Holocaust trivialization: Difference between revisions

'''Holocaust trivialization''' refers to any comparison or analogy that diminishes the scale and severity of the war crimes and other abusesatrocities that were carried out 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}}</ref> The [[Wiesel Commission]] defined [[Minimisation (psychology)|trivialization]] as the abusive use of comparisons with the aim of minimizing the Holocaust and banalizing itits atrocities.<ref name="Wiesel Commission 2004"/> Originally, ''[[Holocaust (sacrifice)|holocaust]]'' meant a type of [[sacrifice]] that is completely burnt to ashes; starting from the late 19th century, it started to denote extensive destruction of a group, usually people or animals. The 1915 [[Armenian genocide]] was described as a "holocaust" by contemporary observers.<ref>{{cite book|last=Suny|first=Ronald Grigor|author-link=Ronald Grigor Suny|title='They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else': A History of the Armenian Genocide|title-link=They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else|year=2015|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-6558-1 |pages=xxi, 347, 369}}</ref>

[[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}}</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}}</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>Cohen, Asher; Gelber, Joav; Wardi, Charlotte, eds. (1988). [https://books.google.com/books?hl=it&id=s3aBAAAAIAAJ ''Comprehending the Holocaust: Historical and Literary Research'']. Bern: Peter Lang. p. 13. {{isbn|978-3-63-140428-7}}. Retrieved 2 December 2020 – via Google Books.</ref>

The German historianHistorian [[Thomas Kühne]] writes that "[t]he more provocative historians were in doing so and the more they thereby questioned the uniqueness, or the peculiarity, of the Holocaust, the more their work was met with resistance or even disgust, most prominently and controversially the German Ernst Nolte in the 1980s."<ref name="Kühne 2012">{{cite journal|last=Kühne|first=Thomas|date=May 2012|title=Great Men and Large Numbers: Undertheorising a History of Mass Killing|journal=Contemporary European History|volume=21|issue=2|pages=133–143|doi=10.1017/S0960777312000070|issn=0960-7773|jstor=41485456|s2cid=143701601}}</ref>

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>

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 web |author= <!--Not stated--> |title=In Berlin, Abbas says Israel committed 'holocausts' against the Palestinians; Scholz grimaces silently, later condemns remarks |url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/in-berlin-abbas-skirts-apology-for-munich-attack-says-israel-committed-holocausts/ |access-date=2022-08-16 |website=The Times of Israel |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-08-16 |title=Palestinian President Abbas skirts apology for Munich attack |url=https://apnews.com/article/winter-olympics-sports-israel-germany-middle-east-1f2c2b601c4e4f48f88dff61b1a55271 |access-date=2022-08-16 |website=AP NEWS |language=en}}</ref>

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}}</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 [[Holocaust]] victims, as was done in ''[[The Black Book of Communism]]'', as an attempt at Holocaust trivialization.<ref name="Wiesel Commission 2004">{{cite book|url=http://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20080226-romania-commission-postwar.pdf|title=Distortion, negationism and minimization of the Holocaust in postwar Romania|last2=Ioanid|first2=Radu|last3=Ionescu|first3=Mihail E.|last4=Benjamin|first4=Lya|date=2004|publisher=International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania|pages=47, 59|last1=Friling|first1=Tuvia}}</ref> The [[Historical Museum of Serbia]] put on the highly-publicized exhibition "In the Name of the People – Political Repression in Serbia 1944–1953", which according to Subotić "promised to display new historical documents and evidence of communist crimes, ranging from assassinations, kidnappings and detentions in camps to collectivisation, political trials and repression" to actually show "random and completely decontextualised photographs of 'victims of communism', which included innocent people but also many proven fascist collaborators, members of the quisling government, right-wing militias, and the Axis-allied Chetnik movement." Another more damning example is the well-known photograph of prisoners from the [[Buchenwald concentration camp]], which was displayed in the section devoted to a Communist-era camp for political prisoners on the Adriatic island of Goli Otok, describing it as "the example of living conditions of Goli Otok prisoners", and not correcting it even after the misrepresentation was exposed. Only after an outcry from Holocaust historians, a small note was taped underneath the display caption that read: "Prisoners' bunk-beds in the Dachau camp."<ref name="Subotić 2019"/>

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 journal|last=Michman|first=Dan|title=Historiography on the Holocaust in Poland: An Outsider's View of its Place within Recent General Developments in Holocaust Historiography|date=2018|journal=New Directions in the History of the Jews in the Polish Lands|pages=386–401|editor-last=Polonsky|editor-first=Antony|publisher=Academic Studies Press|isbn=978-83-944262-9-3|editor2-last=Węgrzynek|editor2-first=Hanna|editor3-last=Żbikowski|editor3-first=Andrzej}}</ref>

The term ''red Holocaust'' was coined by the [[Institute of Contemporary History (Munich)|Institute of Contemporary History]] (''Munich Institut für Zeitgeschichte'') at Munich.<ref>{{cite book|last=Möller|first=Horst|year=1999|title=Der rote Holocaust und die Deutschen: die Debatte um das "Schwarzbuch des Kommunismus"|trans-title=The Red Holocaust and the Germans: The Debates on the "Black Book of Communism"|location=Munich|publisher=Piper Verlag|language=de|isbn=978-3-492-04119-5}}</ref><ref name="Hackmann 2009">{{cite journal|last=Hackmann|first=Jörg|date=March 2009|title=From National Victims to Transnational Bystanders? The Changing Commemoration of World War II in Central and Eastern Europe|journal=Constellations|volume=16|issue=1|pages=167–181|doi=10.1111/j.1467-8675.2009.00526.x|quote=A coining of communism as 'red Holocaust,' as had been suggested by the ''Munich Institut fur Zeitgeschichte'', did not find much ground, neither in Germany nor elsewhere in international discussions.}}</ref> According to the German historian {{ill|Jörg Hackmann|de}}, this term is not popular among scholars in Germany or internationally.<ref name="Hackmann 2009"/> [[Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine]] writes that usage of this term "allows the reality it describes to immediately attain, in the Western mind, a status equal to that of the [[Final Solution|extermination of the Jews]] by the [[Nazi regime]]."<ref name="Goslan & Rousso 2004">{{cite book|editor-last1=Goslan|editor-first1=Richard Joseph|editor-last2=Rousso|editor-first2=Henry|year=2004|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CIt7fMp30sAC|title=Stalinism and Nazism: History and Memory Compared|location=Lincoln|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-803-29000-6|access-date=2 December 2020|via=Google Books}}</ref> Michael Shafir says that the use of the term supports the "competitive martyrdom component" of the [[double genocide theory]].<ref name="Shafir 2016"/> George Voicu states that Leon Volovici has "rightfully condemned the abusive use of this concept as an attempt to 'usurp' and undermine a symbol specific to the history of [[European Jews]]."<ref>{{cite book|last=Voicu|first=George|year=2018|chapter=Postcommunist Romania's Leading Public Intellectuals and the Holocaust|editor-last=Florian|editor-first=Alexandru|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XqlJDwAAQBAJ|title=Holocaust Public Memory in Postcommunist Romania, Studies in Antisemitism|location=Bloomington|publisher=Indiana University Press|pages=41–71|isbn=978-0-253-03274-4|access-date=2 December 2020|via=Google Books}} Quote at p. 46.</ref>

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>

Jeff Coplon, an 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"/>

[[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 web |last=Gross |first=Judah Ari |title=Yad Vashem chief: Russia trivializing Holocaust with false 'denazification' claim |url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/yad-vashem-chief-russia-trivializing-holocaust-with-false-denazification-claim/ |access-date=7 March 2022 |website=The Times of Israel |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Yad Vashem Statement Regarding the Russian Invasion of Ukraine |url=https://www.yadvashem.org/press-release/27-february-2022-14-25.html |access-date=7 March 2022 |website=www.yadvashem.org |language=en}}</ref> According to the philosopher [[Jason Stanley]], this reflects an antisemitic conspiracy theory which casts Russian Christians, rather than Jews, as the true victims of Nazi Germany.<ref name="animating">{{cite news |last=Stanley |first=Jason |author-link=Jason Stanley |date=26 February 2022 |title=The antisemitism animating Putin's claim to 'denazify' Ukraine |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify }}</ref> The [[Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies|Fortunoff Archive for Holocaust Testimonies]] also condemned the invasion and described Putin's rhetoric as Holocaust trivialization,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2 March 2022 |title=On the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin's Abuse of Language |url=https://fortunoff.library.yale.edu/2022/03/02/ukraine/ |access-date=7 March 2022 |website=Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies |language=en-US}}</ref> and the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|US Holocaust Memorial Museum]] denounced Putin's abuse of Holocaust history.<ref name="Snyder 2022">{{cite web |last=Snyder |first=Timothy |title=Putin's Hitler-like tricks and tactics in Ukraine |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/24/opinion/putins-hitler-like-tricks-tactics-ukraine/ |website=The Boston Globe |publisher=[[The Boston Globe]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Museum concerned about loss of life |date=24 February 2022 |url=https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/museum-condemns-russias-invasion-of-ukraine |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220225015426/https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/museum-condemns-russias-invasion-of-ukraine |archive-date=25 February 2022 |access-date=25 February 2022 |publisher=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]]}}</ref>

On 21 March 2022, Ukrainian president [[Volodymyr Zelensky]] was criticisedcriticized by [[Yad Vashem| Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center]] for creating a [[false equivalence]] between the Russian invasion and the Holocaust, while Israeli Prime Minister [[Naftali Bennett]] found the comparison of the two events to be inappropriate.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.voanews.com/a/israelis-reject-zelenskyy-s-holocaust-comparisons-/6494518.html|title= Israelis Reject Zelenskyy's Holocaust Comparisons|publisher=Voa News|date=21 March 2022}}</ref>