Germany To Iran: Stop Lying About Holocaust, It's Fact

By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem --- February 21, 2009...... It's my country, my history and my nation's past collective crime. These were the brave words behind former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder statement in Iran today when he declared that the "Holocaust is a historical fact".

Schroeder was in Iran speaking to the Iran Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Teheran. Schroeder added that it did not make sense to deny "this unparalleled crime for which Adolf Hitler is responsible."

The former Germany leader met with Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today against a wide protest by German Jewish leaders. Schroeder was on an unofficial tour of Iran to inaugurate a neuroscience center co-founded by a Germany - based Iran specialist.

German politicians and Jewish community leaders spoke out against Schroeder for his meeting with Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Schroeder, who is a senior manager at the Russia energy giant Gazprom, arrived in Tehran on Thursday.

By meeting with Ahmadinejad, "Schroeder has harmed the image of the German government and of the whole of Germany," said Stephan Kramer, secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

But many see Schroeder's visit as an effective protest against Iran's campaign to turn the Holocaust into a myth. His visit was also seen as a bridging attempt between the new US administration and Iran's Islamic leadership. The former chancellor called for opening direct talks between Iran and the US.

 

In 2005, "Ahmadinejad stated: "They (the Jews) have created a myth (Holocaust) today that they call the massacre of Jews and they consider it a principle above God, religions and the prophets."

On live TV, he called for Europe or North America - even Alaska - to host a Jewish state, not the Middle East.

Israel swiftly denounced the president's comments.

"We hope these extremist comments will make the international community open its eyes and abandon any illusions about this regime," former Israel foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev told AFP news agency.

Ahmadinejad's declaration echoed comments he made one week earlier, in which he said territory should be "provided" in Germany or Austria to establish Israel "if European countries claim that they have killed Jews in World War II".

Ahmadinejad who in the same breath denied that the Holocaust ever took place declared that Israel should be "wiped off the map".

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was asked by MSNBC anchor Brian Williams why he described the Holocaust as a myth. Ahmadinejad responded that he was an academic and had great knowledge. Ahmadinejad questioned Williams as to why people only talk about the 6 million Jews when over 50 million died in the second world war. Williams responded without hesitation."Because of the difference that human kind differentiates between warfare and genocide."

Ahmadinejad had no response to this answer as then spinned into "if" the Holocaust did occur then why did the Palestinian people have to suffer. Ahmadinejad made no mention of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Ahmadinejad made no mention that as modern Israel was created in 1948, the Palestinians were offered a nation of their own but refused it to join the invading Arab armies to destroy the new born Jewish state with the promises of being given more land.

The Iran government has sponsored many Holocaust denying conferences and even a Holocaust cartoon contest whose aim was to discredit the Holocaust.

Denial of the Holocaust has become a serious crime in several Western nations including Germany, England and the US. The Pope recently told Jewish leaders from the US that it is unacceptable to deny or minimize the Holocaust.

Essential elements in discrediting the Holocaust are the rejection of that the Nazi government had a policy of deliberately targeting Jews and people of Jewish ancestry for extermination as a people; that between five and seven million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis and their allies; and that genocide was carried out at extermination camps using tools of mass murder, such as gas chambers.

Holocaust deniers do not accept the term "denial" as an appropriate description of their point of view, and use the term Holocaust revisionism instead.

Holocaust denial claims imply, or openly state, that the Holocaust is a hoax arising out of a deliberate Jewish conspiracy to advance the interest of Jews at the expense of other peoples.

The Holocaust (also called Shoah in Hebrew) refers to the period from January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, to May 8, 1945 (V­E Day), when the war in Europe ended. During this time, Jews in Europe were subjected to progressively harsh persecution that ultimately led to the murder of 6,000,000 Jews (1.5 million of these being children) and the destruction of 5,000 Jewish communities. These deaths represented two-thirds of European Jewry and one-third of world Jewry. The Jews who died were not casualties of the fighting that ravaged Europe during World War II. Rather, they were the victims of Germany's deliberate and systematic attempt to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe, a plan Hitler called the “Final Solution” (Endlosung).

For more information about the Holocaust, please enter the Yad Veshem Holocaust Memorial Web site.

 

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