How is the "holocaust" commemorated in the Soviet Union and in the rest of the Communist Bloc countries?

[Kmut00]

Hi. Since I began to be interested in "Holocaust" Revisionism and to debate with revisionists, a very recurring claim that I often hear is that the "Holocaust history" and the alleged Nazi genocide of the Jews during WWII it's a myth fabricated in the most part by Soviet propagandists. Although I am relatively new to revisionism and therefore I'm not an expert on the subject, it seems to me a reasonable claim if we look at the following facts:

1- All the alleged "extermination camps" were liberated by the Red Army and after the end of the WW2 it were in the territory of the countries that were part of the Communist Bloc.

2- Most part of the Jews who then live in Europe resided in Eastern Europe (mainly in Poland and the Soviet Union), so the persecution against the Jews carried out by Hitler's Germany (deportation to ghettos and concentration camps) during the Second World War took place mostly in the scenarios where the German Wehrmacht and the Soviet Red Army clashed.

3- The Nuremberg trials were clearly inspired by the Moscow show trials of the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s (in fact, if I'm not wrong, the idea of ​​judging the main Nazi leaders who survived the end of the war in a International Military Tribunal was an idea from Stalin).

4- The main propagandist of the Soviet Union, the infamous Ilya Ehrenburg (which was of Jewish origin, of course) was the first to spread the famous figure of "6 million".

5- The Jews are the creators of Communism and were the hegemonic power of the Soviet Union and the international communist movement in general.

Having said all this, hearing this claim so many times has aroused a lot of interest and curiosity in knowing how the "Holocaust" narrative spread in the countries that remained behind the Iron Curtain after World War II and during the Cold War and how important was the the "Holocaust" for the Soviet Union and for the Communist Bloc in general in justifying its political legitimacy. I am especially interested in the cases of the Soviet Union of course, the Polish People's Republic and the DDR. I will to publish a series of threads to open debates about it, but unfortunately I don't have much free time in these months, so I don't know if I can publish it one after another frequently. However, this first thread is going to deal with the history of the "Holocaust" narrative in the Communist Bloc in general from 1945 to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, without specifying any country in particular. I apologize in advance if the thread is getting too long, but please be patient, as I sincerely believe that clarifying this matter is an issue of great importance for the "Holocaust" Revisionism. With that said, let's get started.

To begin with, when I refer to the "Holocaust narrative" or "Holocaust history" I obviously refer to the version of the alleged "Holocaust" that has been taught to the public opinion in the countries that were part of the Western Bloc during the Cold War. That is, the United States, the rest of the Americas (except Cuba), Israel and Western Europe. Since most of the threads in this forum are published in English (although there are also secondary forums who are published in German, Spanish, French and Swedish), I have the sensation that the vast majority of users are from Western countries (that is my case among many others), so it's logical that most of us associate the "Holocaust" history fundamentally with the "pop culture" that has been created in the West about the "Holocaust" with films such as Schlinder's List, Life is Beautiful, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Judgment at Nuremberg or the American "Holocaust" miniseries of 1978, with tearful stories such the diary of Ana Frank or Primo Levi and with the footages of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps such as Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthausen or Buchenwald and the atrocity propaganda about these camps, or with the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Israel in 1961 to mention notable examples. However, this entire "Holocaust" that I have just referred, was the one that who was constructed in the West from 1945 and throughout the Cold War and it was of vital importance for justify the political legitimacy of the alleged "free world" (the Western Bloc). However, I suppose the Communist Bloc would also create it own "Holocaust" narrative to rivalize with the Western's "Holocaust" narrative to justify their political legitimacy and would also create a pop culture around their own narrative (in the same way that both geopolitical Blocs created its own narrative of the history of the WW2). The other objective of this thread apart from finding out how the "Holocaust" narrative was developed behind the Iron Curtain and what importance had it for the Soviet Union and the Communist Bloc in general is to compare both "Holocaust" narratives. If among you the users who are going to read this thread are a Russian, a Ukrainian, a Pole, an East German, a Czech, a Hungarian, etc. that himself has lived through the communist era, I ask you that please tell me what you remember about how the "Holocaust" propaganda was spread during that time in your country, I would greatly appreciate it (and in case that you don't lived that time for being too young, please tell me what yout parents remember about it). In other words, how was "Holocaust education" in your country under Communism (what was taught and how were these topics taught in schools and in history classes), how was the "Holocaust" commemorated in your country during Communism, what role did the "Holocaust" play in the political and cultural life of your country during Communism, if someone dared to question and/or debunk the "Holocaust" in your country during Communism, what consequences could they expect, etc.

Without a doubt, the Soviets and all their puppets regimes across Eastern Europe had as good and even better political reasons than the Western Allies to create a great propagandistic cult around the "Holocaust" that would serve to justify themselves and benefit politically. Well, as I pointed out, all the alleged extermination camps were liberated by the Red Army and were located in territories that during the Cold War belonged to the Communist Bloc. Quintessential symbols of the "Holocaust" such as Auschwitz or the Warsaw Ghetto are located in what was then the Polish People's Republic, as I have also pointed out, the Jews were the core of Bolshevism (so it's to be assumed that they would take advantage to victimize themselves and to accuse anyone who opposed Communism of being anti-Semitic) and that the alleged "Holocaust", having been perpetrated by Fascism (a staunch enemy of Communism) would demonstrate the "evil" of the enemies of communism and the moral superiority of the Soviet Union in particular and Communism in general, being able to accuse of "fascist" anyone who dares to criticize them. Another issue that draws my attention in this regard is that due that Auschwitz and all the other alleged extermination camps were liberated by the Soviets, the overwhelming majority of the documents related to the "Holocaust" and the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazis passed into the hands and they remained under the control and supervision of the Soviet Union. As is well known, the Soviet authorities and the other communist countries of Eastern Europe were always very reluctant to declassify any document related to the "Holocaust" and the Nazi concentration camps (so I suppose that they would do it for fear and for thinking that their version of the "Holocaust" could be debunked). For example, if I remember correctly, Ernst Zündel always said that when he decided to travel to Auschwitz to make the famous Leuchter report to use ot as defense evidence in his second Holocaust Trial in 1988, the Polish authorities guarding Auschwitz (Poland was still a communist country) were not allowed them to enter the camp and they had to be bribed to let them carry out their investigation of the camp.

That said, finally I would like to ask you a few questions about it.

- Was the "Holocaust" as pervasive a propaganda theme in the Soviet Union and the Communist Bloc in general as it was (and still is today) in the West?

- Were tearful propaganda movies similar to Schindler's List or the "Holocaust" miniseries made in the countries of the Communist Bloc? What diffusion did have the books of people like Simon Wiesenthal, Raul Hilberg or Elie Wiesel in the countries behind the Iron Curtain?

- Speaking of Ernst Zündel, what reception, diffusion and impact did the great Holocaust trials of 1985 and 1988 have in the communist countries?

- Was it forbidden in the Soviet Union and in the rest of the communist countries of Eastern Europe to question and/or debunk the "Holocaust" as is happening now in the West, or was "Holocaust" Revisionism not illegal in that contries?

- What was said and teached about Auschwitz in the countries behind the Iron Curtain?

- Was Auschwitz in the days of communist Poland a holy place of worship dedicated to the alleged genocide against the Jews as it is today?

- In the Communist Bloc's "Holocaust" narrative were the Jews given a role of special protagonism, singularity and victimhood as happened and continues to happen in the Western narrative?

- Was January 27 commemorated in communist countries as it is today in the Western World?

- Did exist in the Communist Bloc's countries any memorial museum like Yad Vashem or USHMM?

Thanks in advance, I look forward to your responses.

[hermod]

1- All the alleged "extermination camps" were liberated by the Red Army and after the end of the WW2 it were in the territory of the countries that were part of the Communist Bloc.

That's the Holohoax 2.0. During WWII and the following decades, all the German concentration camps were labelled as death camps. That's why all the terrible pictures of epidemic devastation (but deceptively said or implied to document mass murder in the Nazi 'death camps') were shot in the Western camps (now downgraded to concentration camps). Not a single pic of an Eastern camp still labelled as a death camp in the one-hour-long movie used by the Soviet-Allied victors as graphic evidence at the Nuremberg show trial (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... Camps.webm ). In 1945 and the following decades, every victorious power wanted to be portrayed as a liberator of 'death camps.' Many British and American vets missed the postwar updates of the Holocaust myth and died with the false belief that they had liberated Nazi 'death camps.' They had even come to believe that they had fought and suffered mostly for that.

https://postimg.cc/XGGLQC7y

https://postimg.cc/bD7Mt8P2

- Was Auschwitz in the days of communist Poland a holy place of worship dedicated to the alleged genocide against the Jews as it is today?

No, it was a holy place of worship dedicated to the alleged fascist slaughter of workers. Israel became the sole heir of the Holohoax in 1990, when the USSR was collapsing. Before that time, the Holohoax was not a mostly Jewish thing.

Usually, Soviet propagandists didn't single out the Jews as Jews (a number of Jews now call it anti-Semitism because it deprives them of their special-victim status). The Soviet Union rather used the Holohoax as an anti-Capitalist myth supposed to justify the domination of the Soviet Empire. In Soviet propaganda, 'fascism' was portrayed as a bodyguard of big business.

[Kmut00]

1- All the alleged "extermination camps" were liberated by the Red Army and after the end of the WW2 it were in the territory of the countries that were part of the Communist Bloc.

That's the Holohoax 2.0. During WWII and the following decades, all the German concentration camps were labelled as death camps. That's why all the terrible pictures of epidemic devastation (but deceptively said or implied to document mass murder in the Nazi 'death camps') were shot in the Western camps (now downgraded to concentration camps). Not a single pic of an Eastern camp still labelled as a death camp in the one-hour-long movie used by the Soviet-Allied victors as graphic evidence at the Nuremberg show trial (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... Camps.webm ). In 1945 and the following decades, every victorious power wanted to be portrayed as a liberator of 'death camps.' Many British and American vets missed the postwar updates of the Holocaust myth and died with the false belief that they had liberated Nazi 'death camps.' They had even come to believe that they had fought and suffered mostly for that.

https://postimg.cc/XGGLQC7y

https://postimg.cc/bD7Mt8P2

- Was Auschwitz in the days of communist Poland a holy place of worship dedicated to the alleged genocide against the Jews as it is today?

No, it was a holy place of worship dedicated to the alleged fascist slaughter of workers. Israel became the sole heir of the Holohoax in 1990, when the USSR was collapsing. Before that time, the Holohoax was not a mostly Jewish thing.

Usually, Soviet propagandists didn't single out the Jews as Jews (a number of Jews now call it anti-Semitism because it deprives them of their special-victim status). The Soviet Union rather used the Holohoax as an anti-Capitalist myth supposed to justify the domination of the Soviet Empire. In Soviet propaganda, 'fascism' was portrayed as a bodyguard of big business.

Either I don't understand anything or I'm very confused. First of all, if your claim that the Soviet propagandists did not single out the Jews as Jews and they gave them a secondary role among the so-called "Holocaust victims" is correct, then why do many "Holocaust" revisionists claim that the "Holocaust" is a lie fabricated predominantly by the Soviets? Secondly, why then and despite the great influence and power that the Jews had in the Soviet Union and in the communist countries of Eastern Europe, were the Jews not given (according to your claim) any special victim status? Secondly, do you think then that for the Soviet Union and its puppets regimes the narrative of the "Holocaust" was a matter of less importance than for the countries that since 1945 have been under the domination of the United States and Israel? For example, as you know here in the West (at least since the 1960s) the "Holocaust" has become an unquestionable and omnipresent dogma in the political and cultural life of our countries. Didn't the same thing happen then in the Soviet Union and the rest of the countries of the Communist Bloc? Could one habe been claimed in the Soviet Union, in the DDR, in the Polish People's Republic etc. that the Holocaust is a lie or published books such as "Le Mensonge d’Ulysse", "Did Six Million Really Die?", "Hitler’s War", "The Auschwitz Lie" or the Leuchter report without going to jail as has been happening for decades in the West (especially in many European countries)?

[EtienneSC]

I am not from Eastern Europe and you cover a lot of ground with your questions, but the following may be relevant:

[.....] I would like to ask you a few questions about it.

- Was the "Holocaust" as pervasive a propaganda theme in the Soviet Union and the Communist Bloc in general as it was (and still is today) in the West?

I don't recall such a thing being mentioned in any Soviet book I have read from the 1970s or 80s. The main historical theme from the period was the "Great Patriotic War" of 1941-45. This was seen partly in national and partly in class terms. The Soviet victory was a victory for the international proletariat and a vindication of Marxism-Leninism. Fascism was a break with the legal order of bourgeois society that illustrated the inward crumbling of bourgeois ideology and its outward imperialist expansionism. There were a number of Marxist theories about why antisemitism had revived in Germany - e.g. as a diversion from the class struggle. The psychological theories of the "Frankfurt school" (i.e. Adorno) were known about and dismissed. Amongst the believers, there was more of a forward-looking ethos concerned with building a new society rather than a concern to rake over the crimes of the past.

As for other countries (Poland and the Baltic states), I can't help you.

- Were tearful propaganda movies similar to Schindler's List or the "Holocaust" miniseries made in the countries of the Communist Bloc? What diffusion did have the books of people like Simon Wiesenthal, Raul Hilberg or Elie Wiesel in the countries behind the Iron Curtain?

One films that includes concentration camp scenes, Diamonds of the Night (1964) might be an example of the former. Do you have any evidence these Western authors or films were distributed at all in the Soviet Union or other Warsaw Pact states? If they were, they would likely have been dismissed as class propaganda, officially at least.

- Speaking of Ernst Zündel, what reception, diffusion and impact did the great Holocaust trials of 1985 and 1988 have in the communist countries?

I imagine they were completely unknown. Even in the West outside revisionist circles, they are still not on most people's radar.

- Was it forbidden in the Soviet Union and in the rest of the communist countries of Eastern Europe to question and/or debunk the "Holocaust" as is happening now in the West, or was "Holocaust" Revisionism not illegal in that contries?

There was a general law against anti-semitism (so I've read). The generally worded Law against the Rehabilitation of Nazism in Russia dates from 2014.

- What was said and teached about Auschwitz in the countries behind the Iron Curtain?

Presumably the pre-1990 plaque at Auschwitz: "Four Million People Suffered and Died Here at the Hands of the Nazi Murderers between the Years 1940 and 1945" would be a fair summary.

- Was Auschwitz in the days of communist Poland a holy place of worship dedicated to the alleged genocide against the Jews as it is today?

There was some tourism, but not on the scale of today. There are revisionist films on location from David McCalden and David Cole from the period or shortly afterwards.

- In the Communist Bloc's "Holocaust" narrative were the Jews given a role of special protagonism, singularity and victimhood as happened and continues to happen in the Western narrative?

I'm not sure why you assume that there was a singular "Holocaust narrative". The term "Holocaust" did not gain currency in the West until the 1970s and the Soviet Bloc collapsed in 1989-90. Its culture prior to that was embodied mostly in Slavic languages, with limited access to Western intellectual fads and fashions.

- Was January 27 commemorated in communist countries as it is today in the Western World?

International Holocaust Remembrance Day was established by Resolution 60/7 of the United Nations and first held in 2006. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1990. In other words, no.

- Did exist in the Communist Bloc's countries any memorial museum like Yad Vashem or USHMM?

Thanks in advance, I look forward to your responses.

There were memorials at Auschwitz and Maijdanek (which was then supposed to be equivalent to Auschwitz). Robert Faurisson visited them in the 1970s.

Finally, there an article by Catholic historian John Klier "The Holocaust and the Soviet Union" in the collection The Historiography of the Holocaust (2004) that might answer some of your questions.

[borjastick]

Why would normal Russians want to celebrate the claims of the jews about the holocaust? They were being led by Stalin who made it quite clear he wanted the jews out of mainstream Russia by offering them their own land in the far east of the country. Also the jews of the Revolutionary period were largely out of the way. I accept that there were jews in the war effort at senior level but they were careful enough to not make the Russian war effort about anything other than Mother Russia fighting against the fascists.

Afterwards it was all about celebrating Russia's triumph, a massive triumph too against all odds by removing the heathen Germans from Russia and of course grabbing as much territory as they could. Thus to the outside world it was important to make Germany look like the beast and devil what with gassing 6m jews etc but inwardly I suspect not much was mentioned because they wouldn't want their own glorious victories disappearing in a muddy puddle of jew victim hood.

[HeiligeSturm]

- Were tearful propaganda movies similar to Schindler's List or the "Holocaust" miniseries made in the countries of the Communist Bloc?

Majdanek - cmentarzysko Europy/Majdanek – The Cemetery of Europe (1944) by Polish Jewish Communist Aleksander Ford.
"a reportage shot on 24th and 25th July, 1944, immediately after the camp’s liberation by the Soviet Union."
Being Jewish and orthodox Stalinist, he was very much biased against the Germans.
He also made training films for the Red Army. This is the first atrocity propaganda film.

Ostatni etap/The Last Stage (1948) by Polish Communist Wanda Jakubowska.
A former prisoner of Auschwitz-Birkenau used the camp grounds for filming this.
Steven Spielberg used (copied) some of the imagery in his Birkenau scenes seen in Schindler's List.

Pasażerka/Passenger (1963) by Polish Jew Andrzej Munk.
Pure fiction and exploitation.

[hermod]

Either I don't understand anything or I'm very confused. First of all, if your claim that the Soviet propagandists did not single out the Jews as Jews and they gave them a secondary role among the so-called "Holocaust victims" is correct, then why do many "Holocaust" revisionists claim that the "Holocaust" is a lie fabricated predominantly by the Soviets?

They didn't give Jews a secondary role among the so-called Holocaust victims. They were race/ethnicity-deniers and usually didn't make a distinction between the various peoples of the Soviet Empire. They were more into class warfare.

Do many Holocaust revisionist claim that the Holocaust is a lie fabricated predominantly by the Soviets? I know that Carlos Whitlock Porter wrote a book "Made in Russia - The Holocaust" (because the Soviets were the inventors and/or disseminators of dozens of incredible and extravagant Holocaust claims, most of which have now been quietly dropped and never were at the core of the Holohoax), but I'm not aware that many Holocaust revisionists claimed such a thing.

https://archive.org/details/porter-carl ... t/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/TheHolocaus ... 8/mode/2up

Secondly, why then and despite the great influence and power that the Jews had in the Soviet Union and in the communist countries of Eastern Europe, were the Jews not given (according to your claim) any special victim status?

Because the Communist countries of the Soviet Empire were dictatorships where the Jews didn't need to generate sympathy for themselves and the state of Israel with horror tales in which Jews were the biggest sufferers in the whole universe. Death penalty was the punishment for anti-Semitism in Soviet countries. Not to mention the Gulags. No need to make Goyim cry Jews a river with such protective measures against anti-Semitic reactions.

Secondly, do you think then that for the Soviet Union and its puppets regimes the narrative of the "Holocaust" was a matter of less importance than for the countries that since 1945 have been under the domination of the United States and Israel? For example, as you know here in the West (at least since the 1960s) the "Holocaust" has become an unquestionable and omnipresent dogma in the political and cultural life of our countries. Didn't the same thing happen then in the Soviet Union and the rest of the countries of the Communist Bloc? Could one habe been claimed in the Soviet Union, in the DDR, in the Polish People's Republic etc. that the Holocaust is a lie or published books such as "Le Mensonge d’Ulysse", "Did Six Million Really Die?", "Hitler’s War", "The Auschwitz Lie" or the Leuchter report without going to jail as has been happening for decades in the West (especially in many European countries)?

I don't think that it was a matter of less importance and that the public expression of skepticism was allowed in Soviet countries. The Soviet authorities immediately turned the Nazi camps captured by the Red Army into horrific Potemkin villages and frog marched the locals there before the war was over. Their atrocity propaganda focused on cremation (crematory ovens, chimneys, human ashes, charred corpses, etc.), hence the Nazi destruction of the Birkenau crematoria a few months after the Soviet capture of the Majdanek concentration camp.

[HeiligeSturm]

- Were tearful propaganda movies similar to Schindler's List or the "Holocaust" miniseries made in the countries of the Communist Bloc?

I should add Zastihla me noc / The Night Overtakes Me (1986) by Jewish Czechoslovakian director Juraj Herz to the list.
"At that time, it was already known what the showers meant. I was there looking at the panic-stricken adults and I knew there was no gas in the tubes because there were glass windows in the room. It would be easy to break them and let the gas out. So I knew it couldn't be a gas chamber. After a while, water started to come out from the tubes, and all the men were screaming that it is just water and not gas. This scene you know from Steven Spielberg. But ten years before him, I shot this scene with women in the film Zastihla me noc (1986). Spielberg copied the scene shot by shot from me."
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0381228/bio ... _ov_bio_sm

Spielberg's propaganda efforts deserve it's own thread some day.

[hermod]

One call also mention the 1959 Soviet movie Fate of a Man...

Fate of a Man (Russian: Судьба человека, translit. Sudba Cheloveka), also released as A Man's Destiny and Destiny of a Man is a 1959 Soviet film adaptation of the short story by Mikhail Sholokhov, and also the directorial debut of Sergei Bondarchuk.[1] In the year of its release it won the Grand Prize at the 1st Moscow International Film Festival.[2]



Plot
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, driver Andrei Sokolov has to part with his family. In May 1942 he is taken prisoner by the Germans. Sokolov endures the hell of a Nazi concentration camp, but thanks to his courage he avoids execution and finally escapes from captivity behind the front line to his own. On a short front-line vacation to his small homeland Voronezh, he learns that his wife and both daughters have died during the bombing of Voronezh by German aircraft. Of those close to him, only his son remained, who became an officer. On the last day of the war, May 9, Andrei receives news that his son has died.

After the war, the lonely Sokolov works as a truck driver away from his native places - in Uryupinsk (Stalingrad Oblast). There he meets a little boy Vanya, who was left an orphan: the boy's mother died during the bombing, and his father went missing during the war. Sokolov decides to tell the boy that he is his father, and by doing so he gives himself and the boy hope for a new happy family life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_of_a_Man

[HeiligeSturm]

One call also mention the 1959 Soviet movie Fate of a Man...

You can find this Mosfilm production from their YT channel.
The movie uses the usual cliches:
Going through many camps... religious words...

defiance, supposed heroism and assumptions...

camp orchestra on arrival and before selection...

Misleading sign for victims...

Only the flames are missing...

This movie and it's version of Holocaust is very much commemorated in YT comments:
"Another remarkable film of the Soviet Era, from a true short story adapted for the screen, and directed by legendary film maker and Great Patriotic War Red Army veteran, Sergei Bondarchuk, who also plays the part of Sokolov"

"One of the best and most emotional films in the history of cinema."

"This is a really excellent film, and it's got me pretty emotional to say any more than that."

"A wonderful movie, thank you. Excellent production values - such realism!"

It's worth mentioning that the director got The Lenin Prize for making this emotional movie.

Ostatni etap/The Last Stage (1948) by Polish Communist Wanda Jakubowska used similar tactics.
Jakubowska collaborated with Aleksander Ford (Roman Polanski was one of Ford's students), asked help from Communist party etc.
In the book Screening Auschwitz Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage and the Politics of Commemoration

there is CHAPTER 2 “Stalin Was Moved to Tears”: The Script

Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3znz28

So, Soviet Union and Communist Bloc countries seemed to commemorate this era with their emotional movies. Not politically biased at all.

[Kmut00]

I am not from Eastern Europe and you cover a lot of ground with your questions, but the following may be relevant:

[.....] I would like to ask you a few questions about it.

- Was the "Holocaust" as pervasive a propaganda theme in the Soviet Union and the Communist Bloc in general as it was (and still is today) in the West?

I don't recall such a thing being mentioned in any Soviet book I have read from the 1970s or 80s. The main historical theme from the period was the "Great Patriotic War" of 1941-45. This was seen partly in national and partly in class terms. The Soviet victory was a victory for the international proletariat and a vindication of Marxism-Leninism. Fascism was a break with the legal order of bourgeois society that illustrated the inward crumbling of bourgeois ideology and its outward imperialist expansionism. There were a number of Marxist theories about why antisemitism had revived in Germany - e.g. as a diversion from the class struggle. The psychological theories of the "Frankfurt school" (i.e. Adorno) were known about and dismissed. Amongst the believers, there was more of a forward-looking ethos concerned with building a new society rather than a concern to rake over the crimes of the past.

As for other countries (Poland and the Baltic states), I can't help you.

- Were tearful propaganda movies similar to Schindler's List or the "Holocaust" miniseries made in the countries of the Communist Bloc? What diffusion did have the books of people like Simon Wiesenthal, Raul Hilberg or Elie Wiesel in the countries behind the Iron Curtain?

One films that includes concentration camp scenes, Diamonds of the Night (1964) might be an example of the former. Do you have any evidence these Western authors or films were distributed at all in the Soviet Union or other Warsaw Pact states? If they were, they would likely have been dismissed as class propaganda, officially at least.

- Speaking of Ernst Zündel, what reception, diffusion and impact did the great Holocaust trials of 1985 and 1988 have in the communist countries?

I imagine they were completely unknown. Even in the West outside revisionist circles, they are still not on most people's radar.

- Was it forbidden in the Soviet Union and in the rest of the communist countries of Eastern Europe to question and/or debunk the "Holocaust" as is happening now in the West, or was "Holocaust" Revisionism not illegal in that contries?

There was a general law against anti-semitism (so I've read). The generally worded Law against the Rehabilitation of Nazism in Russia dates from 2014.

- What was said and teached about Auschwitz in the countries behind the Iron Curtain?

Presumably the pre-1990 plaque at Auschwitz: "Four Million People Suffered and Died Here at the Hands of the Nazi Murderers between the Years 1940 and 1945" would be a fair summary.

- Was Auschwitz in the days of communist Poland a holy place of worship dedicated to the alleged genocide against the Jews as it is today?

There was some tourism, but not on the scale of today. There are revisionist films on location from David McCalden and David Cole from the period or shortly afterwards.

- In the Communist Bloc's "Holocaust" narrative were the Jews given a role of special protagonism, singularity and victimhood as happened and continues to happen in the Western narrative?

I'm not sure why you assume that there was a singular "Holocaust narrative". The term "Holocaust" did not gain currency in the West until the 1970s and the Soviet Bloc collapsed in 1989-90. Its culture prior to that was embodied mostly in Slavic languages, with limited access to Western intellectual fads and fashions.

- Was January 27 commemorated in communist countries as it is today in the Western World?

International Holocaust Remembrance Day was established by Resolution 60/7 of the United Nations and first held in 2006. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1990. In other words, no.

- Did exist in the Communist Bloc's countries any memorial museum like Yad Vashem or USHMM?

Thanks in advance, I look forward to your responses.

There were memorials at Auschwitz and Maijdanek (which was then supposed to be equivalent to Auschwitz). Robert Faurisson visited them in the 1970s.

Finally, there an article by Catholic historian John Klier "The Holocaust and the Soviet Union" in the collection The Historiography of the Holocaust (2004) that might answer some of your questions.

Thanks for your clarification. First of all, if I have not misunderstood your claim, the Soviet propaganda focused mainly on their military victory against Germany and for the Soviet propaganda the anti-Semitism of the Nazis was a secondary theme that was used mainly as a doctrinal criticism against Fascism but that it was not used to talk about the alleged Nazi atrocities against the Jews. You have claimed that the psychological theories of the "Frankfurt school" (ie, Adorno) were discarded in the Soviet Union. So do you think that the claim and widespread belief of Cultural Marxism, that is, the thesis that claims that the Frankurt school was promoted by communist intellectuals (mostly of Jewish origin) initially before the Hitler's arrival to power in Germany and later during the Cold War era in the West with the aim of morally corrupting and weakening it to ensure that when the Western World collapsed it would been came under the rule of Communism is a hoax or is there any truth in that claim?

Regarding the "Holocaust" propaganda films in the communist countries. According to your claim, the Communist Bloc also produced its own "Holocaust" propaganda films during the Cold War era, but the Western "Holocaust" propaganda films were censored. No, I have no evidence to corroborate or debunk that the books by authors like Simon Wiesenthal, Raul Hilberg or Elie Wiesel and Western movies such as Schindler's List or the "Holocaust" miniseries were broadcast in the Soviet Union and in the other countries of the Warsaw Pact, I am still quite inexperienced in revisionism, is because this reason why I have opened this thread, because I still need to know much more information about this whole matter and resolve many important questions.

Regarding the Ernst Zündels great "Holocaust" trials in 1985 and 1988, you have claimed that you believe they were completely unknown not only in the communist world but even in the West outside revisionist circles. I don't know, but according to what I understand, the Zündel trials (especially the one in 1988) turned the official narrative of the "Holocaust" upside down and were very mediatic in Canada and because during this trial Ernst Zündel and his team had traveled to communist Poland to carry out the Leuchter Report in Auschwitz, it's very difficult for me to believe that the Zündel's great "Holocaust" trials went unnoticed and unknown in communist countries (at least in the Polish People's Republic). However, I don't know where I can find good information for research about the coverage and dissemination in the media of the Zündel trials, if you know of any site that has information about it, send me the links, please.

Regarding the legal status of the "Holocaust" Revisionism in the Soviet Union and the rest of the communist countries, the law that you mention is from current Russia and was implemented in 2014. What I don't know and I am very interested in knowing is if the diffusion of "Holocaust Denial" was illegal in the Soviet Union and it's puppet countries.

Regarding the "Holocaust tourism" in Auschiwtz during the times of the Polish People's Republic, you say that there was some tourism, but not on the scale of today and that there are revisionist films on location from David McCalden and David Cole from the time or shortly after (I guess you mean the 1980's). Interesting, I know David Cole but not David McCalden, I'll look for those videos, but as a spoiler, do you know if McCalden had legal problems with the Polish communist authorities due to his revisionist activity?

Regarding the "Jewish singularity" in the "Holocaust" narrative in the West, I think that either I have not explained myself well or you have not understood me. By "Jewish singularity" in the "Holocaust" narrative I was not referring to whether the term "Holocaust" was used in the communist countries but was asking whether the narrative of the alleged "Nazi genocide" (that is, the "Holocaust") that was created in the Soviet Union and the rest of the communist countries it gave the Jews a leading role among the "victims of the Nazis" leaving the other alleged victims of the "Holocaust" as secondary elements as happened and continues to happen in the Western "Holocaust" narrative.

On the question of the "Holocaust" memorials in the east, thank you very much for your information. According to what you have told me, the Auschwitz and Maijdanek memorials already existed in communist Poland and Robert Faurisson visited it in the 1970s. Apart from the (then) "4 million" plaque, it existed something else that does it differ what the Auschwitz memorial told the tourists who visited it in the communist era to what it tells to them today? Do you have any links to Faurisson's visit to Auschwitz and Maijdanek in the 1970's? Thanks in advance.

And finally, about the article by that Catholic historian John Klier (I hadn't even heard of him until now) "The Holocaust and the Soviet Union" I have looked it up on the CODOH page (both on the main website and here in the forum) and I can't find it. Could you please pass me a link where I can find this article? It interests me even more than Faurisson's visit to Auschwitz and Maijdanek in the 1970s. Again, thanks in advance.

[Kmut00]

Why would normal Russians want to celebrate the claims of the jews about the holocaust? They were being led by Stalin who made it quite clear he wanted the jews out of mainstream Russia by offering them their own land in the far east of the country. Also the jews of the Revolutionary period were largely out of the way. I accept that there were jews in the war effort at senior level but they were careful enough to not make the Russian war effort about anything other than Mother Russia fighting against the fascists.

Afterwards it was all about celebrating Russia's triumph, a massive triumph too against all odds by removing the heathen Germans from Russia and of course grabbing as much territory as they could. Thus to the outside world it was important to make Germany look like the beast and devil what with gassing 6m jews etc but inwardly I suspect not much was mentioned because they wouldn't want their own glorious victories disappearing in a muddy puddle of jew victim hood.

I do not agree with some of your claims. First of all, you say that Stalin wanted to take away the Jews of their influence in the Soviet Union, I don't believe that it was the case. If so, Stalin would not have surrounded himself with Jews like Lazar Kaganovich, Lev Mekhlis, Ilya Ehrenburg, Boris Vannikov, Genrikh Yagoda, Semyon Ginzburg, etc. in his circle of trust and there would not have been so many Jews in positions of power in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Your claim has reminded me of a classic cliché coming from the United States and Israel and highly widespread in the West during the Cold War era that the Soviet Union was "anti-Semitic" and that Stalin began a large-scale political and cultural purge against the Jews during his last years. Out of curiosity, do you think Stalin and the Soviet Union were "anti-Semitic"? If it's the case, do you think that the claim by Hitler and the Nazis that Stalin was a puppet of the Jews and the Soviet Union was dominated by Jews is a lie or that there is some truth to it? Some time ago I published a thread to discuss the issue of the alleged "Soviet anti-Semitism" (unfortunately it has had very little diffusion), I leave the link here in case you are interested.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=14549

I don't think that the Soviet victory in World War II was at all "against all odds". Despite the overwhelming military superiority (in terms of quality and eficience) of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS against the Soviet Red Army, the Soviets had many zeros in their favor, overwhelming numerical superiority, almost inexhaustible human and natural resources (while that the Germans lacked many of them, especially oil), a gigantic territorial extension that could allow them to make large withdrawals without being surrounded, war on a single front while the Germans (highly outnumbered) were fighting on several fronts and having large military garrisons concentrated in the occupied territories throughout Europe that prevented them from using these armies on the Eastern Front, etc. What was really a fact against all odds (besides, in my opinion, a great military feat and display of heroism unparalleled in history) was that the Germans, despite all of these facts, came to the point of almost winning the war against the Soviets, that they were capable of withstanding 4 years of two fronts war in great numerical and industrial inferiority and that even when the Soviets finally managed to seize the initiative and definitely go on the offensive after Kursk in August 1943 it took them almost two more years to defeat the Germans (in comparison the Germans were able to reach the gates of Moscow in just 5 months). Whatever the Soviet propaganda said and whatever Putin and the Russians say today, the victory of the Red Army in the Second World War was anything but "glorious" and "heroic", not only because of the criminal conduct of the Red Army but also because all the facts that I have just pointed out show that the Soviet war machine was incompetent and only managed to prevail thanks to its numerical superiority, its inexhaustible natural resources and manpower and due to the enormous American aid. I am convinced that if World War II had been just Germany vs. the Soviet Union, the Germans would have won.

If I have not misunderstood you claim that the Soviets only used the "Holocaust" for propaganda purposes towards the outside public (and used it to reinforce the importance of their victory in the WWII) but that for their internal public they hardly mentioned it because the Soviet propagandists they did not want that the Jewish victimhood to take away from the memory of their military victory over Nazi Germany. I do not think that it's incompatible to celebrate and ubiquitously remember the Soviet military victory in World War II with ubiquitously remembering the alleged Jewish suffering in the "Holocaust". In fact, it's what Americans have been doing since 1945, their official account of World War II is that the United States fought a "good" war to save humanity from the "evil Nazis" and that the so-called "Holocaust" is proof of this uncuestionable fact, for which the whole World should thank the American soldiers for having defeated Hitler. If the American propagandists (the other victor of World War II) did it, what makes you think that Soviet propagandists didn't?

Greetings.

[borjastick]

Out of curiosity, do you think Stalin and the Soviet Union were "anti-Semitic"? If it's the case, do you think that the claim by Hitler and the Nazis that Stalin was a puppet of the Jews and the Soviet Union was dominated by Jews is a lie or that there is some truth to it? Some time ago I published a thread to discuss the issue of the alleged "Soviet anti-Semitism" (unfortunately it has had very little diffusion), I leave the link here in case you are interested.

I think Stalin disliked the influence of so many jews in the post revolutionary Russia. He put up with those you mentioned in senior circles as a political expediency until such time as they could be removed or sidelined.

You ask about Stalin's anti semitic tendencies. I can't answer that for sure because I am no expert on Soviet Russia or Stalin but given that he created Birobaijan as a homeland for the jews in the far east of the country, as far away from Moscow and power as he could go rather suggests he didn't like them much.

Russia fought what is called the Great Patriotic War to save the motherland, Russia, from Germany's attacks.

[Kmut00]

Either I don't understand anything or I'm very confused. First of all, if your claim that the Soviet propagandists did not single out the Jews as Jews and they gave them a secondary role among the so-called "Holocaust victims" is correct, then why do many "Holocaust" revisionists claim that the "Holocaust" is a lie fabricated predominantly by the Soviets?

They didn't give Jews a secondary role among the so-called Holocaust victims. They were race/ethnicity-deniers and usually didn't make a distinction between the various peoples of the Soviet Empire. They were more into class warfare.

Do many Holocaust revisionist claim that the Holocaust is a lie fabricated predominantly by the Soviets? I know that Carlos Whitlock Porter wrote a book "Made in Russia - The Holocaust" (because the Soviets were the inventors and/or disseminators of dozens of incredible and extravagant Holocaust claims, most of which have now been quietly dropped and never were at the core of the Holohoax), but I'm not aware that many Holocaust revisionists claimed such a thing.

https://archive.org/details/porter-carl ... t/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/TheHolocaus ... 8/mode/2up

Secondly, why then and despite the great influence and power that the Jews had in the Soviet Union and in the communist countries of Eastern Europe, were the Jews not given (according to your claim) any special victim status?

Because the Communist countries of the Soviet Empire were dictatorships where the Jews didn't need to generate sympathy for themselves and the state of Israel with horror tales in which Jews were the biggest sufferers in the whole universe. Death penalty was the punishment for anti-Semitism in Soviet countries. Not to mention the Gulags. No need to make Goyim cry Jews a river with such protective measures against anti-Semitic reactions.

Secondly, do you think then that for the Soviet Union and its puppets regimes the narrative of the "Holocaust" was a matter of less importance than for the countries that since 1945 have been under the domination of the United States and Israel? For example, as you know here in the West (at least since the 1960s) the "Holocaust" has become an unquestionable and omnipresent dogma in the political and cultural life of our countries. Didn't the same thing happen then in the Soviet Union and the rest of the countries of the Communist Bloc? Could one habe been claimed in the Soviet Union, in the DDR, in the Polish People's Republic etc. that the Holocaust is a lie or published books such as "Le Mensonge d’Ulysse", "Did Six Million Really Die?", "Hitler’s War", "The Auschwitz Lie" or the Leuchter report without going to jail as has been happening for decades in the West (especially in many European countries)?

I don't think that it was a matter of less importance and that the public expression of skepticism was allowed in Soviet countries. The Soviet authorities immediately turned the Nazi camps captured by the Red Army into horrific Potemkin villages and frog marched the locals there before the war was over. Their atrocity propaganda focused on cremation (crematory ovens, chimneys, human ashes, charred corpses, etc.), hence the Nazi destruction of the Birkenau crematoria a few months after the Soviet capture of the Majdanek concentration camp.

Well, when I said that that many revisionists claim that most of the "Holocaust" propaganda is a Soviet invention, I was not referring only to revisionist historians and authors but also people with revisionist thoughts in general, on social media and network for example talking to people who feel sympathy for "Holocaust" Revisionism I have come across such claims many times.

That is to say that according to your claim, the "Holocaust" propaganda and narrative in the Soviet Union and its puppet regimes in Eastern Europe (despite the great influence that the Jews had in these countries) did not grant any favoritism to the Jews with respect to the other "victims of the Nazis" because it were dictatorships in which anti-Semitism was severely persecuted and punished with the death penalty, the Jews did not need to use the card of victimhood and "singularity" that they need then and today to use in the West due to this part of the world is under liberal democracies where there is (allegedly) freedom of speech. Your claim seems well-founded to me, but I still have one last doubt regarding this question, if in the Soviet Union and the rest of the communist countries there was no "Jewish singularity" in their "Holocaust" propaganda because anti-Semitic activity was illegal, why there was and still is in Western "Holocaust" propaganda a Jewishi special victimhood and "Holocaust Denial" is illegal in many Western countries?

Regarding the Soviet law that severely punished anti-Semitic activity, do you know if at some point after the Soviet Union's anti-Zionist and anti-Israel drift since the last years of Stalin this law was abolished or it continued to exist until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991? What do you think of the claim that the Soviet Union became "anti-Semitic" from the last years of Stalin and that since the 1950s the Jews lost their hegemony and influence in the Soviet Union and the rest of the communist countries? Some time ago I uploaded a thread about a William Pierce's article that I read long time ago in which he spoke about the alleged decline of Jewish hegemony in the Soviet Union and Stalin's "anti-Semitic" drift. I recommend that you read it.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=14549

I was very surprised and confused by Pierce's claims and conclusions, considering that he was not notorious precisely by his sympathy for the Jews.

On the legality of "Holocaust" Revisionism in the Communist Bloc, you claim that you don't believe that "Holocaust" Revisionism was legal in the Soviet Union and the rest of the communist countries, however, are there evidence of the presence of revisionist historians and some revisionist activity of people who lived in the communist countries before the collapse of the Soviet Union and it's puppet regimes?

And finally, sorry for my ignorance, but what is a Potemkin village?

[Kmut00]

One call also mention the 1959 Soviet movie Fate of a Man...

You can find this Mosfilm production from their YT channel.
The movie uses the usual cliches:
Going through many camps... religious words...
Fate of a Man 01.png
defiance, supposed heroism and assumptions...
Fate of a Man 02.png
camp orchestra on arrival and before selection...
Fate of a Man 03.png
Misleading sign for victims...
Fate of a Man 04.png
Only the flames are missing...
Fate of a Man 05.png


This movie and it's version of Holocaust is very much commemorated in YT comments:
"Another remarkable film of the Soviet Era, from a true short story adapted for the screen, and directed by legendary film maker and Great Patriotic War Red Army veteran, Sergei Bondarchuk, who also plays the part of Sokolov"

"One of the best and most emotional films in the history of cinema."

"This is a really excellent film, and it's got me pretty emotional to say any more than that."

"A wonderful movie, thank you. Excellent production values - such realism!"

It's worth mentioning that the director got The Lenin Prize for making this emotional movie.

Ostatni etap/The Last Stage (1948) by Polish Communist Wanda Jakubowska used similar tactics.
Jakubowska collaborated with Aleksander Ford (Roman Polanski was one of Ford's students), asked help from Communist party etc.
In the book Screening Auschwitz Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage and the Politics of Commemoration
Screening Auschwitz Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage and the Politics of Commemoration on JSTOR.png
there is CHAPTER 2 “Stalin Was Moved to Tears”: The Script
“Stalin Was Moved to Tears” The Script from Screening Auschwitz Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage and the Politics of Commemoration on JSTOR 01.png
Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3znz28

So, Soviet Union and Communist Bloc countries seemed to commemorate this era with their emotional movies. Not politically biased at all.

Thank you very much for the information, at least the doubt I had about whether there was tearful "Holocaust" propaganda in the cinema in the Communist Bloc's countries during the Cold War era has already been resolved, of course it existed. In fact, it's revealing that in one of the "Holocaust" propaganda films par excellence in the United States and the Western world, the infamous "Schindler's List", its director (Steven Spielberg) copied a scene from the "Holocaust" propaganda film "Zastihla me noc" from the communist Czechoslovakia of the year 1986 directed by that Juraj Herz (also a Jew of course). That is to say that what is probably the most important Western "Holocaust" propaganda film was inspired by scenes from a communist "Holocaust" propaganda film directed by a Czechoslovak Jew, and then there will be people who will say that communism was "anti-Semitic".

By the way, speaking of this Juraj Herz, I have searched information about him on wikipedia and it claims that Herz (born in 1934) was a "Holocaust survivor" who lost 60 members of his family but curiously all his members of his immediate family survived.

In the information you have mentioned, you have included an excerpt from some of Herz's claims in which he mentioned the famous scene that Spielberg plagiarized from him and stated that the prisoners of the supposed "Nazi extermination camps" knew that "gas chambers" existed because in the shower pipes in which the Nazi guards put the prisoners there were glass windows in the room and it would be easy to break them and let the gas out, so they couldn't be gas chambers. I wonder if the alleged gas chambers existed and were used to execute prisoners, how did they know what the gas chambers were like without having been in any previously? If the prisoners knew that the showers where the Nazi guards made them enter were not gas chambers then why were they scared? How absurd it all sounds.

About the 1959 Soviet "Holocaust" propaganda movie "The fate of a Man", it evidently clearly shows typical characteristics of "Holocaust" propaganda like crematorium ovens or big smoking chimneys in the concentration camps. Do the alleged homicidal gas chambers appear or are mentioned in the film? On the other hand, I was surprised that orchestras in Nazi concentration camps for prisoners also appear in the film (that is probably the only thing that really existed in what appears in the film), I suppose that being a "Holocaust" propaganda film they must have given a sinister touch. The fact that the director was awarded the Lenin Prize proves that the film reflects the Soviet state policy of conmemoration regarding the "Holocaust".

What has interested me the most in your reply has been the issue of this Wanda Jakubowska and her "Holocaust" propaganda film, "The Last Stage". From what I was informed Jakubowska (Jewish, prisoner in Auschwitz and fanatical communist) fulfilled all the requirements to be the perfect director of an Auschwitz "Holocaust" propaganda film. The film was released in the year 1948, so it's probably after the footages about the Nazi concentration camps that were shown at the Nuremberg trials the first "Holocaust" propaganda film. Thank you very much for the link, I will read it. It caught my attention that Jakubowska asked Stalin and Boleslaw Bierut (the first dictator of communist Poland) for permission to record the film and because the film was screened it indicates that it had Stalin's absolute approval and sympathy. In the link of the book that you have given me, I suppose that "Politics of Commemoration" refers to how the "Holocaust" was commemorated in the communist Polish People's Republic. I was also struck by the title of the second chapter of the book, "Stalin Was Moved to Tears". I don't know if that its retorical speaking or literally because in the capture of the chapter that you have shown to me there is no reference to Stalin except the title. Did Stalin see the movie?

Thanks in advance.