I found out that a longtime (now former!) friend is a Holocaust denier. He posted a long rant that said there weren't enough Jews for 6 million to have been killed, that those skinny prisoners were all actually Russians, & it's only because the Jews control the media that this lie hasn't long since been exposed.
This is (was!) a personal friend. I know his whole family. He and his wife came to my adult bat mitzvah. He also thinks he's smarter & sharper than everyone else & refuses to engage anything that goes against his beliefs. All arguments and evidence become, somehow, proof of his point of view.
As the daughter of a man who fled Nazi Germany & most of whose relatives perished, I am sick about this. And in that survivor (or just Jewish) paranoia, I wondered: Do other people believe the same & only now feel OK about sharing it?
The answer, I think (hope!), is no.
I told a few people, all of whom were aghast & repelled. One asked a group of her friends, none of whom knew any Holocaust deniers (in ultra-red South Dakota). While he had a lot of agreement on his post, I am going to assume that most people were disgusted & ignored him, or like me, unfriended him.
This reinforces the dangerous times we live in, when so many people are under siege or see how close to the edge they really are. No one is safe.
Update: One friend thought it might be a sign of mental illness.
This is (was!) a personal friend. I know his whole family. He and his wife came to my adult bat mitzvah. He also thinks he's smarter & sharper than everyone else & refuses to engage anything that goes against his beliefs. All arguments and evidence become, somehow, proof of his point of view.
As the daughter of a man who fled Nazi Germany & most of whose relatives perished, I am sick about this. And in that survivor (or just Jewish) paranoia, I wondered: Do other people believe the same & only now feel OK about sharing it?
The answer, I think (hope!), is no.
I told a few people, all of whom were aghast & repelled. One asked a group of her friends, none of whom knew any Holocaust deniers (in ultra-red South Dakota). While he had a lot of agreement on his post, I am going to assume that most people were disgusted & ignored him, or like me, unfriended him.
This reinforces the dangerous times we live in, when so many people are under siege or see how close to the edge they really are. No one is safe.
Update: One friend thought it might be a sign of mental illness.