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Original poster

To feel despair about holocaust deniers

171 replies

bananaramaspyjamas · 27/01/2019 14:23

How shocking that 1 in 20 denies the holocaust. I'm quite horrified by that figure and find it really troubling.

OP posts:
Racecardriver · 27/01/2019 14:56

Some people deny the calculated death toll but are lumped in with the actual deniers. Other people are simply unaware that it was a real historical event. Is it possible that they are included in the figure?

YouTheCat · 27/01/2019 14:58

But why deny the death toll? The Nazis were quite meticulous in their record keeping. It's all documented.

StarbucksSmarterSister · 27/01/2019 14:59

Schmoobarb - indeed. I never fail to be astonished by the lack of general knowledge of some people. I've always read a lot and am of an age where the family watched tv together. My dad would discuss what we were watching with me and explain if we were watching the news, and I must have picked up so much from that.

They also used to buy me a magazine called "Look and Learn" and that really is what I did!

LivininaBox · 27/01/2019 14:59

I am sorry, please ignore my earlier post as I read the detail of the survey and I am wrong. 5 per cent did indeed deny the Holocaust took place. A much greater number of people did not realise the numbers involved.

crimsonhair · 27/01/2019 15:08

And I think 5% didn't know that Holocaust happened!

TinklyLittleLaugh · 27/01/2019 15:09

My DS12 has just learned about slavery in school.

The teacher told them that yes, it was pretty awful. But if a slave rose to the position of overseer or trusted house slave, then they probably would have a better life than they would have had back in Africa with all the famines and such.

There is so much wrong with this statement that I didn't even know where to start correcting it.Shock

Butchyrestingface · 27/01/2019 15:12

I know one. Her FB timeline is chock-a-block with conspiracy memes about everything and anything. She's an equal ops lone gunwoman.

The latest meme (yesterday) was this:

To feel despair about holocaust deniers
Peachydream · 27/01/2019 15:13

YANBU, It is awful.

Ignorance I can understand, but the deniers....that is what is shocking! The denial in the face of hard concrete evidence and eye witness testament.

TBH, I don't think I truly get the sheer terrible scale of the suffering & death. Reading about it this morning I was trying to visualise what the numbers of people in a football stadium would be equivalent to & it's mind blowing. Just day to day survival... the rats, lice, starvation, lack of sanitation is utterly horrifying never mind the rest.

We definitely learnt about it at school & I'm sure we watched Schindlers List, that was early 00's.

Does anyone know if it is taught at all in other nationalities school curriculum's. My colleague said it was touched on in the US system bit not in any depth.

Oblomov19 · 27/01/2019 15:21

Only surveyed 2000 people.

But they are claiming 5% of the UK population deny it?

HmmHmmHmm

I studied Russian and German history and find the Holocaust fascinating. In fact I'm going to Auschwitz in a few weeks.

I find this BBC report offensive. And scaremongering. Is it designed to make the British stupid and sceptical?

To feel despair about holocaust deniers
PerkingFaintly · 27/01/2019 15:22

The film "Denial" is worth a watch.

Deborah Lipstadt wrote a book called Denying the Holocaust about this phenomenon. One of the people she discussed in it, David Irving, took her and her publisher to court for libel for describing him as a denier of the Holocaust.

(Note, he attempted to infringe her free speech – not the other way round, as Irving now tries to sell it.)

Lipstadt and Penguin used the defence of truth, and won.

PerkingFaintly · 27/01/2019 15:24

Or you can read the whole Irving Judgment. Penguin published the judge's words in full.

Oblomov19 · 27/01/2019 15:24

TheBBCArticle

ThePoll

Oblomov19 · 27/01/2019 15:33

Only 2000 people surveyed? When? Where? In McDonalds on a Tuesday morning? HmmHmmHmm

The mind boggles as to the intellect of these people.

Hardly 5%, ie of the worlds population.
Not 5% of the UK population, is it!!

AngryAngryAngryAngry

MumW · 27/01/2019 15:34

Only surveyed 2000 people.

But they are claiming 5% of the UK population deny it?

I don't know why you are so surprised as this is how most surveys and statistics work and often sample sizes are a lot smaller.
Statistics should be looked at inconjuction with the sample size, demographic, randomness, etc but, of course, we never get this information.

You only have to look at the flawed MMR hype to see this.

I think that any number of people denying the holocaust and having no idea of the scale is shocking.
I'm despair that genocide has happened again and is still happening now. Have we not learned anything?

DontCallMeCharlotte · 27/01/2019 15:39

This is my first conscious awareness of it **. I watched it with my dad (who had served in WW2) and was horrified. I'd have been about 14. I've since visited Auschwitz-Birkenau and I think everyone should have to visit one of the camps as part of school (I know a lot do already).

** Curiously I had recurring dreams about Nazis before I started school. I can still remember those dreams like they were yezterday. Must have seen something on TV and it sank in.

BarbarianMum · 27/01/2019 15:40

Well we're a post fact society now. Don't like a particular fact, something makes you uncomfortable? Pretend it doesn't exist/is wrong/ is a conspiracy - and get onto the interweb where you can find a whole echo chamber of peeps just like you.

UnreasonablyPissedOff · 27/01/2019 15:41

This makes me so so sad. And worried.

TokyoSushi · 27/01/2019 15:41

It has literally never, ever, crossed my mind that this didn't happen Sad

PlainSpeakingStraightTalking · 27/01/2019 15:43

How shocking that 1 in 20 denies the holocaust. I'm quite horrified by that figure and find it really troubling.

1 in 20 of the sample of 2,000 Daily Mail readers is hardly representative of the population

Cheerymom · 27/01/2019 15:45

The like of David Irving haven't helped. I think the internet has a lot to do with it, these ideas which are on a par with a lot of conspiracy theorists get an audience which they never would in real life, also funded by some countries that hate Israel ( big leap I know but relevant). There are leaders of countries who say it didn't happen so not so strange that this insidious belief filters through. Also I believe some anti semitism, which is part of it. If ever I am in the company of such deniers, I will say, so can you explain where the 6 million people went then, they are not on population counts in 1946, where the fuck do you suggest they are?

Longtalljosie · 27/01/2019 15:45

2000 is a pretty solid sample for a survey. It’s very depressing.

Etino · 27/01/2019 15:46
Sad What was the question?
DontCallMeCharlotte · 27/01/2019 15:46

Sorry meant to add this link.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_(miniseries)

RuggerHug · 27/01/2019 16:00

Perking I was going to say about her book and that case!! It's so 'off' in my mind that people could deny it. Not knowing at all is different, stupid and ignorant l can unfortunately believe.