Why they Deny Holocaust?

Why they deny the Holocaust!
Mike Ghouse 03/24/2007

As a Muslim, I appreciate the column by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Indeed “the world needs to be informed again and again about the Holocaust.” Martin Niemöller’s poem resonates with me every day, when I see the eerie silence on the part of people when an atrocity is committed in front of their eyes.

Ayaan’s statement caught my attention “For the majority of Muslims in the world, the Holocaust is not a major historical event that they deny. We simply do not know it ever happened because we were never informed of it”. The second part of her statement is nearly correct. It is not only Muslim, but most people do not know about Holocaust, each group is consumed in their own pain and no is aware of it. However, the first part is interesting. My mother was a voracious reader, and she had this book in Urdu Language titled “Eishmann, 60 lakh yahoodiyon ka Khatil” – Eishmann, killer of 6 Million Jews. She did not let me read the book; she said that I could not bear the pain and instead I should go out and play Cricket.

As an adult growing up, I did not have the guts to see the movies made on Holocaust, I would cringe upon seeing the rail cars and the ditches with full of bodies, frail bodies and children’s bodies. The fear of seeing human plight was unbearable. I did not even see the Schindler’s list when it was released.

I was part of a Jewish initiative called “Center for Prejudice removal” and was pleased to see the sincere effort the Jewish community was making in this endeavor. I determined that this must be recognized and appreciated. We honored the Jewish Community’s contribution towards a pluralistic America at the 9th Annual Thanksgiving Celebrations & Awards Night by the Foundation for Pluralism.

This led to so many other things, but most importantly the announcement of commemorating the Holocaust on January 27, 2006.

My Jewish friend Bernie gave me the Schindler’s list and I watched it, my fear was real, I did not have the guts to see the horror, however, I made myself see it. My Mom’s word were hung in the air for nearly 50 years, it came to a finale, the words entered my heart and completed the cycle of understanding the pain for me with a strong commitment – Never again. I visited the HolocaustMuseum in Dallas and thanks to Elliott for letting me understand what Holocaust means.

The Muslims of Dallas supported me in this effort. The ideas were to let the Jewish community know that we share the grief and made a commitment of Never again. Holocaust survivor Rosalie & William Schiff shared their story to an audience that sat without even making breathing sound.

My Jewish friend Bernie gave me the Schindler’s list and I watched it, my fear was nearly over, my Mom’s word were hung in the air for nearly 50 years, the entered my heart and completed the cycle of understanding the pain for me with a strong commitment – Never again.

Details of the event, press releases, including a published condemnation letter to AhmediNejad and pictures are at http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/Holocaustday.asp. Honoring the Jewish community is at: http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/TG2005_REPORT.asp
The the event was covered by CBS as well.

The world is one community, it is in each one’s interest to make it better. http://mikeghouse.sulekha.com/blog/post/2006/05/each-community-each-nation-is-a-bus.htm

We postponed the Holocaust event of January 2007. The Jewish Community and the Muslim community is looking forward to planning the Holocaust 2008, to include all the atrocities mankind has committed in the name of religion or politics. We will present a chrnological listing of all such attrocities, at this time it is sitting in at the following link. http://www.theghouseteam.com/mg/WMC_Extremism.asp. We would include all events be it Kashmiri Pandits, Gujarat Genocide, Darfur, Palestine, Bosnia, Chechnya, Rwanda, China and every place. Please send the list of the events that you know to Foundationforpluralism@gmail.com

Mike Ghouse
http://www.worldmuslimcongress.com/
http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/
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Why They Deny the Holocaust by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
One day in 1994, when I was living in Ede, a small town in Holland, I got a visit from my half-sister. She and I were both immigrants from Somalia and had both applied for asylum in Holland. I was granted it; she was denied. The fact that I got asylum gave me the opportunity to study. My half-sister couldn’t.

In order for me to be admitted to the university I wanted to attend, I needed to pass three courses: a language course, a civics course and a history course. It was in the preparatory history course that I, for the first time, heard of the Holocaust. I was 24 years old at that time, and my half-sister was 21.

In those days, the daily news was filled with the Rwandan genocide and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. On the day that my half-sister visited me, my head was reeling from what happened to 6 million Jews in Germany, Holland, France and Eastern Europe. I learned that innocent men, women and children were separated from each other. Stars pinned to their shoulders, transported by train to camps, they were gassed for no other reason than for being Jewish.

I saw pictures of masses of skeletons, even of kids. I heard horrifying accounts of some of the people who had survived the terror of Auschwitz and Sobibor. I told my half-sister all this and showed her the pictures in my history book. What she said was as awful as the information in my book.

With great conviction, my half-sister cried: “It’s a lie! Jews have a way of blinding people. They were not killed, gassed or massacred. But I pray to Allah that one day all the Jews in the world will be destroyed.”

S he was not saying anything new. As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I remember my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis that Jews are evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims, and that their only goal is to destroy Islam. We were never informed about the Holocaust.

Later, as a teenager in Kenya, when Saudi and other Persian Gulf philanthropy reached us, I remember that the building of mosques and donations to hospitals and the poor went hand in hand with the cursing of Jews. Jews were said to be responsible for the deaths of babies and for epidemics such as AIDS, and they were believed to be the cause of wars. They were greedy and would do absolutely anything to kill us Muslims. If we ever wanted to know peace and stability, and if we didn’t want to be wiped out, we would have to destroy the Jews. For those of us who were not in a position to take up arms against them, it was enough for us to cup our hands, raise our eyes heavenward and pray to Allah to destroy them.
Western leaders today who say they are shocked by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad’s conference [in December] denying the Holocaust need to wake up to that reality. For the majority of Muslims in the world, the Holocaust is not a major historical event that they deny. We simply do not know it ever happened because we were never informed of it.

The total number of Jews in the world today is estimated to be about 15 million, certainly no more than 20 million. On the other hand, the world’s Muslim population is estimated to be between 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion. And not only is this population rapidly growing, it is also very young.

What’s striking about Ahmadinezhad’s conference is the (silent) acquiescence of mainstream Muslims. I cannot help but wonder: Why is there no counter-conference in Riyadh, Cairo, Lahore, Khartoum or Jakarta condemning Ahmadinezhad? Why are the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference silent on this?

Could the answer be as simple as it is horrifying: for generations, the leaders of these so-called Muslim countries have been spoon-feeding their populations a constant diet of propaganda similar to the one that generations of Germans (and other Europeans) were fed—that Jews are vermin and should be dealt with as such? In Europe, the logical conclusion was the Holocaust. If Ahmadinezhad has his way, he shall not want for compliant Muslims ready to act on his wish.

The world needs to be informed again and again about the Holocaust—not only in the interest of the Jews who survived and their offspring, but in the interest of humanity.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali immigrant who served in the Dutch parliament until early 2006. She is also the author of “Infidel,” an autobiography to be published in February. © 2006 Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This article first appeared in the Los Angeles Times.