Auschwitz: a myth?
- Thread starter Luis G
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Winky
Well-Known Member
SouthernN'Proud
Southern Discomfort
Gonz said:
The facts are the true part. The other 98% of a history textbook is open to discussion.
chcr
Too cute for words
SouthernN'Proud said:
Even the so called facts are. For instance: Fact: Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover the Americas. Still accepted as fact in many history books even though there is significant evidence that Vikings were here earlier. Another "fact" that gets ignored is the fact that he thought he was in India. Many things have been accepted as historical "fact" for generations only to be overturned. There are myriad examples of this.
chcr said:Even the so called facts are. For instance: Fact: Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover the Americas. Still accepted as fact in many history books even though there is significant evidence that Vikings were here earlier. Another "fact" that gets ignored is the fact that he thought he was in India. Many things have been accepted as historical "fact" for generations only to be overturned. There are myriad examples of this.
Is this "new" history? I clearly recall that while Columbus is credited as the discroverer of America, it was pointed out, repeatedly, that he thought he was in India & that the Leif was the first to set foot on these lands. He just didn't claim it & stay.
chcr
Too cute for words
Gonz said:
Not, however, when I learned it. Hence, the "history" books have been changed. To reflect the facts to be sure, but most people thought they were the "facts" before.
Your sweeping statement about "facts" earlier simply does not hold water. Facts as we currently understand them, perhaps...Of course, you must be correct and I must be mistaken...
Area or books used. We aren't that far apart in schooling. I can say that facts used in modern history books have gotten quite thin. Ours couldn't have been that different. So yes, as usual, I am correct.
chcr said:Not, however, when I learned it. Hence, the "history" books have been changed. To reflect the facts to be sure, but most people thought they were the "facts" before.
Of course, you must be correct and I must be mistaken...
chcr
Too cute for words
Interestingly, the popularization of "Viking Theory" the occurred in the late seventies, well after I had graduated high school (1974), even after I had left college (1977). I first heard about it in the early eighties, but I think it was fairly well known by then although I'm told it din't make the history books until the nineties.Gonz said:
Once again...
abooja
Well-Known Member
I tend to agree with chcr and Bish. History books are inherently flawed because humans are inherently flawed and will infuse them bias and opinion, sometimes unintentionally. I also think there's an element of playing telephone to the passing on of historical facts. By the time a couple of generations have passed, the story is never quite the same as what actually happened.
A history professor of mine once said that the best textbooks about American history were written by Englishmen (and others) because they lent an objectivity to the retelling of facts. Makes a lot of sense to me.
A history professor of mine once said that the best textbooks about American history were written by Englishmen (and others) because they lent an objectivity to the retelling of facts. Makes a lot of sense to me.
chcr
Too cute for words
abooja said:
Englishmen objective about American History? Mkay...
You kind of miss my point though, young lady. What I'm saying is that what are accepted as cold hard facts (ie Columbus discovering America; it was the first example I thought of) are simply the facts as we know them today. If it didn't happen within your direct perception, you are taking someone else's word for it.
gnosys
New Member
We shouldn't put too much faith in the established version of history. As someone noted above, history does tend to be written by (or to please) the winners. And no historian is completely without bias, conscious or otherwise. Even eyewitness testimony is necessarily suspect. People lie; they see things from different perspectives; their stories are colored by preconceived assumptions. And people forget. (One of the key witnesses to JFK's assassination recalled waving to Kennedy just as he was shot, then a moment after the shooting running across the street and almost getting hit by a motorcycle. She almost certainly THOUGHT she was telling the truth, but the Zapruder film shows her standing completely motionless throughout the entire thing.) When we look at the distant past, there's often very little evidence to go on. When we look at the recent past, there's TOO MUCH evidence -- no one will ever have time to sift through all the paperwork generated by the Clinton Administration.
Of course we can say with reasonable certainty that Columbus visited the New World, but he may have been preceded not only by the Vikings but by English fishermen in his own period. And did he REALLY believe he was sailing to the East Indies, or was he fully aware there was another landmass between Europe and Asia, and just using the Indies cover story because it was more saleable?
There is no serious doubt that the Holocaust happened, but there is (and probably always will be) uncertainty about the numbers and other details. I think it's incredibly counterproductive, however, to declare any questioning of the Holocaust forbidden. It almost suggests that there is something to hide, that the official version can't stand up to scrutiny. You can understand the impulse to enshrine the memory -- especially at the time, when the enormity and heinousness of the crime truly boggled the mind, inevitably producing the initial reaction, "It can't be!" Unfortunately, though, we now know all too well that it is possible to murder thousands and even millions of people on account of their ethnicity or religion, and in a surprisingly short period of time. The Holocaust has become all too conceivable an event.
I do understand the importance of keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive. But historians should approach it with the same critical, questioning instinct they apply to the rest of the past. It should not be a sensitive topic, glossed over on the tour, that the gas chamber at Auschwitz is largely a restoration. Indeed, because this is apparently rarely mentioned, deniers trumpet it as evidence that the entire Holocaust is a fabrication.
Of course we can say with reasonable certainty that Columbus visited the New World, but he may have been preceded not only by the Vikings but by English fishermen in his own period. And did he REALLY believe he was sailing to the East Indies, or was he fully aware there was another landmass between Europe and Asia, and just using the Indies cover story because it was more saleable?
There is no serious doubt that the Holocaust happened, but there is (and probably always will be) uncertainty about the numbers and other details. I think it's incredibly counterproductive, however, to declare any questioning of the Holocaust forbidden. It almost suggests that there is something to hide, that the official version can't stand up to scrutiny. You can understand the impulse to enshrine the memory -- especially at the time, when the enormity and heinousness of the crime truly boggled the mind, inevitably producing the initial reaction, "It can't be!" Unfortunately, though, we now know all too well that it is possible to murder thousands and even millions of people on account of their ethnicity or religion, and in a surprisingly short period of time. The Holocaust has become all too conceivable an event.
I do understand the importance of keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive. But historians should approach it with the same critical, questioning instinct they apply to the rest of the past. It should not be a sensitive topic, glossed over on the tour, that the gas chamber at Auschwitz is largely a restoration. Indeed, because this is apparently rarely mentioned, deniers trumpet it as evidence that the entire Holocaust is a fabrication.