Professional Historians Denounce Holocaust Denial
Joe Bruno
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION ISSUES STATEMENT DEPLORING EFFORTS TO DENY
HOLOCAUST
by Ellen K. Coughlin
Chicago
The governing council of the American Historical Association,
meeting at the group's annual conference here last week, unanimously
approved a statement condemning recent claims that the Nazi
extermination
of Jews in WWII is a myth.
"The AHA council strongly deplores the publicly reported
attempts to deny the Holocaust," the statement said. "No serious
historican questions that the Holocaust took place."
Over the past year, efforts by neo-Nazis and others to deny
the Holocaust--through such means as advertisements placed in student
newspapers--alarmed scholars. Last fall, however, the 13-member AHA
council declined to issue a statement explicitly asserting the truth
of the Holocaust, largely because of the strong feeling of some of
the
that the association should not be in the business of certifying
historical facts. Instead, the council called on historians to
"encourage the study of the significance of the Holocaust."
Some 300 Signatures Collected
The councils latest action, taken on the closing day of the
association's annual meeting, came in response to a groundswell of
support among historians at the conference for a more forceful
statement against the so-called "Holocaust revisionists."
Approximately
300 signatures were collected on a petition, circulated informally
at the conference, calling on the AHA council to take a public
position against attempts to deny the fact of the Holocaust.
"If we'd had the time and the personnel, I think we could
have gotten 3,000 signatures." said John W. Chambers, associate
professor of history at Rutgers University, who spearheaded the
petition effort.
Mr. Chambers said many who signed the petition were alarmed
at the presence of people at the presence of people at the enterance
of the convention hotel handing out pamphlets purporting to refute
historical claims about the Nazi concentration camps. Others at
the meeting expressed dismay at the AHA's council's earlier failure
to take a stronger stand against the revisionist position.
B.H. Cramer
"Joe Bruno" <jbr...@indystart.net> wrote in message
news:NmWHk.222$eB2...@newsfe19.iad...
> _Chronicle of Higher Education_, January 8, 1998. P A6
>
>
> HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION ISSUES STATEMENT DEPLORING EFFORTS TO DENY
> HOLOCAUST
> by Ellen K. Coughlin
> Chicago
>
>
> The governing council of the American Historical Association,
> meeting at the group's annual conference here last week, unanimously
> approved a statement condemning recent claims that the Nazi
> extermination
> of Jews in WWII is a myth.
> "The AHA council strongly deplores the publicly reported
> attempts to deny the Holocaust," the statement said. "No serious
> historican questions that the Holocaust took place."
> Over the past year, efforts by neo-Nazis and others to deny
> the Holocaust--through such means as advertisements placed in student
> newspapers--alarmed scholars. Last fall, however, the 13-member AHA
> council declined to issue a statement explicitly asserting the truth
> of the Holocaust, largely because of the strong feeling of some of
> the
> that the association should not be in the business of certifying
> historical facts. Instead, the council called on historians to
> "encourage the study of the significance of the Holocaust."
>
>
> Some 300 Signatures Collected
Yep. And 298 of the signatories were yids.
Why don't you tell all the story, b'luto?