Jews Agree with Holocaust-Denying Bishop, We Can't Believe the Holocaust Happened Either

From PBS' Newshour with Jim Lehrer:

A decision this past Saturday by Pope Benedict XVI to reinstate four bishops has sparked controversy in the Catholic Church and beyond.

One of the clergymen, Bishop Richard Williamson, is a Holocaust denier. Last week, he spoke to Swedish television.

BISHOP RICHARD WILLIAMSON: I believe that the historical evidence is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler. I believe there were no gas chambers.

Well Bishop Williamson, no one ever said the Jews were "deliberately" gassed by Hitler. Everyone knows it was a terrible accident. That is why it is important to check your smoke detectors at least twice a year. Dude! We know that six million Jews died (along with millions of others), because the Nazis kept meticulous records (and would never have found humor in Dilbert). Okay, benefit of the doubt, I'll give you ten thousand heart attacks, a quarter million pneumonia due to the thin pajamas, a half mil for starvation, and maybe a mil being worked to death. That still undeniably leaves almost five million Jews being killed in camps. What's your theory? Bug zappers?

I think it's great that a bishop (or pawn) in the Catholic church, reinstated by no less than the Pope (deliberately reinstated), questions historical evidence instead of being a blind follower. Bravo! Despite living witnesses, both victims and liberators, despite actual film footage of the gas chambers, ovens, and corpses, despite a trillion books written by historians, victims, and eye witnesses, despite world trials in Nuremburg, despite admissions by Nazis themselves, despite Shelley Winters winning an Oscar for The Diary of Anne Frank, Bishop Williamson denies this happened. What would it take to convince you? Maybe we could check Germany's gas bill from 1939-45. There had to have been a spike. I wish you could have seen how few relatives were left to show up at our seders in Brooklyn when I was a child. Hey, maybe I could show you the actual photographs my father took and brought back from his two years in army hell, which culminated in his unit helping liberate Buchenvald. Remember, that was before Photoshop.

Say, why don't you go visit Auschwitz now? You can see the ovens, and Disney swears they had nothing to do with developing the attraction after the fact.

The bishop finds no "historical evidence" to prove the Holocaust happened, yet despite no film footage, living witnesses, or verifiable first hand accounts, Bishop Williamson has no trouble believing that god had a son on earth by immaculate conception, who could raise the dead, and then returned from the dead as well. So what does this say about the nature of belief? It says that Bishop Williamson hates the Jews. But hey, this Pope spreads a big tent, like the circus, so welcome back.

You know the joke about how we thought Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction because we had the receipt? Well it's kinda like that. We know the Holocaust happened, because the Pope at the time made the deal with Hitler to let it happen. Hey, here's a good joke for the Pope to open with the next time he appears at Yankee Stadium: "Forget the Holocaust, I can't believe the Red Sox winning the World Series happened!!" You're welcome.

Comments

[ArthurTwoShedsJackson]

Now more than ever I am convinced the catholic bishops, cardinals and their grand pooh-bah pope wear their chesspiece garb (including the funny hats and ankle length robes) to hide their horns, tails and hoofs.

[Guitarsandmore]

Review the genocide in Kosovo, Rwanda, and witness what is happening in Darfur. Unfortunately history is rife with explicit examples of man’s inhumanity to man. Desperate people making poor choices based on fear and paranoia coupled with zero alternative ideas and an absence of helpful guidance leads to tragedy and failure.

So is that it? Are we doomed to repeat the ugly past over and over again? Does the Universe roll over the same bad glitch in the fabric of space inevitably pulling us all down into the dark hole without possibility of escape? Is it Karma? Is it a test?

Are we destined to become just like children loosing a board game that will pick up the game board, pummel the other players with it, and than scatter the pieces of the game all over the room?

“All of our problems will be solved if only we can kill all those people over there.” What?...Wh­at?....I think I know what this disease is; it’s called ignorance.

Perhaps it is like the parents who beat their child because they never learned there were any other choices possible. Some people never learned you can reward good behavior with pleasant comments, treats, freedoms, special favors, and not reward the bad behavior.

Obama is our chance to put down the guns and reach out and help each other.

[FreelanceMinion]

A great book by Michael Shermer called Denying History not only describes what motivates these deniers but also talks about how we know what we know. Maybe I deny the American Revolutionary War never took place, we use the same evidence for that as with the Holocost, although we still have a small number of living witnesses to WWII.

[Forest]

Bishop Williamson has a history and reputation even within the Catholic church for his extremist views about the Holocaust. I suggest everyone look it up at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Williamson_(bishop)

[darker]

Bishop Williamson is the RUSH LIMBAUGH of Catholicism.
We're waiting for his "talk show". Yikes.

[Rayosun]

Apologists for Pius XII who claim that their crimes caused these people to be "automatically excommunicated" miss the point that excommunication isn't intended to tell GOD who is a Catholic and who isn't but to tell THE FAITHFUL whom to shun.
On the other hand, after the Nazis were defeated and no longer posed any threat to the pope, the Vatican, or the Catholic Church anywhere, did Pope Pius XII allow the Vatican to be used to protect thousands of Catholic war criminals such as the above to escape punishment for their war crimes? YES. Whose side was the pope on?
Some of the more infamous war criminals the Vatican protected from prosecution:
Adolf Eichmann, "the architect of the Holocaust" (some of the following were non-Catholics, who were "saved" on condition that they at least "say they were Catholics":
Alois Brunner , referred to as his "best man" by Eichman,
Dr. Josef Mengele, "the Angel of Death" ,
Franz Stangl, commandant of the Sobibór and of Treblinka extermination camp ,
Gustav Wagner, Stangl's assistant,
Klaus Barbie, "the Butcher of Lyon" ,
Edward Roschmann, "the Butcher of Riga",
Aribert Heim, Mauthausen concentration camp's "Dr. Death",
Walter Rauff, believed responsible for nearly 100,000 deaths
Andrija Artuković, "the Himmler of the Balkans"
Ante Pavelić, head of Catholic Croatia, arguably the most murderous regime in relation to its size in Axis-occupied Europe.
from http://JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/NaziLeadership.html.

[mginla]

Hilarious article about a very sad and scary story. Holocaust deniers like Bishop Williamson need to be called out, and the fact that this idiot was reinstated is scary.
Love the analogies.­..denying the holocaust requires a perversion of logic akin to denying that the sky is blue or that the world is round. Despite overwhelming evidence that would be far more than enough to prove any historical fact in any other context, anti-semitic holocaust deniers like Williamson are so blinded by hatred that they are willing to sound like idiots to try make a ludicrous argument.
Nice article : )

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

The only sense I can make out of this is that Benedict is trying to give the world a subtle hint that he is tired of being considered infallible.

Managing expectations, so to speak.

[msfisk777]

1/31/09
3:07pm
Indianapolis Central Library

Elayne, Thank goodness this incident didn't leave you speechless. I was just so shocked to hear it that I couldn't even comment until now.

When I was working for the US Army I personally met an Army man who liberated one of the camps and he told me about it during a car trip. Just horrifying stuff..
And my Dad was an Army man during WWII who couldn't even speak of the holocaust but just left a picture book with photos of the camps on our bookshelf that I have never seen elsewhere.

If the Germans don't deny it, then why does the Bishop deny it?

[nomoredead]

But I bet he believes there was a man that could walk on water and was born to a virgin....­......

[ToonMoene]

I will never understand these Holocaust deniers.

The Nazis documented every death - they had to, because it was the proof to their superiors that they met their "production schedule".

[davism97]

If the holocaust never happened then what exactly happened to the millions of Jews (and other unwanted) during the 40s? Did they all move to some isolated island where nobody would ever find them? Where are they? Maybe a census of Europe pre-Hitler compared to a census of Europe post-Hitler would convince this bishop, but problaby not.

[ohioan73]

I vehemently deny that a Bishop is in control of his own brain.

I have seen HOURS of footage. I have heard eyewitness accounts of survivors of concentration camps. I have read a book about Mengele. I have read several books about Hitler and a few fictional stories as a child about terrified Jews hiding in attics. I have seen several documentaries about The Holocaust. I have even seen some movies. I lived many formative years in a Jewish community and talked to people who remember the times. Yes, they ALL have used the word "gas chamber".

What do they have to gain from denying something like that? What I don't understand is, in America, rednecks, bigots and neo-cons generally hate Jews but when it comes to foreign policy AGAINST Muslims--they love the Jews. That Bishop probably has a similar agenda.

[FlamingLibrul]

Excellent post- It boggles the mind that people- regardless of their status or religion, can remain so willfuly ignorant. Bigotry trumps reason and basic human decency, to the detriment of us all.

[penelope742]

As a catholic I am made ill by the reinstatement of this bishop. To me it is sick. This is worse than the guilty bishop, (of the American pedophile scandal,) being allowed to say a mass for Pope John Paul II’s funeral. This guy should be THROWN out of the church. It is incredible that this same church that excommunicates activist or politicians who are pro-choice here in America, but welcomes this person with an honored position. The same church that silences a Jesuit who does not toe their line. As Catholics we must acknowledge our history, which has included the Spanish Inquisition, The Crusades, pogroms against Jews, The Expulsion Of Jews From Spain In 1492, and today radio Marta in Poland, which has made anti-Semitic broadcasts, and continues to do so as far as I know. These are things as Catholics that we must admit, and protest against. I hope that where this has happened, the people there will protest this.

[anelder]

Actually, as a Catholic, I recognize the reinstatement from excommunication as a mark of charity, love, and forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean acceptance, but it does allow for the bishop to return to the sacraments. I'm sure the Pope wanted this man to have the grace associated with communion in order to repent his previous behavior/actions.

That forgiveness and love busines is what the Christ Jesus is all about. I may deplore his beliefs but the man is a different matter.

Of course if was me I would probably assign him to a cave in a desert to repent. But, I am grateful the Pops is a better person than me.

[Biffmeister]

The problem with forgiving Williamson is that he hasn't rescinded his statement, to my knowledge. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Reinstating him without an apology says the church endorses this anti-semitism.

[Elayne Boosler - Huffpost Blogger]

Yet the Pope denies the "grace associated with communion" to politicians in congress whose voting records he disagrees with regarding women's issues. That knocks out your paragraph two. Sounds to me like you're the better person, the one with love in his heart. Thanks for your thoughtful post.