List of atrocities cited by Holocaust deniers

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Argument: The US, Britain, the Soviet Union and Israel have also committed atrocities.

The Holocaust is neither the largest mass murder in history, nor even of the 20^th century, nor the only crime against humanity during World War II. But this fact is a tu quoque argument, not, in any way, relevant to the reality of the Holocaust. Holocaust deniers, by bringing up these other atrocities without disputing their evidence for existence, are singling out the Holocaust for some reason.

Dresden, Hiroshima, and other atrocities by Western Allies[edit]

Revisionists such as the Institute for Historical Review (IHR)^[1] bring up American and British war crimes in World War I. No Allies were tried for war crimes, and the Allied governments have paid no reparations for these atrocities. Holocaust deniers might compare atrocities of these Western Allies to Nazi atrocities because:

• Allied war crimes would make the Holocaust less extraordinary.
  • However, the millions of Holocaust victims are still an order of magnitude greater than the number of civilians killed by the Western allies (while the Soviets were more destructive, they still came nowhere close). The total number of German civilian casualties is very uncertain, and ranges from 1 to 2.5 million (excluding Austria and other annexed territories); up to 3.5% of the total population.^{[note 1]} Most of these came after the D-Day in June 1944, when the outcome of the war was apparent, and several Nazi commanders wanted to surrender. Yet Hitler fought on, applying a self-destructive strategy. Therefore, many German deaths could be attributed to Hitler.
• The fire-bombing of Dresden killed many civilians, and might be compared to Nazi atrocities.
  • However, as Dresden was bombed by the Western Allies but became part of East Germany, the communist regime exaggerated the death toll to numbers around 250,000, a claim still used by Holocaust deniers such as David Irving.^[3] However, current scholarship (as of 2010) estimates a minimum of 22,700^[4] and a maximum of 25,000^[5] deaths. While still a human tragedy, it has no relevance to the Holocaust.
• The fire-bombing of Tokyo, and smaller cities in Japan.
  • Often used in discussions as something of a red herring, usually pointed to as being an atrocity due to the numbers of dead. Wartime estimates put the total number of Japanese civilians dead at 50,000, though some more modern estimates put the total death toll of the fire-bombing campaign at over 250,000 due to the number of small Japanese villages wiped off the Earth.
• It implies that the Allied atrocities were denied or censored after the Second World War, and that somehow this would make Holocaust denial more legitimate.
  • However, the Allies never denied or censored the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the firebombing of Dresden in the first place. These are well known in the Western world, and frequently cited as case studies.
• Since Allied politicians, officials, commanders and combatants were never tried or sentenced for war crimes, as German leaders were in the Nuremberg trials, and Japanese leaders in the Tokyo trials, Holocaust deniers might imply that the Nuremberg trials were unfair.
  • However, most of the 24 defendants of the main Nuremberg trial were tried for four different crimes (conspiracy for crime against peace, crime against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity). The 12 defendants who were sentenced to death had all been found guilty of crimes against humanity. None was tried or sentenced only for war crimes, as Western Allied commanders would have been if they had faced a similar trial. The Allies considered charging the defendants at Nuremberg with crimes relating to the fire-bombing of Coventry and other UK cities, as well as the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, but decided against this due to the fact that the Allies had carried out similar policies. Lastly, it is worth remembering that Nuremberg was entirely without precedent — no international treaty required Allies to carry out a trial of Nazi war criminals at all. Many Allied leaders argued that suspects should simply be executed after a summary trial, or without trial at all, once their identities had been confirmed. Holding a trial at all was a step in the right direction.

Japanese-American detention camps[edit]

The Allies imprisoned many civilians in their home territories — most notably 110,000 Japanese living in the United States. The IHR brings them up in comparison to the Holocaust.^[6] Though shameful, this is a completely different case from the Holocaust, because Japanese American prisoners did not suffer from mass starvation, epidemics or slave labor. Even Holocaust deniers admit that this was the case for European Jews, as well as Chinese and other Allied prisoners in Japanese-occupied territories. Also, Japanese Americans were not executed.

Atrocities by the Soviet Union[edit]

Revisionists such as the IHR mention^[7] that the Soviet Union invaded neutral countries, used forced labor, and deported and murdered myriads of civilians, before, during and after the war. Neither Stalin nor any other Soviet leaders (who ordered crimes against peace and humanity) were ever brought to justice. "Stalin murdered more people than Hitler" is a common red herring, which doubly serves their purpose as the USSR under Stalin was one of the Allied nations — but again, how does this disprove the Holocaust?

The Holocaust might be compared to the Soviet Gulag system of prison camps. With a total of 14 million prisoners and 1.6 million deaths (exact numbers uncertain), the Gulags were indeed horrible, but at a death rate of 10-15% (during wartime), it was no extermination campaign. For comparison, death rates among some Jewish national populations, and in some Nazi concentration camps located in Poland, were more than 90%.

Many Nazi sympathizers and Neo-Nazis make exaggerated claims about the Red Army's acts of revenge in eastern Germany, as a way of trying to claim that the Allies were just as bad. While there were many murders committed by Red Army soldiers in eastern Germany, there was no extermination policy or encouragement by the officers; such actions were carried out by individual soldiers. The worst atrocities were only committed in the easternmost regions, where the Red Army first made contact.

Red Army soldiers "only" killed some tens of thousands of Germans, far less than Nazi atrocities. Deniers often also point to the mass rapes committed by the Red Army, frequently describing them to give the impression that all women were raped, without actually mentioning numbers. The actual number is "only" around 1.5 million. In every case, Holocaust deniers fail to mention any contributing factors for the actions by the Red Army, which is considered profoundly ahistorical for any discussions of atrocities. One day American soldiers showed up and shot several Germans sounds like a much more pro-Nazi version of the Dachau Massacre.

Nazi sympathizers also often bring up the atrocities of the Holodomor to use as a shield for Holocaust denial, focusing specifically on white European Christians who died at the hands of the Soviet army's genocide.

Israeli atrocities[edit]

Another red herring used by Holocaust deniers and Holocaust relativists, is the policies and violent acts by the modern state of Israel, especially against Palestinians. Indeed, these actions are terrible, but Israel's actions do not make the Holocaust more legitimate or less true.

Israel's armed forces have killed tens of thousands of people including combatants and civilians in all wars and confrontations involving Israel from 1948 to present day with the Gaza War alone contributing over 37,000 to this number as of June 2024, most of them civilians,^[8] and they have displaced over 700,000 during the Nakba as well as pretty much the entire population of Gaza during the 2023 war.^[9] This claim fails to distinguish between deaths which were armed enemies killed in combat with Israel and civilians. Although large, this number is dwarfed by the Holocaust's death toll. It is also even an order of magnitude fewer than the 300,000 Holocaust victims claimed by hard-line Holocaust deniers such as the IHR.

The IHR also compares the Nuremberg Laws to present-day laws of Israel.^[10] First — most of these claims are lies. Holocaust deniers tend to point out the lack of interfaith marriage in Israel. Normally, only religious institutions can issue marriage in Israel, and civil marriage is very limited. While this is indeed discriminatory, it does not get close to the Nuremberg laws, where Jews had no civil rights at all. Israel does not restrict marriage by race (allowing black Jews to marry white Jews and Muslims of any race to marry each other) and recognizes all marriages performed abroad (as long as they're recognized by the country in which they were performed) regardless of criteria such as race, religion or gender.

Segregation laws in the Southern United States[edit]

The IHR says that the Nuremberg Laws made in 1935 were not worse than the "Jim Crow laws" or other segregation laws that were enforced in some southern states of the USA at the same time.^[11] First, this has no relevance; the American segregation of the first half of the 20^th century is well-known, and nearly universally condemned. Second, the Nazis went further than the Southern governments ever did, even before the war; the Nazis practically bereaved the Jews of their citizenship, and the typical punishment for violating the Nuremberg laws, was death.

Western colonialism[edit]

Before and during the war, Nazi propaganda brought up British colonialism as a tu quoque argument. Germany had colonies too, until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles transferred them to other countries. Ironically, it was German colonialism that made the foundation of the eugenics which was applied by the Nazis.

Holocaust deniers have brought up colonial atrocities that were contemporary with the Holocaust, such as the Great Bengal Famine of 1943. Just like other atrocities, colonial oppression is nearly universally condemned today, and does not affect the truth of the Holocaust.

Does the Holocaust get too much attention?[edit]

Based on the aftermath of these and other atrocities (Armenian Genocide, Rwandan Genocide, etc.), Holocaust deniers such as the IHR claim that the Holocaust gets more attention than it deserves, with media coverage, school curricula, etc. Commemoration of other atrocities is not forbidden. If Holocaust deniers are to be taken seriously, they are welcome to bring attention to all these other atrocities, too. And decide how to handle people who deny them. More specifically, the Holocaust was unprecedented because it involved multiple groups compared to other genocides.

The argument also seems to ignore that the number of victims is not the most horrifying part of the Holocaust. One can argue that it is rather the cold-blooded, organized manner of execution which was never surpassed in the history of genocide. Or, from a European (especially German) point of view, that it happened here.

See also[edit]

• Holocaust denial

External links[edit]

• War Stalin ein Massenmörder? (Was Stalin a mass murderer?) - Holocaust Referenz (German)

Notes[edit]

References[edit]