General Semantics and Holocaust Denial (PDF. File)

The Holocaust History Project ^ | Andrew E. Mathis, Ph.D.

[mal]

CERTAIN GROUPS claim the Holocaust never happened. Almost from the beginning of the discovery of this widespread destruction of European Jewry before and during World War II, Nazi apologists, anti-Semites, and selfstyled “skeptics” have tried to discredit the accepted history of this period. Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University has termed this phenomenon “Holocaust denial.” While originally an obscure movement, since the rise of the internet in the mid-1990s, Holocaust denial has grown significantly, and new adherents continue to set up web sites dedicated to “debunking the myth.” The upside to the growing awareness of Holocaust denial is that organizations and individuals have taken up the task of preserving the basic truths of the Holocaust, while exposing this period to continuing historiographical scrutiny, thus promoting a better and more complete understanding of the Holocaust.

[warsaw44]

Ping for later.
I've actually met people who think it never happened. One no more than a 16 year old school girl. Terribly sad.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

If they can sell holocaust denial they can then turn Stalin into a Saint and the USSR into a booming economic and social paradise. This is all part of their cognitive dissidence ploy.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I've actually met people who think it never happened. One no more than a 16 year old school girl.

They probably also think the moon landing took place in a Hollywood studio.

[Frwy]

They'll all understand better when Jesus comes back.

[adamsjas]

One no more than a 16 year old school girl.

They all seem to be of about the same mental age....

[Mind-numbed Robot]

They'll all understand better when Jesus comes back.

Yep, sort of like the flash of recognition one has when he realizes he has been had. They never expected Jesus to be real! That is when the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin.

[RoadTest]

Those with dirty hands in this matter, including the Vatican, wish the memory of the Holocaust would go away. It almost had when Stephen Spielberg brought out "Schindler's List".

Never forget.

[bkepley]

--Those with dirty hands in this matter, including the Vatican, wish the memory of the Holocaust would go away.

Those with dirty hands such as the USA, Great Britain, France, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.. etc..
Did anyone reach out to the Jews?

[agere_contra]

Those with dirty hands in this matter, including the Vatican

Uh-huh...

". . . the Catholic Church, under the pontificate of Pope Pius XII was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000, Jews from certain death at Nazi hands."

Pinchas E. Lapide, THREE POPES AND THE JEWS (1967)

"When fearful martyrdom came to our people, the voice of the pope was raised for its victims."

Golda Meir, Israeli Foreign Minister (October 9, 1958)

"I should like you to take this occasion to express to His Holiness my deeply-felt appreciation of the frequent action which the Holy See has taken on its own initiative in its generous and merciful efforts to render assistance to the victims of racial and religious persecution."

Franklin D. Roosevelt to Myron C. Taylor (August 3, 1944)

. . . I told him [the Pope] that my first duty was to thank him , and through him, the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public, for all they had done in the various countries to rescue Jews, to save children, and Jews in general." .

Moshe Sharett, First Israeli Foreign Minister (April 1945)

"In all these painful matters, I referred to the Holy See and afterwards I simply carried out the Pope's orders: first and foremost to save human lives."

Angelo Cardinal Roncalli, Patriarch of Venice, Later Pope John XXIII (1957) "

"What we can say already, in light of what we have learned, is that the Nazis considered Pius XII and his collaborators as their greatest enemies and that, reciprocally, the Pope and his entourage saw the Nazis as criminals working for the destruction of the Church and civilization."

Jean Chelini, LE FIGARO (October 8, 1983)

"The gratitude [to Pope Pius XII] of the world Jewish leaders, for deeds to which their own archives are witness, was transformed after 1963 into totally negative commentary. The well-intentioned, informed world Jewish community was downgraded to 'disgraceful testimonials of a few Jews' (NEW YORK TIMES, September 27, 1989,Letters)."

Rev. Robert A. Graham, S. J. (October 1989)

"Anyone who does not limit himself to cheap polemics knows very well what Pius XII thought of the Nazi regime and how much he did to help countless people persecuted by the regime."

Pope John Paul II (1995)

"In his 1942 Christmas message, which THE NEW YORK TIMES among others extolled, the pope became the first figure of international stature to condemn what was turning into the Holocaust."

Kenneth Woodward, NEWSWEEK (March 30, 1998)

[agere_contra]

And some more drive-by commentary on Pope Pius XII ... :0)

The foremost Jewish Scholar of the Holocaust at its height in Hungary, Jeno Levai, insisted some years ago that it was a "particularly regrettable irony that the one person in all of occupied Europe who did more than anyone else to halt the dreadful crime and alleviate its consequences is today made the scapegoat for the failures of others."

The Israeli diplomat and scholar Pinchas Lapide concluded his careful review of Pius XII’s wartime activities with the following words: "The Catholic Church under the pontificate of Pius XII was instrumental in saving lives of as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." He went on to add that this "figure far exceeds those saved by all other Churches and rescue organizations combined." After recounting statements of appreciation from a variety of preeminent Jewish spokespersons, he noted. "No Pope in history has been thanked more heartily by Jews . . . .Several suggested in open letters that a Pope Pius XII forest of 860,000 trees be planted on the hills of Judea in order to fittingly honor the memory of the late Pontiff ("Three Popes and the Jews" pp. 214–215)." Levai in his own book did not hesitate to argue that the attacks on the Pope’s wartime record are "demonstrably malicious and fabricated . . . . The archives of the Vatican of diocesan authorities of Ribbentrop’s foreign ministry, contain a whole series of protests—direct and indirect, diplomatic and public, secret and open. The nuncios and bishops of the Catholic Church intervened again and again on the instructions of the Pope," he wrote.

Hungarian Jews and the Papacy: The former chief rabbi of Rome during the German occupation, Emilio Zolli, concluded his firsthand account of wartime events thus: "Volumes could be written on the multiform works of Pius XII, and the countless priests, religious and laity who stood with him throughout the world during the war." "No hero," he said, "in all of history was more militant, more fought against, none more heroic, than Pius XII in pursuing the works of true charity . . . and thus on behalf of all the suffering children of God." Zolli was so moved by Pius XII’s work that he became a Catholic after the war and took the Pope’s name (Before the Dawn). Lapide acknowledged in his book that the Church "in an endless flood of sermons, allocutions, pastoral letters and encyclicals was a clear and unrelenting foe to all forms of racism at the time, and everyone knew it—Jews, Poles, Russians and most ominously the Nazi secret police." Their files mention recalcitrant Catholic clergy in this regard more than any other group.

The New York Times in its Christmas editorials of 1941 and 1942 praised Pius XII for his moral leadership as a "lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent" and for, among other things, assailing "the violent occupation of territory, and the exile and persecution of human beings, for no other reason than race." No other institution produced more heroes during the Holocaust than the Church: Italian, Slovak, French, Hungarian priests, nuns, and laypersons who risked and often gave their lives for the sake of persecuted Jews.

Golda Meir, Israel’s representative to the United Nations, was the first of the delegates to react to the news of Pope Pius XII’s death. She sent an eloquent message: "We share in the grief of humanity at the passing away of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII. In a generation afflicted by wars and discords he upheld the highest ideals of peace and compassion. When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for its victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out about great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace."

Leonard Bernstein, on learning of Pope Pius XII’s death while conducting his orchestra in New York’s Carnegie Hall, tapped his baton for a moment of silence to pay tribute to the Pope who had saved the lives of so many people without distinction of race, nationality, or religion.

The great Jewish physicist, Albert Einstein, who himself barely escaped annihilation at Nazi hands, made the point well in 1944 when he said, "Being a lover of freedom, when the Nazi revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, but the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, but they, like the universities were silenced in a few short weeks. Then I looked to individual writers . . . . they too were mute. Only the Church," Einstein concluded, "stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing the truth. . . . I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel great affection and admiration . . . . and am forced thus to confess that what I once despised, I now praise unreservedly."

[RoadTest]

"Did anyone reach out to the Jews?"

Not that I know of, and that includes GM and Volkswagen, along with other Aewrican auto companies and German industrial corporations with us today. They all served Hitler.

[RoadTest]

"Aewrican"

They were from Aewrica, USA.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel.

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Trial By Fire: Holocaust History Project Won't Be Silenced (Massive arson fire destroyed offices)

[Convert from ECUSA]

Ping!

[Petronski]

Those with dirty hands in this matter, including the Vatican, wish the memory of the Holocaust would go away.

That's a pack of filthy lies.

[ArrogantBustard]

Did anyone reach out to the Jews?

Yes ... that would, of course, be ....

Yup.

You guessed it:

The Vatican.

RoadTest's knowledge of history is more than a little bit lacking in the facts.

[ArrogantBustard]

Not that I know of,

At least you admit your abyssmal ignorance.

It's a start.

[iluvlucy]

Oh brother not this again....
I am so sick of this stuff. These guys are more than ready to re-invent world history now that the generation that was witness to it all are almost gone.

“Intellectual cowards” is my view. They are not even worth talking to.

[Convert from ECUSA]

You nailed it!