Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory

by Deborah E. Lipstadt

Book Overview

A timely analysis of the antisemitism and prejudice that fuels Holocaust deniers, written by the inspirational author behind the major motion picture Denial, starring Rachel Weisz. The denial of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029192358
• ISBN13: 9780029192351
• Release Date: June 1993
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 1.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent book!

Excellent book! Places the Holocaust deniers and minimizers in their deceptive realm.

The denial is the same Jew hatred that caused the Holocaust

I know hundreds of people who lost family in the Holocaust. My wife's father was put on a train at the age of twelve from Vienna and never saw his parents again. They were murdered in Auschwitz. I know people who were the sole survivors of extended families of tens of people. I live in Israel where a very large share of the population has family members who were murdered in the Holocaust. When I was a child in Troy, New York one of my best friends was Sammy Rozines who has since died. He came over from a concentration camp which he his mother, his brother but not his father had survived. There were other Jewish refugees in our small American town , who came to the US and made new lives. They are real people. The Genendelmans, and the Singers, and the Bergers. I remember them all. Thus when I first heard about the phenomenom of Holocaust denial some years ago I could not believe it. Here were all these people in the world who had had relatives murdered, and someone who did not know them, who was not close to being anywhere near what happened , was denying this. Well soon it became clear what it was. Jew - hatred again. The same phenomenom that caused the Holocaust was behind these , I will not say sick, but I will say , evil people who hate even the dead, and who would do them injustice. Deborah Lipstadt who I have heard speak, is a person of tremendous courage and integrity. Her courageous fight against Holocaust denial is a proof of what one dedicated person can do for good. In this book she tells the story of this evil phenomenom and addresses the dangers it represents. Her book is important but there is something even more important. The information available about the Holocaust is available to every person. There have been thousands of books, films, eye-witness accounts of survivors. The proof of the reality of the Holocaust is so tremendously overwhelming that anyone who denies its reality is clearly doing so out of some kind of evil anti- Semitic purpose. I believe the great share of humanity consists in decent and fair human beings who understand not only that the Holocaust occurred, but that it is humanity's task to make sure that no similar evil ever occurs again to any other people.

An important book

I recently reread "Denying the Holocaust" after reading "Lying About Hitler" by Richard Evans, who was one of the witnesses for the defense in the libel trial brought by British writer and holocaust denier David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt and her UK publisher Viking Penguin.Lipstadt provides here a valuable, concise, well-documented history of the phenomenon of holocaust denial, which was rooted partly in antisemitism and partly in the original World War I revisionism movement that between the wars attempted to prove that Germany was not responsible for WWI. After World War II, antisemitics, neofascists, and philoGermans gradually came out of the woodwork to peddle their wares cloaked in the guise of revisionist history. They are still active today.The book, which is 9 years old now, could really use an updated edition; it would be interesting to have Lipstadt's reflections on the David Irving trial, recent developments in denial, and, as a few other reviewers here have pointed out, for her to take a critical look at the subject of epidemic holocaust denial in the Arab world. I might add that holocaust denial among Arabs is not just a problem overseas, it unfortunately exists here as well. I work for a publisher that in a merger acquired a book about the holocaust aimed at advanced high school students. The decision was made to backlist the book in spite of the fact that it was at the time only a year old. When I asked why this had happened, I was told that it was to avoid complaints from Arab Americans (the book was eventually transferred to the college book division of our company. I have no idea what they have since done with it).An important book well worth anyone's time.

A historian examines psuedo-historians

A well-argued and passionately felt examination of the growth of Holocaust denial. This is in no respects a history of the Holocaust nor a refutation of the "arguments" of those who seek to deny it ever happened. Instead it seeks to trace the growth of Holocause denial and the way it has spread through its use of half-truths, distortions, outright lies and plain ignorance from half-baked theorist to half-baked theorist, each eagerly grasping at straws in support of their crackpot ideas and firmly ignoring the major planks on which our knowledge of the FACT of the Holocaust is built.Read this and see how far men who claim to be intelligent can sink in the pursuit of their nasty little obsessions.A highly worthwhile read for anyone interested in the history of the Second World War and for the uses and abuses of the history in the years since the war ended.

Outstanding Book

Holocaust denial is a function of several unfortunate trends. The first and foremost unfortunate trend is the general disdain for rational thought and inductive logic amply demonstrated by the public at large. The preference for emotional reactions over intellectual analysis is prevalent and growing (witness the Oprah-zation of the print and visual media). The second dangerous trend is the moral relativism of the politically correct, disguised as "objectivity". From Stanley Fish at Duke to Hillary Rodham, the denial of a moral hierarchy and the rejection of evil has produced a moral vacuum. If all cultures are equal (multiculturalism), then what is wrong with the culture that existed in Germany between 1933-1945? Ask the victims (20 million+). If you think this type of deep thinking is solely restricted to defenders of fascism, please [see]. . .Jasper Becker's Hungry Ghosts. . ., which detailed the extermination of 30 million Chinese and Tibetans. The book was dimissed as "ethnocentric", the battle cry for moral relativists who don't want to be bothered with the results of their philosophy (like mountains of slaughtered bodies). Finally, the general historical ignorance of the public has provided fertile soil for propogators of the most idiotic babble, from Holocaust Denial to the butter-soft treatment of Communist butchers (Castro, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, Mengitsu, etc.). Please purchase this book and attempt to interest your associates in its contents.