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It's irrelevant to the truth to study history and try to make it accurate? If people were trying to determine how many people died during the civil war no one w

It's irrelevant to the truth to study history and try to make it accurate? If people were trying to determine how many people died during the civil war no one would care, but simply trying to determine how many people died during WW2 is antisemitic? Yeah, keep pretending like that isn't fishy.

TheFreim 4y ago
It gets even worse when you find that asking questions about this specific historical event can get you considered "anti-Semitic" just because you were asking questions, inquiring about evidence presented is considered a "dog whistle". I've known many "holocaust deniers" and nine times out of ten it started out with them being presented with counter-evidence to the "official narrative" and instead of being treated like human beings they get called evil, told not to ask questions, and get shut down instead of having their concerns addressed in a kind, loving way. When getting slandered and abused it makes it much easier to justify leaps and make assumptions and go down a bad path.
- adriand 4y ago
  Questions like what, and addressed to whom? I think it’s important to recognize that no one is responsible for educating you. You are responsible for educating yourself. If you have chosen to be ignorant about the facts of the holocaust, and then you were to communicate your “concerns” to a Jewish person about the accuracy of the historical narrative, or perhaps question whether it was as bad as most people believe it was, or even worse, whether it happened at all, then I really don’t think it’s their responsibility to address you in a kind and loving manner. And it is really, truly, absolutely not their fault if you then decide to become an antisemitic holocaust denier and/or white supremacist.
- simplotek 4y ago
  > It gets even worse when you find that asking questions about this specific historical event can get you considered (...) https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
BananaPelican 4y ago
The existence of the holocaust is continuously debated. It’s difficult to tell the difference between good-faith questions and attempts to obfuscate the truth. Thus, some people are very reactive and touchy around this subject. It’s obvious why the civil war isn’t a similarly contentious topic; nobody debates its existence.
- adriand 4y ago
  No, it is not continuously debated. Racist white supremacists peddle conspiracy theories about it (and slavery and the civil war for that matter too) but reasonable, rational people (ie people who aren’t Nazis!) are not debating the existence of the holocaust. The comments in this thread are extremely disconcerting. I didn’t expect to find this on HN but apparently nowhere is safe.
  - BananaPelican 4y ago
    You may have misunderstood me. I meant it’s “continuously debated” the way the US moon landing is “continuously debated”. There are those of us who accept reality, and also a highly vocal contingent of willful deniers who incessantly muddy the waters and obfuscate the truth. I am also shocked and saddened by the comments in this thread, how foolish of me to have thought HN was above it.
    - adriand 4y ago
      I did misunderstand you - I’m sorry. Thank you for clarifying.
      - BananaPelican 4y ago
        No problem, sorry that it wasn’t clear. Was attempting to respond to the parent comment in a “rational” way in the event that it was a good faith comment. But frankly I think it wasn’t. It is obvious why people are reactive to questioning the holocaust, nothing “fishy” about it. Alleging that it’s fishy implies a conspiracy, which puts us on the road to holocaust denial. Really disgusted with all of this, I wish I hadn’t opened HN this morning.
adriand 4y ago
I think the person you are responding to used the wrong word when they wrote “irrelevant”, although I think their comment comes from the right place. Even a difference of just a single person is “relevant”. But when we try to comprehend the horror of the holocaust, learn from it and assign blame and guilt appropriately, then the precise numbers no longer matter. It is enough that an unspeakably enormous evil was carried out - the systematic murder of vast numbers of people with the aim of destroying everything about them. Their lives, memories, businesses, art, legacy, children, everything. And in many ways this horrific project succeeded. With that said, the figure of six million is about as accurate a number that is available. There are good reasons for the uncertainty: > The two most reliable sources for Holocaust data are the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem. Though this is the best information available, it is based on estimates and cannot take into the unknown number of victims whose bodies were never recovered or for whom there were no records. The Nazis kept detailed records of the people who passed through the camps; nevertheless, we do not know how many Jews may still have been unaccounted for in the many places where they were murdered. In addition, as the Allies began to close in on Germany, the Nazis began to destroy their records. We also don’t know the precise number of Jews in any of these areas. The population data ranges from 1937-1941 so, for example, the countries where the figures came from 1937 may not accurately reflect the number of Jews at the time the war began. Though the two institutions have different estimates, if you average the total number of Jews each says were murdered, the result is the commonly used figure of six million. From: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/estimated-number-of-jews-killed-in-the-final-solution https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/estimated-number-of-jew... It’s not “fishy” at all. History is not an exact science, and the perpetrators of this genocide were highly motivated to conceal their crimes.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  The allies were also motivated to inflate numbers to boost their war efforts. I remember similar things happening during the Iraq War... remember all those weapons of mass destruction that they were pushing, and then come to find out you were manipulated and fell for it.

TheFreim 4y ago

It gets even worse when you find that asking questions about this specific historical event can get you considered "anti-Semitic" just because you were asking questions, inquiring about evidence presented is considered a "dog whistle". I've known many "holocaust deniers" and nine times out of ten it started out with them being presented with counter-evidence to the "official narrative" and instead of being treated like human beings they get called evil, told not to ask questions, and get shut down instead of having their concerns addressed in a kind, loving way. When getting slandered and abused it makes it much easier to justify leaps and make assumptions and go down a bad path.

adriand 4y ago
Questions like what, and addressed to whom? I think it’s important to recognize that no one is responsible for educating you. You are responsible for educating yourself. If you have chosen to be ignorant about the facts of the holocaust, and then you were to communicate your “concerns” to a Jewish person about the accuracy of the historical narrative, or perhaps question whether it was as bad as most people believe it was, or even worse, whether it happened at all, then I really don’t think it’s their responsibility to address you in a kind and loving manner. And it is really, truly, absolutely not their fault if you then decide to become an antisemitic holocaust denier and/or white supremacist.
simplotek 4y ago
> It gets even worse when you find that asking questions about this specific historical event can get you considered (...) https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

BananaPelican 4y ago

The existence of the holocaust is continuously debated. It’s difficult to tell the difference between good-faith questions and attempts to obfuscate the truth. Thus, some people are very reactive and touchy around this subject. It’s obvious why the civil war isn’t a similarly contentious topic; nobody debates its existence.

adriand 4y ago
No, it is not continuously debated. Racist white supremacists peddle conspiracy theories about it (and slavery and the civil war for that matter too) but reasonable, rational people (ie people who aren’t Nazis!) are not debating the existence of the holocaust. The comments in this thread are extremely disconcerting. I didn’t expect to find this on HN but apparently nowhere is safe.
- BananaPelican 4y ago
  You may have misunderstood me. I meant it’s “continuously debated” the way the US moon landing is “continuously debated”. There are those of us who accept reality, and also a highly vocal contingent of willful deniers who incessantly muddy the waters and obfuscate the truth. I am also shocked and saddened by the comments in this thread, how foolish of me to have thought HN was above it.
  - adriand 4y ago
    I did misunderstand you - I’m sorry. Thank you for clarifying.
    - BananaPelican 4y ago
      No problem, sorry that it wasn’t clear. Was attempting to respond to the parent comment in a “rational” way in the event that it was a good faith comment. But frankly I think it wasn’t. It is obvious why people are reactive to questioning the holocaust, nothing “fishy” about it. Alleging that it’s fishy implies a conspiracy, which puts us on the road to holocaust denial. Really disgusted with all of this, I wish I hadn’t opened HN this morning.

adriand 4y ago

I think the person you are responding to used the wrong word when they wrote “irrelevant”, although I think their comment comes from the right place. Even a difference of just a single person is “relevant”. But when we try to comprehend the horror of the holocaust, learn from it and assign blame and guilt appropriately, then the precise numbers no longer matter. It is enough that an unspeakably enormous evil was carried out - the systematic murder of vast numbers of people with the aim of destroying everything about them. Their lives, memories, businesses, art, legacy, children, everything. And in many ways this horrific project succeeded. With that said, the figure of six million is about as accurate a number that is available. There are good reasons for the uncertainty: > The two most reliable sources for Holocaust data are the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem. Though this is the best information available, it is based on estimates and cannot take into the unknown number of victims whose bodies were never recovered or for whom there were no records. The Nazis kept detailed records of the people who passed through the camps; nevertheless, we do not know how many Jews may still have been unaccounted for in the many places where they were murdered. In addition, as the Allies began to close in on Germany, the Nazis began to destroy their records. We also don’t know the precise number of Jews in any of these areas. The population data ranges from 1937-1941 so, for example, the countries where the figures came from 1937 may not accurately reflect the number of Jews at the time the war began. Though the two institutions have different estimates, if you average the total number of Jews each says were murdered, the result is the commonly used figure of six million. From: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/estimated-number-of-jews-killed-in-the-final-solution https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/estimated-number-of-jew... It’s not “fishy” at all. History is not an exact science, and the perpetrators of this genocide were highly motivated to conceal their crimes.

encryptluks2 4y ago
The allies were also motivated to inflate numbers to boost their war efforts. I remember similar things happening during the Iraq War... remember all those weapons of mass destruction that they were pushing, and then come to find out you were manipulated and fell for it.