Holocaust – Page 2

I am a politics junkie – I will watch party conferences and conventions, and enjoy the experiences! And I still remember a Fianna Fáil Árd Fhéis (national party conference) in which Charlie Haughey began a key section of his leader’s speech by asserting: “The truth, as we in Fianna Fáil see it, is …”. I don’t remember what he said after that, because I was so flabbergasted at the audacity of making truth contingent upon a political point of view. Of course, this was only a small thing compared to the flabbergasting audacity of other aspects of Haughey’s career, but the attitude of subordinating truth to political power is not unique to him or to Fianna Fáil. A particularly egregious example is provided by reports this morning that the author of a book on anti-Semitism in Poland may face court action. According to Derek Scally in the Irish Times (sub req’d):

The public prosecutor in Krakow has launched a preliminary investigation into a US historian who says post-war Poland continued where the Nazis left off in persecuting Jews. Jan Tomasz Gross [home page at Princeton | wikipedia] could, under a law passed by the Kaczynski government, face a prison sentence if found guilty of “accusing the Polish nation of participating in communist or Nazi crimes”.

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Give speech a chance

26 November, 20077 August, 2009

| 8 Comments

| Blasphemy, Censorship, Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications

Three free speech stories in the BBC News and Guardian websites caught my eye this morning. Indeed, the first two were almost side by side on both sites. In the first, there is widespread dismay at the arrest of a British school teacher in the Sudan accused of insulting Islam’s Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad (BBC | Guardian). In the second, protests are expected later outside the Oxford Union (see also wikipedia) when Nick Griffin (see also wikipedia), Chairman of the British National Party, and David Irving (see also BBC | Holocaust History | Kizkor | wikipedia), Holocaust denier, arrive for a forum on The Limits of Free Speech (BBC | Guardian).

There is an inconsistency here; and the incongruous but serendipitous placement of these two stories side by side demonstrates it: we cannot be outraged both at the arrest of the teacher and at the speech of Nick Griffin and David Irving. Society cannot have it both ways, it is not free to pick and choose which speech to support. Those in favour of speech must afford it both to the teacher and to Griffin and Irving.…

The Holocaust Memorial Lecture, 2007

18 October, 200727 January, 2009

| 1 Comment

| Conferences, Lectures, Papers and Workshops

My colleagues in the Department of History, Trinity College Dublin, the Herzog Centre for Jewish and Near Eastern Religion, Trinity College Dublin, and the Holocaust Educational Trust of Ireland (HETI) will host their annual Holocaust Memorial Lecture for 2007 on Thursday, 25 October 2007 at 7:30pm in the Emmet Theatre (Room 2037) of the Arts Building (map here), Trinity College Dublin; and all are welcome to attend.

The speaker will be Professor Jeffrey Herf, University of Maryland (pictured left), and he will speak on the topic of

The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda in Germany and the Middle East during World War Two and the Holocaust

Jeffrey Herf is Professor of History at the University of Maryland and currently a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He has published extensively on the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and on West and East Germany during the Cold War; and his most recent book, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust (Harvard University Press, 2006) (cover pictured left) examines the Nazi regime’s anti-semitism and its public defense of a policy of “exterminating” Europe’s Jews.

Further details are available from Prof John Horne, Department of History, TCD; Dr Zuleika Rodgers, Herzog Centre, TCD; and Lynn Jackson, (HETI).…

Xenophobic European Bloggers Beware

28 April, 200727 January, 2009

| 4 Comments

| Blogging, Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications

Kevin Jon Heller cuts right to the heart of what will happen now that the EU Criminalizes Racist and Xenophobic Speech:

The real problem with the Framework’s approach to racist and xenophobic speech is the profoundly chilling effect it will almost certainly have on such speakers. What rational artist or filmmaker will risk pushing the ideological envelope if she knows that the criminality of her speech depends not on her intent but on the (unpredictable) reactions of others to it?

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Holocaust Denial in the EU

20 April, 200727 January, 2009

| 7 Comments

| Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust will be holding its second annual conference on Monday 30th April at the Town Hall in Leeds, England (conference details pdf here). No doubt there will be much discussion of the merits of legislation against holocaust denial. The German proposal in January to have the EU make holocuast denial a criminal offence as a matter of EU law (blogged here by me, and with great insight by Section 14 and Liberal England) was debated in the Parliament in March, and was adopted by the Council of Ministers yesterday …

Don’t say it ain’t so

13 January, 200727 January, 2009

| 4 Comments

| Freedom of Expression

The Irish Times today carries a report by Jamie Smyth that Germany has proposed an EU ban on holocaust denial and – perhaps – the dissemination of xenophobic statements that could incite violence or hatred. Germany, in common with several other EU states, including France, Belgium and Austria (as David Irving found out), has holocaust denial legislation on its statute books, and legislation against incitement to racial hatred is to be found in countries like Ireland and the UK.

We have been here before (Smyth says that an earlier attempt by Germany in 2004 to get this type of law passed by the Council of Ministers foundered), and this initiative may similarly come to naught. It should. …

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Tag: Holocaust

Legislating Truth

Give speech a chance

The Holocaust Memorial Lecture, 2007

Xenophobic European Bloggers Beware

Holocaust Denial in the EU

Don’t say it ain’t so