Monday, August 18, 2008

Graf's Deceit

In Holocaust or Hoax?, Jürgen Graf writes a passage that he knows to be a deception. In his commentary on Himmler's first Posen speech, Graf attempts to deceive the reader into believing that "the meaning of the word "Ausrottung" has changed" since the war.

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Graf writes as follows:
in the first speech, Himmler identifies the "evacuation" of the Jews with their "extermination", mixing up two concepts which are totally distinct today. The identification of evacuation and extermination loses their contradictory meaning when one considers that the meaning of the word "Ausrottung" has changed. In today's speech, "Ausrottung" doubtlessly means "liquidation, physical extermination". This was not necessarily so earlier; the etymological derivation of "ausrotten" is "to uproot".
This is downright deceitful because, in the earlier version of 'Holocaust or Hoax?', which at that time (1993) was entitled The Holocaust Under the Scanner, Graf cited this text, published in 1944, which includes descriptions of exterminations at Belzec and Majdanek:
Abraham Silberschein (Die Judenausrottung in Polen, Genève, août1944)
Graf therefore knows that a text exists, published in 1944, in which 'ausrottung' could only have referred to killings in extermination camps, yet Graf attempts to con his readers into assuming that the 'physical extermination/liquidation' meaning of 'ausrotting' did not come into usage until a later date. In addition, of course, like his partner in deception, Carlos Porter, Graf simply ignores those portions of the Posen speeches which prove that Himmler could only be referring to mass killing.

2 comments:

  1. I have just come across this blog and want to express appreciation to all the contributors. When my students come across Holocaust denial sites they seldom have enough understanding or background to see through the "evidence" that is being offered. Your blog is one that I will share with them.

    Keep up the good work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you very much, Rob

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