THE NEW HOLOCAUST DENIALISM

It's not about denying the facts, it's about denying the feelings.

by Colin Liddell

I don't know what Nick Fuentes thinks really happened in the Holocaust, I don't know how many people Nick Fuentes think died in it, and I don't even know if Nick Fuentes thinks it happened or not. But, nevertheless, I think Nick Fuentes is totally right about the Holocaust.

This is because one of the things Fuentes clearly thinks about the Holocaust is that it shouldn't be used to frame issues in the modern day, or as a filter for what can and cannot be said or even thought. Indeed, that is really the main, or possibly even the only thing to think about the Holocaust.   

This is more or less the case that Fuentes has been making again and again in recent days, on his livestreams and in various interviews. And he is undoubtedly right. 

The focus of the Holocaust is not on the details of what actually happened, but rather on the emotions you should feel in its presence. pic.twitter.com/FCT0pdzpln

— Colin Liddell (@cbliddell) December 14, 2022

For the record, my own view is that there were a series of events that could be called "The Holocaust," and, yes, the whole thing was bad for the Jews. But between 1939 to 1945 a lot of people dying was not an experience unique to any one particular group.

But, really, what I think I know about that particular segment of history, is no more important than what I believe about the Battle of Zama in 202 BC or the Mongolian invasions of the 13th century. It's all history, and my main concern is to just know what happened for the usual history geek reasons. That's where it begins and ends for me; and where it should begin and end.

You don't need history to know that the acts of cruelty presented to us in Holocaust narratives -- whether true or not -- are wrong. I would hope that it would be obvious to most people that gassing innocent people and turning them into piles of ash or soap is wrong. 

But the real point is that issues like immigration, eugenics, free speech, and the right of the State of Israel to exist where it exists (as opposed to the Fact of the State of Israel) should all stand and fall on their own merits.

They should not be propped up on some "holier than holy" historical narrative that you are not allowed to deny, where your non-compliance draws down on you a barrage of "racism" or "anti-Semite" shells from the big guns of the SPLC and the ADL. 

Sure, the freedom from the Holocaust cult that Fuentes is seeking could be misused. In fact, it almost definitely will be misused. Fuentes himself will probably use it to push his crackpot theories that the Jews run everything in America, or other lies that he may even possibly be running for Russia. 

On the other side, the efforts of the big guns of the SPLC and the ADL to maintain the "Holy Holocaust" are entirely predictable and inevitable. But none of this changes the fact that on the issue of decoupling Holocaust history from every political debate in our civilisation, Fuentes is clearly in the right, even if he is wrong on many other things, and even if he is, as many claim, a closeted "Catboy" who lied about his flying ban. All that is irrelevant to the point he is making here.

But, one more thing: It is a point that is hardly original to Fuentes. Back in 2013 I wrote this:

"Leaving aside the question of whether it actually happened, or the degree to which it happened, is Holocaust Memorial Day really about remembering holocausts? I would say it's quite the opposite. With the date chosen because of its connection to Auschwitz concentration camp—Jan 27 is the date when it was 'liberated' or more accurately passed from one totalitarian regime to another—the day is all about remembering one holocaust, that of the Jews, at the expense of all the others."

I then went on to say:

"...each community should just stick to commemorating its own dead, rather than trying to foist them on the rest of the world, as if corpses were some kind of easily-transferable international moral currency."

Wonder if the 14-year-old Fuentes saw that. Personally, I think he did. 

___________________________________

Follow @cbliddell

Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia).