York, 2002. (Professor Richard Evans appeared as an expert witness).

Answer: Broad convergence of evidence from a wide range of sources

'Convergence of evidence from different kinds of sources' may be a concept that is unfamiliar to some. Certainly, those looking for one or two simple pieces of evidence that clinch the matter neatly in a couple of sentences will be disappointed, and it is this lack of simple evidence that is often exploited by the deniers. Many of them suggest that the only evidence available is eye witness accounts and that these are unreliable.

There have also been various war trials from late 1945 onwards which have provided a vast amount of evidence of various kinds.