An increasing amount of people, called Revisionists, are now saying that the horrific events of the Holocaust never happened. They think that six million people didn’t really die and that the Jews are simply exaggerating the numbers. The Revisionists are saying that the Jews were just trying to get pity from other countries so that they could get their own country, Israel. They also claim that the extermination camps and the gas chambers weren’t used primarily on the Jews, but were used for homosexuals, gypsies and to dispose of corpses. Eisenhower, who was one of the first people to see the death camps, predicted that something like this would happen. Upon seeing the death camps he said, “Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened” (Newsweek). The records we have from Eisenhower are only a small part of the existing physical evidence that the Holocaust really happened; there are also countless eyewitnesses and undeniable statistics.

The statistics proving that the Holocaust really happened are staggering. Before WW2 there were approximately 9.5 million Jews in Europe. After WW2 the numbers show the terrible loss of life. 3.8 million Jews were left after the Holocaust (“Decline of Europe’s Jewish Population”). Documented evidence by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shows the amount of deaths in the various death camps and shootings.

No family was unaffected by the terrible events that happened during the Holocaust. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles were ripped from each other, more often than not never seeing each other again. More men survived than women. The reason- men could work harder than woman and could withstand harsher conditions. The Nazis didn’t give women much chance for survival either. When the Jews arrived at the death camps and were sorted, often the young children and women were sent to be immediately executed. It was the children, however, that were hit the hardest. Only 6-11% of the children survived the Holocaust while up to 33% of adults survived. To put in terms our minds can grasp, this means that out of twenty kids only one would survive, and out of twenty adults, seven would survive. These astounding statistics from reliable sources refute the opinion of the Revisionist that only thousands died.

Irrefutable physical evidence, documents from prominent Nazi leaders, and painful photographic evidence, show the pitiless tactics of the Nazis to eradicate the Jews. One example is the documents we have of how the Nazis developed their grisly system of mass murder. At first the Nazis dug mass graves and had men, women, and children kneel down in front of them. Then the Nazis would shoot them. After that they would either

set fire to the bodies or quickly dump dirt over the bodies. The Nazis preferred the shoot and set fire method to simply piling dirt on top of the corpses because then they could keep the fire burning and force unfortunate Jews to be burned alive. Eventually the Nazis moved on from this method due to the concern voiced by one of their top leaders. In his diary Himmler recorded a conversation with S.S. General Bach-Zelewski in which the general voiced his concern about the metal state of the soldiers after they killed thousands of Jews a day (“Killing Evaluation”). In addition as the Nazis began to lose the war, they needed the bullets for battle and not for the Jews. There are documents from German leadership of that time saying that there was a need to find a quicker, cheaper way to kill the Jews. The Nazis found a method of using Carbon Monoxide in which whole factories could be turned into something that could kill in massive proportions. Soon nearly every single death camp had a “shower block” in which the Nazis would murder millions of Jews with Carbon Monoxide. The Nazis were soon able to make vans in which they could kill Jews on the go. These vans were often refereed to by locals and Jews as “Hell Vans”. Official documents, photographs, and artifacts are strong evidence that the atrocities are not exaggerated.

There are dwindling amounts of eyewitnesses, but still the Holocaust is the most documented historical event in history. Autobiographies like Night by Elie Wiesel, The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, and of course Anne Frank all record personal experiences of the atrocities that happened during the Holocaust. Movies like The Boy in Stripped Pajamas and Schindler’s List are well researched and are based on real people and events. There are a few people who are still alive that survived the Holocaust. Szmul Icek, and Dov Landau are just a few of the currently living Holocaust survivors. However these Holocaust survivors are all very old and, all to soon, there will no longer be any more people that can recount first hand the horrors of the Holocaust. For this reason The Holocaust Museum in Israel has made a real effort to record countless testimonies. Soon a Revisionist may be able to say, “Where are the people that have supposedly gone through these things?” And there will be no answer but the innumerable accounts that they have left behind will speak for them.

When the Nazis realized that they were going to lose, they began to systematically destroy evidence. Paper and humans. They began to blow up various death camps and crematoriums. However much grisly evidence still lingered. Thousands of bodies spilled out of the rubble (PBS “Killing Evolution”). For many, the evidence proving the Holocaust seems irrefutable, but sadly in England, Muslims are taking the Holocaust out of the history books, claiming that the evidence for the Holocaust is faulty. A whole new generation will think that the Holocaust never happened. Whoever controls the past controls the future. Revisionists are attempting to wipe out a section of history that is terrible to be sure, but you can’t simply reshape history, even if that history shames you.

Revisionists who deny the Holocaust are being antisemitic, which means they are being anti-Jewish. They are trying to cover up the way the Nazis slaughtered the Jews like animals even though there are still living people who went through the traumatic horrors of the Holocaust. Their testimonies along with physical evidence are a monument to this historic event. There are also clear statistics, like population of Jews in Europe dropping from 9.5 million to 3.8 million. The Jews were nearly 10% of all WW2 victims. The approximately 6 million Jews that died at the hands of the merciless Nazis are crying out for justice. As a Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, said, “For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time” (Newsweek). Do not deny them.

Worked Cited

“United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.” 4 February 2019, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/

content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution/. 14 December 2019.

Lipka, Michael. “Pew Research Station.” 9 February 2015, https://www.pewresearch.org/

fact-tank/2015/02/09/europes-jewish-population/.

“The Killing Evolution.” 2004-2005, https://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/killing/. 14 December 2019. Glowatz, Elana. “Newsweek.” 5 Febraury 2020, https://www.newsweek.com/holocaust- remembrance- day-quotes-tributes-nazi-victims-879579. 6 February 2020.