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Holocaust trivialization

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Auschwitz concentration camps would always stand as a testament that antisemitism caused the worst genocide in human history.
A Holocaust memorial outside Auschwitz concentration camp I.

Holocaust trivialization is the use of the word Holocaust in a way that decreases the perceived size or importance of the Holocaust: the genocide of at least 6,000,000 European Jews during World War II. More specifically, Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), observed Holocaust trivialization as

[A] tool for some ideologically [...] motivated activists to metaphorically compare phenomena they oppose to the industrial-scale destruction of the Jews [. ...] exaggerate the evil nature of a phenomenon they condemn.[1]

The word originally referred to the religious sacrifice that saw animals being burned to ashes, but gained a new meaning of "large-scale destruction of a group of men" at some point during the late 19th century. For instance, the Armenian Genocide was described by some as a holocaust when it happened.[2]

Such usage is considered offensive by mainstream academics,[3] Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said that the word had become too trivialized. He cited the examples of news networks using the word to refer to a defeat of a team in a race or a small-scale murder case.[4]

Holocaust inversion

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Antisemitic poster spotted at an allegedly anti-war rally in San Francisco on February 16, 2003, which incorporated both the motifs of "happy merchant Jews" and "Zio-Nazis". The slur ZIONIST PIGS[5]was also used.
Antisemitic graffiti in Madrid, 2003, equating the Star of David with the dollar and Nazi swastika.

Today, the most common form of Holocaust trivialization is the Holocaust inversion, featuring the ahistorical comparison of Jews or Israel to Nazis or Nazi Germany.[6][7] It is antisemitic under the definition of antisemitism[8] of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).[9][8]

Holocaust inversion is increasingly considered as antisemitic due to its undertones of erasing Jewish people's historical victimhood and implying that Jews are somehow guilty for their own genocide in the same manner as the Holocaust's perpetrators – a rhetoric employed by some bad actors as a vehicle for their antisemitism.[10][11] The World Jewish Congress (WJC) notes that Holocaust inversion can take the form of[12]

French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy believed that the prevalence of Holocaust inversion had encouraged violence against Jews:[14]

[A] mass movement demanding the deaths of Jews will be unlikely to yell "Money Jews" or "They Killed Christ." [. ...] for people to feel once again [...] the right to burn all the synagogues they want, to attack boys wearing yarmulkes [...] an entirely new discourse way of justifying it must emerge.

Author Yossi Klein Halevi believed that the comparison demonized Jews:[15]

The deepest source of anti-Israel animus[16] is the symbolization of the Jew as embodiment of evil. The satanic Jew has been replaced by the satanic Jewish state. [...] The end of the post-Holocaust era is expressed most starkly in the inversion of the Holocaust. [...]

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References

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  1. ↑ Gerstenfeld, Manfred (April 9, 2008). "Holocaust Trivialization". Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA). Retrieved October 31, 2024.
  2. ↑ Suny, Ronald Grigor (2015). "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide. Princeton University Press. pp. xxi, 347, 369. ISBN 978-1-4008-6558-1.
  3. ↑ "Antisemitism and Hate in Canada". League for Human Rights of Canada. March 2000. Archived 27 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  4. ↑ Cohen, Asher; Gelber, Joav; Wardi, Charlotte, eds. (1988). Comprehending the Holocaust: Historical and Literary Research. Bern: Peter Lang. p. 13. ISBN 978-3-63-140428-7. Retrieved 2 December 2020 – via Google Books.
  5. ↑ A modified variant of the medieval European antisemitic slur Jewish pigs, later popularized by Martin Luther in the 16th century.
  6. ↑ Major "Anti-Semitic Motifs in Arab Cartoons" Archived 17 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine. An Interview with Joël Kotek. Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism. No. 21. 1 June 2004
  7. ↑ Gerstenfeld, Manfred (1 November 2005). "The Twenty-first-century Total War Against Israel and the Jews". Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism (38). Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Working Definition Of Antisemitism". World Jewish Congress. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
    IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism:
  9. ↑ An intergovernmental organization on the history of antisemitism and the Holocaust.
  10. ↑ "Holocaust Inversion and contemporary antisemitism". Fathom Journal.
  11. ↑
  12. ↑ "Antisemitism defined: Why drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to the Nazis is antisemitic". World Jewish Congress.
  13. ↑ A headdress worn by Arab men, consisting of a square of fabric fastened by a band round the crown of the head. Oxford Languages.
  14. ↑
  15. ↑ Yossi Klein Halevi (October 10, 2024). "The End of the Post-Holocaust Era". Jewish Journal. Retrieved October 14, 2024.
  16. ↑ Hostility or ill feeling. Oxford Languages.
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