Psychology

Some aspects of the Holocaust lore can only be understood, or at least approached in a clearer light, when one considers the psychological background of the people and the times involved. Wartime, with its disasters, propaganda efforts and widespread desperation and anxiety, is a breeding ground for rumors and exaggerations, propagated both through deliberate disinformation and common credulity. Add to this the group dynamics on all sides of this controversy: the warring enemies of yore, the perpetrators – whatever their deeds – the victims, and the postwar scholars, both revisionist and orthodox, all caught in their own psychological box.



That’s me. Holocaust-obsessed. I’ve been “following” (as one might a series of Tweets) the Holocaust since long before it even had its brand name. I’ve always had a slightly excessive interest in it, because I am of German descent and I have always lived among (classmates, friends, and, yes, even …

After several delays, the largest and costliest Holocaust Museum anywhere is finally scheduled to open in Washington, DC, in April 1993. The "United States Holocaust Memorial Museum" will be formally dedicated on April 22, and will open to the public on April 26. Major political figures will att the formal …

At present, the phrase the Holocaust is almost universally used to refer to various aspects of the situation in which Jews found themselves under the National Socialist regime from 1933 to 1945, in Germany and occupied territories. In this usage, there are several features of linguistic, graphemic, and scmantic structures …

This is a revised and updated version of an article that first appeared in The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1989-90 (Volume 9, number 4), pages 439-452. For more than 40 years, Simon Wiesenthal has been tracking hundreds of “Nazi criminals” from his “Jewish Documentation Center” in Vienna. For his …

Media Madness will be the record of what I do to help create an open debate about the Jewish Holocaust story on university and college campuses, together with media reaction to this diabolical plan. In this context, media includes the print press on and off campus, electronic media on and …

Antony Charles is the pen name of an educator and writer who holds both a master’s and a doctoral degree in history. He has taught history and is the author of several books. A resident of North Carolina, he currently works for a government agency. Not only during his lifetime, …

Joseph Sobran is a nationally-syndicated columnist, author and lecturer. He is a former senior editor of National Review, and currently Washington, DC, correspondent for The Wanderer and the Rothbard-Rockwell Report. He edits a monthly newsletter, Sobran's (... [now defunct; ed]). "Holy War" first appeared in the May 18, 1995, issue …

Simon Wiesenthal is a living legend. In a formal White House ceremony in August 1980, a teary-eyed President Carter presented the world's foremost "Nazi hunter" with a special gold medal awarded by the U.S. Congress. President Reagan praised him in November 1988 as one of the "true heroes" of this …

Dear AnswerMan, Hi! I have seen your Q&A site. I have a question for you: Granted that many things of a regrettable nature happened during WW2; granted also that the 6 million figure is grossly inflated; granted also that the existence of homicidal gas chambers is NOT supported by physical …

The Political and Economic Situation of Germany The German nation is dying out. In 50 years our Volk will be a minority in our own country, if present demographic trends continue. A hundred years from now it will for all practical purposes have ceased to exist. For the most part, …

Beyond Innocence and Redemption: Confronting the Holocaust and Israeli Power, by Marc H. Ellis. New York: Harper & Row (Harper Collins), 1990. Softcover. 205 pages. Bibliography. Endnotes. Index. $13.00. ISBN: 0 06 062215 6. Many years before the recent, dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union, the Communist ideology on which …

How is it "hate" to suggest there is evidence that millions of people were not murdered?—Kurt Bechle, United States I am shocked that in what I always thought to be "liberal" and "open-minded" Europe, anyone could be convicted for voicing an opinion regarding history.—Dominique Amarante, United States The word Holocaust …

"Holocaust" is a Newspeak word whose exact definition exists, in the society of the spectacle, as a bundleof images. It is recognized on the visceral rather than the rational plane by its targeted audience. It does not exist in the public mind as a specific event, but as a command …

With the possible exceptions of Hitler and Himmler, no man has been so vilified in recent years as the personification of Nazi evil as Dr. Josef Mengele. The Mengele legend was the basis for two novels that Hollywood turned into popular movies: William Goldman's The Marathon Man and Ira Levin's …

Dear AnswerMan, How did the holocaust affect the way people look at Germany today? Abigail AnswerMan Replies: Germany is frequently viewed from a perspective that includes images (mental or otherwise) of the Nazis and the Holocaust. One way to demonstrate this is to consider motion pictures that have come out …

They all said it, didn’t they? Or all of those testifying under oath anyway, no? Or nobody said there weren’t any, did they? Certainly not under oath, eh? The weight of testimonial evidence in support of the existence and use of gas chambers in German wartime concentration camps seems to …

Summary Elie Wiesel passes for one of the most celebrated eyewitnesses to the alleged Holocaust. Yet in his supposedly autobiographical book Night, he makes no mention of gas chambers. He claims instead to have witnessed Jews being burned alive, a story now dismissed by all historians. Wiesel gives credence to …

On 1 May 1997 I read, in the Chicago Tribune, of a strange project in a junior high school in the small town of Mahomet, Illinois. A social studies teacher had given his students the task of collecting 6 million tabs from the tops of soda pop cans, in order …

A minor question that sometimes arises is the relative merits of the terms "Holocaust denial" and "Holocaust revisionism" to describe the views on the Jewish "extermination" claim that I and others have expressed. Generally, my side says "Holocaust revisionism" and our enemies say "Holocaust denial". I did not originate either …

8 juin 1996 Hier, avec Garaudy, c'était du gâteau. Avec l'abbé Pierre, c'était pain bénit. Et, avec Régine, ça fumait. Aujourd'hui, avec les nageuses olympiques, ça baigne. Avec la prof de chimie, ça gaze. Et, avec la zizanie des intellos du Monde , c'est la vie en rose. Et demain …

A recent issue of TV Guide (Feb 22, 1997) featured a review of the film, Schindler's List by well-known movie reviewer, Gene Siskel. Siskel's article, entitled, Schindler's List: Cut, but no Commercials is a fine example on a small scale, of how the mystification surrounding the Holocaust story breeds confusion …

Pope John Paul II is scheduled to visit Israel next week and give an address at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem (March 23). There is great tension over this encounter for the following reasons. During World War II the Vatican, with its far flung connections, especially in Poland, …

While mental health professionals and patients yearn to see mental illness destigmatized, it is contrary to society's interests to ignore or minimize the role of emotional disorders in bigotry, hate crimes, and genocide. Consider the perpetrators of the most terrible hate crimes in history. Those who knew or studied Adolf …

David Merlin writes a letter to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt regarding the  years of generous donations of the royalties earned from Adolf Hitler’s "Mein Kampf" and the considerations of a wider base of  beneficiaries from these donations.

A stupa is a Buddhist holy structure, many of which were erected in past centuries at the expense and for the greater glory of wealthy Buddhists seeking to secure for themselves a place that, in Western (non-Buddhist) parlance could be called "a place in Heaven..."