What is Holocaust Denial? What are the knowledge issues surrounding the holocaust of World War 2?

Many crimes are committed in wartime. Few countries are exempt from blame.
But the Holocaust is different because it was organised by a leader who had been originally elected and by the whole state apparatus. Civil servants, police, army, engineers and the corporate world were involved in slave labour and finally extermination. The other appalling aspect of the genocide, is that the Nazis embraced modern technology to document, transport, rob and then murder the Jewish families of Europe.
Many in the nineteenth century had optimistically believed that improvements in literacy rates and improvements in medicine and technology would usher in a new era of human development and decency.
World War 1 dashed those hopes and it bred the heartlessness that is clear in Hitler's speeches and writings.
This did not happen during the era of Caesar or Genghis Khan, this happened in living memory in the land of Goethe and Beethoven in the heart of 'civilized and cultured' Europe. It was also carried out by a nation that celebrated Christmas by a people who largely considered themselves Christian (though not Hitler or Martin Bormann who despised Christ in private but not in public.)
How can we know the truth about the Holocaust and about Holocaust Denial?
David Irving once a respected writer on World War 2 destroyed his credibility and his career through Holocaust Denial. A British citizen who is fluent in German, he was a master at tracing primary sources in the West German archives. At some point while studying Hitler he seems to have lost his objectivity and become 'seduced' by the object of his studies, Hitler and his Third Reich.
Here are some sources for you to investigate the holocaust and its denial as a Knowledge Issue:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/709203.stm

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/american/skeptic-magazine/skeptic-9.html




 
Click on this link for excellent page on Holocaust Denial :  http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial                                                                                                                                             

Even to enter into the arena of debate on whether the Nazis carried out such atrocities is already to lose one's humanity.

—Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent

Holocaust denial is assertion that the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany, other Axis powers, and their collaborators in occupied Europe during the Second World War never happened or - in true conspiracy theory fashion - the denial that it happened according to the "official" story. Like most conspiracy theories, it takes many forms, from the fairly light claims of "exaggeration" to the extreme views of outright fraud, fakery and Zionist conspiracy. Generally, the claims include:

• That the Final Solution was in fact not the genocide of the Jewish people, but rather the expulsion of Jews from Germany
• That 6,000,000 is a gross exaggeration of the Jewish death count
• That the Nuremberg testimonies from Germans were extracted by torture
• That the Jews just made everything up to gain the world's sympathy
• That the gas chambers used by the Nazis were actually delousing stations.
• That death counts for other groups (such as gypsies or homosexuals) are exaggerated, that they were not included in the Holocaust, or that they were among those who carried it out.

Particularly when it focuses on "how the Jews faked it all," Holocaust denial is a form of anti-Semitism often embraced by bigots who are too cowardly to admit that they wished that Hitler finished the job.

BBC DOCUMENTARY ON THE NAZI DEATH CAMP AUSCHWITZ. NOTE: THIS IS A DISTURBING VIDEO WITH DISTURBING IMAGES. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
IT IS HERE FOR IB STUDENTS AND OLDER PEOPLE - NOT FOR YOUNG CHILDREN.
         
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NOTE : Students are advised to talk to me or their History teacher or Principal Gardner before proceeding with this topic. It requires a lot of commitment and time to research it properly and with the respect it deserves.
Final point from Mr C: If there was no organised holocaust of the Jewish people and others groups, why would the German people denounce this version of history which naturally is a shameful chapter in their past? Why is their no statue of Hitler in Germany when there is a beautiful memorial to Napoleon in Paris? May one say that Hitler was not just another conqueror like Napoleon or Caesar? At the end of World War 1, the Kaiser did not feel the need to kill himself because his crimes were on a par with other leaders in that terrible conflict. Hitler knew what awaited him and many of the top Nazis killed themselves including Himmler, Goebbels and Goering. Even Goering denied that he knew about the holocaust until his signature was found on key documents