_Chronicle of Higher Education_, January 8, 1998. P A6
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION ISSUES STATEMENT DEPLORING EFFORTS TO DENY
HOLOCAUST
by Ellen K. Coughlin
Chicago
The governing council of the American Historical Association,
meeting at the group's annual conference here last week, unanimously
approved a statement condemning recent claims that the Nazi
extermination
of Jews in WWII is a myth.
"The AHA council strongly deplores the publicly reported
attempts to deny the Holocaust," the statement said. "No serious
historican questions that the Holocaust took place."
Over the past year, efforts by neo-Nazis and others to deny
the Holocaust--through such means as advertisements placed in student
newspapers--alarmed scholars. Last fall, however, the 13-member AHA
council declined to issue a statement explicitly asserting the truth
of the Holocaust, largely because of the strong feeling of some of
the
that the association should not be in the business of certifying
historical facts. Instead, the council called on historians to
"encourage the study of the significance of the Holocaust."
Some 300 Signatures Collected
The councils latest action, taken on the closing day of the
association's annual meeting, came in response to a groundswell of
support among historians at the conference for a more forceful
statement against the so-called "Holocaust revisionists."
Approximately
300 signatures were collected on a petition, circulated informally
at the conference, calling on the AHA council to take a public
position against attempts to deny the fact of the Holocaust.
"If we'd had the time and the personnel, I think we could
have gotten 3,000 signatures." said John W. Chambers, associate
professor of history at Rutgers University, who spearheaded the
petition effort.
Mr. Chambers said many who signed the petition were alarmed
at the presence of people at the presence of people at the enterance
of the convention hotel handing out pamphlets purporting to refute
historical claims about the Nazi concentration camps. Others at
the meeting expressed dismay at the AHA's council's earlier failure
to take a stronger stand against the revisionist position.
Re: Professional Historians Denounce Holocaust Denial
(In the name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)
Hi, welcome to the board Joe Bruno!
Hey, bro, did you think we're of the people that deny the Holocaust because we're Muslim?
I don't deny the Holocaust, and I have great sympathy for any persons who have unjustly suffered, and all I can say to a Holocaust survivor or anyone that has suffered injustice is that they must be patient and believe that God will not deny them their justice on Judgment Day.
Also, my sheikh (my Islamic teacher) (may Allah bless him) taught that mankind is always killing and following shaitaan (satan) and Hitler was one of the ones following shaitaan in killing people. My sheikh (my Islamic teacher) (may Allah bless him) was saying that shaitaan(satan) is always sowing dissension and discord and preparing mankind to kill one another. My sheikh (my Islamic teacher) (may Allah bless him) had even called Hitler a terrorist.
By the way, on this board, there are many non-Muslims and Muslims, and we engage in respectful dialogue with one another. So, hope to see you posting and participating and benefiting us and also being benefited God-willing.
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