The Holocaust was the killing and persecution of over six million Jews and other groups such as the disabled, Gypsies, Slavics, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Holocaust was performed and executed by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. Although there is overwhelming evidence of the existence of the Holocaust, people still deny that the Holocaust was real and wrong. In fact, only one-third of the world believes the entirety of the Holocaust (Stuart, 1). There are 3 main reasons why people deny the truth of it: the lack of a single document signed by Hitler, Jews were legitimately killed for a reason, and Jews needed the money to justify establishing Israel so they created the Holocaust (Introduction To The Holocaust). However, there are ways to discredit these false ideas, proving that the Holocaust was a real event. While some people are deceptively in denial on the existence of the Holocaust, many people find it extremely insensitive to believe such a thing. Countries have even created laws against Holocaust denial, proving it exists by the present world leaders (Holocaust Denial Timeline). Using facts, it is extremely obvious that Holocaust deniers are real and each country should take preventative measures on how to handle these deniers.
The largest argument for those who do not believe in the Holocaust is the lack of documentation involving Adolf Hitler (Holocaust Deniers and Public Misinformation). There is no single document that directly states and proves the reality of the Holocaust. These nonbelievers take this information and blow it out of proportion because there is a severe lack of evidence otherwise. In truth, there is no one document that proves the Holocaust is real. There are, instead, medical files and post case documents signed by Nazi doctors and officials who admit to their crimes (Nazi Persecution Claim Case Files Released). For example, Reinhold Hanning, one of the Nazi officers in the SS, made a public statement about his involvement and his injustice involving the Holocaust. He apologized publicly, in court, to the victims and was charged with being an accessory to the murder of over 170,000 people. In an Interview with Hanning, he admitted to being part of the Nazi criminal organization and regrets how much suffering he has caused (Ahlswede, 1). While people still argue that cases like these could be staged and fake, many more people have publicly apologized and confessed to being part of the Nazi regime and harming or witnessing the harming of the victims. Normally, people would not agree to committing such a horrific and significant crime to prove a point and be thrown in prison, as seen in most of the Nuremburg Trial court cases. The Nuremburg Trials were a series of 13 trials where important Nazi officers were sentenced to a punishment which fit their crime (Nuremburg Trials). There is documentation and proof of each of these court cases, proving the court was involved with the Holocaust, so it is less likely to be staged (Trials of War Criminals Before The Nuernberg Military Tribunals Volume III). Another example proving the documentation and reality of the Holocaust is the diary of Heinrich Himmler, one of the men in Hitler’s inner circle. His diary has an entry where he admits to shooting 10 Polish detainees after having a massage. This diary has multiple entries on the slaughtering done by Himmler himself and on the slaughtering that he witnessed (Parry, 1). There are even documents of Jews being harassed and targeted out of the concentration camps, which implies the existence of the holocaust. For example, Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl who was terrorized by the Nazis wrote a journal which is still used as proof to this day. She wrote her entries up until her departure to one of the Nazi death camps (Anne Frank). One of her entries from July of 1944 goes into descriptive detail on how her life has been built on chaos and suffering. She continues to talk about how she believes life for her will change for the better. She states the cruelty must soon end and it did, but in a different aspect than she expected (Diary of Anne Frank). Frank passed away in March of 1945, at the age of 15 (Anne Frank). Also, the argument that Hitler, who led the Holocaust, never signed a paper is invalid due to his death. The Allied troops discovered the concentration camps while invading Germany after the second World War. Hitler killed himself shortly after the liberation of the Nazi extermination camps (This Day In History: April 30, 1945: Adolf Hitler Commits Suicide In His Underground Bunker). This did not leave enough time for the Allied forces to make Hitler to admit to his wrongdoings (Oh No, It Can’t Be). Although the argument of the forgery of these documents is possible, it is improbable (Lipstadt, 1).
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The second argument is the Holocaust happened because the Jews were in the wrong. Many Holocaust deniers believe that the Jews were at fault. They say the Jews were committing crimes and they deserved their deaths. The argument here is invalid because statistically, 6 million people are not likely to create crimes that deserve death in such a short span of time, especially if it is 6 million people of one religion. Hitler was known to hate Jews so it comes as no surprise that he wanted to exterminate them. He even voiced it publicly, stating that the destruction of Jews is his first and largest job he needed to do as the new leader of Germany. He even went as far as to state that they will be hanged and exterminated as soon as he came to power (Stein, 1). When Hitler did come to power, he passed the Enabling Act, which allowed him to make and enforce laws without the consultation of parliament. This made the government of Germany a complete dictatorship. The Nazi regime made many laws hurting the liberties of the Jewish population in some way. Hitler did many things in his reign of power that shows that it was in fact him who hated the Jews and he was at fault for their deaths (The Holocaust).
The third and final reason Holocaust deniers think what they do is because they are under the impression that the Jews just wanted the funds from the pity given to them to justify establishing Israel. The deniers are implying that the Jews were lying to gain this money. Germany has paid 89 billion dollars for their crimes, much of which goes to the families of those harmed during the Holocaust (Rising, 1). While this though process could be logical, it is very easily disproven due to the beliefs of the Jews and the numbers involved. It is a strongly enforced Jewish belief that the truth is one of the most important parts of humanity. It would be almost impossible, statistically, to have a whole religion lie about their past, especially if their religion is extremely based on truth itself (Jacobs, 1). There were over 6 million Jews involved in the Holocaust, it would be practically impossible to have that many people create such an enormous lie and maintain it for years to come.
The facts clearly point to Holocaust deniers being real but how should we deal with those who disagree? Each country has a different law on whether public Holocaust denial should be tolerated. For example, America’s Constitution states that freedom of speech is allowed (Constitution of the United States of America). This means that denying the Holocaust is not illegal, because there is no threat. Many other countries that disagree have created laws that criminalize Holocaust denial and hate speech. England, which is where much of the Holocaust took place, is one of the countries that does not tolerate Holocaust Denial. (Holocaust Denial Timeline). Facts and Evidence show that each country, most likely depending on where it stood during the second World War, has their own laws on how to handle Holocaust deniers. This has been working so far, with very little problems occurring with it, so the indications show that leaving Holocaust Deniers alone would be the best policy.
Holocaust Denial is a serious topic and is real, according to the facts presented. The reasons of denial being the lack of documentation, disbelief on the victim’s side of the argument, or the victim being the perpetrator. The lack of documentation is false and can be disproven by looking at the diaries and court cases happening during and after the second World War. A denier saying the Jews lied can be disproven by looking at and listening to the other victims of the Holocaust, such as the disabled and the Gypsies. Also, there is a lack of evidence showing the Jews were lying and a mass of evidence showing the Holocaust was true. This proves that Holocaust deniers are real and so is the Holocaust itself. As for how the Holocaust denying should be handled, evidence and recent events show that each country should have its own laws on how to properly assess and respond to the denial.
Works Cited
Ahlswede, Elke. Former Nazi Guard Apologizes To Victims: Auschwitz Was A Nightmare. Google.com. Huffpost. Web. 10 April 2018.
Anonymous. Anne Frank. Ushmm.org. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 10 April 2018.
Anonymous. Holocaust Denial Timeline. Ushmm.org. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 10 April 2018.
Anonymous. Holocaust Deniers and Public Misinformation. Ushmm.org. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 10 April 2018.
Anonymous. Introduction to the Holocaust. Ushmm.org. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 10 April 2018.
Anonymous. Nazi Persecution Case Files Released. Nationalarchives.gov.uk. The National Archives. Web. 10 April 2018.
Anonymous. Nuremburg Trials. History.com. History. Web. 10 April 2018.
Anonymous. Oh, No, It Can’t Be. Holocaust-trc.org. Holocaust Teacher Resource Center. Web. 10 April 2018.
Anonymous. The Holocaust. Endgenocide.org. United To End Genocide. Web. 10 April 2018.
Anonymous. This Day In History: April 30, 1945: Adolf Hitler Commits Suicide In His Underground Bunker. History.com. History. Web. 10 April 2018.
Constitution of the United States. 1st Amendment. 1791.
Diary Of Anne Frank. July 15th Entry. 1944.
Jacobs, Rabbi Louis. Truth and Lies in the Jewish Tradition. Myjewishlearning.com. My Jewish Learning. Web. 10 April 2018.
Lipstadt, Deborah. Denying The Holocaust. bbc.co.uk. BBC History. 2011. Web. 10 April 2018.
Parry, Tom. Diaries of a Nazi Monster: Himmler’s Sick Journals Describe Marriage, Massage, and Genocide. Google.com. Mirror. 2016. Web. 10 April 2018.
Rising, David. Germany Increases Reparations For Holocaust Survivors. Google.com. The Times of Israel. 2012. Web. 10 April 2018.
Stein, SD. Statements by Hitler and Senior Nazis Concerning Jews And Judaism. Phdn.org. Web Genocide Documentation Centre. 2000. Web. 10 April 2018.
Stuart, Hunter. People Still Think the Holocaust Was A Hoax. Dose.com. Web. 10 April 2018.
Trials Of War Criminals Before The Nuernberg Military Tribunals Volume III. Pre-Face. 1946.
Is Populism Compatible With Liberal Democracy?
Trendafile Sina Pol 266Prompt #1: Is populism compatible with liberal democracy?Liberal democracy and populism are both ideologies/political approaches committed to the idea of popular sovereignty, which appeal “the people” and support the rights of the individuals over “the elite” or those who are more powerful than the ordinary people. Despite that, both these concepts rely on incompatible conceptualizations of the people and as a consequence they manifest antagonistic and contradictory understandings of the concept of democracy. Therefore, it challenges the common assumption that populism might be beneficial for the demos. Although the populist movement can signal an underlying malfunction/failure of our liberal democratic system, it can never itself operate as the corrective. Instead, it should be seen a main threat to liberal democracy, which should undertake actions with the purpose of repairing both the symptom(populism) and the underlying issue.
Until recently, liberal democracy dominated triumphant, most citizens seemed committed to this form of government, the economy was growing, and no radical parties. Political analystis thought that democracy in places like France/ U.S. would not change in the years to come, but it turned out to be very different. Citizens have now grown restless and the authoritarian populists are on the rise around the world, from America to Europe. Across Europe and North America, long-existing political systems are facing a change, including the Brexit vote, the 2016 U.S. election, the doubling of support for France’s National Front, the outright victory of the populist party in the Czech Republic’s 2017 elections; and most concerning, the entrenchment in Hungary of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s self-styled “illiberal democracy,” changes which threaten the shape of liberal democracy. Donald Trump’s election to the White House has been the most striking manifestation of democracy’s crisis. But it is hardly an isolated incident. In Poland and Hungary, populist leaders are using that same playbook to destroy the free media, to undermine independent institutions and to muzzle the opposition, according to Bustikova & Guasti on “The liberal Turn or Swerve”.
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In Spain and Greece, established party systems are disintegrating with breathtaking speed. Even in the supposedly stable democracies of Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, extremists are celebrating successes. There can no longer be any doubt that we are going through a populist moment. The question is whether this populist moment will turn into a populist age and cast the very survival of liberal democracy in doubt. To answer that question first we have to define liberal democracy and populism. So what Is Liberal Democracy? Democracy, at the most basic level, requires both the equality of all citizens and inclusive citizenship. The other key pillar of a democratic government is majority rule. In addition to that, some boundaries/limitations are also established, like the “separation of powers” and “checks and balances.” How Does Populism Challenge Liberal Democracy? Populism is not just, an expression of disappointment over frustrated economic expectations, and fear of threats to physical and cultural security as some may define it. Populism does accepts the principles of democracy. It is skeptical, however, about constitutionalism, which concludes that it aims what a national leader (Orbán) calls “illiberal democracy”, a governing system capable of translating popular preferences into public policy without the impediments that have prevented liberal democracies from responding effectively to urgent problems( Lipset, pg 7).
From this perspective, populism is a threat not to democracy but rather to the dominant liberal variant of democracy. Populism can also be defined as “the people” against “the elite”. Today, “we the people” is understood to mean all citizens, regardless of religion, and length of citizenship. The people have one set of interests and values, the elite has another, and these two sets are not only different but fundamentally opposed. Populists see the elite as hopelessly corrupt and the peopleas uniformly virtuous, meaning that the people should govern themselves. And populist leaders claim that they alone represent the people, the only legitimate force in society. Populism is the enemy of pluralism, and thus of modern democracy.How Serious Is the Threat? On the one hand liberal democracy faces clear and present dangers. We may also gain perspective, and a measure of comfort, from a cross-national survey released just a couple of months ago. Although there is widespread discontent with how democratic institutions are performingin the European and North American countries included in the survey, median support for representative democracy across these countries stands at 80%. By contrast, only 13 % support a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from the legislature or the courts.
That said, while publics are not turning their back on representative democracy, they are willing to consider other forms of decision making. Seventy percent favor referendums in which citizens vote directly on major national issues, and 43% believe that allowing experts to make decisions about what is best for their countries makes sense. According to a Voter Study Group performed by Lipset, among respondents, 78% believe that democracyis preferable to any other form of government, while 83% think it is very important to live in a democratic system. Nonetheless, 23% are open to a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections, and 18% would countenance military rule. Openness to undemocratic alternatives was most pronounced among voters who combine economic liberalism and cultural conservatism, a characteristic of U.S. populists. Nearly half the voters who supported Barack Obama in 2012 but switched to Donald Trumpin 2016 favored a strong, unencumbered leader and declined to endorse democracy as the best form of government. In practice, not every manifestation of populism threatens liberal democracy. While the Brexit vote, as a policy decision made by referendum, raised some issues in terms of parliamentary sovereignty, its outcome pointed out policy concerns.
In systems where liberal-democratic institutions are strong, arguments about trade, immigration, and even national sovereignty can still happen. According to Galston, another public intellectual populism is “ broadly defined, are being screwed over by the elites, either intentionally or not. It is true, that there is a tendency among populists to exaggerate the virtues of the people. Then again, we live in a democracy, and all politicians must flatter the people in order to gain their vote. It is also true that populism is divisive. Then again, politics is always divisive. But sometimes the populist challenge does directly threaten liberal democracy. Unchecked, moves to weaken freedom of the press, constitutional courts, strengthen of the executive, and discriminate groups of citizens based on ethnicity, or national origin will weaken liberal democracy from within. Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán is frank about his antipathy to liberalism. We should not ignore these developments, which may well be harbingers of worse to come. According to 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer citizens are also less committedto democracy than they once were; while more 2/3 of older Americans say that it is necessary for them to live in a democracy, for example, less than ? of younger Americans do.
They are also more open to authoritarian alternatives; two decades ago, for example, 25% of Britons said that they liked the idea of “a strongman ruler who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”; today, 50% of them do. And these attitudes are increasingly reflected in our politics: from Great Britain to the US, and from Germany to Hungary, respect for democratic rules and norms has precipitously declined. No longer the only game in town, democracy is now deconsolidating. One possible explanation for why a lot of young people have grown disenchanted with democracy is that they have little conception of what it would mean to live in a different political system. People born in the 1930s and 40s experienced the threat of fascism as children or were raised by people who actively fought it. They spent their formative years during the cold war, when fears of Soviet expansionism drove the reality of communism home to them in a very real way. When they are asked whether it is important to them to live in a democracy, they have some sense of what the alternative might mean. What Is to Be Done? The defenders of liberal democracy must focus relentlessly on countering threats to liberal institutions.
An independent judiciary, freedom of the press, the rule of law, represent the first line of defense against illiberalism, and they must be safeguarded. At the same time, political reforms are needed to restore the ability of liberal-democratic institutions to act effectively. Also liberal democrats must make their peace with national sovereignty. Politicalleaders should put the rights of their nations to put their interests first without threatening liberal-democratic norms. Again, this is a policy dispute withinliberal democracy, not aboutliberal democracy. Large population flows, finally, have triggered concerns about the loss of national sovereignty. In the United States, Donald Trump’s famous promise to build a “big, beautiful wall” along the Mexican border became a powerful symbol of sovereignty regained. One may speculate that any country has a finite capacity to absorb new arrivals, and that bumping up against this limit triggers a reaction that detractors condemn as nativist. But denouncing citizens concerned about immigration as ignorant and bigoted does nothing either to address the issue in substance or to lower the political temperature.
In conclusion, we can state the populist movement uprising could bring down liberal democracy and should be considered as a potential threat to this system of democracy. In the recent years we have witnessed the triumph of populism which in a way does counter democratic value, such as human rights convention and has distanced themselves from constitutive democratic principles such as the separation of powers, in countries such as Great Britain, Hungary, etc. Thus, we can conclude that liberal democracy and populism cannot be compatible, since one principle is an actual threat to the existence of the other one.
