ToughJ.Riggins said:
One of the charges against them was
apparently "denying the Holocaust"? How is that a crime? I think it is a
ridiculous notion to believe the Holocaust was fictional, but that shouldn't
be considered a crime, just stupidity.
Yeah, who wouldn't think that. However, when an open minded and
thoughtful person reads something like this:
"The Holocaust: Let's Hear Both Sides
By Mark Weber
Everyone has heard that the Nazi regime systematically killed some six
million Jews in Europe during World War II, most of them in gas
chambers. We're told this repeatedly on television, in motion pictures, in
books, and in newspaper and magazine articles. Holocaust education
courses are obligatory in many schools. Holocaust remembrance
ceremonies are held annually across the country. Every large American
city has at least one Holocaust museum. In Washington, DC, the official
US Holocaust Memorial Museum attracts hundreds of thousands of
visitors each year.
Scholars Challenge Holocaust Story
But not everyone accepts the familiar Holocaust story. Skeptics include
Dr. Arthur Butz of Northwestern University, Roger Garaudy and Prof.
Robert Faurisson in France, and best-selling British historian David Irving.
These "revisionist" writers do not "deny the Holocaust." They
acknowledge the catastrophe suffered by Europe's Jews during World War
II. They do not dispute that large numbers of Jews were cruelly uprooted
from their homes, forced into overcrowded ghettos or deported to
concentration camps. They acknowledge that many hundreds of
thousands of European Jews died or were killed, often under horrendous
circumstances.
At the same time, revisionist scholars cite impressive but often ignored
evidence to support their view that there was no German program to
exterminate Europe's Jews, that numerous claims of mass killings in "gas
chambers" are false, and that the figure of six million Jewish wartime
dead is an exaggeration...
...In many countries, skepticism of Holocaust claims is suppressed or
even prohibited.
In the United States , teachers have been dismissed for expressing
heretical views on this issue. In Canada, the United States and France,
thugs have brutally attacked Holocaust skeptics. One was even killed for
his views. [21]
In a few countries, including France and Germany, "Holocaust denial" is a
crime. Many individuals have been imprisoned, heavily fined or forced
into exile for expressing doubt about aspects of the official Holocaust
story."
http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/bothsides.shtml
They begin to wonder if maybe there isn't something to the claims and
unfortunately, have relatively few places to turn to explore them. So if
they pursue these questions, they may become dependent on one source
of information. Hence, they are vulnerable to manipulation by this
source. Therefore, if we de-criminalized the questioning of the Jewish-
Holocaust and even supported the pursuit, we could save a lot of minds
from victimization and perhaps gain a deeper understanding of our own
beliefs.