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Holocaust trivialization

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Inappropriate comparisons or analogies that trivialize the Holocaust

Holocaust trivialization is the act of making comparisons that diminish the scale and severity of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany.[1] The Wiesel Commission defines trivialization as the abusive use of comparisons with the aim of minimizing the Holocaust and banalizing its atrocities.[2]

Manfred Gerstenfeld identifies trivialization of the Holocaust as one of eleven forms of Holocaust distortion; he defines Holocaust trivialization as the application of language that is specific to describing the Holocaust to events and purposes that are unrelated to it.[3] According to Gerstenfeld, such unrelated issues include environmental problems, abortion, killing of animals, tobacco consumption, and human rights abuses.[4] According to David Rudrum, examples of Holocaust trivialization include Lord Wigley invoking Auschwitz to oppose nuclear weapons and Al Gore citing Kristallnacht in defence of the environment.[5]

German political scientist Clemens Heni [de] writes: "Contrary to the hard-core version, soft-core denial is often not easily identifiable. Often it is tolerated, or even encouraged and reproduced in the mainstream, not only in Germany. Scholars have only recently begun to unravel this disturbing phenomenon. Manfred Gerstenfeld discusses Holocaust trivialization in an article published in 2008. In Germany in 2007 two scholars, Thorsten Eitz and Georg Stötzel, published a voluminous dictionary of German language and discourse regarding National Socialism and the Holocaust. It includes chapters on Holocaust trivialization and contrived comparisons, such as the infamous 'atomic Holocaust', 'Babycaust,' 'Holocaust of abortion', 'red Holocaust' or 'biological Holocaust.'"[6]

The Holocaust survivor and memoirist Elie Wiesel wrote, "I cannot use [the word Holocaust] anymore. First, because there are no words, and also because it has become so trivialized that I cannot use it anymore. Whatever mishap occurs now, they call it 'holocaust.' I have seen it myself in television in the country in which I live. A commentator describing the defeat of a sports team, somewhere, called it a 'holocaust.' I have read in a very prestigious newspaper published in California, a description of the murder of six people, and the author called it a holocaust. So, I have no words anymore."[7]

Notable cases and incidents

Communism and the Soviet Union

Further information: Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism

A report by the Wiesel Commission criticized the comparison of Gulag victims with Jewish Holocaust victims, as was done in The Black Book of Communism, as an attempt at Holocaust trivialization.[2]

Double genocide theory

Main article: Double genocide theory

The double genocide narrative holds that there were two contemporary genocides of equal weight, a Nazi one and a Stalinist one. Michael Shafir calls the double genocide theory a form of Holocaust obfuscation,[8] while Carole Lemée sees it as a symptom of persistent antisemitism.[9]

In The Holocaust/Genocide Template in Eastern Europe, Ljiljana Radonić writes that the double genocide theory proposes the existence of an equivalency between communism and Nazism. Radonić posits that this theory and charges of Communist genocide both come from "a stable of anti-communist émigré lexicon since the 1950s and more recently revisionist politicians and scholars" as well as the "comparative trivialization" of the Holocaust that "results from tossing postwar killings of suspected Axis collaborators and opponents of Tito's regime into the same conceptual framework as the Nazi murder of six million of Jews", describing this as "an effort to demonize communism more broadly as an ideology akin to Nazism".[10]

During the Historikerstreit, many scholars believed the position taken in the Holocaust uniqueness debate by conservative intellectuals led by Ernst Nolte – namely that the Holocaust was not unique, Germans should not bear any special burden of guilt for the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", there was no moral difference between the crimes of the Soviet Union and those of Nazi Germany, as the Nazis acted as they did out of fear of what the Soviet Union might do to Germany, or that the Holocaust itself was a reaction to the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union—trivialized the Holocaust, and echoed Nazi propaganda.[11] The German historian Thomas Kühne writes that "[t]he more provocative historians were in doing so and the more they thereby questioned the uniqueness, or the peculiarity, of the Holocaust, the more their work was met with resistance or even disgust, most prominently and controversially the German Ernst Nolte in the 1980s."[12]

Red Holocaust

The term red Holocaust was coined by the Institute of Contemporary History (Munich Institut für Zeitgeschichte) at Munich.[13][14] According to the German historian Jörg Hackmann [de], this term is not popular among scholars in Germany or internationally.[14] Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine writes that usage of this term "allows the reality it describes to immediately attain, in the Western mind, a status equal to that of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazi regime."[15] Michael Shafir says that the use of the term supports the "competitive martyrdom component" of the double genocide theory.[8] George Voicu states that Leon Volovici has "rightfully condemned the abusive use of this concept as an attempt to 'usurp' and undermine a symbol specific to the history of European Jews."[16]

COVID-19 pandemic responses

Main article: Protests against responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

In May 2021, in response to the anti-vaccine movement in the United States, hatWRKS, a hat store in Nashville, Tennessee, sold badges that resembled the yellow stars Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust with the words "Not vaccinated" on them. Protestors rallied outside the store,[17] and Stetson announced they would no longer sell hats to the store. The practice of wearing yellow stars in protests against responses to the COVID-19 pandemic spread to cities like Montreal, London, Amsterdam and Paris. This was condemned by various Jewish advocacy groups and Holocaust survivors,[18][19][20] being described as a trivialization of the Holocaust.[21]

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Main articles: Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany, Palestinian genocide accusation, and Nazi analogies § Israel
This section is an excerpt from Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany § Debate on antisemitic nature of the comparisons.[edit]

Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany have been described as a form of Holocaust trivialization called Holocaust inversion.[22] Author Yossi Klein Halevi said the comparison was a form of Holocaust conversion based on the dehumanizing trope of "the Jew as embodiment of evil", now transferred to "the satanic Jewish state". Halevi said "the Jew-as-Nazi is the endpoint of political supersessionism", in which Jews assume "the identity of our worst enemy".[23][24]

Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism, says Holocaust inversion is a "soft-core" form of Holocaust denial, as contrasted with the "hard-core" denial practiced by David Irving, which "dilutes what the Holocaust was" by using a false comparison.[25] Kenneth L. Marcus says it aims to "shock, silence, threaten" Jews who support Israel, and "insulate, and legitimize" antisemitism, because it implies the subject deserves some form of punishment and they can disguise it as criticism of Israel instead.[26]

Eyal Levin suggests that Holocaust inversion is becoming part of the iconography of a new antisemitism which has spread globally – particularly in the Arab and Muslim world and in Western Europe and America – often appearing in demonstrations and media portrayals.[27] Bernard-Henri Lévy says this erodes societal safeguards by providing "an entirely new way of justifying" antisemitism that is subtler than yelling "Money Jews" or "They Killed Christ".[28]

Author Ian Buruma opines that some critics of Israel misuse Holocaust imagery to cast Jews as perpetrators akin to Nazis. He argues that this rhetorical move is often made too self-righteously and may serve to ease lingering guilt over Jewish victimhood by portraying Jews as their own murderers.[29]

Some scholars argue that invoking the Holocaust to criticize Israeli policies is not necessarily antisemitic or trivializing, but can instead challenge the misuse of Holocaust memory to justify contemporary state violence. Genocide studies scholar Raz Segal contends that Israeli leaders have long "weaponized" Holocaust rhetoric by comparing Palestinian groups to Nazis in order to present military actions as existential struggles against evil, thereby obscuring the asymmetry of power and erasing the historical context of Israeli settler-colonialism. He argues that such use of Holocaust memory distorts its legacy, employing it not to protect vulnerable populations but to justify violence against them. Segal maintains that meaningful engagement with Holocaust remembrance must include a commitment to truth, justice, and the protection of all civilians, including Palestinians.[30]

Similarly, Holocaust historian Enzo Traverso warns that using the Holocaust to legitimize what he describes as a "genocidal war" in Gaza risks distorting its historical meaning and contributing to a "spectacular resurgence" of antisemitism, stating that "If in the name of the memory of the Holocaust we justify and support a genocide, that memory will be disqualified. And that will create misunderstandings and a new form of anti-Semitism. That memory had a meaning: it confirmed the extreme consequences of racism and after that genocide we cannot accept any form of exclusion, discrimination, persecution, oppression. With that conclusion, the memory of other genocides was built. If the memory of the Holocaust means supporting Israeli policy, all our references collapse."[31] According to Marianne Hirsch, the refusal to see the relationships and make analogies between different histories of genocide, victimization, othering, or inequality in dangerous because arguments of exceptionalism can obscure other histories, as Hirsch argues Holocaust exceptionalism has done to the genocide in Gaza.[32]

Incidents

During a visit to Berlin in 2022, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Olaf Scholz that "Israel [had] committed….50 massacres, 50 slaughters, 50 holocausts" after he was inquired if he would apologize for the Munich massacre by Palestinian terrorists. Scholz stated in a message to the Bild newspaper that "for us Germans, any relativization of the Holocaust is unbearable and unacceptable."[33][34]

On 14 April 2026, during a debate in the Sejm, Konrad Berkowicz, the vice-chairman of KORWiN, aka 'The New Hope', a far-right party displayed an Israeli flag in which the Star of David was replaced with a swastika.[35] During his speech, he referred to Israel as a "new Third Reich", accused it of committing genocide in Gaza, and war crimes "with particular cruelty", including the use of white phosphorus in Gaza and Lebanon.[35][36] Israel as well as the European Jewish Congress strongly condemned Berkowicz's actions, calling them "antisemitic horror",[37] "Holocaust inversion" and "antisemitic provocation".[38] Włodzimierz Czarzasty, Deputy Speaker of the Polish parliament, said that Berkowitz's actions were "in no way justified".[37]

On 11 July 2026, during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Stockholm, protesters carried a replica of the entrance gate to Auschwitz with the word "Gaza" replacing the original title "Arbeit macht frei". The display was criticised as trivializing the Holocaust and led to public controversy and a police investigation of hate crime that was dropped.[39][40]

Social media

Some trends on social media platforms have trivialized the Holocaust. In 2020, teenagers posted on TikTok videos of themselves dressed in Holocaust-themed fancy dress, and TikTok banned the hashtag Holocaustchallenge.[5]

Russian invasion of Ukraine

Further information: Disinformation in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine § Allegations of Nazism, and Fascist (insult)

Yad Vashem criticized the Kremlin's claim that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was aimed at the "denazification" of Ukraine, as false and a trivialization of Holocaust history.[41][42] According to the philosopher Jason Stanley, this reflects an antisemitic conspiracy theory which casts Russian Christians, rather than Jews, as the true victims of Nazi Germany.[43] The Fortunoff Archive for Holocaust Testimonies also condemned the invasion and described Putin's rhetoric as Holocaust trivialization,[44] and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum denounced Putin's characterization of Holocaust history.[45][46]

On 21 March 2022, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was criticized by Yad Vashem for creating a false equivalence between the Russian invasion and the Holocaust, while Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett found the comparison of the two events to be inappropriate.[47]

See also

References

  1. ^ Foxman, Abraham H. (27 January 2014). "Inappropriate Comparisons Trivialize the Holocaust". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  2. ^ a b Friling, Tuvia; Ioanid, Radu; Ionescu, Mihail E.; Benjamin, Lya (2004). Distortion, negationism and minimization of the Holocaust in postwar Romania (PDF). International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. pp. 47, 59 – via United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  3. ^ Gerstenfeld, Manfred (28 October 2007). "The Multiple Distortions of Holocaust Memory". Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Archived from the original on 4 March 2024. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  4. ^ Gerstenfeld, Manfred (14 March 2018). "The Ongoing Major Distortion of the Holocaust". Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Retrieved 16 July 2025.
  5. ^ a b Rudrum, David (16 March 2021). "Why Holocaust Trivialisation Isn't Trivial". The Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre. Archived from the original on 13 March 2023. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  6. ^ Heni, Clemens (Fall 2008). "Secondary Anti-Semitism: From Hard-Core to Soft-Core Denial of the Shoah". Jewish Political Studies Review. 20 (3/4). Jerusalem: 73–92. JSTOR 25834800.
  7. ^ Cohen, Asher; Gelber, Joav; Wardi, Charlotte, eds. (1988). Comprehending the Holocaust: Historical and Literary Research. Bern: Peter Lang. p. 13. ISBN 978-3-63-140428-7. Retrieved 2 December 2020 – via Google Books.
  8. ^ a b Shafir, Michael (Summer 2016). "Ideology, Memory and Religion in Post-Communist East Central Europe: A Comparative Study Focused on Post-Holocaust". Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies. 15 (44): 52–110. Quote at pp. 64 and 74.
  9. ^ Lemée, Carole (2018). "History-memory of Litvak Yiddish spaces after the Holocaust. Between worlds of life and worlds of assassination". Ethnologie française. 170 (2): 225–242. doi:10.3917/ethn.182.0225.
  10. ^ Radonić, Ljiljana (2020). The Holocaust/Genocide Template in Eastern Europe. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-71212-4.
  11. ^ Caplan, Jane, ed. (2008). "Introduction". Nazi Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 8–12. ISBN 978-0-19-164774-1. Retrieved 2 December 2020 – via Google Books.
  12. ^ Kühne, Thomas (May 2012). "Great Men and Large Numbers: Undertheorising a History of Mass Killing". Contemporary European History. 21 (2): 133–143. doi:10.1017/S0960777312000070. ISSN 0960-7773. JSTOR 41485456. S2CID 143701601.
  13. ^ Möller, Horst (1999). Der rote Holocaust und die Deutschen: die Debatte um das "Schwarzbuch des Kommunismus" [The Red Holocaust and the Germans: The Debates on the "Black Book of Communism"] (in German). Munich: Piper Verlag. ISBN 978-3-492-04119-5.
  14. ^ a b Hackmann, Jörg (March 2009). "From National Victims to Transnational Bystanders? The Changing Commemoration of World War II in Central and Eastern Europe". Constellations. 16 (1): 167–181. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8675.2009.00526.x. A coining of communism as 'red Holocaust,' as had been suggested by the Munich Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, did not find much ground, neither in Germany nor elsewhere in international discussions.
  15. ^ Goslan, Richard Joseph; Rousso, Henry, eds. (2004). Stalinism and Nazism: History and Memory Compared. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-803-29000-6. Retrieved 2 December 2020 – via Google Books.
  16. ^ Voicu, George (2018). "Postcommunist Romania's Leading Public Intellectuals and the Holocaust". In Florian, Alexandru (ed.). Holocaust Public Memory in Postcommunist Romania, Studies in Antisemitism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 41–71. ISBN 978-0-253-03274-4. Retrieved 2 December 2020 – via Google Books. Quote at p. 46.
  17. ^ Alonso, Melissa; Rose, Andy (29 May 2021). "Demonstrators gather outside Nashville hat store that offered 'not vaccinated' yellow Star of David badges". CNN. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  18. ^ "More than 20,000 people took part in Amsterdam march, officials say". DutchNews. 6 September 2021. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  19. ^ "German call to ban 'Jewish star' at Covid demos". BBC News. 7 May 2021. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  20. ^ Gouvy, Constantin; Charlton, Angela (19 July 2021). "Anger as French protesters compare vaccines to Nazi horrors". Associated Press. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  21. ^ Thomas, Katelyn (19 August 2021). "Jewish groups, minister condemn yellow stars worn by anti-vaccine protesters". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  22. ^ Marcus, Kenneth L. (2010). Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America. Cambridge University Press. p. 56. ISBN 978-1-139-49119-8.
  23. ^ "The Cruelty of Supersessionism: The Case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer". Religions. 13 (1). 2022. Retrieved 14 October 2024.
  24. ^ Yossi Klein Halevi (10 October 2024). "The End of the Post-Holocaust Era". Jewish Journal. Retrieved 14 October 2024.
  25. ^ Klein, Amy (19 April 2009). "Denying the deniers: Q & A with Deborah Lipstadt". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved 20 January 2024.
  26. ^ Marcus, Kenneth L. (2010). Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America. Cambridge University Press. pp. 63–64. ISBN 978-1-139-49119-8.
  27. ^ Lewin, Eyal (2017). Blaming the Jews for Acting like Nazis: The Rhetoric of Holocaust Inversion.
  28. ^ Lévy, Bernard-Henri (22 January 2015). "Against the New Anti-Semitism: Remembering the Holocaust Protects Us All". Huffington Post. Retrieved 20 November 2025.
  29. ^ Buruma, Ian (22 September 2025). "The Uses and Abuses of "Antisemitism"". The New Yorker.
  30. ^ Segal, Raz (24 October 2023). "Israel must stop weaponising the Holocaust". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
  31. ^ Rouleau, Nicolas (2 July 2024). "Enzo Traverso, historian: 'Germany is being complicit in a genocide in Gaza'". Lux Éditeur | maison d'édition indépendante | publication d'ouvrages à caractère critique en sciences humaines (in French). Retrieved 8 November 2025.
  32. ^ Hirsch, Marianne; Gessen, M.; Weinberger, Jillian (31 October 2025). "Opinion | We Need to Rethink How We Think About the Holocaust". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 May 2026. Well, I couldn't agree with you more about the importance of analogy, and yes, I think this injunction, the Holocaust shouldn't be compared because it will be relativized, is part of this argument of the uniqueness of this crime. For me, I think the relationality, the relationships between all these different histories — not just genocide histories, but histories of victimization, of othering, of inequality — each of these genocides and each of these experiences is actually unique. They're really not the same at all. But they are connected and therefore also need to be compared. So not comparing them or not seeing them in relationship to each other can be extremely risky — as I think we've seen with the Holocaust — because this uniqueness argument is an argument of exceptionalism. This is the most exceptional crime of all crimes, which lends it a very particular status. And there's an outsize influence of the Holocaust that then obscures other histories and also obscures what is happening right now: the genocide in Gaza, which the exceptionalism of the Holocaust has fostered denial of other genocides. And I think that creates a real crisis if victims of genocide perpetrate genocide and one can deny that. I think we're in a moment of real crisis.
  33. ^ "In Berlin, Abbas says Israel committed 'holocausts' against the Palestinians; Scholz grimaces silently, later condemns remarks". The Times of Israel. 16 August 2022. Archived from the original on 15 July 2024. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
  34. ^ "Palestinian President Abbas skirts apology for Munich attack". AP News. 16 August 2022. Archived from the original on 12 May 2024. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
  35. ^ a b Anwer, Ammar (15 April 2026). "Far-right Polish MP unfurls Israeli flag with swastika in parliament". TVP World. Retrieved 15 April 2026.
  36. ^ "Far-Right Polish MP Draws Outrage with Swastika on Israeli Flag". Asharq Al-Awsat. 14 April 2026. Retrieved 15 April 2026.
  37. ^ a b Stub, Zev (14 April 2026). "In parliament, Polish MP calls Israel 'new Third Reich,' waves Israeli flag with swastika". The Times of Israel. Agence France-Presse. Retrieved 15 April 2026.
  38. ^ Algemeiner, The. "Holocaust Remembrance Day Marked in Poland, Germany Amid Nazi Displays, Rising Antisemitism". Algemeiner.com. Retrieved 15 April 2026.
  39. ^ "Gaza-skylt i demonstration väcker debatt om antisemitism". Sveriges Radio (in Swedish). 20 July 2026.
  40. ^ "Förintelsesymbol användes i Palestinademonstration – anmäls av polisen". SVT Nyheter (in Swedish). 21 July 2026.
  41. ^ Gross, Judah Ari. "Yad Vashem chief: Russia trivializing Holocaust with false 'denazification' claim". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  42. ^ "Yad Vashem Statement Regarding the Russian Invasion of Ukraine". Yad Vashem. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  43. ^ Stanley, Jason (26 February 2022). "The antisemitism animating Putin's claim to 'denazify' Ukraine". The Guardian.
  44. ^ "On the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin's Abuse of Language". Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. 2 March 2022. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  45. ^ Snyder, Timothy. "Putin's Hitler-like tricks and tactics in Ukraine". The Boston Globe.
  46. ^ "Museum concerned about loss of life". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 24 February 2022. Archived from the original on 25 February 2022. Retrieved 25 February 2022.
  47. ^ "Israelis Reject Zelenskyy's Holocaust Comparisons". VOA. 21 March 2022.

Further reading

Retrieved from "https://deeppolitics.org/index.php?title=Holocaust_trivialization&oldid=83327"