The Holocaust, Its Deniers, and Judaism

General Eisenhower touring a just liberated camp

I personally find it almost more laughable than offensive (although it certainly is offensive) when a supposedly educated individual in any way denies the Holocaust. The evidence of the Holocaust is so overwhelming that to question it even slightly means that the questioner is either brain dead, stupid, or an antisemite. And yet it has happened again in Boca Raton, Florida of all places. Boca has a large concentration of Jews. Many of them may be Holocaust survivors, their children, or other relatives.

William Latson is one of those deniers. Latson was the principal of a high school with a population of about 2500 students. When discussing the Holocaust with a parent in an email exchange here is what he said: 

 “Not everyone believes the Holocaust happened.” In a follow-up email exchange, he responded that “I can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in the position to do so as a school district employee.”

How someone like that was put in charge of the impressionable minds of young people is mind boggling.

Has he not seen the videos of the Einsatzgruppen - Nazi death squads that forced Jews to  remove all their clothing, lined them up at the edge of mass graves and shot them all down – into it?

Has he not seen the images of naked human Jewish corpses piled up in archival footage taken by Nazi filmmakers documenting everything Nazi Germany ever did? 

Has he never been to a Holocaust Museum and seen all the massive evidence including films and photos of death camps and crematoria? Has he not seen the documented evidence of the ‘Final Solution’ undertaken at the Wannsee Conference. 

Has he not seen photographs of the piles of gold teeth extracted from Jews after they were executed? Or the piles of children’s shoes removed by the victims just before they were gassed to death? Does he not believe the non Jewish Polish underground fighter, Jan Karski’s testimony about the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the German extermination camps on polish soil?

Did the landmark award winning 6 hour documentary ‘Shoah’ by Claude Lanzmann escape his attention? A documentary where Lanzmann interviews victims, perpetrators, and observers that stood by and watched it all happen?

Has he not seen the footage of concentration and extermination camp liberations where Jewish inmates looked literally like skeletons? 

Does he not know about the well documented medical experiments conducted on Jewish prisoners by Josef Mengele? Has he never heard of Anne Frank? Does he not know about the Nuremberg trials where Nazi leaders were convicted of crimes against humanity and hung for them?

Does he not know about the Spielberg Foundation Shoah project where survivors tell of their horrific experiences? 

Has he never heard of Elie Weisel?

Has he never seen a Jew with numbers tattooed on his forearm?

Does he not know about the reaction of Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower after he toured a subcamp of Buchenwald that had just been liberated? Here is what Eisenhower communicated to General George C. Marshal, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

The things I saw beggar description. … The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick ... . I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.”

I could go on. There is so much more evidence that it is beyond ridiculous to say the Holocaust might not have happened. Only a pure fool or Holocaust denier would say anything like that.

To suggest that Latson thought that he was just being objective about history is too ridiculous to consider seriously. I don’t see how anyone with the slightest bit of intelligence could make such a claim with all that evidence staring them in the face.

The truth is that despite his later apology William Latson is just another Holocaust denier. There is no benefit of the doubt to be given here. The cat is out of the bag. He might as well be David Duke. This fellow ought to be barred from ever having any position of responsibility in any school system anywhere in the world. And be scorned by audiences everywhere if he tries to make his case publicly.

I wonder though how many more people there are like him? People that might occupy prestigious positions in colleges and universities? That is why it is so important to call this fellow out. Loudly and clearly.

I say all of this despite my belief that we ought not make the Holocaust the focal point of Judaism. As I have said many times, in all too many cases a religion has been made out of the Holocaust. It has replaced what Judaism is all about. 

Unfortunately the experiences of survivors has  caused a lot of them to question their faith and abandon observance. I do not blame them one bit – even though I believe they are wrong. But for the grace of God… how many of us would stay righteous having experienced those horrors?

Survivors are in a category all their own. They must never be questioned. God forbid any of us ever be tested that way. Those who did manage to retain their belief are in a place few of us can ever hope to achieve. Theirs is the definition of Emunah.

We must never allow the world to forget what happened and never allow Holocaust deniers to ever get away with challenging those hard and clear facts. No matter who they are or what their station. The facts are indisputable - much of it documented by the Nazis themselves who were nothing if not organized and meticulous about recording everything they ever did. But we must never allow the Holocaust to define us.