A century from now, will our lives be denied? Will the next generation believe that a plane was never flown into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, with the intention of extirpating a country of opposing morals and religious beliefs? Despite written documents, letters, phone recordings, deaths, memos, speeches, articles, memoirs, confessions, and war, there is a grave possibility that our future will deny what so many Americans have lost their lives to fight. “Impossible!” you say. No, this is chillingly possible, for history with the same prominent evidence is being denied as we speak.

In 1933, Adolph Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany and headed the Nazi party. Immediately after the election, Jews were treated harshly, but this was far from what the future held. Between 1933 and 1937, over one-fourth of German Jews had left Germany. The Nazis waited for an excuse to really assail the Jews, so they launched the Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, where Jewish businesses and homes were vandalized or set on fire, and Jews were beaten and placed into concentration camps.

Nazis then restricted leave from Germany by demanding huge sums of money for an exit; German Jewish suicides increased greatly at this point. The Nazis then focused on building a large army, navy, and air force, and quickly told Europe that these forces would weaken the communist forces.

However, the Nazis signed a non-aggression pact with these Soviets the same year. By 1940, they had conquered most of Europe, and the original plan was to cram millions of Jews into ghettos and work them to death in factories with the aid of disease, starvation, and despair. However, in 1942, the Nazis got nervous. America joined the war, and Germany now worried that they would have to fight on two fronts as a result of the invasion of England and the United States. In a panic to finish what they had already begun, Hitler ordered an increase in pace. Enormous crematoriums were built to burn bodies, and huge death camps were built to gas thousands of people daily. Trains and trucks that were needed on the Russian front were now redirected to carry out this focused, racist drive for genocide.

An overview of recorded history was needed before reasons for the denial of the Holocaust were presented. The denial has been going on since the end of World War II. However, Holocaust denial entered the United States during the 50s and 60s.

They deny the existence of death camps, blame the large number of deaths on being war-related, and state that the Final Solution did not mean mass extermination, but simply deportation to ghettos. Maurice Bardeche once stated that the Nazis were not responsible for the atrocities of World War II, but the Jews themselves were to blame. Also, he argued that it was morally wrong to hold German soldiers and officers responsible for simply following orders. Wait! Is Mr. Bardeche contradicting himself? He claims that the Nazis didn’t do anything wrong, but the soldiers and officers should not be held accountable for following the inhumane orders that were given by the Nazis. Umm, is this seriously your argument, Mr. Bardeche?

The other less questioned argument is that if the Holocaust really happened, “Was it genocide?” Well, there is one very distinct difference in genocide and mass murder: The intentions of wiping out the children of the targeted people. Of the estimated six million Jews who were murdered, one and one half million were children.

Deniers argue that the number of deaths have been exaggerated, gas chambers were used to delouse rather than to murder, that Hitler intended to deport Jews rather than kill them, and that most of the actual deaths were due to hard camp conditions or Allied war efforts. However, we prove the Holocaust through a convergence of data: Written documents, memos, blueprints of the camps, orders, bills, speeches, articles, memoirs, survivors, and confessions. Moreover, if six million were not killed, then what happened to all of the people? Skepticism is important in forming beliefs, but ignoring evidence that does not fit preconceived desires is asinine.



Alex Riess is a junior at Meridian High School. E-mail her at dolcelle@yahoo.com.