A Comment on the ADL’s Guide to Holocaust Revisionism

I recently came across a publication on the ADL’s website entitled “Holocaust Denial: An Online Guide to Exposing and Combating Anti-Semitic Propaganda.”  It seems to be a guide for the intellectually-limited who have come across “Holocaust denial” for the first time.  The whole article is predictable and unimpressive, but there is one paragraph in the introduction that is nonetheless very interesting.  After beginning the guide by equating the critical study of the Holocaust with anti-Semitism and describing the revisionist movement as a “diverse hate movement” consisting of groups such as KKK factions, racist skinheads, the Aryan Nations, and neo-Nazis, they go on to tell us:

Dressing themselves in pseudo-academic garb, they [“Holocaust deniers”] have adopted the term "revisionism" in order to mask and legitimate their enterprise. After all, the ongoing challenge to and revision of previously accepted historical interpretation is one of the hallmarks of the professional historian's craft.

The ADL is saying that all historians are revisionists, to one degree or another.  Of course this is true—how does one come to know historical truth?  Not by accepting some set of a priori axioms, but by serious study of complex events.  Therefore, the historian, by definition, must study facts critically and revise preconceived opinions when new facts come to light.  One who merely regurgitates information is no historian.  Nonetheless, according to the ADL, historians must make an exception when dealing with the Holocaust.  Historians who critically examine the established history and make revisions when necessary are not real historians but “Holocaust deniers” and “anti-Semites.” “Historians” who uncritically accept it as true a priori are now the genuine historians.  Quite bizarre, no?

Why Holocaust Revisionism is Important

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor recently returned from a trip to Auschwitz, a trip that he made with several other members of the House of Representatives.  In a speech given at Virginia Military Institute on Feb. 17, Cantor, a Jew, cited the Holocaust as a reason why the United States cannot peruse a policy of isolationism (as was envisioned by the founding fathers).  According to the article, "sources who have spoken to him suggest his foreign policy address was shaped specifically by profound feelings aroused by his visit to Auschwitz."  The article later quoted Republican political consultant Fred Luntz: Cantor was ”making a statement that the isolationists in the GOP are acting in a destructive way, that there’s one thing that unites both those on the right and those in the center — a strong America and a peaceful America...I saw him after he returned from his visit to Auschwitz, and he came over to me and he was still stunned 36 hours after he had been there.  I could feel his emotional reaction five feet from him.”

Obviously, the Holocaust arouses strong emotion in people; top decision leaders are no exception.  I'm sure that Cantor is not the only politician whose foreign policy views are influenced by the Holocaust and not the only politician that uses emotional rhetoric of the Holocaust to draw the public to their views.  If an historical event can have such an impact on our foreign policy, shouldn't that event be open to every kind of rational criticism?  Shouldn't we be able to openly challenge the facts and the perceptions of those decision makers and the public at large if their perceptions may be inaccurate?  With that being said, are Holocaust revisionists dangerous anti-Semites, or are they an essential part of a well-functioning democracy?