Of course the Holocaust happened. There may be a small amount of dispute as to the actual number of people killed, but 6 million seems a reasonable approximation. The only problem I have with the Holocaust is that people think it was unique, and must never be repeated. We must remember that Stalin killed far more people that Hitler, although Hitler had far less time to kill than Stalin had. Mao, of course exceeded both these monsters, killing something over 50 million, according to some estimates. In more recent times we had Pol Pot, who knocked off millions in Cambodia, and the genocide in Rwanda added a fair few to the overall toll. Whether you were labelled a class enemy under Mao or a race enemy under Adolf didn't make much difference, you were still dead. I don't think eugenics was really relevant, it was just a label in the same way that religious labels are given to wars and exterminations, both now and in the past.

So what conclusions can we draw from all this? I think the first is that we live in a brutal violent Hobbesean world, and that human morality has not advanced one iota from the heyday of Auchwitz.

The second is that over-population is a key trigger to these events, and the failure to do anything about it ensures that these events will be repeated.

We are living through a century that will see billions die in conflicts, as modern technology enables extremists of all shades to exceed the horrors of the past.

Jay of Melbourne, it did happen, I was around in that era, newsreels reported regularly of the extermination camps and the killing going on there, it is fact not fiction.
Most wars are caused by Governments and back to WW1 by Royalty connections of all persuasions and cruelty or killing being ignored by them, but actually happens, if we take an example of dictatorship, Abbott confers a title with no consultation, except for two war military men, imagine what horrors could eventuate with a dictatorship attitude regarding war, Hitler, Tojo, Bush and others create killing fields but rarely ever get in the front line to be shot, exterminate or kill ordinary citizens,that being their motto.

Jay's comment refers to various fields of investigative research that challenge the official narrative of the Holocaust. This research - or at least what I've read of it - does not deny the Holocaust ever happened.

The research falls largely into two areas - 1. analysing the validity of the official 6 million figure and 2. challenging what is perceived to be the exploitation of Holocaust remembrance for political purposes.

More and more countries are coming under pressure to join the 14 countries that have made Holocaust 'denial' a criminal offence (including 'Je suis Charlie' France), and to extend the crime of Holocaust 'denial' to the Rwandan genocide and the Srebrenica massacre. (However, it's fine to deny the WWI Armenian genocide, or refuse to recognise the bureaucratic exterminations of indigenous peoples as genocide or ignore the extensive use of concentration camps by the US and European powers in their own history.)

To me, this selective criminalisation of an activity that would be deemed free speech or simple research in any other context is one of the most worrying political trends of recent years. Ironically, it's flirting dangerously with the very totalitarian thinking that gave rise to the Holocaust in the first place.

If remembrance for the victims of Auschwitz is the issue here, then throwing people in prison for questioning the Auschwitz narrative is not the way to go.

Thanks Killarney,
Nobody denies that the Nazis had racial policies, that people were sent to camps, that people died or that people were murdered.
The very fact that the evidence purporting to support the idea of a Holocaust is held as incontrovertible or held to be beyond interpretation should be a red flag to any intelligent person, if something cannot be challenged it's usually dogma, not fact.

Beyond that the thing which inflames the senses of an intelligent person with an inquiring mind is the evidence itself, or at least the information which has been presented as evidence. To read the mainstream Holocaust narrative is to have your intelligence insulted over and over again because very little of it makes any sense, yet reading the actual available, verifiable first source material a picture of the war and life in the camps emerges which doesn't strain credulity, defy the laws of physics or reduce the reader to gales of laughter at it's childishness and blatant bias.
I can accept the information which leads me to conclude that upwards of 270,000 people died in German custody during the war, that many of them were Jews and that as many as 170,000 more people may have been murdered in the field.
So how is acceptance of a plausible figure backed by at least some evidence which fits with the world as we know it disrespectful while acceptance of figures of six million (or 12, or 20 or even 25) based on hearsay and the testimony of proven liars and victims of brutal torture somehow socially acceptable?
Like most people who grew up in politically Left leaning families I was raised to distrust and disparage liars and value sincerity, diligence and competence, it's just that I chose to maintain those principles into adulthood rather than become an uncritical and accepting, "go along to get along" type of person

Jay (and Killarney), with respect your posts are begging the question.

Does it matter what the "facts" are in the context of our shared reality?

For example, would you bother to worry about the claim that the Babylonians use of base 60 underlies our own model for time-keeping and was critical to geometry until Cotes defined the radian, which is a much more useful concept, being based on intrinsic rather than extrinsic properties (ratios)? After all, apart from the coincidence of the Babylonians preference for sexagesimal numbers, there's nothing to link their world to ours...

So what is my point? It's not that hard, really: consider what the consequence of your choice might be in the context of the currently-obtaining social condition. Adherence to 1970s feminism is no more likely to be a worthwhile contribution to an early 21st century discussion than mid-20th century fascist racism, regardless of what adherents to either ideology might prefer.

Adapt, people; think like a bacterium.

Jay of Melbourne is an antisemite born and bred.

Anyone who can deny that some 12 million people were slaughtered by the Nazi killing machine has major issue that need to be dealt with.