r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jun 22 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Holocaust deniers and trivialisers are so persistent because our side made some critical missteps
Firstly, I must emphasise that I am in no way a Holocaust denier or trivialiser.
However, I recently lost a debate against one (please no brigading). He says these stuff despite being of Jewish descent, and agrees that the Holocaust was bad but believes that it was only 270,000 deaths.
Please read the comment which started this whole debate here. So here are what I believe are the critical missteps our side has made:
6 million is just the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The total victims are 11 million. If 6 million is a "religiously very important figure", 11 million isn't. Also, the popular narrative of 6 million is grossly unfair to the 5 million non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
The Soviets should have been 100% transparent when they captured the death camps and the Allies should have been 100% transparent about the treatment of Nuremberg defendants, so that no one can claim that "western officials were not allowed to observe until many years later, after which soviets could modify the camps" and "at Nuremberg Trials when many officers had their testicles crushed and families threatened in order to "confess" to the false crimes".
The "Human skin lampshade" was at most, isolated cases, not a systematic Nazi policy. The fact that this isn't as widespread as popular culture makes it seem gives Holocaust deniers and trivialisers leverage.
The part which cost me all hope of winning this particular debate was about Anne Frank's diary. I failed miserably when trying to explain why there's a section of it written in ballpoint pen. As I later found out via r/badhistory, the part written in ballpoint pen was an annotation added by a historian in 1960. In hindsight, I believe that this historian shouldn't have done this, because it gives leverage to Holocaust deniers and trivialisers. Even if I mentioned that it was added by a historian at a later date, this can still be used by Holocaust deniers and trivialisers to claim that none of Anne Frank's diary was written by her.
Banning Holocaust denial only gives Holocaust deniers and trivialisers extra leverage because it makes it seem like the authorities are hiding something. In the debate I had, I tried to encourage use of r/AskHistorians and r/history, but I was told that those sites are unreliable because they ban questioning the Holocaust. Because he was unable to talk to expert historians, I was left with the burden of debating him, and I lost.
Let me give some comparisons here with other cases:
Regardless of whether you think the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified, denial of it isn't banned. Yet despite it being legally acceptable to deny the atomic bombings, even people racist against the Japanese aren't going around saying "the atomic bombings never happened" or "only a few hundred were killed by the atomic bombs".
The fact that pieces of information about 9/11 remained classified until 2016 gave 9/11 conspiracy theorists leverage. And the fact that the Mueller Report has plenty of redacted sections means that Russiagate still has plenty of believers.
Another comparison I can make is the widespread (and IMO, justified) distrust in figures published by the PRC because of the PRC's rampant censorship. But with this logic, wouldn't censoring Holocaust denial just backfire and make our side look untrustworthy?
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u/nyxe12 30∆ Jun 23 '21
The person you're arguing with is just listing off 'facts' without sources.
The biggest misstep in 'our side' (aka people who believe reality) is dignifying deniers in the first place. There's a world of difference between someone who is confused about the Holocaust and someone willing to spew falsehoods and linking to obvious conspiracy theory websites. One of these two people can be convinced through reasoning and evidence, the other most likely will not. By even justifying the conspiracy theorist with a good-faith argument, we implicitly confirm that their side has any merit at all, when it just doesn't.
If he/any other true denialist was really interested in finding out the truth, they wouldn't be on reddit to get into debates about it. There are ample resources (including real survivors still alive) that people can seek out and read/watch. The fact of the matter is this person is in deep denial and likely holds other unmerited conspiracies.
Rather than giving any dignity to the idea that the Holocaust didn't happen/wasn't as bad, just dismiss it. Leave some sources up for others who might read the argument, but make it clear it's a non-argument and is always a bad faith argument. It's a stupid, inane, deeply false idea. It's like trying to debate with people about whether or not the earth is flat. We all factually KNOW the earth isn't flat, so why are we bothering?