Letter to a Holocaust Denier, by Margaret Anna Alice

“‘Oh, things seeped through somehow, always quietly, always indirectly. So people heard rumors, and the rest they could guess. Of course, most people did not believe the stories of Jews or other opponents of the regime. It was naturally thought that such persons would all exaggerate.’

“Rumors, guesses enough to make a man know if he wanted badly to know, or at least to believe, and always involving persons who would be suspected, ‘naturally,’ of exaggerating. Goebbels’ immediate subordinate in charge of radio in the Propaganda Ministry testified at Nuremberg that he had heard of the gassing of Jews, and went to Goebbels with the report. Goebbels said it was false, ‘enemy propaganda,’ and that was the end of it.”

—Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45 (paperback, Kindle, audiobook)

You ignore eyewitness testimonies from victims and perpetrators alike.

You dismiss the deaths of countless victims, attributing it to other causes.

You doubt the survivors’ stories about their experiences and losses.

You think the monumental amount of bureaucratic, photographic, and film documentary evidence is faked or misinterpreted.

You believe the propagandists when they tell you the rumors are enemy propaganda.

You cherry-pick secondary sources that corroborate your convictions.

You cling to your faith in an insupportable position with the fervency of a Scientologist.

You use every opportunity to evangelize.

You attack anyone who presents evidence to the contrary.

You feel those who believe the accounts of witnesses and survivors need to be “educated” about the “truth.”

You valorize the genocidists and expectorate upon their targets.

You sanction the disciplining, ostracization, and even incarceration of the designated enemies.

You devise labyrinthine explanations to discredit the incontrovertible proof of mass murder.

You refuse to believe that degree of evil could be orchestrated on such an immense scale when it requires the participation and willing silence of so many colluders.

You mock the suffering of people who lost loved ones or endured permanent afflictions.

You build a wall to repel threatening facts and lock yourself inside a circle of fellow deniers who reinforce your beliefs.