Al-Husseini Memoirs

[HansHill]

I have been able to source an Arabic copy of Grand Mufti Al-Husseini's memoirs but cannot find an English translation.

My understanding of the claims made by exterminationists, is that Al-Husseini documents a re-telling of a conversation had with Himmler behind closed doors, where Himmler all but confirms the exterminationist position

Not being able to verify this, i find this highly dubious at best. Is this discussed anywhere from the Revisionist position?

[Archie]

Here is a source that has some discussion along with the supposed Arabic original, although curiously it does not provide a full translation. The key phrase is something like "...we have so far killed about three million of them." You can translate it with the Google app on your phone.
http://www.trafoberlin.de/pdf-Neu/Amin% ... ocaust.pdf

A few points I would make.

-The passage is some memoir rather than a diary entry
-Al-Husseini died in 1974
-This was not published until 1999

The proof of something like the Holocaust cannot hinge on a statement like this from decades after the war that we can't even confirm. If the statement is genuine and hasn't been tampered with, it is also quite possible he was influenced by postwar Holocaust narratives.

Another point here is that Jews, specifically Zionists, have long had something of an obsession with the Mufti and have long sought to enhance his role in the "Holocaust" (for rather obvious reasons). Peter Novick talks about the curious overemphasis on the Mufti in his book Holocaust in American Life.

There are records of Himmler meeting and discussing Jewish policy with Mussolini around the same time (Nov 1943). Himmler made notes on this in 1943. Some authors like Walter Laqueur have claimed that Himmler told Mussolini about the "Final Solution" (in the exterminationist sense) but in fact he did not describe any extermination program but rather something closer to the revisionist version. The other side will either lie about the Mussolini meeting (Laqueur) or claim that Himmler lied to Mussolini and soft-pedaled the actual policy. The revisionist position would be that Himmler gave him a roughly accurate account of the policy. My guess would be that Himmler would have told Al-Husseini something similar to what he'd told Mussolini.

[fireofice]

As opposed to diaries, which are written at the time, memoirs are written later and thus more subject to distorted memories. Here is one example of a flawed memoir:



Al-Husseini's memories have more potential to be distorted after many years of holocaust propaganda. At the time what Himmler may have said could have been more in line with the revisionist interpretation, but after many years he may remember things differently.

None of this is to say memoirs can't be used, they can. But the limits of them should be kept in mind when using them.

[HansHill]

Fascinating and insightful, thank you gentlemen.

A few months ago, I asked a professional translator how much it would cost to translate the entire memoir and the quote was far too high. I might try an AI language model!

[Wheels]

You don't need to translate all of it, just do a fiverr to correct an OCR transcription of the relevant pages then you're golden. Anyhow, I checked it out long ago and it's part political posturing, part typical Arab boasting.

As to the three million Jews extermination remark, he calls out Himmler's intensity of hatred against Jews, says he found out then in the summer of 1943 for the first time and presents a distinction to his position of just wanting the Jews in Palestine to return to the land from whence they came, which in fact Himmler rebuffed him on.

The discussion taking place as it did is about as credible as Himmler telling Amin al-Husseini that Germans would have been better off conquered by Islamic civilization and wrapped in its wisdom than face the disaster of The Thirty Years' War. Himmler supposedly cited an exaggerated sevenfold reduction in the population from 35 million to 5 million. Even if that were Himmler's edgelord position, it's not something he would have revealed to a Muslim dignitary. Let's not even start with supposed disclosures about Germany's nuclear program.

I would assess his postwar writings as part of an aborted effort to publish something to increase his political standing. His claims of being a relevant political leader - respected by those who meted out some comeuppance to the Jews, but in disagreement with them and without being as extreme as them - are probably what a good political consultant of that time/region would have recommended for a potential political comeback.

[Archie]

The discussion taking place as it did is about as credible as Himmler telling Amin al-Husseini that Germans would have been better off conquered by Islamic civilization and wrapped in its wisdom than face the disaster of The Thirty Years' War. Himmler supposedly cited an exaggerated sevenfold reduction in the population from 35 million to 5 million. Even if that were Himmler's edgelord position, it's not something he would have revealed to a Muslim dignitary. Let's not even start with supposed disclosures about Germany's nuclear program.

Yes, to me it doesn't seem to fit very well with what Himmler told Mussolini around the same time (already mentioned this but didn't have the source handy). We would have to think that Himmler was really open and explicit with Al-Husseini (unnecessarily so) but not with Mussolini.

Die Juden würden aus ganz Deutschland, dem Generalgouvernement und allen vonuuns besetzten Ländern herausgenommen, da sie überall die Träger der Sabotage, Spionage und des Widerstandes sowie Bandenbildung seien. In Russland hätten wir eine nicht unerhebliche Anzahl von Juden, und zwar Mann und Weib, erschiessen müssen, da dort selbst die Frauen und halbwüchsigen Kinder Nachrichtenträger für die Partisanen gewesen wären. Der Duce betonte von sich aus, dass das die einzig mögliche Lösung wäre. Ich sagte dem Duce, dass wir die Juden, die politisch belastet wären, in Konzentrationslager verbrächten, dass wir andere Juden zum Straßenbau im Osten verwendeten, wobei allerdings die Sterblichkeit eine sehr hohe sei, da die Juden ja im Leben noch niemals gearbeitet hätten. Die ältesten Juden würden in Altersheimen in Berlin, München und Wien untergebracht. Die sonstigen alten Juden wären in dem Städtchen Theresienstadt, als Altersghetto der deutschen Juden, eingesetzt worden, bekämen dort ihre Pension und ihre Bezüge weiter und könnten sich dort ihr Leben völlig nach eigenem Geschmack einrichten, allerdings stritten sie dort in lebhaftester Form miteinander. Einen anderen Teil der Juden hätten wir versucht im Osten durch Lücken in der Front zu den Russen herüberzutreiben, wobei allerdings die Russen des öfteren auf solche Judenhaufen geschossen hätten und sie offenkundig ebenfalls nicht gemocht hätten.

NARA, T175 microfilm, reel 69
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/2738638 ... ctPage=229

The Jews would be taken out of all of Germany, the General Government and all the countries occupied by us, because everywhere they were the carriers of sabotage, espionage, resistance and gang formation. In Russia we had to shoot a considerable number of Jews, both men and women, because even women and adolescent children there were carriers of information for the partisans. The Duce stressed on his own initiative that this was the only possible solution. I told the Duce that we were taking the Jews who were politically compromised to concentration camps, that we were using other Jews to build roads in the East, although the mortality rate was very high because the Jews had never worked in their lives. The oldest Jews were being housed in old people's homes in Berlin, Munich and Vienna. The other old Jews would have been placed in the small town of Theresienstadt, a retirement ghetto for German Jews, where they would continue to receive their pensions and benefits and could live their lives as they wished, although they fought among themselves there in the most lively way. We would have tried to drive another group of Jews over to the Russians in the east through gaps in the front, although the Russians would have frequently shot at such groups of Jews and obviously did not like them either.

[Hektor]

The discussion taking place as it did is about as credible as Himmler telling Amin al-Husseini that Germans would have been better off conquered by Islamic civilization and wrapped in its wisdom than face the disaster of The Thirty Years' War. Himmler supposedly cited an exaggerated sevenfold reduction in the population from 35 million to 5 million. Even if that were Himmler's edgelord position, it's not something he would have revealed to a Muslim dignitary. Let's not even start with supposed disclosures about Germany's nuclear program.

Yes, to me it doesn't seem to fit very well with what Himmler told Mussolini around the same time (already mentioned this but didn't have the source handy). We would have to think that Himmler was really open and explicit with Al-Husseini (unnecessarily so) but not with Mussolini.
....

Post War memoirs were laced with what was circulating in the news previously. And that included the semantic swindle of interpreting 'solving the Jewish question' as 'extermination'.... There were/are plenty of people fond of Hitler, because he supposedly 'killed the Jews'. Especially people from Muslim countries think like this.... Some do however smell a rat as well. They simply wonder, where those millions of survivors all came from.....