Harvard Crimson runs ad for Holocaust denier

The Harvard Crimson took an ad from "The Committee for the Open Debate on the Holocaust," a front for Holocaust denier Bradley Smith.

Bradley Smith, the founder of the organization that placed the ad, is a known Holocaust denier who has been identified for his hiding behind the veil of free speech in America. Here's his coolest quote: "I don't want to spend time with adults anymore. I want to go to students. They are superficial. They are empty vessels to be filled."

Harvard Crimson Publishes Holocaust Denial Ad (Thanks, Adam!)

Update: The Crimson has apologized for running the ad, saying it was the result of an unspecified oversight: "Yesterday's advertisement was the result of that miscommunication. And while running the ad was not our intent, we accept responsibility for our failure to carry out the planned cancellation. We recognize how sensitive a subject this is for our community and appreciate all the e-mails and letters we have received about it from concerned members of the University. We have made sure that the rest of the ad's planned run has been terminated, and any money that has changed hands in exchange for the ad to date will be returned. "

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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demidan

@67
You forgot the Bilderbergers. They are watching, waiting ever since the Great Green Arklseizer.
demidan

@Brainspore,

Thank you, at times I get a little worked up (too many coffees, or fears that history does repeat itself too often for comfort). Yes ridicule is good; as with scorn, and I do save violence for self protection (which is never having mover out of New Orleans).

To sum up:

Flat Earthers = humor, Holocaust Deniers = bad.
i_prefer_yeti

Upon a night’s reflection on this issue, the original post by Cory really bothers me.

Boing Boing, like it or not, is often a news blog. But the posters and the moderators don’t think of themselves as journalists or editors. And thus they don’t have the same sort of ethical or journalistic standards as a traditional news service.

Running a post with the headline “Harvard Crimson Runs Ad for Holocaust Denier” is fundamentally misleading.

A more appropriate title would be “Harvard Crimson MISTAKENLY Runs Ad for Holocaust Denier” (emphasis mine)

Readers of Boing Boing who casually skim the headlines and who don’t read the Update or check the comments section will be left with the wrong-headed assumption that running this ad was the intent of the Harvard Crimson. And that’s sloppy journalism.

Perhaps it might be a good idea to have some discussions about boingboing’s role as news outlet & the ramifications of being a news outlet?

I’ve read over your policy link & there’s no mention of any ethical or journalistic code that your submitters/editors/bloggers follow. Perhaps it’s worth talking about?

Or, perhaps you need to hire an ombudsman?
TheMadLibrarian

For an interesting look at Holocaust deniers, you may want to review the section on that subject in “Why People Believe Weird Things”, by Michael Shermer. The primary focus of the book is not the Holocaust, but in getting people to examine evidence critically. The trouble is that sometimes no amount of evidence will convince someone that they have tight hold of an erroneous idea.
Anonymous

Here here to all those who say the sheer numbers don’t matter — 100 people would be easily too many. It also doesn’t help that nobody has the best information to be sure what the numbers are, given all the upheaval at war. Records of some victims are nonexistent — others that fled across Europe were almost certainly counted more than once. It probably averages out close to the official numbers.

This ‘primary target’ approach though is another thing. Clearly Hitler was not just trying to kill Jews, he was trying to create a country (the world?) consisting only of pre-approved people. These people were blond, straight, without birth defects, etc., I can’t remember all his criteria. Yes, he had a special hatred for the Jews and they were a convenient scapegoat ‘other’ for him to pin the propaganda on. However, to emphasize their suffering and diminish other groups’ is a sort of ‘tyranny of the majority’ in reverse — and worse, the way this sort of thinking spreads in the first place.
Moriarty

“So, if a person/group Believes you and your family should die that’s fine with you? “

I know you’re not addressing me, but I also understand that there is a difference between saying I deserve to die and trying to kill me, and that the right to say horrible things without fear of violence is crucial to a free society. You really think not physically attacking someone for what they believe takes superhuman restraint?
Anonymous

What exactly is the big deal here? The Crimson is a student newspaper, which like all undergrad organizations, has a particularly weak hold on institutional memory. It is also governed by the Harvard academic calendar, and I bet Smith timed this ad with orientation week, when the editors are running around to recruit new people. I also bet he spaced these attempts at the Crimson 4/5 years apart so that he isn’t part of what gets told to the newcomers. (Crimson editors: you must be reading this. Want to chime in?)
Anonymous

My father John Weitz was a member of the Office of Strategic Services or OSS. He was present at the liberation of Buchenwald and saw the gas chambers. I can attest to this with copies of his letters and his personal conversations with me.
The reason that it is evil to question the â€œexistenceâ€ of the holocaust is that those who can affirm their personal experiences if it are either dead or dying away and those who can claim to â€œrefuteâ€ the facts can be converted into being at any time.
The reasons for which people want to deny the holocaust vary. Some are just crackpots. Some are opposed to Israelâ€™s domestic and foreign policy or its very existence. Some are anti-semites (an irony as the holocaust is precisely the sort of program they would seem to wish to enact). All of them are either deluded or purposely untruthful.
best
Chris Weitz
danlalan

@ I Prefer Yeti

If there was any journalistic failure here, it was at the Harvard Crimson.

The story posted by Cory is clearly true, and when the Harvard Crimson issued an apology, the story was immediately amended.

As for this:

“A more appropriate title would be “Harvard Crimson MISTAKENLY Runs Ad for Holocaust Denier” (emphasis mine)”

While it is probably true that this is the case, it is certainly within the realm of possibilities that the Crimson ran it for publicity, or even that someone in the ad department sympathized with Bradley Smith’s claims. Unless Cory is able to read the minds of the editorial staff at the Crimson, running the title as you suggest would have been pure speculation, and poor journalism.
If people do not read the article under the headline, that is hardly the fault of any journalist.

As to this:

“Perhaps it might be a good idea to have some discussions about boingboing’s role as news outlet & the ramifications of being a news outlet?

I’ve read over your policy link & there’s no mention of any ethical or journalistic code that your submitters/editors/bloggers follow. Perhaps it’s worth talking about?

Or, perhaps you need to hire an ombudsman?”

Are you seriously suggesting that the material presented in boingboing is so outrageous that they hire someone to censor the posts? Or are you simply re-airing the tired canard that only “professional journalists” are responsible enough to be heard?
danlalan

So if I convert to judaism and sign up to be gay, I can get both a piece of pie and a toaster oven to warm it up in?

Sweet.
Aloisius

You only get a piece of pie for taking over the world? We queers get a toaster oven every time we recruit a new member.

I’m interested, I’m interested. What kind of toaster oven are we talking about here?
mdh

Smith added “all i really need are a few with Trust Funds and low self esteem”.
superduper27

I am not a Holocaust denier by any means, but to anyone who’s actually researched the subject, you have to admit that the numbers generally claimed as “history” are a little fishy.

Not to mention that the word Holocaust and the war in general have been shaped to only reflect the deaths of the Jewish, with absolutely no mention of the other ethnic groups, gypsies and homosexuals who were killed.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  to anyone who’s actually researched the subject, you have to admit that the numbers generally claimed as “history” are a little fishy.
  
  I’d be fascinated to hear about your “research”. Does it involve websites that still use the blink tag?
Bevatron Repairman

@2: Uhm, whatever the Germans did to kill gypsies and homosexuals in the concentration camps — and they did — no German did so with the understanding that they stood a chance of eliminating those groups wholesale. Catholics got sent there in pretty big numbers, too, but that’s because many of them were inconvenient to the Nazi state (and many were unforgiveably complacent (yes you, your Holiness Pius XII))

The Nazis meant (and nearly succeeded) in eliminating the European Jew. That was their intention. If they used the concentration camps to eliminate some other undesirables, then the machinery was already in place, but it was an effort to kill Jews and ought to be remember first and foremost as such.
Anonymous

The evidence for the Third Reichâ€™s use of gas chambers as the means for mass murder is overwhelming. A person who questions their existence and use as such is being either deliberately lazy or deliberately dishonest.
He is lazy if he avoids research into the matter: reproductions of primary sources and reams of secondary-source information are readily available in publicly accessible libraries.

He is dishonest if he is aware of the sources and their authenticity, yet acts as though he is ignorant of the sources or disbelieving of their authenticity.

Those who deny the Holocaust or undermine its significance are insufferable fools. I am all for taking the time to educate the ignorant, but there are limits: that is to say, there are times not to suffer the fools gladly.
- arkizzle / Moderator
  
  Anonymous4
  
  Nice input, but the spam link at the end had to go. Don’t do it.
Brainspore

superduper27 #2:

I am not a Holocaust denier by any means, but to anyone who’s actually researched the subject, you have to admit that the numbers generally claimed as “history” are a little fishy.

OK, let’s talk numbers. What are some specific published estimates you would like to challenge, and what number do you find more credible? (Sources, please.)

Most of the estimates I’ve seen have a margin of error of around a million or more because the Nazis were also quite efficient at wiping out records of the Jewish people. Those creeps didn’t just want the Jews out of Europe, they wanted them out of history. As Bevatron mentioned, the other “undesirables” were secondary concerns.
i_prefer_yeti

Isn’t the real issue here why the Harvard Crimson chose to run this ad?

And a couple of clicks yields this info:

It was a mistake.

“Yesterdayâ€™s advertisement was the result of that miscommunication. And while running the ad was not our intent, we accept responsibility for our failure to carry out the planned cancellation. ”

Cory, I think posting this blurb without pointing out that the editorial staff of the Crimson has admitted to making an error and is accepting responsibility for said error is, essentially, flame-baiting.

Here’s a link to the editor’s letter:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528828
Anonymous

There’s also that pesky question of where all the European Jews went. You know, the ones that lived in the villages that aren’t there anymore.

Maybe they’re hiding in caves. That must be it. You know, because we Jews are tricky like that.
jfrancis

So should everyone get a chance to speak, especially if they are buying advertising space? What if Clear Channel, for example, won’t run my candidate’s ads on their billboards?

Or should Harvard exercise its right to pick and choose which ads it will accept and not let this guy “hide behind the first amendment,” and did Harvard show poor judgment, as this blog post seems to suggest?

I’m torn.
Brainspore

I don’t want to spend time with adults anymore. I want to go to students. They are superficial. They are empty vessels to be filled.

That’s the same reason I stopped talking with other adults about the Easter Bunny.
theWalrus

According to Wikipedia: The Crimson is a nonprofit organization that is independent of the university. All decisions on the content and day-to-day operations of the newspaper are made by undergraduates. The student leaders of the newspaper employ several non-student staff, many of whom have stayed on for many years and have come to be thought of as family members by the students who run the paper.

Someone in the “family” needs to administer some time-outs. I wonder if this “just slipped by” or whether this really falls within the advertising standards of The Crimson.
ianm

I don’t have much to say, but I’d recommend the following sources:

1) The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering by Norman Finkelstein

2) Holocaust: The Ignored Reality by Timothy Snyder

Highly recommended, snip from the intro:

“The Soviets hid their mass shootings in dark woods and falsified the records of regions in which they had starved people to death; the Germans had slave laborers dig up the bodies of their Jewish victims and burn them on giant grates. Historians must, as best we can, cast light into these shadows and account for these people. This we have not done. Auschwitz, generally taken to be an adequate or even a final symbol of the evil of mass killing, is in fact only the beginning of knowledge, a hint of the true reckoning with the past still to come.”

He goes on and discusses number is detail; it is highly appropriate for this discussion and very enlightening.
redrichie

@JFrancis

Harvard are, surely, under no obligation whatsoever to run an ad?

The grotbag is free to hold whatever opinions that he likes (although it would be nice if he wasn’t being wilfully ignorant) but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he can express them wherever he likes.

Is he likely to be a guestblogger on BoingBoing?
tsdguy

Come on..

Holocaust denier arrested by police for peaceful demonstration in front of synagogue –
FREE SPEECH VIOLATED

Advertisement for peaceful demonstration of Holocaust denier rejected by newspaper –
FREE SPEECH NOT VIOLATED

In the first case, Government restricting rights of citizens to speak – BAD. In the second case, newspapers exercising their right to publish what they want – GOOD.

Reference any Murdoch media outlet to see a prime example of business exercising their right to be stupid and ignorant.
theWalrus

@jfrancis #8

This isn’t a First Amendment issue. Newspapers have advertising standards, and they don’t just take any ads.
Anonymous

@52, harvard *ran* the ad, whether mistakenly or not. Boingboing also had the updated apology at the bottom. The only sloppiness is your failing to read boingboing’s or any other article linked. I think we call that douchebaggery, or “stereotypical stupid american”. Maybe you should focus on other issues.
Anonymous

When I was in Stanford, they ran a similar ad in the school newspaper, but they ran it against an editorial picking apart its claims. They got to have their cake and eat it too – taking money away from a disreputable organization and discrediting it at the same time.

Seems like something similar will happen here. Harvard kids aren’t idiots.
wizardofplum

#89 ROACH.
Thankyou for bringing to my attention Cornwell’s reassessment of “the scope of action” on Pius XII’s part. Only dogs eat their own vomit. Nevertheless he produced 386 pages of narrative,supported by 116 bibliography references and 23 pages of footnotes. His book covers more than than Pacelli’s relationship with the Nazi regime.

Chapter 14 reveals the horrific extermination efforts by the Croat butchers-Ustashe- under the leadership of Ante Pavelic and with the full knowledge of Archbishop Stepinac.

Page 253.
…by the most recent reliable reckoning 487,000 Orthodox Serbs and 27,000 gypsies were massacred between 1941-45 in the Independant State of Croatia. In addition, approximately 30,000 out of a population of 45,000 Jews were killed. 20 to 25,000 in the Ustashe death camps and another 7000 deported to gas chambers….How was it that when the atrocities became common knowledge inside the Vatican Pacelli did not…dissociate the Holy See from Ustashe actions and condemn the perpetrators?

On the back cover of the book it acknowledges the front cover thus,” Front cover photograph, Eugenio Pacelli before election to the papacy, leaving a reception for President Hindenberg in Berlin 1927″ There was no connection to Hitler or 1939, perhaps that is a red herring dished up by individuals determined to grasp at any straw to discredit Cornwell’s opus.

Pacelli was a most complex man, no one would deny his dedication to his calling. What other Pope before or after him would have deported themselves any differently? What we learn from Cornwell’s revelations is that the head of the largest Christian congregation, had feet of clay.The cock crowed three times for Pacelli too and he didn’t listen either. If Jesus could forgive Peter, He surely will succour Pius XII.
Peace be on your home and you and yours.
Anonymous

I have yet to see any convincing proof of the alleged “Europe” where these events may or may not have taken place.
Cicada

“As Bevatron mentioned, the other “undesirables” were secondary concerns.”
About four million secondary concerns. Fairly significant when forty percent of the people you’re killing are “secondary”.
wizardofplum

#3-BEAVERTRON REPAIRMAN
You you are quite right that many Catholics suffered in Hitler’s concentration camps but not because of their religion. Many priests and nuns ignored the duplicity of Hitlers Pope, Pius X11.They were motivated by Christian conscience to rescue allied airmen, hide Jewish children, and defy Gestapo pograms. They died for their efforts whilst millions of German Catholic laity gladly conformed with the Nazi regime,

Hitlers thugs marked each ‘subversive’ group with an armband. Yellow for the Jews, Green for the Gypsies, Pink for Homosexuals and Purple-for who?-the “Ernste Bibelforscher” the only group to be persecuted for their religious beliefs. A tiny group outnumbered by Catholics, Baptists, Lutheran et al, who all fell in lock-step to avoid the wrath of the state. Christendom’s finest hour!
jfrancis

It’s not a first amendment issue, and newspapers do have advertising standards, but I’d like to think that his bad ideas would die of their own lack of merit, and not because someone prevented them from being expressed. I’d also like to think advertising standards are more about quack products.

Maybe this qualifies as a quack product, though, so… same outcome.
Holocaust Survivor

As a Holocaust survivor I am outraged . I moderate the worldwide Yahoo! Remember_The_ Holocaust , you may join if you are interested at: Remember_The_Holocaust-subscribe@yahoogroups.com If you wish to know about me please go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-kelly/the-american-spirit-perso_b_268138.html
mokey

word up. now it’s time, once again, to roll on “youth for western civilization” especially now that one of the founders has plead guilty to a hate crime after dropping the n-bomb and assaulting her.

as usual, one people’s project has the skinny:

http://www.onepeoplesproject.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=85%3Ayouth-for-western-civilization-co-founder-faces-sentencing-on-hate-crime-assault-in-july&catid=34%3Aye-olde-white-power-chopping-block&Itemid=3
cinemajay

@#7/i_prefer_yeti,

So how exactly do you mistakenly publish and distribute something? I’m curious, because as someone who writes for a living, I’ve yet to see it happen. In most print deliverables there are at least 3 steps after copy is written and approved:

1. Copy goes into layout–ads are usually reviewed by an account manager and sent to the graphic/production designer
2. Layout is reviewed by a proofreader and/or editor before being sent to the printer
3. There’s still time to catch mistakes in the printers proof, which is a sample of what the actual printed piece will look like sent back to the editor for review

Every single one of those steps requires a coordinated effort. And yes, misspellings and missives happen all the time in headlines, ad copy and visuals–or Jay Leno wouldn’t have a career. But under no circumstances should you believe that something as controversial as this gets “miscommunicated” into wide distribution by the most prominent university in America.

I want to believe no one here is that gullible.
Joe in Australia

the word Holocaust and the war in general have been shaped to only reflect the deaths of the Jewish, with absolutely no mention of the other ethnic groups, gypsies and homosexuals who were killed.

This is factually false. In fact the very first article linked by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum under “History” identifies the other groups targeted for extermination, with links to further information.

I note that you don’t actually care to say anything about these other groups. I infer that you aren’t actually concerned about them and that your motive for mentioning them is the same as your unsupported claim that “the numbers … are fishy”: you want to minimise any show of respect for the murdered Jews.
Roach

Yes, Croatia was AWFUL. That’s where I think the Catholic leadership owes real culpability. Not only were the Franciscans involved not condemned, but many of them escaped via Vatican “ratlines” to South America. I know a few people who’ve been to Croatia (on Catholic pilgrimages to pray for those slaughtered, no less) who were threatened and more or less expelled for bringing up the genocide. Most Croats refused to admit it happened at all. Most people in the West don’t know about it either – yet they all know Pacelli was “Hitler’s Pope”!

I just think people want to blame Catholicism for the Holocaust because it’s the Great Crime within the popular mind, so instead of looking at what actually went wrong they go for Godwin’s Law. It’s the same reason you see Bushitler or Obama=Nazi rather than any real nuanced criticism. If you want to attack someone, just say he or people like him committed the Holocaust, and you completely chill all argument.

I had read something different about the cover – guess the year isn’t misattributed, although I think the intent still is to show Pacelli directly in league with Hitler. As you can tell, I haven’t read the book, only different reviews of it. That’s just me rarely reading nonfiction, though. I’ll defer to your knowledge. Part of Cornwell’s problem was that he didn’t have access to a number of sources that later scholars did after his book made such a big impact and stirred up debate.
W. James Au

I just Googled “Eisenhower Holocaust” and immediately got this off his own memorial site:

http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/stories/death-camps.htm

During the camp inspections with his top commanders Eisenhower said that the atrocities were â€œbeyond the American mind to comprehend.â€ He ordered that every citizen of the town of Gotha personally tour the camp and, after having done so, the mayor and his wife went home and hanged themselves. Later on Ike wrote to Mamie, â€œI never dreamed that such cruelty, bestiality, and savagery could really exist in this world.â€ He cabled General Marshall to suggest that he come to Germany and see these camps for himself. He encouraged Marshall to bring Congressmen and journalists with him. It would be many months before the world would know the full scope of the Holocaust â€” many months before they knew that the Nazi murder apparatus that was being discovered at Buchenwald and dozens of other death camps had slaughtered millions of innocent people.

General Eisenhower understood that many people would be unable to comprehend the full scope of this horror. He also understood that any human deeds that were so utterly evil might eventually be challenged or even denied as being literally unbelievable. For these reasons he ordered that all the civilian news media and military combat camera units be required to visit the camps and record their observations in print, pictures and film. As he explained to General Marshall, â€œI made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to â€˜propaganda.â€™â€
Anonymous

So they ran the ad, AND gave him his money back? That part really rankles me. Seems like the classy move would have been to donate the money to a holocaust survivor’s group…
Alex_M

WTF?!

“Why didn’t Eisenhower write about the Holocaust in 1948″?!

FFS, the Holocaust was as known as it was going to get by then. Nuremberg trials (main ones, at least) were long OVER by then.

What’s he claiming? That the Holocaust was ‘invented’ AFTER 1948?! That’s almost as crazy as denying the thing to begin with.

Or is he claiming Eisenhower didn’t get the memo? ‘Cause the dozens of photos and accounts of Eisenhower’s visit to Ohrdruf/Buchenwald would damn well say otherwise.

This is crazy even for a Holocaust denier.

Also, there’s a perfectly good reason why Eisenhower didn’t mention ‘gas chambers’ in his book. It’s a memoir of his PERSONAL experiences during the war. He never personally experienced a gas chamber, because all the extermination camps (as opposed to work/concentration camps) were on the Eastern Front, in Poland.
subliminati

Anyone else pick up on the use of the phrase “WMD” in this ad?

Sounds like an appeal to the type of person who would be swayed by that terminology (eg Iraq War supporters) even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Just a thought. Curious what y’all think.
Antinous / Moderator

Questioning and doubt are at the very core of any scientific or historical activity.

Yeah, Harvard should be questioning evolution, too. It’s important that we re-invent the wheel every minute of every day in every forum in every university. That’s what intelligent discourse is all about.

Hey, Harvard has a Divinity School. I sure hope that they’re publishing ads from the Westboro Baptist Church.
infinitemptythoughts

The Veil of free speech in America is the shield that protect all Americans form despotism.

Many men and Woman have given their blood and sacrificed their lives to keep this veil unsoiled.

The idea that somehow one ethic group is above the fray is insulting (mind you the Vail protects that too).
So as a point, academic Censorship is the barrier against histrionically examination.Victors write the history yet the truth is stranger
then fiction. There is no denial of the horrors committed by powers against the weak and Houcust
was committed to all of humanity.
As long as there is a Nationalistic, Ethnocentric and racist bias againste one ethic group or another the state sponsored Holocaust copyright will fail in its propagandist war crimes (just ask the Philistines).

In America we must be vigilant of these provocations, our inalienable rights are to question everyone and anything that claims absolute truth.

little chance of dialog about the anything if foreign paid troles muddy the water or claim of victim hood is the response to any questions asked.
i_prefer_yeti

Danlan,

“Unless Cory is able to read the minds of the editorial staff at the Crimson…”

Or, rather, if Cory had picked up the phone and interviewed the editor – as a reporter or editor would have – he would have learned more information and been able to report on this story with educated insight.

Tired canard?

All I’m saying is that Boing Boing often functions as a news site. It appears to me that there hasn’t been a lot of public discussion by the contributors of Boing Boing about what that means.

Boing Boing and sites like Boing Boing are supplanting traditional news gathering and reporting companies.

I’m not saying that this change is good or bad – but I do think that there are consequences. One such consequence is that a traditional news organization has procedures for fact checking and a code of ethics that the reporters and editors try to adhere to.

Had I not made post #7, it’s quite possible that there wouldn’t have been an update to the story.

Frankly, I think Boing Boing relies too heavily on the idea that it’s a self-regulating user-corroborating/verifying/correcting site. A little due diligence and editorial work would have gone a long way with this Crimson post.

But then again, I don’t believe it’s contributors consider themselves to be journalists. They consider themselves to be bloggers.

I would argue that, in some cases, they act more like journalists than bloggers and that they should have a public conversation about what that means.

Additionally, many news organizations have a dedicated person who interfaces between the corporation and it’s readers. This person helps to resolve disputes and is known as an ombudsman. I don’t think that anyone would classify an ombudsman as a censor.

Perhaps I’m the only person bothered by any of this?

I think this post highlights some of the weakness of the BoingBoing model & I would view it as an opportunity for the founders of BB to have a discussion about their policies and the role of BB.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  yeti,
  
  You’re off topic.
asuffield

A person who questions their existence and use as such is being either deliberately lazy or deliberately dishonest.

I dispute that on general principle. It is the person who never questions that is being deliberately lazy or deliberately dishonest. Such a person is not in the least bit rational – they have turned the truth or falsehood of the statement into a matter of faith. It doesn’t matter whose bible they believe in, they have neither evidence nor a desire to find evidence. Holocaust proclaimers are every bit as bad as holocaust deniers.

The people who question are the only ones who find out the truth. Questioning and doubt are at the very core of any scientific or historical activity.
buddy66

I was in Germany during the Berlin Airlift, a few years after the war, and I never met a German who was a Holocaust denier (although the term was not then in use). The story was either 1.) We didn’t know about such things or 2.) We thought they were just work camps.

Of course I never met a German Nazi either.
i_prefer_yeti

Cinemajay

I think you’ve raised really interesting questions and I’d like to know the answers to them.

Perhaps a news organization will do some investigating, ask questions, and do some reporting on that.

Or, since Cory started this thread, maybe he will?
Anonymous

The ad should never have been kept within the office of the Harvard Crimson press. Someone who is clearly anti-Semitic came up with the ad with the intent of offending Jewish people. The fact that the ad was kept at the Harvard Crimson press speaks to the character of the people working at the press. Of course there were people murdered in gas chambers at Birkenau! How dare anyone suggest anything different!
Roger Krueger

Free speech is far too valuable to throw away over a few deliberately ignorant racists.

Besides, it’s hypocrital to be hair-trigger sensitive over one case of genocide while we embrace Turkey despite the entire Turkish government denying their genocide, and jailing Turks who dare to write about it.

The only thing that separates Hitler from Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mehmed Talat, the Rwandan Akazu and any number of other mass murderers is that he had the misfortune to have enemy armies march through his death camps documenting his crime.
Joe in Australia

It is the person who never questions that is being deliberately lazy or deliberately dishonest. [...] Holocaust proclaimers are every bit as bad as holocaust deniers.

I have no idea what a “Holocaust proclaimer” might be, but a person who “questions” the fact of the Holocaust (as distinct from a particular detail of it) is like someone who questions the existence of Europe. It’s a stupid, tendentious sort of question that can only interest a lunatic.
naufragio

@Antinous, I have to point out that this Web site sometimes uses the blink tag.
robulus

@ASuffield

What, so I have to go and read primary sources to form an opinion about anything? I can’t just accept overwhelming consensus on an issue like the holocaust?

What about gravity, or the Moon landing, or the fact that air is composed of matter rather than pure emptiness? Do I have to do basic research?

Man, I just don’t have the fucking time. As a point of interest, what conclusion did you come to, regarding the veracity of these Holocaust “proclamations”, after your long, thorough examination of all existant data?
Anonymous

So, even if there were, say 2 or 3 million jews less slaughtered, will it justify the concentration camps? What if only 100.000 people (Jews, Romas, Russians, whatever) were killed in total? Is there a threshold before which killing machines can be excused?
Ocker3

Actually, the Red Army’s atrocites (or at least Some of them) Were discovered by advancing German troops and the slavic barbarity was trumpeted to the people back home as justification for the war. And Pol Pot’s killing fields have been revealed, if only later than the actual events than the WWII slaughtering of innocents and subsequent discovery was.
Notary Sojac

In what way is Harvard’s student newspaper accepting an ad from a Holocaust denier different from Columbia extending an invitation to a Holocaust denier to speak on campus?

Other than the fact that Ahmadinejad is building nukes and (afaik) Bradley Smith is not….
i_prefer_yeti

Antinous,

fair enough. I’ll eagerly await the “Boing Boing’s role in emerging media and it’s responsibilities therewith” thread.

;)
wizardofplum

# 50 ROACH.In the interests of accuracy Eugenio Pacelli,the future Pius XII,was not the author or the issuing authority of “Mit brennender sorge” [With deep anxiety].It was the collaborative effort of three German cardinals, Schulte, Bertram, Faulhaber and two bishops Von Galen and Preysing. Faulhaber wrote the first draft,the final editing and printing was handled by Pacelli.

Pius XI approved and attached his imprimatur. The initiative of the German prelates ran counter to Pacelli’s ‘diplomacy by appeasement’

You might want to review John Cornwell’s book on Pope Pius XII, ” Hitlers Pope ” about which The Wall Street Journal commented.”John Cornwell,a meticulous Catholic historian and journalist, has had access to previously unpublished Vatican documents….{he makes} a sophisticated and surprising argument, but one that does help make sense of some of Pius XII’s behavior ”

Had Pacelli exhibited the same fortitude as his German primates ,his action may have galvanised the tens of millions of German Catholics to resist the Nazi thugs.Pacelli exposed the myth of Papal infallibility and the machinations of the Vatican.

That being said, I shall always be grateful to the Sisters of the Holy Rosary who,during the widespread evacuation of children from areas of Luftwaffe attacks,took a Prossy kid in and gave him their love and guidance but not conversion!
Hal

@29 “primary sources” please (and no WaPo or the Atlantic doesn’t count) on those nukes.
lasttide

They really shouldn’t return the money, that would be like giving the guy free advertising. The money should surely be donated to a charity of some sort.
Anonymous

The 1st Amendment gives us the right to speak, but it does not give us the right to be heard. People can hold any damn-fool ideas they like, but no one is required to give them a forum for expressing them.
Anonymous

2 statements:

Truth needs no law to protect it.

No question is immmoral
ab3a

I knew a half dozen people who survived the holocaust. One of them was my Grandmother’s brother. He fought with the French underground during WW II. I have relatives of that generation who died in the camps.

What the Nazis did would be almost incomprehensible, except that others have committed similar acts on somewhat smaller scales. Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and so it goes.

This delusion that it never happened is utterly evil. The Harvard Crimson can take this dirty money. It is entirely legal. But the stain they have earned with that money will take a long time to wash off.
Eric Smith

#38: Truth needs no law to protect it.

Completely wrong. Truth needs First Amendment protection just as much as falsehood. Maybe more.
Oren Beck

There’s a word we’ve forgotten.

Krystallnacht

As an experiment of truly shocking reality validation- ask the next 5 people you dare if they know the word.

Then break out in a cold grim sweat. If WE forget? Ads of denial mongers are an invaluable opportunity to displace their lies with truth. This forum has living folks with arm inked numbers from Belsen et all on it. Fewer each year to be true- but? IF the survivors speak louder than the deniers we’ve LESS chance of these atrocities being forgotten.

I personally am of a split mind as to proper handling of the ad request. So I asked a query that underscores*WHY* that ad generates such well earned loathing. The almost forgotten word. It is emblematic of how a genocide begins. One word. One event. The rest seems inescapable IF we forget the word.

Krystallnacht

Forgetting the meaning of that word ensures it’s recurrence in our lifetime. The rules sadly state that all we need to do is nothing. See Niemoeller for details ok?

The “reason” there’s such an emotional gap between deniers and those that know the truth lives in the desires being divergent. A few folks commented on this and it seems to be unnoticed.

One sort of person wishes to say “Never Again” The other sort not only says it did not happen- they seem enthralled by wishing it could happen again. And before considering me as paranoid- go and ask that question I opened my comment with. Keep asking it of enough people and? A few of the folks WILL speak wistfully or even approvingly of the Holocaust! Ah, then you will get almost afraid enough.
Moriarty

“but a person who “questions” the fact of the Holocaust (as distinct from a particular detail of it) is like someone who questions the existence of Europe.”

Oh, sure, just mock the Conspiracy of Cartographers Theory without giving it the benefit of the doubt. Not being a dogmatist, myself, I teach the controversy.
Ugly Canuck

Gnrl Grg Mrshll, th mrcn fv-str mr rspnsbl thn ny thr S Cmmndr fr th lld Vctry n WW 2, strnsly bjctd t th S rcgntn f th stt f srl whl srvng s Trmn’s Scrtry f Stt…nd h ws n Hlcst dnr.

Bt Gn. Mrshll s ll bt frgttn nw: nd “Svng Prvt Ryn” ctlly mks hm t t b fl.
Ugly Canuck

nd hr’s sm nws bt mr rcnt kllngs:

http://nws.bbc.c.k/2/h/mddl_st/8245433.stm
buddy66

“wistfully … approvingly” ? Only a Nazi would cop to that. And how many Nazis do you know? I’m betting none. If you do, watch your back: these are evil fucking people.
Joe in Australia

Ugly Canuck, do you realise that your last two comments have nothing whatsoever to do with the post?
Ugly Canuck

I apologize if my earlier comments gave offense.

I fully support the “hate laws” which (IMHO reasonably) limit freedom of speech in my country.

My point was – and is – that the historical fact of the Holocaust can ( and ought) in no way be used to justify the tactics used by the State of Israel in today’s wars.

Also: that the simple objection to those policies – or indeed to the manner in which the State of Israel came into existence – is not in any way thereby and therefore “anti-semitic”. Hence my reference to Gen. Marshall, the American most responsible (IMHO) for the liberation of the prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps.

That the Holocaust is used – by some – as an implied sufficient reason to “look the other way” when Israel uses disproportionate force against others really bothers me.

That the Holocaust is outright denied by others sickens me even more.

But my point (ineptly made, it seems) stands: two – or even three – wrongs do not make a right.

Again, my apologies.
Ugly Canuck

Eh voila ici:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt1tu4igqnk
Rindan

Bradley Smith, the founder of the organization that placed the ad, is a known Holocaust denier who has been identified for his hiding behind the veil of free speech in America.

“Hiding behind the veil of free speech?” Right.

America is mighty fucked up in many ways, but protecting the free speech of assholes and jerks is not one of those ways. I’m not saying that these various neo-nazis, KKK, and other assorted nut jobs are going to turn around at be right one day. I am saying that some times the minority and hated opinion does turn out to be on the winning side. Case in point, the civil rights movement in America. I am really glad that the constitution, in all of its imperfect and not always evenly enforced glory, was there to lend a hand in making sure that the oppressed had the right to speak, if nothing else, even if what they were saying wasn’t pretty to the ears of the majority.

I’ll happily trade having free speech ‘to hide behind’, rather than to give the government the arbitrary power to declare some types of speech evil, wrong, and illegal. Besides, it isn’t like making some forms of speech illegal automagically makes the dissenters vanish. If anything, it tends to unit them in outrage at the injustice. If you have to shut someone up at gun point, they tend think that what they are saying must have some sort of truth or power. Better to point and laugh at the silly men wearing pillow cases on their head to justify their delusions by having police wave guns at them for saying naughty things.
robcat2075

One Holocaust denier book I’ve read claims only about 800,000 people died in German camps during WWII.

That still seems like a lot of people to kill for no good reason, and I can’t imagine any sensible person wanting to devote a liftetime to promoting it as an acceptable outcome.
Roach

#61 WizardOfPlum – Agreed on what you say about the encyclical – sorry if it read as Pius XII wrote it solo as opposed to was involved. I think you misunderstand papal infallibility, however, if you think that Pius’ actions regarding the Holocaust have anything to do with it – papal infallibility adamantly does not mean that every action of every pope has been perfect (otherwise Pius XII would be far from the list of popes disproving it – Alexander VI and Peter himself would probably destroy it first). Infallibility is about teaching on faith and morals, not political action.

I’m not with you on Cornwell’s book, however. While the WSJ might have approved, numerous other scholars and publications like Newsweek and the Economist have been harshly critical. Cornwell himself has publicly said that as a result of criticism of Hitler’s Pope he now believes the Pope had “very little scope of action” – and he credits his book for bringing out the debate, which may be true, but unfortunately does nothing to change the thousands or more who still call Pius Hitler’s Pope when Cornwell himself doesn’t believe it. While Cornwell still criticizes Pius some, he’s rejected the brunt of his earlier book, though it’s done little to change the myth of complicity.

Beside the title, though, the worst part of Hitler’s Pope is the “1939″ cover photo, which is intended from the German soldier saluting Pius to show Pius in thrall to Hitler – when in fact the photo is from 1927 and Pius (then Pacelli) was meeting Hindeburg, not Hitler.
demidan

When I was eighteen I held the door for an elderly couple at the deli that I was working at the time. While they were passing by I noticed the tattoos on their forearms; I bowed and apologized. There is nothing lower than a holocaust denier. Free speech my arse it is ignorance and hate, which I will oppose with violence if needed.
ill lich

The problem with most Holocaust deniers isn’t that they deny it happened, but that they want a chance to make it happen at some point in the future.
Roger Krueger

There is nothing lower than a holocaust denier.

Except someone–like you–who will resort to violence over a difference in beliefs. That’s how we end up with Holocausts in the first place.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Except someone–like you–who will resort to violence over a difference in beliefs. That’s how we end up with Holocausts in the first place.
  
  I’m not really sure how ‘a difference in beliefs’ relates to genocide based on ethnicity.
demidan

Or,,,”Though I might disagree with what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it; and THEN kick your ass for being an open mouth breathing bottom feeding cretin.”
demidan

For Roger Krueger.

Is there nothing you would do violence for? So, if a person/group Believes you and your family should die that’s fine with you? If so you either are lying or you are the second coming, I bet the former.
Brainspore

Cicada #17:

About four million secondary concerns. Fairly significant when forty percent of the people you’re killing are “secondary”.

I take it that you are challenging my choice of the word “secondary.”

When sixty percent or more of the people you’re slaughtering all belong to the same minority group it’s pretty clear who is the primary target. They didn’t kill more Jews than Catholics because there was some shortage of Catholics in Europe.

To be sure, the non-Jews killed in Hitler’s Holocaust made up a horrific number, but that only underscores how effective the Nazis were at wiping out the people they really hated.
Roach

Ugly Canuck – I doubt George Marshall is forgotten, considering he was the author of the Marshall Plan, which as far as I know is taught in every high school European history course as the primary reason why Germany hasn’t gone to war again.

I also disagree with the characterization of Pius XII in this thread, since I’ve read “Mit Brenneder Sorge” and know that the Vatican took in ten times the number of Jewish refugees that America did during WW2. That he did not do all he could have for the Jews, doubtless because he was concerned about the Catholics as well, is possible; but complicity is far too strong.
Anonymous

The staff at Crimson should be retrained in the fine art of publishing a newspaper. Proof reading, and then quality checking the layouts for errors. If advertisers are charged a fee, then make sure the artwork is satisfactory. Go through these steps and there will be no more “accidents” in the future.
mdh

@ yeti

your expectations are out of line. Like it or not, this is the Boingers blog. Go get your own and run it as you see fit.
Aloisius

Wow. Are there really multiple holocaust deniers on Boing Boing? I suppose there is some grand conspiracy involving Jews trying to take over something or other.

Well shucks! During the next meeting of the Evil Jews Trying To Take Over The World meeting I go to, I’ll be sure to tell them we’ve been found out!

I’m tired of hiding anyway. They don’t give each Jew their portion of the pie until they hit a certain age and I’ve been really looking forward to having a new solid gold mansion. My old one is looking dingy.

At least no one knows about our connection to the Masons, Illuminati and Templars.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  They don’t give each Jew their portion of the pie until they hit a certain age
  
  You only get a piece of pie for taking over the world? We queers get a toaster oven every time we recruit a new member.
danlalan

Free speech only mean that the government can’t stop you from saying your piece.

Of course, it also means the rest of us can heap tons of derision on you if you say odious, offensive, untrue and obscene things, like denying the holocaust.

As for it being intellectually rigorous to question the reality of the holocaust, as some posters here have posited….Holocaust deniers are the same kind of academics that flat earthers and young earth creationists are, folks for whom mountains of evidence will never sway them from their preconceived notions…that is to say, no kind of academics at all.
Brainspore

@demidan #65:

Is there nothing you would do violence for? So, if a person/group Believes you and your family should die that’s fine with you?

Violence isn’t warranted when someone else has frightening beliefs. It’s only when they act on those beliefs that violence is warranted in the form of self defense.

Holocaust deniers should be scorned and ridiculed, not beat to a pulp.