Opinion | This is how the distortion of the Holocaust became especially dangerous Israel today

Today, on the 80th anniversary of the Vanza Conference, the UN is set to vote on a precedent-setting decision: the duty to fight Holocaust denial.

This is a very important decision, emphasizing the need to expand the struggle to social networks, where Holocaust denial is spreading without borders, without control and with almost no response from professionals or the rule of law.

Social networks have long been a prostitute arena;

Any keyboard or smartphone owner can write on them, shoot, slander, write baseless things and present them as truth, and in fact create a new consciousness among his circle of followers.

Along with Holocaust denial, there is another danger in the networks: Holocaust Distortion.

The perpetrators of the Holocaust do not dispute that there was a Holocaust, but provide a wide range of interpretations regarding its scope, the proportion involved in it and their identity.

Quite a few of the perversions of the Holocaust create other "truths," narratives in which they downplay the suffering of the Jewish people and glorify figures who were involved in the murder and persecution of Jews.

In his research, Dr. Ephraim Zuroff presents many examples of the distortion of the Holocaust. One example is the public prestige given to one of the most important political leaders in Lithuania during the war, Kazis Schrippa, who led the Lithuanian Activists' League. German to Lithuanian Lithuanian attacks on Jews in more than 40 places: in 1991 a street was named after him in Kaunas, and in 1998 another street was named after him in Vilnius (Vilna).

A second example is the refinement of Ukraine's winner Stefan Bender, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, whose people participated in the murder of Jews in the cities of Lvov and Ternopil in the first weeks of the Nazi invasion (June 1941).

Monuments were erected in his memory, his birthday was celebrated in a large procession in Kiev and elsewhere, and in 2010 he was awarded the title of "Hero of Ukraine".

The distortion of the Holocaust is expressed in these cases in the glorification of personalities and bodies that were complicit in the persecution and murder of Jews.

The distortion of the Holocaust is manifested in various ways such as the use of half-truths and narratives invented by “on behalf of” historians, some of whom are renowned.

These distortions often fall on attentive ears, in the sense of "the words of the living God."

The point is that distortion is even more dangerous than denial of the very feeling and impression it creates at the level of its credibility and ability to influence consciousness among normative and recognizable bodies.

It can be said that the distortion of the Holocaust will cross barriers and boundaries in which Holocaust denial will be stopped.

In a short time, the generation of survivors, who experienced the war firsthand, will no longer be able to testify.

If we are not vigilant, the vacuum that will be created may be filled with countless distorted theories and narratives.

I would like to take this opportunity to call on my colleagues in the other Holocaust institutes in Israel and around the world to think together and formulate a policy that will be a cure for Mecca.

The expected UN decision should be a catalyst for the mobilization of many countries, and Israel in particular, against the effects of Holocaust denial and distortion. This policy must be backed by the state through dedicated resources. !

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