So I spent my time in /pol/ and came out doubting a lot of details about the holocaust. I still doubt them to some degree, but I've also grown to trust pol much less and I've acknowledged that a lot of what got me to doubt the holocaust was good memes that aren't necessarily based on anything true.
I would like to come to a more reality based view of the holocaust, whichever position that ends up being. What books can I read that deal with this from a critical view on both sides? Are there any books which are in response to each other dealing with each others assertions? I don't want to just read up on one side of the issue and act like I've tried to research the problem, but I also feel like if it's just me deciding which books best represent both sides then I'm kind of deciding which view I want to take by choosing the books that are most likely to affirm that view.
Any help is appreciated
Looking For Books On The Holocaust
You can find actual testimony from the Nuremberg trials if you're looking for a direct source. There's tons of ficti
>What books can I read that deal with this from a critical view on both sides?
The holocaust is a historical fact, there is no "debate" about whether it happened or not.
What exactly do you mean by the holocaust though? For instance is a necessary part of the holocaust the death of at least six million jews? Are certain camps being death camps a necessary part of the holocaust? I'm not super convinced of all the anti-holocaust memes, but I'm looking for more than facebook level commentary
((( books )))
The standard book is Raul Hilberg's Destruction of the European Jews. You could also read Vidal-Naquet's books on Holocaust denial. You should definitely read Norman Finkelstein's book, The Holocaust Industry, which was endorsed by Hilberg but is very very controversial.
Vidal-Naquet vs. Finkelstein will give you an alright overview of what the stakes are on either side. Holocaust deniers are mostly neo-Nazis with an ulterior motive and sloppy methods, and on the other side, a lot of shitty people exploit the memory of the Holocaust for gain and to manipulate politics. There is not much fruitful dialogue between deniers and the mainstream. People like Lipstadt advocate shutting down all denial as pure evil, as do most Euro governments. Check out the Faurisson controversy and the David Irving trial for example.
What it would take for that documentary to be correct in its accusations against Hilberg, a guy who spent his entire life researching the Holocaust, and being no great friend of the vast majority of Jews for his views on it, is hard to even imagine. The guy hated Arendt (she plagiarized him!), endorsed Finkelstein, was banned from Israel and censured by the Jewish community, and he isolated himself from most Jews as well. Hilberg would either have to be a weirdly stable combination of totally deranged and a complete genius, or he'd have to be a gigantic conspiracy theory thing.
But I saw some of that "One Third of the Holocaust" video on Youtube once on /pol/, and for a split second I was interested in how it claimed that Raul Hilberg seemingly using an unreliable source, the kind of obviously fake "survivor" account that Finkelstein often shits on. So you might watch that after reading Hilberg, and see whether its arguments hold up.
There are also some rare deniers who try to be more rigorous about it than others, I think one of them is an Italian guy. But the really tedious thing about Holocaust denial is that even if they are right, it would have to be at such a deep and fundamental level in the analysis that it'd still be easy to obscure in layers and layers of secondary smokescreening. That's why the 'could x ovens really burn y jews in z hours?' shit is annoying, because in theory there could be some kernel of truth in it somewhere, something that could force a readjustment of Hilberg's numbers and a radical reassessment of ALL mainstream scholarship's assumptions on the Nazi genocide machine, but it'd be impossible to prove conclusively. You'd have to go deep down into the bedrock of Holocaust history, find one axiom like the ovens thing or the 'those doors couldn't hold so many burning Jews!!' thing, and try to build your own house of cards up on that. And for what? To be known as yet another Holocaust denying guy.
Sorry I moved some stuff around in this post. When I talk about the documentary I'm always talking about the same one, from the fourth paragraph.
A holocaust is a sacred offering. One proof that the Jews a racist and think they are superior is the fact that it is named the holocaust.
These Jews believe they are the most sacred that in fact their genocide was a sacred offering to God.
Meanwhile this same thing could happen to another race and it would be themed genocide.
There is so much evidence that contradicts what is written about the Holocaust, and so many laws erected to keep it that way.
Every time Israel needs something and the UN doesn't approve, they begin spouting their Holocaust crying and '''muh 6 million'''.
so many laws erected to prevent investigation and censor Holocaust deniers***
Ernst Junger described German losses in the Great War as "hecatombs." Comparing massive losses of life to sacrificial firestorms was nothing new, and certainly not unique to Jews.