Curiously, though, these laws are not applied consistently across Europe. Experts in the field question their efficacy in countering hate speech and whether these laws improve or harm our awareness of the Holocaust. More troubling, a new trend has begun to emerge over the course of the past several years: While many of the original Holocaust denial laws sought to protect historical facts from being misused, more and more governments are rewriting these laws in order to protect national narratives about the Holocaust.
This is dangerous because, after all, facts are facts, while narratives can be subject to interpretation. In an ideal world, Holocaust education, remembrance, and research would be sufficient to ensure a future for healthy engagement with this critical subject. But, these laws exist, and it can be awfully difficult to put a genie back in its bottle. So, do these laws do more good than harm? Are they part of a larger effort to ensure broader understanding of and respect for the Holocaust, or are they are simply a bandage applied to maintain what is understood as civil discourse?
With time, the scope of criminalisation has been extended to cover not only the Shoah, but also other internationally recognised crimes. Such prohibition is, however, not without controversy as it may interfere with fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression and academic freedom. The Council of Europe has played a major role in addressing Holocaust denial, in particular through the case law of the European Court of Human Rights pertaining to the limits of freedom of expression.
The Court has consistently excluded negationism from the protection of the European Convention on Human Rights, pointing to the antisemitic nature of the prohibited statements and qualifying them as abuse of rights.
In the European Union EU , a Framework Decision on racism and xenophobia sought to align national legislation on historical denialism. Scholars, survivors, activists, and leaders around the world work to combat Holocaust denial, and some are included in the Voices on Antisemitism podcast series.
Voices on Antisemitism is designed to bring together a variety of distinguished leaders of different backgrounds to comment on why antisemitism and hatred matters today. Featured podcasts include Deborah Lipstadt , who won a notable court case against David Irving, a convicted Holocaust denier; Errol Morris , who made a documentary looking closely at Fred Leuchter, an engineer who became an expert witness to Holocaust deniers; and Brigitte Zypries , who explains why her government passed a law making Holocaust denial a criminal offense and why that law is important.
Holocaust denial and minimization or distortion of the facts of the Holocaust is a form of antisemitism. Holocaust deniers ignore the overwhelming evidence of the event and insist that the Holocaust is a myth invented by the Allies, the Soviet communists, and the Jews for their own ends.
Holocaust deniers assert that if they can discredit one fact about the Holocaust, the whole history of the event can be discredited as well. They ignore the evidence of the historical event and make arguments that they say negate the reality of the Holocaust in its entirety. Some Holocaust deniers argue that, since there is neither a single document that outlines the Holocaust nor a signed document from Hitler ordering the Holocaust, the Holocaust itself is a hoax.
Holocaust denial on the Internet is especially a problem because of the ease and speed with which such misinformation can be disseminated. In the United States, where the First Amendment to the Constitution ensures freedom of speech, it is not against the law to deny the Holocaust or to propagate Nazi and antisemitic hate speech.
European countries such as Germany and France have criminalized denial of the Holocaust and have banned Nazi and neo-Nazi publications. The Internet is now the chief source of Holocaust denial and the chief means of recruiting for Holocaust denial organizations.
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