Ahmadinejad: Germans should stop feeling Holocaust guilt

[Fade the Butcher]

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-05-28T152033Z_01_L28632352_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAN-AHMADINEJAD-HOLOCAUST.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Germans they should no longer allow themselves to be held prisoner by a sense of guilt over the Holocaust and reiterated doubts that the Holocaust even happened.

In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, Ahmadinejad said he doubted Germans were allowed to write "the truth" about the Holocaust and said he was still considering traveling to Germany for the World Cup soccer tournament.

"I believe the German people are prisoners of the Holocaust. More than 60 million were killed in World War Two ... The question is: Why is it that only Jews are at the center of attention?," he said in the interview published on Sunday.

"How long is this going to go on?" he added. "How long will the German people be held hostage to the Zionists?... Why should you feel obligated to the Zionists? You've paid reparations for 60 years and will have to pay for another 100 years."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders have said his previous remarks questioning whether the Holocaust happened were unacceptable. Denying the Holocaust is a serious crime in Germany punishable with a prison term of up to five years.

Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their allies in concentration camps.

In the rare interview with Western media, Ahmadinejad said if the Holocaust really happened Jews should be moved from Israel back to Europe.

"We say if the Holocaust happened, then the Europeans must accept the consequences and the price should not be paid by Palestine. If it did not happen, then the Jews must return to where they came from."

He said he was still considering going to Germany to support Iran in the World Cup despite protest stirred by a "worldwide network of Zionists".

Iran's first World Cup match is against Mexico in Nuremberg on June 11 two days after the tournament starts and German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble says he would be welcome to come because Germany wants to be a good host.

The invitation sparked protests from other political leaders and groups who said his anti-Israeli comments were unacceptable.

"My decision (on whether to go) depends on a lot of different things," said Ahmadinejad, a soccer fan. "Whether I have time, whether I want to and some other things."

He said he could not understand why his possible visit had caused such debate but was not surprised by the row.

"I was not at all surprised because there is a very active worldwide network of Zionists, also in Europe," he said in the rare interview with Western media that was published on Sunday.

Ahmadinejad's latest comments were condemned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Rabbi Marvin Hier, a founder and dean, called on Merkel to keep him out of Germany.

"On a day when the Pope is in Auschwitz to remind the world of the horrors of the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad questions it again," Hier said. "For him to be at the World Cup and sit in a VIP seat would be a desecration of the memory of the Holocaust."

Asked by Der Spiegel, in its cover story entitled "The man the world is afraid of", whether he stood by his earlier view the Holocaust was a myth, Ahmadinejad said: "I only accept something as the truth if I am truly convinced of it.

"In Europe there are two opinions on it. One group of researchers who are by and large politically motivated say the Holocaust happened. There is another group of researchers who have the opposite view and are by and large in prison for that."

[Starr]

The invitation sparked protests from other political leaders and groups who said his anti-Israeli comments were unacceptable.

The idea that this guy talking about "holocaust guilt" sparks protest and is unacceptable proves his point. Do they not realize this?

[Fade the Butcher]

I can't help but like this guy. Ahmadinejad is a stone tosser.

[Slavic Enforcer]

You really think a Iran with nuclear weapons is no danger to you, don't you?

[Keystone]

I believe the German people are prisoners of the Holocaust. More than 60 million were killed in World War Two ... The question is: Why is it that only Jews are at the center of attention?," he said in the interview published on Sunday.

"How long is this going to go on?" he added. "How long will the German people be held hostage to the Zionists?... Why should you feel obligated to the Zionists? You've paid reparations for 60 years and will have to pay for another 100 years."
Ahmadinejad just keeps pushing the envelope. "Why is this? Why is that?" Forbidden questions.


"We say if the Holocaust happened, then the Europeans must accept the consequences and the price should not be paid by Palestine. If it did not happen, then the Jews must return to where they came from."
!!!!!!!
"On a day when the Pope is in Auschwitz to remind the world of the horrors of the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad questions it again," Hier said. "For him to be at the World Cup and sit in a VIP seat would be a desecration of the memory of the Holocaust."
As if the Holocaust is a Law of Nature, and Ahmadinejad is an ogre set out to smash the Natural Order of Things.
"In Europe there are two opinions on it. One group of researchers who are by and large politically motivated say the Holocaust happened. There is another group of researchers who have the opposite view and are by and large in prison for that."
He's absolutely right.

[eggheadbanga]

You've paid reparations for 60 years and will have to pay for another 100 years

Compensation claims will end when the last survivors die. They are structured like pensions. They are not inheritable.

Incidentally, what % of compensation money do people here think goes to Jews and what % goes to other European victims of the Third Reich.

[Slavic Enforcer]

In the rare interview with Western media, Ahmadinejad said if the Holocaust really happened Jews should be moved from Israel back to Europe.

"We say if the Holocaust happened, then the Europeans must accept the consequences and the price should not be paid by Palestine. If it did not happen, then the Jews must return to where they came from."

Haha, a great ally you have, Nazis.

Imo there's no doubt that the Holocaust happened, so let the Jews come back and give them some territory in Central Europe.
Because your great Hero says so. :rofl:

[eggheadbanga]

"In Europe there are two opinions on it. One group of researchers who are by and large politically motivated say the Holocaust happened. There is another group of researchers who have the opposite view and are by and large in prison for that."

I wouldn't call Zundel a researcher. Rudolf, yes, just about, but Zundel and Verbeke, no. Political hacks more like.

I think Merkel should amnesty all article-130 prisoners for the World Cup.

[Starr]

I would not agree with that happening obviously. But his point is something along the lines of "you love them so much, you feel indebted to them, you take them":D

[Fade the Butcher]

You really think a Iran with nuclear weapons is no danger to you, don't you?

I think an Iran armed with nuclear weapons might be a danger to Israel. I'm not really that concerned about that, however.

[Fade the Butcher]

Ahmadinejad just keeps pushing the envelope. "Why is this? Why is that?" Forbidden questions.

I can't help but like him.

[Slavic Enforcer]

I think an Iran armed with nuclear weapons might be a danger to Israel. I'm not really that concerned about that, however.

Oh yeah, it doesn't matter that he wrote in his letter for Bush that our civilisation will fall and that Islam ist the future.

Who cares, huh?

[Omniel]

I think an Iran armed with nuclear weapons might be a danger to Israel. I'm not really that concerned about that, however.
I am. Any country which threatens Israel is likely to receive aggression from the US as a pre-emptive measure with the additional backup of Blair (who will defend the US against any enemy), which means we all get to bear the brunt of Israel's feud.

[eggheadbanga]

I am. Any country which threatens Israel is likely to receive aggression from the US as a pre-emptive measure with the additional backup of Blair (who will defend the US against any enemy), which means we all get to bear the brunt of Israel's feud.

Agreed. Both the US and British Armies are wrecked skeletons at the moment because of Iraq, so another adventure is unlikely on military grounds alone, but if it were, it would leave both countries completely incapable of responding to another emergency. Quite apart from the regional and global consequences, it's a baaaad idea on purely technocratic grounds.

[Starr]

I think an Iran armed with nuclear weapons might be a danger to Israel. I'm not really that concerned about that, however.


As things are right now, I don't think Iran is that much of a real danger to Israel. If iran took some action against israel(who themselves have plenty of weapons to strike back), Israel's big daddy, America would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Ahmadinejad and others in Iran realize this.

[Martin Kuklinski]

Would the hardcore-racists, WN's, Fade et al, care if New York shitty would be nuked together with Washington D.C.? If that happens, than you folks can claim power right? Cos I cant honestly think that Iran would nuke Colorado springs or Wisconsin home of the cheese. Or some state like Arkansas that noone never heard of it before. And I mean literally: heard of it before.

[eggheadbanga]

I would not agree with that happening obviously. But his point is something along the lines of "you love them so much, you feel indebted to them, you take them":D

Iran still has a small Jewish community but otherwise they bugged out to Israel. Does that mean Ahmadinejad would be willing to take back the tens of thousands of Iranian Jews who made aliyah?:o

[OVERWATCH]

As things are right now, I don't think Iran is that much of a real danger to Israel. If iran took some action against israel(who themselves have plenty of weapons to strike back), Israel's big daddy, America would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Ahmadinejad and others in Iran realize this.

The Israeli retaliation against Iran, in event of a mystery nuke going off in Israel somewhere, would likely mean all Iranian cities would also be hit.

Is there any reason to believe that the deterrent principle of MAD (mutually assured destruction) wouldn't apply here as well?

[Fade the Butcher]

Haha, a great ally you have, Nazis. Imo there's no doubt that the Holocaust happened, so let the Jews come back and give them some territory in Central Europe. Because your great Hero says so. :rofl:

Suppose for a moment The Holocaust did happen. The First World War happened too. That was almost a hundred years ago. If The Holocaust was merely a historical event like any other, why must it be treated so differently? Should I be required to learn about the history of second century Cambodia? Of course not.

In my view, The Holocaust only makes sense when you think of it as a pseudoreligion for gentiles. The Germans are required to atone for their sins forever and generation after generations of Germans go through the ritual of Holocaust penance. There are laws that criminalize "Holocaust denial." How is this any different from laws against blasphemy? We don't throw people in prison for "denying" that slavery was the cause of the American Civil War. This whole business of judging people as being hideously immoral because of their views about something as banal as history reeks of religious fanaticism.

[eggheadbanga]

As things are right now, I don't think Iran is that much of a real danger to Israel. If iran took some action against israel(who themselves have plenty of weapons to strike back), Israel's big daddy, America would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Ahmadinejad and others in Iran realize this.

This is the realpolitik bottom line. Ahmadinejad isn't going to try to nuke Israel even if he had the bomb, because he knows he'd be nuked back. That is how the game is played at that level.

If Iran has the bomb, then it will change the regional balance of power and not in a good way. Iran might be surrounded by nuclear-capable neighbours but the domino effect will push west. Saudi Arabia will be especially unkeen.

I don't think Iran having the bomb will make the slightest difference to the Palestinian question. That kind of sabre-rattling in territorial disputes was tried over Kashmir and eventually cooler heads prevailed. Saying to Israel, 'sort this out or we nuke you' isn't going to really work as a diplomatic strategy. It's too much of an ultimatum.

This said, I think Olmert's push to 'unilaterally' dictate borders is part of an Israeli bid to 'solve' the problem once and for all, thus far no further sort of thing. A sort of variant on the US mania for building Berlin Wall Mark Two along the Mexican border. :D

[Fade the Butcher]

I am. Any country which threatens Israel is likely to receive aggression from the US as a pre-emptive measure with the additional backup of Blair (who will defend the US against any enemy), which means we all get to bear the brunt of Israel's feud.

Well. If you put it that way, then of course I am concerned about it, but I disapprove of the way our government conducts its foreign policy. Israel is more than capable of defending itself from its neighbors. I don't see why the security of Israel should be of such overwhelming importance to North Americans. It wasn't until a few decades ago that we started paying attention to what goes on in the region.

[Fade the Butcher]

Would the hardcore-racists, WN's, Fade et al, care if New York shitty would be nuked together with Washington D.C.? If that happens, than you folks can claim power right? Cos I cant honestly think that Iran would nuke Colorado springs or Wisconsin home of the cheese. Or some state like Arkansas that noone never heard of it before. And I mean literally: heard of it before.

The only reason Islamic fundamentalists bother to target American population centers like NYC is because America is now so entangled in the local politics of the region. This is directly caused by the deleterious influence of evangelical Christians and organized Jewish groups over American foreign policy. The destructive effect this has on our economy is enormous. The international tension in the region keeps petroleum prices artificially high, but hey, it's not like Dubya and his oil buddies from Texas have any problem with that.

[Keystone]

Suppose for a moment The Holocaust did happen. The First World War happened too. That was almost a hundred years ago. If The Holocaust was merely a historical event like any other, why must it be treated so differently? Should I be required to learn about the history of second century Cambodia? Of course not.

In my view, The Holocaust only makes sense when you think of it as a pseudoreligion for gentiles. The Germans are required to atone for their sins forever and generation after generations of Germans go through the ritual of Holocaust penance. There are laws that criminalize "Holocaust denial." How is this any different from laws against blasphemy? We don't throw people in prison for "denying" that slavery was the cause of the American Civil War. This whole business of judging people as being hideously immoral because of their views about something as banal as history reeks of religious fanaticism.
"Holocaust Denial" should raise the hackles on any free person. Ye gods, it stinks. I couldn't be against anything more strenuously.

Folks will be being stoned next, ala OT law......:cuss:

[eggheadbanga]

Suppose for a moment The Holocaust did happen. The First World War happened too. That was almost a hundred years ago. If The Holocaust was merely a historical event like any other, why must it be treated so differently? Should I be required to learn about the history of second century Cambodia? Of course not.

A better comparison would be, should you be forced to learn about the history of 1970s Cambodia?

In my view, The Holocaust only makes sense when you think of it as a pseudoreligion for gentiles. The Germans are required to atone for their sins forever and generation after generations of Germans go through the ritual of Holocaust penance.

This penance is mostly self-inflicted in Germany. Suehnedeutsche exist in very large numbers over there. No one is telling them to flagellate themselves, they just do.

There are laws that criminalize "Holocaust denial." How is this any different from laws against blasphemy? We don't throw people in prison for "denying" that slavery was the cause of the American Civil War.
This whole business of judging people as being hideously immoral because of their views about something as banal as history reeks of religious fanaticism.

As I said, Merkel should amnesty article 130 prisoners for the World Cup. That would take away the biggest whinge-point that deniers have.

[Slavic Enforcer]

Folks will be being stoned next, ala OT law......:cuss:

You mean, like in Iran..

[eggheadbanga]

Alternatively, Merkel can amnesty article 130 prisoners by offering them a seat on Ahmadinejad's plane home. There aren't actually that many of them...

[Keystone]

You mean, like in Iran..
No, like here...

Nice cherry-picking of my post.

[Martin Kuklinski]

An economical problem is just what you people need. White people will soon in the second month of the economic-crisis blame minorities and the goverment. I mean, even you would endure a crisis like this to have you're dreams in place. White people are lazy. After the annihilation of New York shitty and DC, you people will be installing Jim Crowe in the south and Manifest Destiny in the west.

[Keystone]

An economical problem is just what you people need. White people will soon in the second month of the economic-crisis blame minorities and the goverment. I mean, even you would endure a crisis like this to have you're dreams in place. White people are lazy. After the annihilation of New York shitty and DC, you people will be installing Jim Crowe in the south and Manifest Destiny.
Good thoughts....I could see it happening.

[Slavic Enforcer]

This penance is mostly self-inflicted in Germany. Suehnedeutsche exist in very large numbers over there. No one is telling them to flagellate themselves, they just do.

Correct. Maybe you don't know it, but when Germany attacked (the rest of former) Yugoslavia in 1999 together with other NATO countries, the Minister of Defence said that they do it to prevent a new Holocaust. Especially Germany would have the historical duty to help preventing it.

You see, there's even a chance to justify wars with "Sühne".

[Daniel Shays]

Haha, a great ally you have, Nazis.

Imo there's no doubt that the Holocaust happened, so let the Jews come back and give them some territory in Central Europe.
Because your great Hero says so. :rofl:
How many times will you have to be told it is something called rhetoric? You seem to have a block on this point as I have corrected you on this before in past threads on Nejad. He is showing how absurd it is that Jews should be able to claim land on account of the Holocaust myth.

You mean, like in Iran..

Would you like to liberate Iran?

[Fade the Butcher]

A better comparison would be, should you be forced to learn about the history of 1970s Cambodia?

No, I should not. If you are suggesting that certain historical subjects should be taught as opposed to others to teach "moral lessons," then you should at least be honest and admit that you are subordinating history to ethics.

This penance is mostly self-inflicted in Germany. Suehnedeutsche exist in very large numbers over there. No one is telling them to flagellate themselves, they just do.

This is pretty much true. Ahmadinejad is still right though that it is ridiculous.

As I said, Merkel should amnesty article 130 prisoners for the World Cup. That would take away the biggest whinge-point that deniers have.

Why do you people use words like "denier"? Is "heretic" somehow insufficient? The deniers disagree with your orthodoxy, right?

[eggheadbanga]

No, I should not. If you are suggesting that certain historical subjects should be taught as opposed to others to teach "moral lessons," then you should at least be honest and admit that you are subordinating history to ethics.

That's your problem in the US, not mine. I don't think the Holocaust has any lessons in particular. It's an event in history. I'm a historian, it's one of the events I study. I wish it weren't on the frontpage all the time, because while it drums up interest, it also creates pointless distractions and a heap of misconceptions. The average person in the street doesn't know anything very much about the origins of WWI, a history student at college will. The average person on the street thinks they know something about the Nazis and the Holocaust, in practice they don't.

This is pretty much true. Ahmadinejad is still right though that it is ridiculous.

Not necessarily. The Holocaust acts as a displacement for Germans, it saves them thinking about all the other atrocities they committed on their fellow Europeans as well as themselves. Incidentally, 20% of compensation money has been paid out within Germany itself, which means essentially to non-Jewish victims (sterilisations, KZ inmates etc).

Why do you people use words like "denier"? Is "heretic" somehow insufficient? The deniers disagree with your orthodoxy, right?

I'd call a Creationist an evolution denier and a Revisionist a Holocaust denier. Toben is also an HIV-AIDS denier, a global warming denier (as is Rudolf) and the list goes on. They're not playing with a full deck of cards, I'm afraid.

[Fade the Butcher]

That's your problem in the US, not mine. I don't think the Holocaust has any lessons in particular. It's an event in history. I'm a historian, it's one of the events I study. I wish it weren't on the frontpage all the time, because while it drums up interest, it also creates pointless distractions and a heap of misconceptions. The average person in the street doesn't know anything very much about the origins of WWI, a history student at college will. The average person on the street thinks they know something about the Nazis and the Holocaust, in practice they don't.

If that is your view of the matter, then I have no objection. The Holocaust should be treated purely as a historical subject (or, more accurately, a group of events) that warrants descriptive explanation. Such moral and political agendas that have nothing necessarily to do with history can only corrupt historical narratives, as religion has done with the natural sciences.

Not necessarily. The Holocaust acts as a displacement for Germans, it saves them thinking about all the other atrocities they committed on their fellow Europeans as well as themselves.

What atrocities are you referring to?

Incidentally, 20% of compensation money has been paid out within Germany itself, which means essentially to non-Jewish victims (sterilisations, KZ inmates etc).

How much money has the Holocaust business extracted from Germany since the Second World War?

I'd call a Creationist an evolution denier and a Revisionist a Holocaust denier. Toben is also an HIV-AIDS denier, a global warming denier (as is Rudolf) and the list goes on. They're not playing with a full deck of cards, I'm afraid.

I'm one of the biggest opponents of creationism on this forum, but I wouldn't throw Petr in prison because I disagree with his account of human origins. I haven't demonized him personally either, nor have I advocated banning him because he is a creationist. He should be allowed to present his case like anyone else and reasonable people can weigh his evidence and arrive at their own conclusions.

Why should people be put on trial for their views about history? I don't think you analogy is a valid one. We don't have laws against creationism in the United States. We don't prosecute people who criticize global warming. We don't throw people in prison for saying AIDS is being exaggerated.

You are equating consensus with dogma. A consensus is open to challenge. There is a strong consensus in biology, for example, in support of evolution through natural selection. Evolution is a scientific theory that is potentially falsifiable. All scientific theories are openended. A dogma is an established truth, an official account, that cannot be challenged without penalty. A dogma is a closed system backed up by force. The very act of questioning or denying a dogma is wrong by definition.

[Jofreidr_1488]

You really think a Iran with nuclear weapons is no danger to you, don't you?

It is not.

The most they might try to do is destroy Washington D.C. or jew york, and if that were to happen my life would actually IMPROVE because there would not be as many ZOGites in the world telling me what I can and can not do or say or not say about jews or other 'precious minorities'.

Worse is Better for Now.

[Gorilla]

The most they might try to do is destroy Washington D.C. or jew york, and if that were to happen my life would actually IMPROVE because there would not be as many ZOGites in the world telling me what I can and can not do or say or not say about jews or other 'precious minorities'.

At least that's the plan. The Iranian president is on a targeting mission in Iran. One by one, million by million, billion by billion. :nopity:

There is are some fundamental errors in 'insisting on the jews'. Nazi antisemetism was a consequence and product of the situation in Germany at that time. In Germany during that era, the askenazim were the only 'foreign' ethnic minority of any size present. The nazi regime acted pragmatically, in their targeting of the askenazi in propaganda, and within-party policy direction, according to their own logical conclusions, which were predicated on racially based beliefs. I cannot emphasis this more. Antisemitc arabs and Iranians simply put, are a joke. The notion that 'all will unite against the jew', maybe eventuating in 'the ejection of the jew', in a cross-racial/ethnic alliance, is somehow nazi, is preposterous.

As myself and many others read posts here, and the demographic situation is fast turning for the worse, and the trash is breeding above replacement rate, an insistence on 'getting the jews' above all else, to the defiance of reason and logic, even by nazi standards, seems... pointless, and counter-productive.

[eggheadbanga]

If that is your view of the matter, then I have no objection. The Holocaust should be treated purely as a historical subject (or, more accurately, a group of events) that warrants descriptive explanation. Such moral and political agendas that have nothing necessarily to do with history can only corrupt historical narratives, as religion has done with the natural sciences.

This is why someone like Tim Cole distinguishes between the historical Holocaust, and 'the Holocaust', its media construct over the past 30 years. He wrote a book of let's be more blunt here, Final Solution history and then followed up with 'Selling the Holocaust'. Similarly, Peter Novick and even Norman Finkelstein endorse the basic essence of the normative account, but are highly critical of the exploitation for cultural and political ends.

It's a logical fallacy to assume that if there is a swarm of mass-media and pop-cultural memes out there, that because many if not all are incorrect, the underlying historicity is incorrect. Cultural etc interpretations are second-order matters and do not speak to the first-order historicity of an event.

An example: just because certain battles have become nationalist myths and blown out of all proportion, does not mean they did not take place. There was a Battle of Kosovo in the 14th Century, but it did not transpire quite how Serbian nationalists claim it did today.


What atrocities are you referring to?

Euthanasia, mass starvation of Soviet POWs, normal KZs, mass executions in prisons, antipartisan warfare, famine crimes in the Soviet Union... it goes on.

How much money has the Holocaust business extracted from Germany since the Second World War?

A one-time payment of 3.5 billion Deutschmarks was made to Israel in the 1950s. Subseqent agreements with European countries totalled 2.5 billion as direct payments to states. Pensions under the BEG and subsequent regulations are paid out to all camp survivors, with a sliding scale depending on how long you were in for. There is a definitional list of camps for which this applies, for which one must produce evidence.

Non-Jewish camp survivors are not 'Holocaust survivors', are they? So there were 34,000 Frenchmen entitled to claim under the BEG and circa 3000 French Jews who survived.

I've no idea what exact proportion of the 66 billion euros (note currency conversion) paid out since 1952 to 2005 went to Israel or Jews, but it is significantly less than half. *20%* is paid out within Germany to German citizens.

To put it into context, one would need to see payments under German pension laws for the entire period, as well as foreign-aid payments.

Swiss-bank shake-downs are a different matter, and repellent.

I'm one of the biggest opponents of creationism on this forum, but I wouldn't throw Petr in prison because I disagree with his account of human origins. I haven't demonized him personally either, nor have I advocated banning him because he is a creationist. He should be allowed to present his case like anyone else and reasonable people can weigh his evidence and arrive at their own conclusions.

Why should people be put on trial for their views about history? I don't think you analogy is a valid one. We don't have laws against creationism in the United States. We don't prosecute people who criticize global warming. We don't throw people in prison for saying AIDS is being exaggerated.

You haven't been reading what I have written in this thread and elsewhere. I do not endorse imprisoning 'Revisionists' for their stupid remarks. I do reserve the right to call them idiots, deniers, etc. I also reserve the right not to complain if a 'Revisionist' falls foul of another law, eg. outright and direct incitement to violence. Depends on the jurisdiction, but outright death threats can be construed as illegal. Saying this, exceedingly few deniers are ever so stupid as to make them.

Zundel's lawyers Horst Mahler and Sylvia Stolz have both been disbarred from the trial for making implicit death threats against the judges. I have no problem with their disbarment from the case if they are that stupid. I do have a problem with Zundel being tried at all, though I will ridicule anyone who calls him a 'historian' or a 'researcher'. He is a political hack, no more.

You are equating consensus with dogma. A consensus is open to challenge. There is a strong consensus in biology, for example, in support of evolution through natural selection. Evolution is a scientific theory that is potentially falsifiable. All scientific theories are openended. A dogma is an established truth, an official account, that cannot be challenged without penalty. A dogma is a closed system backed up by force. The very act of questioning or denying a dogma is wrong by definition.

The statement that the Holocaust is a dogma is untrue, because there are significant parts of the world, most especially including the one you reside in, the United States, where it is far from illegal to question or query it. There may be cultural factors which act as second-order prohibitions, but no fundamental legal prohibitions. Therefore Holocaust Revisionism in the US is no different to other crackpot theories or alternative explanations of scientific/historical events. One cannot assert that because something is illegal in Germany and a number of other European countries, the entire world holds it as a dogma.

Moreover one has to ask what is being held as a dogma, and the answer is antisemitism, not historical research. Prosecutions under article 130 are being brought on grounds of hate-speech not because someone disagrees with the finer interpretations of the Wannsee Protocol or similar matters. One can disagree with such restrictions of political speech and indeed I do too. But they do not constitute as significant a breach of academic freedom as has often been implied.

As I have said repeatedly, I think holocaust denial should be 'legalised' in European countries, but it then has to contend with all other factors in the particular culture, society, media, publishing or academic world it tries to operate in. It has no right to be heard as an 'alternate view', just as Creationism has no right to be heard in schools as an attempt to 'teach the controversy'.

This is because Holocaust Revisionism does not conform to the generally accepted standards required and demanded by in particular academic norms. I have yet to read a 'revisionist' work that would pass a German Magisterarbeit examination, let alone a PhD viva. There are too many flagrant breaches of academic norms for such works to pass this conventionally-accepted muster. At the very least even the best works would be sent back for revisions.

Fade, you keep telling us you're a graduate student. May I ask as to your current status? MA, seminar phase of PhD, ABD? I do not know what your thesis will be on, but you will be I am sure careful to ensure that it passes muster. This may have very little to do with its content and much to do with its form. Especially when arguing controversial theses, it behoves us all as scholars to argue them tightly and carefully. These guys don't do that. This places them in the arena of pop-culture and political musings and does not entitle them to the pseudo-respectability of academic status.

Such failings don't mean they should be banned, and it does not prohibit an eventual Kuhnian paradigm shift from gripping the academy as well. But I see no sign that such a paradigm shift will ever occur.

[WFHermans]

Why do you want to know more about Fade's status? To harass him personally or to ask the jews that control western universities to harass him?

Jews routinely strip holocaust dissidents of their university degrees.

[eggheadbanga]

Why do you want to know more about Fade's status? To harass him personally or to ask the jews that control western universities to harass him?

Jews routinely strip holocaust dissidents of their university degrees.

Fade can answer this question without exposing his identity. He does not need even to say what discipline or what university he is attending, simply his rough status 1) MA student, 2) taught courses at PhD level, 3) ABD.

It will satisfy idle curiosity and also help advance the discussion.

[Jofreidr_1488]

There is are some fundamental errors in 'insisting on the jews'. Nazi antisemetism was a consequence and product of the situation in Germany at that time. In Germany during that era, the askenazim were the only 'foreign' ethnic minority of any size present. The nazi regime acted pragmatically, in their targeting of the askenazi in propaganda, and within-party policy direction, according to their own logical conclusions, which were predicated on racially based beliefs. I cannot emphasis this more. Antisemitc arabs and Iranians simply put, are a joke. The notion that 'all will unite against the jew', maybe eventuating in 'the ejection of the jew', in a cross-racial/ethnic alliance, is somehow nazi, is preposterous.

Alright if only 'nazis' and arabs are into this stuff then please explain where people like Henry Ford and Father Coughlin fit it?!?!?!?

anti-semitism is a disease, you catch it from the jews!!

[Lenny]

Manifest Destiny in the west.We already completed Manifest Destiny, now what the west coast needs is this:

http://www.assumption.edu/users/mcclymer/His130/P-H/chinese%20Exclusion/must_go_crop.jpg <== This means you, anima eterna! :thanks:

[Martin Kuklinski]

<== This means you, anima eterna! :thanks:Run, gook, run!

[Daniel Shays]

Manifest Destiny was Jewish.



As the 21st Century gets underway, issues of concern to Aztlan surface more and more, demanding attention by those outside of our community. During the tragedy of jewish inspired Manifest Destiny and the invasion of Mexico by a rogue United States seeking specifically to extend the boundaries of slave territory, Aztlan was lost with the signing of the now rightly reviled Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The Mexicanos left behind found themselves behind enemy lines and made to be a part of an ugly empire which didn't want them. Land, lives, families and Aztlan were destroyed. Had the United States pulled this type of gross aggression in modern times it would most likely lead to World War III and may yet still.
The United States today continues to act out the psychotic imperialist impulses of Manifest Destiny. It's slavish support for the criminal apartheid theocracy called Israel manifests all the early sick fantasies of the Puritans, a hateful sect which left England with the express intent of finding new land and people to rob and murder, emulating the jews of the Old Testament. Consider the words of imperialist blow hard John L. O' Sullivan, a key formulator of the Manifest Destiny psychosis:

Yes, we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of universal enfranchisement. ... This is our high destiny, and in nature's eternal, inevitable decree of cause and effect we must accomplish it. All this will be our future history, to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man -- the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and good will where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of the field. Who, then, can doubt that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity?
- - John L. O' Sullivan, Manifest Destiny 1839 - -
Note the invocation of the very jewish concept of being chosen. Manifest Destiny implied the same tikkun olam that jews use to morally justify their own crimes, to wit, a gang of pushy busybodies wreaking havoc on the decent, peace loving peoples of this planet all in the name of God! And John L. O' Sullivan had plenty of company. Few mid-19th century authors better represented the constipated New England (anti-) Brahmans than Herman Melville. When idle from writing stories about obsessive madmen killing whales, Melville turned his quill to baser considerations:

Escaped from the house of bondage, Israel of old did not follow after the ways of the Egyptians. To her was given an express dispensation; to her were given new things under the sun. And we Americans are the particular, chosen people the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.
- - Herman Melville, White-Jacket, 1850 - -http://www.aztlan.net/aztlan_nationalism.htm

[Gorilla]

Ethnic or racially supremacist ideas are not characteristically Jewish, and there is are some fundamental errors in 'insisting on the jews'. Nazi antisemetism was a consequence and product of the situation in Germany at that time. In Germany during that era, the askenazim were the only 'foreign' ethnic minority of any size present. The nazi regime acted pragmatically, in their targeting of the askenazi in propaganda, and within-party policy direction, according to their own logical conclusions, which were predicated on racially based beliefs. I cannot emphasis this more. Antisemitc arabs and Iranians simply put, are a joke. The notion that 'all will unite against the jew', maybe eventuating in 'the ejection of the jew', in a cross-racial/ethnic alliance, is somehow nazi, is preposterous.

As myself and many others read posts here, and the demographic situation is fast turning for the worse, and the trash is breeding above replacement rate, an insistence on 'getting the jews' above all else, to the defiance of reason and logic, even by nazi standards, seems... pointless, and counter-productive.

Are you now thinking of forming an alliance with border-jumpers to 'eject the jew'? Thought of joining the circus?

[Daniel Shays]

Anti-Semitism predates NS Germany, it can first be found in the Catholic tradition. The anti-semitism in Germany was racial but also cultural and spiritual.

An example :

"As socialists we are opponents of the Jews because we see in the Hebrews the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation's goods."

-Joseph Goebbels
Are you now thinking of forming an alliance with border-jumpers to 'eject the jew'?
Not just Jews, Gringo Zionists too.

It is silly for you to compare Jews to other races like Negroes... that have almost zero political influence in America.

[Gorilla]

Anti-Semitism predates NS Germany, you idiot.

Anti-semetism in Europe was dependent upon something you seem to have missed-the askenazi were a foreign, racially and culturally identifiable population.

I challenge you to name a single other significant racially identifiable population that dwelt within any European community prior to the advent of post-WWII mass immigration.

[Daniel Shays]

I challenge you to name a single other significant racially identifiable population that dwelt within any European community prior to the advent of post-WWII mass immigration.

Gypsies.

filler

[Gorilla]

Gypsies.

filler

Thankyou.

filler

[Fade the Butcher]

Damn. I must have lost my response.

[Ambrosio Spinola]

Damn. I must have lost my response.

Bump for renewed interest!

[eggheadbanga]

Bump-bump. What did Fade have to say? :thanks:

[Watzy]

Suppose for a moment The Holocaust did happen. The First World War happened too. That was almost a hundred years ago. If The Holocaust was merely a historical event like any other, why must it be treated so differently? Should I be required to learn about the history of second century Cambodia? Of course not.

Exactly. One generation of the Germans cannot be held legally or morally responsible for the crimes of the previous generation. In opposite case it would not be a justice, but a blind revenge.

[eggheadbanga]

Exactly. One generation of the Germans cannot be held legally or morally responsible for the crimes of the previous generation. In opposite case it would not be a justice, but a blind revenge.

No one tries to convict 20 year old Germans either in court or morally, so the above is a truism.

As for ongoing compensation payments: the war generation benefited greatly from lowered tax rates on the basis of plunder, and is moreover still alive. In today's money it benefited greatly - as did German companies.

Compensation will end when the survivors of KZs die off (and 20% of payments go inside Germany to Germans). It's nothing but a pension, with the added convenience that no one new can claim it.

[IlluSionS667]

What about the Germans who suffered from the allied troops, such as the numerous women who were raped by invading sovjet hordes? What about those who suffered from the anti-NS repression after the war? What about the victims from other wars?

Why are there only reparations for a specific group of people suffering from one specific war? Do you think the Americans will ever have to pay reparations to the countless victims they made in Iraq and the numerous innocent people currently locked up in their concentration camps (such as Guantanamo Bay)?!?

[eggheadbanga]

What about the Germans who suffered from the allied troops, such as the numerous women who were raped by invading sovjet hordes? What about those who suffered from the anti-NS repression after the war? What about the victims from other wars?

Why are there only reparations for a specific group of people suffering from one specific war? Do you think the Americans will ever have to pay reparations to the countless victims they made in Iraq and the numerous innocent people currently locked up in their concentration camps (such as Guantanamo Bay)?!?

Well, another war in which reparations were paid out was WWI, albeit all the money went to governments. I doubt all the victims of German forced-labour policies in Flanders from 1916-1918 saw a penny.

My grandmother was compensated for the time her husband, my grandfather, spent in Japanese POW camps - a one off lump sum. I wish that more victims of injustices during war can be compensated in that way.

[IlluSionS667]

Well, another war in which reparations were paid out was WWI, albeit all the money went to governments.

And today it's generally believed the huge "reparation" sums from WW1 were unfair, since they strongly contributed to the hyperinflation of the '20s. No one seems to consider it unfair for jewish and communist criminals who stayed in German camps to receive any reparations, though, while innocent victims of most other wars are just left in the cold.... as well as the Germans who were tortured, maimed or lost their family due to allied brutallity.

My grandmother was compensated for the time her husband, my grandfather, spent in Japanese POW camps

I wonder how many of the Japanese-American civilians that were forced to spend time in American camps actually received anything......

[eggheadbanga]

And today it's generally believed the huge "reparation" sums from WW1 were unfair, since they strongly contributed to the hyperinflation of the '20s.

On the overall scale of the Versaille reparations, most would agree with you that they were unfair. Their economic impact was not however as much as has been thought, and historians don't think that reparations caused the hyperinflation - other factors played a part. Moreover, the German government was guilty of practising a deliberately contrarian fiscal policy. It was not so much 'can't pay' as 'won't pay'.

Incidentally, the Germans turned round to take much larger chunks of GDP from western countries in WWII as 'occupation costs'. They learnt the techniques from French and Belgian financial officials who practised it on the German economy in the 1920s, but learnt it much better. In 1941, Germany was projected to take 60% of French GDP as 'Besatzungskosten'.

But you missed my main point: there were thousands of Flemish Belgians whose deaths were brought about by the Imperial German Army, and many more who endured an unpleasant time because of German policies. They were not, however compensated as individuals, AFAIK.

No one seems to consider it unfair for jewish and communist criminals who stayed in German camps

If they were not convicted of a meaningful crime other than being Jewish or communist, how were they criminals?

to receive any reparations, though, while innocent victims of most other wars are just left in the cold.... as well as the Germans who were tortured, maimed or lost their family due to allied brutallity.

Of course, we're also forgetting that the newly unified German state was the first to apply the reparations concept on a really large scale in the modern era, after defeating France in 1870. Nice little earner that was for them.

I wonder how many of the Japanese-American civilians that were forced to spend time in American camps actually received anything......

Good question. Why don't you find out? I heard about compensation suits being brought by Italian-Americans wrongfully interned.

[Starr]

If one even brings up the conditions in something like Guantanamo bay, the zionists and neo-cons basically call them a traitor. Bring up the jews receiving reparations in a negative way and these same people will call you an evil anti-semite.

[IlluSionS667]

@eggheadbanga

Didn't you say several times that there were no prominent revisionists with a PhD in history? What about Barnes, Hoggan and Martin (http://www.thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?p=97557#post97557)?

[eggheadbanga]

@eggheadbanga

Didn't you say several times that there were no prominent revisionists with a PhD in history? What about Barnes, Hoggan and Martin (http://www.thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?p=97557#post97557)?

are any of them alive? :D

[WFHermans]

European historians who dare to doubt the holocaust dogma have their academic degree taken away from them, or are imprisoned or murdered by zionists.

[IlluSionS667]

are any of them alive? :D

I fail to see how that makes a difference.

[eggheadbanga]

I fail to see how that makes a difference.

Judging by the listings on revisionists.com, IDGR Lexicon and good ol' Wiki, and taking the entries on revisionists.com as indicative of their status in the movement, there are 8 prominent deniers who are under the age of 60, versus 26 over 60, and 19 who are dead. Another 8 cannot be identified by age, but from their photos mostly look like they're signed up for their bus passes and pensions.

The average age of a Revisionist author is rapidly tending towards deceased. :D

In their Thirties
Jan van Helsing, b. 1967, now 39

In their Forties
Germar Rudolf, b. 1964, now 42

In their Fifties
Jürgen Graf, b. 1951, now 55
Carlo Mattogno, b. 1951, now 55
Mark Weber, b. 1951, now 55
Ted O'Keefe, b. 1949, now 57
Carlos Porter, b. 1947, now 59
Jürgen Rieger, b. 1947, now 59

In their Sixties
Ahmed Rami, b. 1946, now 60
Arthur Butz, b. 1945, now 61
Friedrich Töben, b. 1944, now 62
Fred Leuchter, b. 1943, now 63
Ditlieb Felderer, b. 1942, now 64
Siegfried Verbeke, b. 1942, now 64
Gerd Honsik, b. 1941, now 65
Günter Deckert, b. 1940, now 66
Ernst Zündel, b. 1939, now 67
Costas Zaverdinos, b. 1938, now 68
David Irving, b. 1938, now 68

In their Seventies
Horst Mahler, b. 1936, now 70
Walter Sanning, b. 1936, now 70
Ingrid Rimland, b. 1936, now 70
Bradley Smith, b, 1930, now 76
Robert Faurisson, b. 1929, now 77
Emil Lachout, b. 1928, now 78
Jean Marie Le Pen, b. 1928, now 78
Ingrid Weckert, b. 1927, now 79
Udo Walendy, b. 1927, now 79

In their Eighties and Nineties
Henri Roques, b. 1924, now 82
Hans Schmidt, b. 1924, now 82
Gaston-Armand Amaudruz, b. 1920, now 86
Carl O. Nordling, b. 1919, now 87
Roger Garaudy, b. 1913, now 93
Tjudar Rudolph, b. 1911, now 95

Dead
Wilhelm Stäglich, b. 1916, d. 2006
Robert Countess, b, 1937, d. 2005
James J. Martin, b. 1916, d. 2004
Johannes Ney, b. 1922, d. 2004
Samuel Konkin, b. 1947, d. 2004
Russ Granata, d. 2004
Doug Collins, b. 1920, d. 2001
Thes Christopherson, b. 1918, d. 1997
Otto Ernst Remer, b. 1912, d. 1997
Keith Stimely, b. 1957, d. 1992
Joseph Burg, b. 1908, d. 1990
David McCalden, b. 1951, d. 1990
David Hoggan, b. 1923, d. 1988
Austin App, b. 1902, d. 1984
François Duprat, b. 1940, d. 1978
Harry Elmer Barnes, b. 1889, d. 1968
Paul Rassinier, b. 1906, d. 1967
Francis Parker Yockey, b. 1917, d. 1960

No Information
John Bennett, Jerome Brentar, Doug Christie, Ivan Lagace, Walter Lüftl, Greg Raven, Michael Santomauro, Frank Walus

[WFHermans]

In the past, academics who were searching for the truth instead of following the zionist party line weren't stripped of their university degree, locked up or murdered, therefore there were more of them.

[Jofreidr_1488]

Anti-Semitism predates NS Germany, it can first be found in the Catholic tradition. The anti-semitism in Germany was racial but also cultural and spiritual.

Not only can anti-semitism be found in Catholicism, but there are new theories coming out that pre-NS Germany anti-semitism can be traced back to Enlightenment Idealists!

This may help to explain why some enlightenment influenced liberals rail against the 'Israel Lobby'. Alot of the Enlightenment Philosophy that guides the Modern World was actually created by anti-semites so there is hope that there will be Awakenings in the Future as well as Future Expulsions as these anti-semitic undercurrents resurface.

Immanuel Kant was a racist, anti-Semitic Nazi (http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9827)

[Jofreidr_1488]

. Compensation will end when the survivors of KZs die off (and 20% of payments go inside Germany to Germans). It's nothing but a pension, with the added convenience that no one new can claim it.

It certainly seems that the jews are getting the next generation ready to demand compensation:

The 'Second Generation' Of Holocaust Survivors

By Frank Furedi Spiked-Online.com

1-30-2

From the Jewish Lesbian Daughters of Holocaust Survivors to Children of the Holocaust Anonymous, children whose parents died in the Holocaust are lining up to claim the status of Holocaust victims.

There is a growing tendency to interpret victimisation as a kind of disease that can be handed down from generation to generation.

What is it about today's society that makes people so keen to get a piece of their parents' trauma?

In our therapeutic culture, the politics of memory is on the rise. On an individual level, and now across societies, past experiences are continually reinterpreted.

The cultural manipulation of memory has been particularly controversial in relation to what one side characterises as recovered memory syndrome and the other as false memory syndrome. Yet from a sociological standpoint, the most interesting aspect of this debate is not who is right and who is wrong, but the fact that memory itself has become so politicised, and that the representation of the past is so contested.

In one sense there is nothing new in the manipulation of memory. The rewriting of history has produced rich and effective national and cultural mythologies throughout past centuries. Now, however, the stakes have been raised. The erosion of individual and collective identities has fostered an unusual interest in the past, and given rise to fundamental cultural assumptions about the decisive influence of the past over the present.

As a consequence, history today is rewritten through the language of emotionalism and therapy.

During the past two centuries, the key motif in the rewriting of history was the unique greatness of a particular people or culture. National myths were based on heroic deeds and glorious events. Such myths were not simply used as sentimental celebrations of the past - they were mobilised to construct a positive vision of the future. The myth of the American frontier promised a great destiny for US society, while British, French and German national myths were mobilised to provide an optimistic representation of future possibilities.

Today, the rewriting of history is driven by a very different impulse. The manipulation of collective memory makes no grand claims on the future. On the contrary, the historic memory serves as a monument to a people's historic suffering. In a perceptive contribution on this subject, Ian Buruma has drawn attention to the tendency of many minorities 'to define themselves as historic victims'.

The Holocaust has become the icon for therapeutic history. The extreme and singular brutality of this event ensures that those who perished or suffered in the concentration camps are regarded with a reverence unmatched by any other groups of victims. Jewish identity - even Israeli identity - has been fundamentally recast around the Holocaust. Zionism, which had traditionally promoted an optimistic modernist vision of the pioneering new Jew, has in recent decades sought to forge a sense of community around an emotional connection with the Holocaust.

Yet, as I know from my own childhood, many of the direct survivors of the death camps talked very little in public about their terrible experience. Their dignified, self-contained response stands in sharp contrast to the behaviour of their children and grandchildren today: the so-called second- and third-generation survivors. In recent years, some of the promoters of second-generation survivor groups have even criticised their parents for bottling up their emotions and refusing to embrace a victim identity.

The appeal of the Holocaust, as the basis for creating a sense of self-identity, has attracted the attention of competing groups of people claiming a particular identity status. Gay activists have insisted that their suffering during the Holocaust should be recognised through the construction of monuments and memorials. Other activists, representing gypsies and disabled people, have also demanded that recognition should be accorded to their plight during this terrible experience.

Second-generation survivor groups have criticised their parents for bottling up their emotions and refusing to embrace a victim identity

The language associated with Holocaust discourse - particularly the image of the traumatised survivor - has been appropriated by numerous activists determined to stake a claim to the status associated with emotional suffering. The Irish potato famine of the 1840s has been reinterpreted as an abusive experience that continues to traumatise people to this day.

The emotional power of the Holocaust has been co-opted and transferred to other experiences such as the African-American holocaust, the Serbian holocaust, the Bosnian holocaust or the Rwandan holocaust. In Germany, anti-abortion campaigners hold forth about a holocaust of fetuses; in Canada, animal rights activists denounce the holocaust of seals.

The custom of demanding that past wrongs - in some cases perpetrated centuries ago - be put right has acquired momentum during the past few years. Saying sorry has allowed public personalities to both embrace the victim and also to share vicariously in their pain.

Politicians have been quick to embrace the ritual of the apology. The Australian government organised a National Sorry Day on 26 May 1998, when Australians were exhorted to express their sorrow for the injustices inflicted on Aboriginal people. A month later, the German government apologised for the 1904 massacre of African people in Namibia. UK prime minister Tony Blair has apologised to the Irish for Britain's role in contributing to the suffering that people experienced during the potato famine. And the Vatican has apologised for the havoc that the Crusades wreaked on the people of the Middle East.

The demand for a public memorial to commemorate past suffering is not confined to representatives of national minorities and ethnic groups. AIDS activists have sought to construct monuments to commemorate the tragedy of AIDS sufferers. Victim advocates have been particularly vociferous in innovating rituals and symbols of remembrance. The wearing of a ribbon became a potent symbol of remembrance during the 1990s, and has been appropriated by numerous interest groups seeking recognition for their cause.

RoadPeace, a British advocacy group devoted to the cause of traffic victims, self-consciously promotes semi-religious symbols of remembrance to gain support (1). Its 'Red Flag Campaign' was launched in August 1997 'to mark the start of an appeal for a permanent national memorial to road victims'. RoadPeace publications continually emphasise the theme of remembrance. Road victims - those 'who have died on the roads since the advent of motor traffic' - are presented as the 'unnamed' casualties of a century-long war. The European Federation of Road Traffic Victims has designated the third Sunday of November as the European Day of Remembrance for road crash victims. Candlelit vigils, shrines and roadside memorials are the typical artefacts of victim culture.

The politicisation of memory has stimulated individuals to re-examine their own biographies. In some cases individuals have literally invented a personal narrative of victimisation. Binjamin Wilkomirski, author of Fragments - a harrowing account of a Jewish childhood destroyed by the Holocaust - had his memoir exposed as a fake. Wilkomirski was actually Bruno Grosjean, a Swiss man who had invented his Jewishness and his Holocaust experience.

There have been cases where individuals have falsely claimed to be AIDS sufferers in order to claim the status of a victim. The American social scientist Carol Tavris has raised some interesting questions about why so many women find their way into sexual survivor groups. She believes that the 'sexual-abuse-victim story crystallises many of society's anxieties' and therefore 'draws like a magnet those who feel vulnerable and victimised, and who wish to share in society's sympathy'.

Clearly, the appeal of the victim story goes beyond that of sexual abuse. In contemporary society, a cry for recognition and the desire to belong often find their focus in victim identity. And there is a growing tendency to interpret victimisation as a kind of disease that can be handed down from generation to generation. This paradigm is most coherently developed in recent studies of Holocaust survivors.

It is claimed that the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors ought to be considered victims just as much as their ancestors, who had to confront the horrors of Nazi death camps directly. As a result, attention has shifted to the problems of the so-called second generation of Holocaust survivors.

Some studies contend that children born to Holocaust survivors became the victims of their parents' own destructive experience. 'These children, now grown men and women, have sometimes been raised in a psychological atmosphere poisoned by the scarring that their survivor parents have brought to their child-rearing tasks', claims one authority. According to proponents of this thesis, second-generation survivors often grew up in a family atmosphere where they were stifled by over-protectiveness, shame and mistrust. As one writer on the subject argues, 'Most members of the second generation whose voices have been heard feel that they have been damaged in some way through their parents' Holocaust experience'.

The literature on the second generation provides useful insights into understanding the social construction of victim identity. According to the accepted paradigm, the compulsive behaviour of concentration camp survivors has led to negative and stifling parenting styles, which in turn had a damaging impact on their children.

Constituencies demanding to be recognised include the Descendants of the Jewish Community of Augsburg and the Jewish Lesbian Daughters of Holocaust Survivors

One of the most common claims made about camp survivors is that they sought to become parents in order to acquire a new identity for themselves. Parents often named their children after a lost favourite relative. It is claimed that children, who felt that they had been 'given the mission to be a link in the broken chain of families and to fill the emptiness in their parents' lives', often 'felt burdened and weighed down by such impossible expectations'.

Yet severe dislocation, suffering and tragic loss, which lead to distinct overprotective parenting styles, are by no means confined to any particular experience. Adults who have experienced the trials of war, hunger and death will invariably inflict their insecurities on their family. And whether such parental anxieties are particularly damaging for children is far from evident.

The case of the 'second generation', with its redefinition of family life as a conduit for victimisation, says more about the therapeutic discourse of the post-1960s era than about the parenting skills of their fathers and mothers. The invention of the second generation is, ultimately, the outcome of a culture which increasingly links individual identity to the experience of childhood.

Victim identity, and the moral authority accorded to it, seems to allow people to make sense of their experience. Many who describe themselves as second-generation survivors are involved in medicine, counselling, psychotherapy, social work and education, and are drawn towards expressing their identity through the vocabulary of therapy.

The activists in second-generation survivor groups recognise the predominant role played by therapeutic professionals in this movement. Take this activists' advice to survivor groups:

'Start your own "Rap group" by just getting together on a weekly basis, or there is a good probability that one of your members may be a social worker, or a counsellor of some type. In my first group there was a clinical psychologist and a social worker.'

Second-generation survivor activists appear to be preoccupied with forging a distinct identity - one that distances them from the experience of their parents. For example, the host of the website 'Resources for Children of Holocaust Survivors' carefully draws attention to the fact that his page is not for Holocaust victims who, it is claimed, already have a lot of resources geared towards their needs (2). The website is for their children. 'It is not about the legacy; it is about living with the legacy', he notes.

These 'Children of Holocaust Survivors' want to claim a separate and distinct survivor identity both from their parents, and from one another. It is evident that many individuals are not satisfied with being defined merely as a second-generation survivor. There are numerous constituencies demanding to be recognised as possessing a distinct victim identity: including the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Children of Holocaust Survivors, Descendants of the Jewish Community of Augsburg, Second Generation Children from Nuremberg, and the Jewish Lesbian Daughters of Holocaust Survivors.

The representation of the traumatic harm faced by second-generation survivors is usually promoted through anecdotes, and through the retrospective association of private troubles with family background. The few studies that have attempted to test the theory of the intergenerational transmission of trauma have failed to find any validation for this thesis. But whatever the facts of the matter, activists are busy constructing a victim identity through rendering their family existence pathological.

Aping the American addiction and co-dependency movement, some second-generation activists have even launched 'Children of the Holocaust Anonymous'. This initiative has self-consciously borrowed the Alcoholics Anonymous '12-step' support programme to support its constituents. And there is more to come, as publicists are promising to bring the third generation of survivors into the frame.

Predictably, the second-generation survivor paradigm is already being imitated by other claimants to victim status. According to a survey carried out by a psychologist in 1997, 750,000 British women are still suffering from the stress and trauma of the Second World War. The psychologist Melinda Waugh calls these women the 'forgotten generation', and states that it is 'possible that children of the women bore the psychological scars of post-traumatic stress disorder'. All this speculation was based on extrapolation from a survey involving 100 women.

Watch this space for the fourth and fifth generation of victims. ___

Frank Furedi is a sociologist at the University of Kent in Canterbury and is the author of Paranoid Parenting, Penguin 2001. Buy this book from Amazon (UK)

http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/00000000545B.htm

http://www.rense.com/general19/sec.htm

[Hugh Jorgen]

Well ...the way I look at this BS ... if we all subscribe to Seymore Butts (http://www.teamtushy.com/) , we're all paying retribution.

[eggheadbanga]

It certainly seems that the jews are getting the next generation ready to demand compensation:

Then the rest of the world, especially Germany, will tell them to fuck off and get a life.

[IlluSionS667]

Immanuel Kant was a racist, anti-Semitic Nazi (http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9827)

A proto-proto-proto-proto-proto-proto-national socialist perhaps ;)

I don't see Kant as an anti-semite but more as an anti-materialist. Anyone with some decent spiritual background is anti-materialistic, whether it's a muslem, a hindu, a buddhist, a shintoist, a shaman, ... Judaism and (to a lesser degree) christiannity are inherently materialistic and anti-spiritual religions. Jewish culture strongly bears this materialistic nature of its religion. Hence, anyone who is an anti-materialist is also anti-judaic by nature, making the step to anti-semitism pretty small.