by Morgan Thackroot

Created on: September 09, 2010

Attempts to discredit any history of genocide typically begin with the not unreasonable demand that the historical record be examined from scratch and that the accusation of wholesale slaughter be proven, as in a classical who-done-it with which even the average reader or television viewer is intimately familiar.  However, in this case, deniers shift the question from who committed the crimes to whether or not a crime was even committed.  This approach tends to demand that the case not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond any doubt.   As a result, any apparently inconsistent fact or figure, no matter how trivial, is seized upon as evidence that the epically grisly event is mere hearsay.  These arguments, manifested in different forms, all seek the same end: to turn history into myth.  

The effort to undermine holocaust history by seizing upon inconsistent data is manifested by the attack upon the physical evidence of genocide.  This attack, best represented by the “investigations” of a Boston engineer who chiseled away at the walls of a gas chamber at Auschwitz looking for elusive traces of gas use, results in the reinforcement of arguments from those who doubted the history of the holocaust initially, such as the historian David Irving, and serves as a tempting bait to those who are conspiracy-prone.  Regardless of the fact that the engineer’s testing has been criticized by specialists, a simple viewing of the video of the evidence-gathering displays the cavalier attitude with which the study was conducted and is an excellent example of why laymen do not conduct official forensic investigations.  Another example is the claim that the Germans did not have enough fuel to burn so many bodies.  During David Irving’s trial, the flaw in this argument was revealed when an expert explained that fuel was only needed to initially start the burning process and that human remains became their own fuel to complete incineration efficiently and cheaply.  Irving, unwavering in his beliefs, challenged anyone to find the necessary holes in the ceiling of a gas chamber that had been blown up by the retreating Nazis.  Irving’s arguments are an excellent depiction of the denier’s effort to cast any doubt, no matter how unreasonable.

Furthermore, there is an attempt to undermine the accusation of genocide by denying that it was enacted in a systematic fashion and that it was

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