Talk:The Holocaust - Misplaced Pages

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Holocaust denial

I don't think the accusations against H deniers and only adding sources that confirm them complies with POV. --Vizcarra 21:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Vizcarra, I am confused by your point -- you seem to be saying that Holocaust denial deserves equal time, is that correct? I also want to point out that you deleted info about the countries where Holocaust denial is illegal, quotes from peer-reviewed journals saying that Holocaust denial was motivated by hate groups and not taken seriously by historians, and you deleted a quote about the difference between denial and revisionism. Are there are reason these three points are bothering you?

Holocaust denial is a lie, really and truly, it is pseudoscience repudiated by basically every historian on the planet, it has been repeatedly found baseless in any court case where it has come up, the people pushing it have been found multiple times to have forged materials and distorted facts, it has been repeatedly linked with anti-Semitism and racism, and is in totally contradiction with mounds of evidence. Truth is not a POV. Claims by hate groups do not get equal weight with the mass of history in Misplaced Pages. The section on Holocaust denial in the article is a sad necessity, and already longer than the entire section on the extermination camps. I wish that we didn't have to have the section at all, but the fact that some people seem to believe it, or at least promote it, makes it necessary. This is not an issue about POV, it is an issue about stopping lies, it is like saying that the article on the blood libel should devote more time to views that the Jews drink babies blood. --Goodoldpolonius2 21:52, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

No, I never mentioned "equal time" but if it must be included it deserves to be described from a neutral point of view. Truth is not a POV but the definition or perception of truth is. I am aware that you have a strong opinion on the topic but that should not prevent you from presenting a unbias account. I think a problem here is that you are describing Holocaust denial with denying the holocaust. The first involves doing the second or claiming that the numbers claimed by historians is wrong. The second one is illegal in many countries, as it claims the Holocaust did not happen. Some Jewish personalities can fall into the first category, so most of the adjectives including before the revert would not make sense. I do not have strong feelings for either, but think that every article in wikipedia should reflect NPOVs. Both sides claim the other side is lying. You have made it clear which side are you on, both article should not be on either side. --Vizcarra 22:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if you stop re-introducing the text while it is under discussion, for starters it is rude. --Vizcarra 22:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Vizcarra, I am afraid I am going to need you to explain further. What is the first type of Holocaust denial that you are talking about? You say the second is claiming that the Holocaust did not happen, but I don't understand the difference between that and the first type. Who are the "Jewish personalities" that you say are Holocaust deniers under the definition in the article? Which reputable scholars are Holocaust deniers under the definition of the article? Holocaust deniers are a well-known phenomenon, and I am not sure how you can suggest this confusion exists, in fact, one section you deleted discusses how revisionism and denial differs. Please provide sourced information on the "confusion" because you are deleting sources from the article without giving any support for your points.

Besides, you have deleted material that has been in the article for over a year claiming it was new, which it wasn't. And I did not reintroduce any text since your last revert, another editor did, I am not being "rude". --Goodoldpolonius2 22:50, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Do not be afraid of asking for explanations it is better than to make assumptions. Read the article Holocaust denial and if you still have any questions as to what positions fall under the umbrella of HD we can analyze them. The article also mentions reputable scholars that are HD under the definition of the article. I do not need any support for my points, but in turn addition of material needs to conform to POV, and at this point it has not. One cannot possibly describe an organization using bias and only citing sources that support such bias. --Vizcarra 22:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Vizcarra, what reputable scholars are Holocaust deniers? There certainly aren't any in the article on Holocaust denial, in fact the opposite. And you really do need to support your points with some evidence -- you claim that legitimate Jewish scholars are Holocaust deniers, which ones? Again, one does not need to give equal time to a lie, it is not a POV issue. If you can give me some information on the problem you see, or some data on the legitimacy of Holocaust denial research, then we can continue this discussion, but I am still not sure what you are objecting to. Goodoldpolonius2 23:00, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

This is the second time that I explain to you that I never mentioned "equal time". Just so you can be sure of what I am objecting to I will repeat it: It is the inclusion of biased material and one-sided sources. HD being a lie is your POV, HD's POV is that their opponents account of the Holocaust is a lie. Neither is absolute truth. And would you please stop twisting my words, because if you keep doing that this discussion will go nowhere. I never mentioned "Jewish scholars" being HD. I mentioned both "scholars" (such as Harry Elmer Barnes, David Irving which you would have found mentioned in Holocaust denial) and "Jewish personalities" (such as Norman Finkelstein). --Vizcarra 23:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

"Neither is absolute truth"? Vizcarra, Holocaust denial being a lie is not a POV, it is indeed the absolute truth. Really. 5 to 6 million Jews were killed by Hitler, they were shot at Babi Yar, they were gassed at Auschwitz, they were slaughtered in the Warsaw Ghetto. Do you really think this is "a point of view"? Your three scholars are bit dubious -- Norman Finkelstein does not deny the Holocaust, he thinks it is being exploited. Harry Elmer Barnes's piece on the Holocaust in the 1940s has since been entirely discredited, and he died forty years ago in any case. David Irving was found by the courts of England to have "persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence...he is anti-Semitic and racist and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism." He is certainly not a "scholar." Not everything is relative. Do you really believe that all of the articles on the Holocaust are just a POV, just as Holocaust denial is legitimate? That is very, very depressing. I really am not trying to twist your words, here, I am just reading what you said about material attacking Holocaust denial being "biased" and "one sided" and the historical account of the Holocaust not being "the absolute truth" compared to Holocaust denial. Goodoldpolonius2 23:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

They might be dubious (who isn't) but they are indeed reputable. And if two reputable historians are Holocaust denier then "maybe" your POV is not the absolute truth. "Do you really believe that all of the articles on the Holocaust are just a POV, just as Holocaust denial is legitimate? That is very, very depressing" Like I said would you please stop putting words in my mouth. Please, we are not going to go anywhere like that. If a subject is the object of controversy and you project only one side while the other one is supported by reputable scholars, then yes, the addition is biased. --Vizcarra 23:52, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

How can a scholar be both reputable and dubious? Either their work is discredited, or it isn't. android 79 23:56, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, Harry Elmer Barnes being "dubious" is Goodoldpolonius' POV, however his wikipedia article describes him not only as "reputable" but as a leading historian. --Vizcarra 00:10, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand how you can call David Irving a reputable historian, the judge at his trial said that he was not, and that he made up evidence, from his trial: "if we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then 'Irving is not a historian". That is pretty much the exact opposite. And I challenge you to find any historian who says that Barnes comments from fifty five years ago on the Holocaust were reputable or correct. And yes, you really keep calling the historicity of the Holocaust a point of view, you did it above. Perhaps you should read some of the info on the Irving trial and Nizkor's denial overview. --Goodoldpolonius2 00:01, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

The article also doesn't describe Barnes' Holocaust revisionism theories. At all. Something tells me it might be lacking in content. If we're going to take Misplaced Pages as the Gospel truth, Holocaust denial#The case of Harry Elmer Barnes explains that Barnes' work regarding the Holocaust was pretty widely discredited, regardless of the merits of his other, earlier work. android 79 02:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Beyond agreeing fully with Goodoldpolonius here, I'd just like to reaffirm that NPOV is not the same thing as this kind of nihilistic relativism that Vizcarra seems to be pushing here. (Also, why isn't Norman Finkelstein a scholar? According to our article on him, he's a political science professor at DePaul with a Princeton PhD. That makes him more of a scholar than David Irving, although, as GOP has pointed out, Finkelstein doesn't actually deny the holocaust, so he's not a very good example.) As to David Irving, I can assure you that he is most certainly not a reputable historian. I'd say that since the libel trial, most historians would be highly reluctant to even call him a historian at all. Whatever credibility Irving may still have (which is certainly very, very, very little), it is in spite of, rather than because of, his holocaust denial. As to Harry Elmer Barnes, he was certainly a real historian, but even his actual historical work (the classic revisionist stuff on the origins of World War I, and so forth) is generally seen to be wholly discredited, while his later, holocaust denying stuff, is entirely dismissed by any actual scholars. The basic fact is that there are no reputable scholarly studies that say that the Holocaust did not happen, or that the numbers were wildly exaggerated. This is for the same reason that there are no reputable historical studies claiming that the First World War did not happen, or that George Washington was actually a woman - there is no evidence to back up this stuff. Unlike those other absurdities, though, Holocaust denial fits with the political agenda of a particularly odious, but outspoken, group, and thus it gets bandied about as though it has some claim to scholarly validity by certain groups. john k 00:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not pushing anything, and that's a bad start for a constructive discussion. And you are agreeing on the wrong things here since I never clained Finkelstein was a historian. Again, I am not claiming that the Holocaust not happening deserves any attention, but that there are reputable personalities that think that the accounts of the Holocaust are not accurate. And Holocaust denial would include these. --Vizcarra 00:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

No, I was confused by the fact that you said that Finkelstein was not a scholar. He is most certainly a scholar. As to reputable personalities thinking that the accounts of the holocaust are not accurate is nonsense. David Irving is simply not reputable; Finkelstein does not think that accounts of the holocaust are not accurate - just that the "holocaust industry" exploits the memory of the holocaust to promote policies he doesn't like. If the best we can do for reputable historians engaging in holocaust denial is the wacky late work of the already dubious Harry Elmer Barnes, then, no, there are not reputable personalities who engage in holocaust denial. john k 01:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

there are reputable personalities that think that the accounts of the Holocaust are not accurate -- The reputable ones are called "historians" and practice "history". Who do you have in mind? --jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 04:58, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

This seems to be getting rather pointless, so to recap: Vizcarra originally objected that there is a catagory of "reputable scholars that are under the definition of the article." The definition in the article is: "...that far fewer than around six million Jews were killed by the Nazis (numbers below one million, most often around 300,000 are typically cited); that there never was a centrally-planned Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews; and/or that there were not mass killings at the extermination camps." So far, Vizcarra gave three names of people who he said were reputable scholars that are mislabelled as Holocaust deniers: one was not a Holocaust denier, a second was the much repudiated later work of a historian in the 1960s, and the final one was found by courts to be lying about his evidence and was ruled "not a historian." I am not sure where that leaves Vizcarra's objection, or his desire to object. Vizcarra, do you still think the section needs to be changed, and to what? Discussion is great and all, but I am not sure where this is going, and arguing for the sake of it is only worth doing for so long. --Goodoldpolonius2 06:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Polonius, I agree with you though I wouldn't go so far to say that Irving is "not a historian" or "not a scholar" (even if the court said that). However, Irving certainly is no longer a respectable scholar, thanks to his Holocaust denying works. Of course, that takes nothing away from your overall conclusion. Str1977 17:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Having reread your earlier quote from the court, I agree with the court that he is not "reputable historian" anymore, with the emphasis on reputable. He was (and might still be) able to perform the historian's craft, but in the books in question, he didn't. And frabricating evidence certainly is the worst of the worst. Str1977 17:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

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