Consider Emory University historian Deborah Lipstadt something of an expert on the topic of the Holocaust and those who would deny that it happened.
Back in 1996, she was sued by David Irving in a British court for characterizing some his work and public statements as an outright denial that the Final Solution ever happened.
She won. A movie about her encounter with Irving, "Denial," came out last year.
Lipstadt now has a piece up on The Atlantic website, on what she calls the Trump administration's "flirtation" with Holocaust denial – focusing on a White House statement released last Friday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, that made no mention of Jews or anti-Semitism. A taste:
Softcore denial uses different tactics but has the same end-goal. (I use hardcore and softcore deliberately because I see denial as a form of historiographic pornography.) It does not deny the facts, but it minimizes them, arguing that Jews use the Holocaust to draw attention away from criticism of Israel. Softcore denial also makes all sorts of false comparisons to the Holocaust.
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