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{{short description|Inappropriate comparisons or analogies that trivialize the Holocaust}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2022}}
'''Holocaust trivialization''' refers to any comparison or analogy that diminishes the scale and severity of the atrocities committed by [[Nazi Germany]] during the [[the Holocaust|Holocaust]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Foxman |first=Abraham H. |date=27 January 2014 |url=https://www.adl.org/news/op-ed/inappropriate-comparisons-trivialize-the-holocaust |title=Inappropriate Comparisons Trivialize the Holocaust |publisher=[[Anti-Defamation League]] |access-date=9 January 2022 |archive-url= |archive-date=}}</ref> The [[Wiesel Commission]] defined [[Minimisation (psychology)|trivialization]] as the abusive use of comparisons with the aim of minimizing the Holocaust and banalizing its atrocities.<ref name="Wiesel Commission 2004"/>
[[Manfred Gerstenfeld]] identifies trivialization of the Holocaust as one of eleven forms of Holocaust distortion; he defines Holocaust trivialization as the application of language that is specific to describing the Holocaust to events and purposes that are unrelated to it.<ref>{{cite web |last=Gerstenfeld |first=Manfred |date=28 October 2007 |url=https://jcpa.org/article/the-multiple-distortions-of-holocaust-memory/ |title=The Multiple Distortions of Holocaust Memory |publisher=Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs |access-date=2 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240304040718/https://jcpa.org/article/the-multiple-distortions-of-holocaust-memory/ |archive-date=4 March 2024}}</ref> According to David Rudrum, examples of Holocaust trivialization include [[Lord Wigley]] invoking [[Auschwitz]] to oppose nuclear weapons and [[Al Gore]] citing ''[[Kristallnacht]]'' in defence of the environment.<ref name="Rudrum 2021">{{cite web |last=Rudrum |first=David |date=16 March 2021 |url=https://holocaustlearning.org.uk/latest/holocaust-trivialisation/ |title=Why Holocaust Trivialisation Isn't Trivial |publisher=The Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre |access-date=10 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230313032630/https://hcn.org.uk/blog/holocaust-trivialisation/ |archive-date=13 March 2023}}</ref>
The Holocaust survivor and memoirist [[Elie Wiesel]] wrote, "I cannot use [the word 'Holocaust'] anymore. First, because there are no words, and also because it has become so trivialized that I cannot use it anymore. Whatever mishap occurs now, they call it 'holocaust.' I have seen it myself in television in the country in which I live. A commentator describing the defeat of a sports team, somewhere, called it a 'holocaust.' I have read in a very prestigious newspaper published in California, a description of the murder of six people, and the author called it a holocaust. So, I have no words anymore."<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Cohen
== Notable cases ==
=== ''Historikerstreit'' ===
{{see also|Historikerstreit}}
During the ''Historikerstreit'', many scholars believed the position taken in the [[Holocaust uniqueness debate]] by [[conservative]] intellectuals led by [[Ernst Nolte]] – namely that the Holocaust was not unique, Germans should not bear any special burden of guilt for the "[[Final Solution to the Jewish Question]]", there was no moral difference between the crimes of the [[Soviet Union]] and those of [[Nazi Germany]], as the Nazis acted as they did out of fear of what the Soviet Union might do to Germany, or that the Holocaust itself was a reaction to the [[Bolshevik Revolution]] and the Soviet Union—trivialized the Holocaust, and echoed [[Nazi propaganda]].<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Caplan
=== Israeli–Palestinian conflict ===
{{main|Gaza genocide|Palestinian genocide accusation|Nazi analogies#Israel}}
{{see also|Holocaust inversion|accusation in a mirror}}
Comparing the [[State of Israel]] to Nazis, or the plight of [[Palestinians]] to that of [[Jews]] under Nazi occupation, has been criticized as trivializing the Holocaust or antisemitic. The [[Anti-Defamation League]] (ADL) accused [[Gilad Atzmon]] of trivializing and distorting the Holocaust specifically in the context of the [[Israeli–Palestinian conflict]]. According to the ADL, Atzmon invoked the word ''[[Shoah]]'' to describe Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, among other abuses.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.adl.org/main_Anti_Semitism_International/gilad-atzmon-anti-semite.htm |url-status=dead |title=Backgrounder: Gilad Atzmon |publisher=[[Anti-Defamation League]] |date=30 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120512011349/http://www.adl.org/main_Anti_Semitism_International/gilad-atzmon-anti-semite.htm |archive-date=12 May 2012 |access-date=2 December 2020}}</ref>
The [[Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs]] (CIJA) condemned the [[United Church of Canada]] for trivializing the Holocaust. According to the CIJA, the United Church of Canada published a document<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.united-church.ca/social-action/justice-initiatives/government-advocacy-around-palestine-and-israel |title=Government Advocacy Around Palestine and Israel |publisher=[[United Church of Canada]] |access-date=2 December 2020 |archive-date=13 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230313032634/https://www.united-church.ca/social-action/justice-initiatives/government-advocacy-around-palestine-and-israel |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite conference |url=https://commons.united-church.ca/Documents/What%20We%20Believe%20and%20Why/Peace/Working%20Group%20on%20Palestine%20Israel%20Policy.docx |title=The Working Group on Israel/Palestine Policy |format=[[DOCX]] (Microsoft Word) |conference=41st General Council |publisher=United Church of Canada |date=1 August 2012 |access-date=2 December 2020 |archive-date=13 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230313032634/https://commons.united-church.ca/Documents/What%20We%20Believe%20and%20Why/Peace/Working%20Group%20on%20Palestine%20Israel%20Policy.docx |url-status=dead}}</ref> in which they placed a statement decrying the "loss of dignity" on the part of the Palestinians, attributed to Israel, promptly after a similar statement acknowledging "the denial of human dignity to Jews" in the Holocaust.<ref>{{cite news |last=Lungen |first=Paul |date=7 May 2012 |title=CIJA slams United Church stance on Mideast |url=http://www.cjnews.com/canada/cija-slams-united-church-stance-mideast |newspaper=[[The Canadian Jewish News]] |access-date=2 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240911173831/https://thecjn.ca/news/cija-slams-united-church-stance-mideast/ |archive-date=11 September 2024}}</ref>
During a visit to Berlin, Palestinian President [[Mahmoud Abbas]] told [[Olaf Scholz]] that "Israel [had] committed….50 massacres, 50 slaughters, 50 holocausts" after he was inquired if he would apologize for the [[Munich massacre]] by Palestinian terrorists. Scholz stated in a message to the ''[[Bild]]'' newspaper that "for us Germans, any relativization of the Holocaust is unbearable and unacceptable."<ref>{{Cite
After Brazilian President [[Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva]] compared Israeli actions during the [[Israel–Hamas war]] to the Holocaust, [[Dani Dayan]], the chairman of [[Yad Vashem]] museum, said the comments represented blatant antisemitism and "an outrageous combination of hatred and ignorance," further stating that "comparing a country fighting against a murderous terror organization to the actions of the Nazis in the Holocaust is worthy of all condemnation." Israeli Prime Minister [[Benjamin Netanyahu]] responded to Lula's comments by saying "The words of the President of Brazil are shameful and alarming. This is a trivialization of the Holocaust and an attempt to harm the Jewish people and Israel's right to defend itself."<ref>{{Cite
=== Post-Communist states and Holocaust memory ===
{{see also|Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism#In political discourse}}
According to the political scientist [[Jelena Subotić]], the Holocaust memory was hijacked in [[post-Communist]] states in an attempt to erase fascist crimes and local participation in the Holocaust, and use their imagery to represent real or imagined crimes of Communist states. Subotić discussed specific examples in [[Croatia]] and [[Serbia]], but governments across the region "have used public monuments, museums, and memorials to nationally appropriate the memory of the Holocaust, and use it to produce a new visual remembrance of their 20th Century past that supports their myths of nationhood."<ref name="Subotić 2019">{{cite web |last=Subotić |first=Jelena |date=18 November 2019 |url=https://balkaninsight.com/2019/11/18/how-holocaust-memory-was-hijacked-in-post-communist-states/ |title=How Holocaust Memory was Hijacked in Post-Communist States |website=Balkan Insight |access-date=3 August 2021 |archive-url= |archive-date=}}</ref> According to Subotić, this form of [[historical revisionism]] of the Holocaust and post-Communist memory "has become so mainstream and state sponsored that in 2018 Croatian president [[Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović]] called for the creation of an international commission to determine the truth about the camp between 1941 and 1945, 'but also after' – indicating that the narrative that Jasenovac was a communist camp after the war was now accepted at the pinnacle of power."<ref name="Subotić 2019"/>
A report by the [[Wiesel Commission]] criticized the comparison of [[Gulag]] victims with Jewish
In ''New Directions in the History of the Jews in the Polish Lands'' (2018), the historian [[Dan Michman]] laments that "[f]rom the perspective of today, one can say that the pendulum has even moved so far in emphasizing Eastern Europe from June 1941 onward, and first and foremost its killing sites as the locus of the Shoah, that one will find recent studies which entirely marginalize or even disregard the importance to the Holocaust of such essential issues as the 1930s in Germany and Austria; the persecution and murder of Western and Southern European Jewry; first steps of persecution in [[Tunisia]] and [[Libya]]; and other aspects of the Holocaust such as the enormous spoliation and the cultural warfare aimed at exorcising the ''jüdische Geist''."<ref>{{cite
=== Double genocide theory ===
{{see also|Double genocide theory}}
The double genocide narrative holds that there were two contemporary genocides of equal weight, a [[Nazi]] one and a [[Stalinist]] one. [[Michael Shafir]] calls the double genocide theory a form of Holocaust obfuscation,<ref name="Shafir 2016">{{cite journal |last=Shafir |first=Michael |date=Summer 2016 |url=http://jsri.ro/ojs/index.php/jsri/article/viewFile/798/696|title=Ideology, Memory and Religion in Post-Communist East Central Europe: A Comparative Study Focused on Post-Holocaust |journal=Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies |volume=15 |issue=44 |pages=52–110 |archive-url= |archive-date=}} Quote at pp. 64 and 74.</ref> while Carole Lemée sees it as a symptom of persistent [[antisemitism]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lemée |first1=Carole |title=History-memory of Litvak Yiddish spaces after the Holocaust. Between worlds of life and worlds of assassination |journal=Ethnologie française |date=2018 |volume=170 |issue=2 |pages=225–242 |doi=10.3917/ethn.182.0225}}</ref>
In ''The Holocaust/Genocide Template in Eastern Europe'', [[Ljiljana Radonić]] writes that the double genocide theory proposes the existence of an equivalency between [[communism]] and [[Nazism]]. Radonić posits that this theory and charges of Communist genocide both come from "a stable of anti-communist émigré lexicon since the 1950s and more recently revisionist politicians and scholars" as well as the "comparative trivialization" of the Holocaust that "results from tossing postwar killings of suspected Axis collaborators and opponents of [[Josip Broz Tito|Tito]]'s regime into the same conceptual framework as the Nazi murder of six million of Jews", describing this as "an effort to demonize communism more broadly as an ideology akin to Nazism
=== Red Holocaust ===
The term ''red Holocaust'' was coined by the [[Institute of Contemporary History (Munich)|Institute of Contemporary History]] (
In "Secondary Anti-Semitism: From Hard-Core to Soft-Core Denial of the Shoah", the German political scientist {{ill|Clemens Heni|de}} writes: "Contrary to the hard-core version, soft-core denial is often not easily identifiable. Often it is tolerated, or even encouraged and reproduced in the mainstream, not only in Germany. Scholars have only recently begun to unravel this disturbing phenomenon. Manfred Gerstenfeld discusses Holocaust trivialization in an article published in 2008. In Germany in 2007 two scholars, Thorsten Eitz and Georg Stötzel, published a voluminous dictionary of German language and discourse regarding National Socialism and the Holocaust. It includes chapters on Holocaust trivialization and contrived comparisons, such as the infamous 'atomic Holocaust', 'Babycaust,' 'Holocaust of abortion', 'red Holocaust' or 'biological Holocaust.'"<ref>{{cite journal |last=Heni |first=Clemens |date=Fall 2008 |title=Secondary Anti-Semitism: From Hard-Core to Soft-Core Denial of the Shoah |journal=Jewish Political Studies Review |location=Jerusalem |volume=20 |issue=3/4 |pages=73–92 |jstor=25834800}}</ref>
=== Social media ===
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=== Soviet and Ukrainian Holocaust ===
{{see also|Holodomor genocide question}}
According to Elazar Barkan, Elizabeth A. Cole, and Kai Struve, there is competition among victims in constructing a "Ukrainian Holocaust". They say that since the 1990s the term ''Holodomor'' has been adopted by [[anti-communists]] because of its similarity to ''the Holocaust'' in an attempt to promote the narrative that the [[Soviet Communists]] killed 10 million Ukrainians, but the [[Nazis]] killed only 6 million Jews. They further posit that the term ''Holodomor'' was "introduced and popularized by the Ukrainian diaspora in North America before Ukraine became independent", and that "the term 'Holocaust' is not explained at all". It has been used to create a "victimized national narrative" and "compete with the Jewish narrative in order to obscure the 'dark sides' of Ukraine's national history and to counter accusations that their fathers collaborated with the Germans".<ref>Barkan, Elazar; Cole, Elizabeth A.; Struve, Kai (2007). [https://books.google.com/books?id=_BbvQbiaqAEC ''Shared History, Divided Memory: Jews and Others in Soviet-Occupied Poland, 1939–1941'']. Leipziger Universitätsverlag. pp. 120–121. {{ISBN|978-3-86583240-5}}. Retrieved 2 December 2020 – via Google Books.</ref>
The American investigative journalist Jeff Coplon posits that there is a [[fascist]] or [[far-right]] link in positing the famine as [[Soviet genocide]] and ''holocaust''. [[Robert Conquest]]'s ''[[The Harvest of Sorrow]]'' popularized the view that the [[Soviet famine of 1932–1933]], particularly that in Ukraine in the same period, was a [[genocide]] against Ukrainians. According to Coplon, "In the latest catalogue for the [[Noontide Press]], a [[Liberty Lobby]] affiliate run by flamboyant fascist [[Willis Carto]], ''The Harvest of Sorrow'' is listed cheek-by-jowl with such [[Historical revisionism (political)|revisionist]] tomes as ''The Auschwitz Myth'' and ''Hitler At My Side''. To hype the Conquest book and its terror famine, the catalogue notes: 'The act of genocide against the Ukrainian people has been suppressed {{sic}} until recently, perhaps because a real '[[Holocaust]]' might compete with a [[Holocaust denial|Holo-hoax]].' With the term 'Holo-hoax' referring to the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews."<ref name="Coplon 1988">{{cite magazine |last=Coplon |first=Jeff |date=12 January 1988 |url=https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/vv.html |title=In Search of a Soviet Holocaust |magazine=Village Voice |access-date=30 November 2020 |via=[[Montclair State University]]}}</ref>
Coplon reports opinions of expert [[Sovietologists]],<ref>{{cite journal |last=Sysyn |first=Frank |date=23 January 2015 |url=https://holodomor.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sysyn_Thirty_Years_of_Research_on_the_Holodomor_A_Balance_Sheet_anhl.pdf |title=Thirty Years of Research on the Holodomor: A Balance Sheet |journal=East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies |volume=II |issue=1 |pages=4–16 |doi=10.21226/T26P4M |issn=2292-7956 |access-date=4 September 2021 |via=Holodomor Research and Education Consortium |doi-access=free}}</ref> such as the father of modern Sovietology [[Alexander Dallin]] of [[Stanford University]], [[Moshe Lewin]] of the [[University of Pennsylvania]], whose ''Russian Peasants and the Soviet Power'' was groundbreaking in social history, [[Lynne Viola]] of [[SUNY-Binghamton]], the first historian from the United States to examine Moscow's Central State Archive on [[Soviet collectivization]], and veteran Sovietologist Roberta Manning of [[Boston College]], as rejecting "Conquest's hunt for a new holocaust". [[Eli Rosenbaum]], who was general counsel for the [[World Jewish Congress]] and former director of the [[Office of Special Investigations (United States Department of Justice)]], observed that "they're always looking to come up with a number bigger than six million. It makes the reader think: 'My god it's worse than the Holocaust.'"<ref name="Coplon 1988"/>
=== Russian invasion of Ukraine ===
{{More information|Disinformation in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#Allegations of Nazism|Fascist (insult)}}
[[Yad Vashem]] (Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust) criticized the Kremlin's claim that the [[Russian invasion of Ukraine]] was aimed at the "denazification" of Ukraine, as false and a trivialization of Holocaust history.<ref>{{Cite
On 21 March 2022, Ukrainian president [[Volodymyr Zelensky]] was criticized by [[Yad Vashem|
== See also ==
{{Portal|History}}
* [[Armenian genocide and the Holocaust]]
* [[Fascist (insult)]]
* [[Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany]]
* [[Genocide denial]]
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* [[Genocide studies]]
* [[Genocides in history]]
* [[Godwin's law]]
* [[Historical negationism]]
* [[Historical revisionism]]
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== Further reading ==
* Blutinger, Jeffrey (Fall 2010). "An Inconvenient Past: Post-Communist Holocaust Memorialization". ''Shofar''. [[Purdue University Press]]. '''29''' (1): 73–94. {{JSTOR|10.5703/shofar.29.1.73}}.
* [[Manfred Gerstenfeld|Gerstenfeld, Manfred]] (9 April 2008). [https://jcpa.org/article/holocaust-trivialization/ "Holocaust Trivialization"]. [[Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs]].
* Katz, Steven (1994). ''The Holocaust in Historical Context''. Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]]. {{isbn|9780195072204}}.
* Shafir, Michael (2002). "Between Denial and 'Comparative Trivialization' – Holocaust Negationism in Post-Communist East Central Europe". ''Acta – Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism''. Jerusalem: [[Hebrew University]], [[Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism]]. 19. p. 23.
* Stannard, David E. (2 August 1996). [https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-dangers-of-calling-the-holocaust-unique/ "The dangers of calling the Holocaust unique"]. ''[[The Chronicle of Higher Education]]''. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
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