Archie wrote: ↑Sat Jul 19, 2025 2:58 pm
Nessie wrote: ↑Wed Jul 16, 2025 5:25 pm
It is a so-called revisionist meme on X, to question why none of the Allied leaders, Churchill, Eisenhower or De Gaulle, wrote about gassings, or much about the Holocaust at all. Interestingly, they never ask about Stalin. I was recently told, here, he was a Jew, and the Soviets are often accused of being a major player in the Holocaust hoax. If that is the case, why was Stalin not front and centre, speaking about, or writing about, gassings and the Holocaust?
It is not just that he said, or wrote nothing, he also did not allow any Soviet history of, or memorial to the Holocaust. Indeed, the Soviets and Stalin, hardly acknowledge it happened at all.
I do not understand what this thread is about. What is your argument exactly?
Stalin did not write about the Holocaust, therefore the Holocaust is true? That would be a strange argument.
Indeed, it is a strange argument, and my point is that so-called revisionists use that strange argument, to suggest that because Churchill, Eisenhower and de Gaulle did not write about the Holocaust, therefore the Holocaust is not true.
Or are you merely arguing that because Stalin did not write about it that we should not expect Churchill et al to write about it either? I assume your argument is the latter.
No, my argument is that just because Stalin, Churchill etc did not write, much, about the Holocaust, that is not evidence there was no Holocaust.
One immediate problem with your argument is that there is a vast difference in volume of writings about the war produced by Stalin vs the others which renders irrelevant the comparison you are attempting to make. Churchill published a SIX VOLUME history/memoir of the war. Eisenhower published a memoir of over 500 pages. General de Gaulle published three volumes of war memoirs. Stalin published nothing like this. If he had, I suspect "the Holocaust" would NOT have been a major theme. But since he didn't, there isn't much to say. (Incidentally, the original point you are trying to respond to is that in this huge mass of war memoirs, there is, from a modern perspective, a shocking lack of emphasis on what we now call "the Holocaust." Why? Because the Holocaust as a cultural phenomenon did not become truly prominent until much later).
That is correct. There was a lot of shame across Europe, at how cooperative most countries had been, with the Nazis, in identifying, arresting, transporting and even killing Jews. Even the British failed, by refusing to allow Jews to escape, to the UK, or Palestine and failing to protect the Channel Island's small Jewish community. That is why, not just the main war leaders were quiet about the Holocaust, it is why all European postwar governments were quiet. They had failed their Jewish citizens.
Another problem with your argument is that even if hypothetically Stalin had written lengthy war memoirs, if he had not mentioned any "Holocaust stuff," this would simply reinforce the original point. If he had hypothetically mentioned it, I suppose that could be used as a counterpoint to the Churchill et al, but it would not really be that significant either way. Again, Stalin did not actually publish anything like this, so it is all a moot point.
If the Soviets had liberated millions of Jews, many of whom were Western Jews, why would Stalin not capitalise on that major success? He would be able to claim a huge victory, liberating all the western Jews that those countries had allowed to be arrested and transported east. The West would not need to be grateful to the Soviets, for the great liberation of their citizens. Millions of Jews from most countries in Europe, could be handed back, with great ceremony, with each government thanking Stalin personally, for his success.
Regarding the Soviet history more generally, it is true that they generally placed even less emphasis on what we now call "the Holocaust" than did Western historians and commentators. You find this confusing and contradictory, but this is only because you misunderstand both the revisionist arguments and the geopolitical perspectives. You, with your characteristic lack of nuance, think that revisionists think the Soviets are the ones primarily behind the Holocaust hoax. We do point to the fact that the evidence for the Holocaust does depend to a great extent on Soviet evidence (because they had control of all of the relevant territory), but they were not thinking in terms of "the Holocaust" in the modern sense. In Russia, the narrative on WWII is a bit different. The call it "the Great Patriotic War," and they generally do not emphasize Jews as is done in the West. Their narrative was that the Germans were exterminating basically everybody, not just Jews. In contrast, in the West, the narrative became more Jew-centric with time.
According to so-called revisionists, millions of Jews supposedly not killed by the Nazis, ended up behind Soviet lines in 1944-5. The Soviets hid those Jews, and promoted the idea those Jews had been murdered.
You correctly identify the lack of effort Stalin in particular, and the Soviets in general, put into promoting the hoax, which makes no sense, when they put a lot of effort into hiding millions of Jews and producing evidence they had been murdered.
You claim I find this confusing and do not understand so-called revisionist arguments. In fact, it is so-called revisionist arguments that are confusing, as well as lacking in evidence.
