Understanding Holocaust Distortion: Contexts, Influences, Examples
by International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). 2021
Reviewed by Jan Peczkis
This document repeats messages that have become all too familiar. However, there is one bright spot, which I focus on first.
ADDRESSING AND REPUDIATING THE POLISH DEATH CAMP LIE
This IHRA report makes one sensible comment, “When terms like ‘Polish death camps’ or ‘Polish concentration camps’ may be simple references to the sites’ geographic location, the use of such terms blurs the distinctions of this history. These sites and these camps were established and run by Nazi Germany in German-occupied Poland.” (p. 38).
But why do some Jews oppose the Polish death camp lie? Could it be because the lie is so egregious that too many people will see through it? This may diminish the credibility of other Jewish accusations against Poland, and we cannot have that.
“TRIVIALIZATION OF THE HOLOCAUST”: ITSELF A TESTIMONY TO HOLOCAUST SUPREMACY
The authors of this work complain about such expressions as “the Holocaust on your plate” and the “climate Holocaust”. (p. 39). Let’s keep things in perspective. No one has to worry about “Rwandan genocide trivialization” or “Holodomor trivialization”, for the simple reason that these non-Jewish genocides have a minimal impact on the public imagination. Only the Jews’ Holocaust is so well known, and so profoundly internalized, that it enjoys the “privilege” of being sometimes trivialized.
AVOIDING GERMAN GUILT DIFFUSION, AND THEN STEPPING RIGHT INTO IT
The IHRA document warns against, “Attempts to blur the responsibility for Nazi Germany’s establishment of concentration and death camps by blaming other nations or ethnic groups. This form of distortion shifts sole blame for the Holocaust onto local collaborators while ignoring Nazi Germany’s responsibility for the genocide.” (p. 8). Exactly right. Hear that, Jan T. Gross, Jan Grabowski, and Barbara Engelking?
Then the IHRA document does an about-face, “For example, to assert that the Holocaust is not relevant to a nation’s history because it was a Nazi German organized crime could be a form of distortion if it ignores the roles played by local collaborators or members of the Axis in the crimes of the Holocaust.” (p. 7).
So, IHRA, make up your mind. Is German guilt dilution a matter of significance, or is it not? If local collaborators are made so important, how does this fail to reduce Germany’s guilt? How can collaborators ever be as significant as the main criminals in the first place? Finally, why is collaboration almost always framed in terms of the Jews and their Holocaust? If collaborators are so important, why don’t we ever hear about the collaborators in the Armenian or Rwandan genocide?
HOLOCAUST PEERLESS: HOLOCAUST SUPREMACISM RULES YET AGAIN
IHRA writes, “Because of the paradigmatic status of the Holocaust as a genocide and its symbolic status as an ultimate evil, it has become somewhat common for various individuals, organizations, and movements to claim equivalence between the Holocaust and unrelated contemporary events, genocides, and/or mass atrocities.” (p. 8. Emphasis added).
The Holocaust is so absolutely peerless that no other atrocity or genocide can validly be compared with it! What other genocide enjoys this privilege? The Holocaustspeak comes thick and heavy. Does constant repetition of the Holocaust “being paradigmatic” make it so? Just who made the Holocaust paradigmatic, and by what authority did they do so? Where did the Holocaust get the “right” to intrude on any or all other genocides, and even to subsume them?
What’s this line about ultimate evil? If the Holocaust is ultimate evil, then no non-Jewish genocide can possibly be as evil as the Jew’s Holocaust. Now tell me that there is no such thing as a hierarchy of victimhood.
The IHRA document warns that, “History museums may even engage unwittingly in acts of distortion as purveyors of a national narrative. For example, some institutions may draw an equivalence between Nazi crimes and those crimes of the Stalinist regime in ways that de-emphasize the Holocaust.” (p. 9).
We get it. The Holocaust must always have top spot, even when non-Jewish genocides are discussed.
POLES ARE NOT FOOLED BY THE AIMS OF HOLOCAUST SUPREMACISM
IHRA comments, “Today, in the countries of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, displacement strategies are en vogue. One can identify cases of persons or organizations accusing Jews of enforcing memory of the Holocaust in order to overshadow consideration of other victims or those persons and groups who resisted the Nazis and the Communists.” (pp. 16-17).
But that is not only the truth: It is the very essence and purpose of Holocaust supremacy! Little by little, the nations are finally catching on.
Fortunately, Poles haven’t fallen for the Holocaust messaging. The IHRA report laments, “A 2011 study on ‘group focused enmity’ in several European countries illustrates this point. When asked to respond to the statement, ‘Jews try to take advantage of having been victims during the Nazi era’ significant numbers of respondents agreed. The highest rates of agreement were in Poland (72.2%) and Hungary (68.1%), followed by Portugal (52.2%) and Germany (48%). The Netherlands (17.2%), followed by Britain (21.8%), stood at the lower end of the scale.” (p. 17).
JEWS, HOLOCAUST SUPREMACY, AND THE STATE OF ISRAEL
IHRA makes these laughable remarks, “Claims that the Jewish people ‘use’ the Holocaust for the purposes of financial gain or to justify the establishment of the state of Israel are antisemitic conspiracy myths.” (p. 8).
Are we supposed to be so deaf, dumb, and blind as to not see the connection between Holocaust pre-eminence and the Holocaust Industry? Or are these conspiracy theories too?
And, evidently, the IHRA never heard of Grant F. Smith and his classic on the Israeli Lobby. He must be some kind of wacky conspiracy theorist. See:
https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/holocaust-indoctrination-via-israel-lobby-smith/
