COMMENTS
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burden of lies has always cost us humiliation and then death," said
Badinter. And this is why it is impossible to remain silent today,
even if, as Badinter noted in his opening address, taking part in the
debates is some kind of sacrilege or insult to those who died.
Unravelling the reasons that led to the trials is one thing; fully
subscribing to them is another. While a penal lawsuit on charges of
incitation to racial hatred seems to me to be unambiguous and
totally justified, a civil lawsuit on the falsification of history is more
debatable and less clear. For at one point or another, one is forced
onto the territory of one's opponent. The tables are turned and one
ends up being forced to give justifications for historical events, to
answer an accusation which is itself the product of falsification.
In
answering those who deny the existence of the Holocaust, the
burden suddenly shifts and we are forced to prove the truth of the
deaths of our parents. While no one denies that there is still much to
be explored in the history of that period, this does not imply that
what we know (or have lived) is false. Better to have remained
silent - to have resisted replying to that provocation? But it was no
longer possible to maintain silence. The result: an insoluble
dilemma.
The converts of revisionism
A growing number of people seem to be touched by, drawn
into, or even converted to the revisionist arguments. Nor does the
"no-Holocaust" epidemic affect only one type, but it seems to reach a
diverse group of people, many quite idiosyncratic.
If
we examine,
for example, the conversion of the libertarian group-Guilaume, the
La Vieille Taupe publisher; Thion, the CNRS sociologist who
defines himself a materialist; Cohn-Bendit; and others - their
acceptance may be understood within a given ideological frame–
work. They deny the gas chambers, but they deny as well the idea of
the genocide itself. (I am not even sure that they would agree to the
statement by one of Faurisson's lawyers that "the Holocaust should
remain a useful metaphor.")
From the introduction to Thion's book, one gains some under–
standing of the libertarians' support for Faurisson's statements,
which at first glance seems puzzling and unexpected. Thion, like
Chomsky, takes a strong stand against the way the Western world
disseminates distorted information for propaganda purposes; his–
torical myths may thus be created by exaggeration of official death
figures, as has been the case in Cambodia, for example. Or they
