67 Years later, the hatred born of the Holocaust and its continued denial by those who hate Jews claimed another innocent victim who wanted nothing more than to live a happy productive life. A Victim a generation and a continent removed from the Wansee horror of the Final Solution.
James Von Brunn, a known Holocaust Denier and white supremacist, who claims that “The Diary Of Anne Frank” is a hoax and two days before what would have been her 80th birthday, walked into the National Holocaust Museum and opened fire, killing a 39 year old African-American security guard. Van Brunn himself was seriously wounded in the shootout.
Von Brunn is the author of an online manifesto entitled “Kill the Best Gentiles: “A hard-hitting exposé of the JEW CONSPIRACY to destroy the White gene-pool.”
Chapter 6 of the book is entitled is entitled “The Holocaust Hoax” Von Brunn wrote “Hitler‘s worst mistake” was that “he didn’t gas the Jews.” Needless to say this was a Holocaust Denier who hated Jews as well as African Americans and expressed that hate with devastating violence.
If you listen to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook representatives, Holocaust Deniers as a group do not hate Jews, they simply espouse an “unpopular historical theory“
Within hours of the Holocaust Museum shooting, the Facebook Holocaust Denial Group “Holohoax” had posted a graphic mocking the shooting and its victim.(posted above) The graphic shows individuals neck shackled and handcuffed walking past the Holocaust Museum sign.
I can not figure out what legitimate historical point is being debated with this graphic. Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg is more of a Holocaust historian than I am and can enlighten me.
Facebook representative also Barry Schnitt recently” stated that the mere fact of “denying the Holocaust” did not constitute hate speech under Facebook TOS.
According to Facebook guidelines, it appears that it only qualifies as hate speech when you Deny The Holocaust and put a bullet in someone to further advance your argument.
James Von Brunn has spoken loud and clear that the “mere fact” of Denying The Holocaust is in fact hate speech. He has spoken with hatred, violence and death.
It is time for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to once and for all close down his Facebook recruiting ground for the “James Von Brunns In Training” of the world. They are training unchecked in the giant social media universe of Facebook. It is time to send the message that this hatred and violence being spawned on Facebook will no longer be tolerated.
Are you listening Mark? Do you get it yet? Do you get that you are not Thomas Jefferson or one of the other founding fathers protecting the “idea of free speech” for the masses. You are the CEO of a for profit company that whether you intended it or not is shaping the young minds of the country. Whether you like it or not, by providing unrestricted access to these masses you took on a moral and corporate social responsibility not to let the “James Von Brunns In Training” fester and grow in your back yard.
Enough is Enough.
24 Responses
I am glad that Mr. Zuckerberg is being cautious about squashing free speech, but if Facebook truly is intolerant of hate speech, this should be included. There is no question that the denial of the Holocaust directly correlates to anti-Semitism.
Most hate speech could be discounted as alternate views of history, science, sociology or anthropology. Every hate group could come up with their own alternate views in an attempt to justify their point of view.
I love that free speech exists, but there's plenty of opportunity for hatemongering on the Internet. We don't need an endorsement from our major social networks to give them any kind of credibility.
I hope Facebook reevaluates their decision.
I find the ideas of these people reprehensible, but I am concerned about the following.
According to a Gallup Poll in February of this year, only 39% of Americans believe in Evolution. To some, the idea of an 'Creationism is Bunk' group would be offensive. Some would find a group supporting gay marriage offensive. Some would find a fan group for Rush Limbaugh offensive.
When you start deciding what's offensive and what's not, you begin to mediate the free exchange of ideas.
These people are ignorant. The fact that they are willing to flaunt it exposes their ideas to appropriate ridicule and social disapproval. Isn't that a better result for their ideas anyway?
Hopefully this will be an unfortunate eye opener to M. Zuckerberg & his support of hatred groups like the ones denying the holocaust. He can deny all day that he supports these groups and that they are not hatred groups, but as long as these groups are spouting off the same ideology that Von Brunn did and as long as Zuckerberg is allowing these groups on his non-govenrmentally run site he shares some responsibility in spreading this God awful form of hatred. If he doesn’t things like these sites promote ideas in the minds of younger generations then allow me to point out several school shootings that have taken place over just the past decade; do some research on what the kids were viewing on the web & then tell me it has nothing to do with this kind of sick, pathetic, cowardly way of thinking about the world. M. Zuckerberg shares in the responsibility of spreading this sick hatred!!!
It's an outright shame that Facebook continues to allow this blatant violation of their own Terms of Serivice
whatever
Your argument is intellectually weak: the opening paragraph shows that: "67 Years later, the hatred born of the Holocaust and its continued denial by those who hate Jews "
Q. Why are you using this inciden to peddle the view that ALL 'revisionists of the holocaust ' are jew-haters, as opposed to pursuing intellectual honesty?
Please do me the courtesy of answering my quesitojn, and just that question.
jakpop you are such a intellectual
I'd like to respond to jakbop…
if you deny or question that the Holocaust happened, you are calling my grandmother, who lost her brother and both parents in the Majdonek concentration camp, a liar. You are calling my grandmother, who was forced to carry fake papers labeling her a Catholic to avoid slaughter, a liar.
if you deny or question that the Holocaust happened, you are calling my grandfather, who was a prisoner of war in Poland, a liar. You are calling my grandfather, who spend nights crammed in a trash can with no clothing in the middle of winter to hide from the SS, a liar. You are calling my grandfather, who was forced (as a medic) to help the wounded men who killed his 7 siblings and his parents, a liar.
How is pursuing intellectual honesty, in the name of discrediting the hundreds of thousands of men and women whose lives were ruined beyond repair, not hateful?
Do you seek to deny that Africans were shipped to America, stacked one on top of the other for months at a time in the bottom of a filthy boat, simply to be unloaded and sold into slavery?
Do you seek to deny that Japanese-Americans were rounded up simply for being of Japanese heritage, forced into internment camps and held against their will because we were at war with Japan?
If these things are historical, if they happened, if there are people who were there and who suffered and who wrote about it and told their children and grandchildren about it, why would you seek to deny it?
Because you have hate in your heart. Whether it's against the Jews or the Blacks or the Japanese or the Muslims, it's hateful to tell someone who has suffered that their suffering was a figment of their imaginations.
Shame on you.
Hi Lisa–Unfortunately, you did not answer the question and BTW, I also lost family to the holocaust. My roots include Hungarian Jews AND Gypsies (strange but true). While it is possible that jakbop is PROBABLY an anti-semite, he carefully crafted his response to try to defend alternate views of history as opposed to saying he hates Jews.
In my opinon, there is NO DOUBT that the holocaust happened but he has a right to say HE doesn't think it happened. Hey, there are people that still doubt that the US has been to the moon!
Kent, I agree that he certainly has a right to say it on a public sidewalk, or any govt owned land. Are you saying he has some type of legal right to say it on FB? What is your analysis?
You are missing an important point here. This "alternate view of history" is used for one reason and one reason only…to promote hatred of Jewish people. There is no other reason. It only exists to say that Jewish people are lying about the Holocaust to gain sympathy and to get money and political power that is not theirs. No one can put forth a legitimate reason to otherwise pursue this "alternate view of history."
These same group of people will deny slavery existed and still think black people should never be free. White supremacy or pink supremacy, it's all nonsense as no human is born supreme. Our founding fathers are rolling in their graves because of the many freedoms we have and abuse today. In some countries these haters will be beheaded in broad daylight. The government is so scared to go after these idiots that prowl this country hating humankind in their screwed up heads. My heart goes out to the guard's family. The guard was shot because he is black and it's a shame America.
They've only got 48 people in the whole world in that group? Sounds like their outreach attempt isn't working out too well.
Ban the bums anyway.
We have to get tough as a nation. A democracy does not mean anyone who wants to has the right to say hateful things to groups of people they don't like. God forbid, this also means doing them harm. We are all God's children–no matter what religion, color, gender, or political party. Let's eliminate all hate speech and groups (Fox news is one place to start, the KKK is another) because they appeal only to mentally or spiritually sick people.
You did not answer his question. It's not about you. It's about the falsehood of sweeping generalizations.
I guess I feel that if Facebook can sell our information to make money and they're ok with taking that liberty, I would appreciate them taking a little less caution when it comes to something like this. I'm generally 100% opposed to censorship, but what good can come of promoting hate? If there was an open debate about it or something civil where people could share viewpoints… but that is not what is happening with that group.
I'd like to propose a new amendment to the constitution. That is Freedom from Religion. The right wing kooks that are getting shaken loose because they lost their chance to stack the supreme court, are example enough of the problems we face. We need comprehensive solutions to what amounts to a homegrown terror network.
Mr. Zuckerberg has a history of being a different kind of leader including morally-ambiguous actions sailing under the flag of new ideas. However if it is a big enough problem, I suggest not using the service in lieu of complaint. I could find no measurable advantage of Facebook/Myspace over IM/email/phone except an infinite number of click-here-play-a-crappy-useless-game requests. Your mileage may vary.
Why would one question the holocaust? If you just want to make a point that you have to be sceptic about history, why not question the founding of America? Or the historical existence of Ceasar?
If you question Holocaust and Holocaust alone, the intention is clear, I think…
Btw. I'm german and denying the holocaust is a criminal act over here.
Or landing on the moom?
We're also gonna need to ban all pro-life groups on facebook. When will Zuckerberg stop these recruiting grounds for the next Scott Roeder in training?
The truth needs no entity to defend it. You can call a straight person gay and it won't change the fact that he/she is straight. Oh BTW, this is for LISA, your grandmother was a liar. You admit it yourself in your diatribe.
True scum of the earth, these Von Brunns and Holocaust deniers – vile, demented, paranoid, hate-driven murderous beasts.
And I say that as white American of German and French Catholic ancestry.
Filth, swinish filth
A gutless, vicious madman gunned down a decent, principled, hardworking, loving husband and father, whose last act was one of generosity, going to open a door for a man he thought needed his help – and who murdered him.
Let us hope that there is indeed a God, and a Hell – in which Von Brunn can experience all the mercy, compassion, and love with which he treated his others, and the man whose life he took.
It is vile and unacceptable that people are allowed to come onto places like Facebook and YouTube and spew their hatred and Holocaust denial. I and a lot of others had relatives who were murdered by Hitler and his henchmen. Holocaust denial is a slap in the face to the millions exterminated in the death camps and by the SS mobile killing squads, and it ridicules and demeans what all victims and their families went through, and the horrors they suffered. It is outrageous that such individuals are allowed to use these accounts to spread their antisemitic lies and filthy videos.
Denial of genocide strives to reshape history in order to demonize the victims and rehabilitate the perpetrators. Denial of genocide is the final stage of genocide; it is what Elie Wiesel has called a "double killing." Denial murders the dignity of the survivors and seeks to destroy the remembrance of the crime.