Nizkor Project

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The Nizkor Project ( Hebrew נִזְכּוֹר, "We Will Remember") is the largest private website that confronts Holocaust denial on the Internet . The founder and operator is the American and Canadian Kenneth McVay . The project started in 1991 and is funded by donations and personal resources.

Content

The project consists of several interconnected components:

  • the Shofar FTP Archive , a collection of tens of thousands of files with original documents, reports and articles illustrating the Holocaust. It contains biographies of leading National Socialists, precise descriptions of the Nazi labor and extermination camps , their locations and Nazi organizations.
  • The US Office of Strategic Services has provided original documents by and about Adolf Hitler .
  • Gradually, all published case files on the Nuremberg trial were made accessible.
  • The archive contains the selected as relevant postings alt.revisionism the newsgroup.
  • Further current postings on Usenet are added via the DejaNews page .
  • The project also produces special handouts for teachers and educators.
  • Audio documents are also increasingly included, such as Heinrich Himmler's speeches in Poznan to SS officers on October 4 and 6, 1943.
  • With FAQs , Nizkor provides information on individual topics such as the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp and the Reinhardt campaign, as well as the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), the Leuchter Report , the "Zündel pages" and the like. a. to prove the existence, function and dimensions of gas chambers in these camps and to refute their denial in detail point by point.

In response to the “66 questions and answers about the Holocaust” published by the IHR, the project created a page with precisely related “66 questions and answers about the Holocaust”. A summary of the arguments of Holocaust deniers can be found on Deceit & Misrepresentation: The Techniques of Holocaust Denial (“ Deceit and Misrepresentation: The Methods of Holocaust Denial”).

All of this material can be quickly viewed using an internal search engine. In contrast to other internet projects with similar objectives, Nizkor gives direct links to websites with - including criminal - racist, historical revisionist and right-wing extremist content. The aim is to enable the public to judge these sources for themselves. Almost all project pages are now also available in German translation.

methodology

McVay set up the site as a central network archive for a large number of documents that users of the alt.revisionism newsgroup have made publicly available since around 1992: including documents about facts about the Holocaust that members of the newsgroup receive from Internet users, selected and checked to have. In the beginning, McVay wrote a large part of the information pages on the Holocaust himself and only had a few volunteers check them. Today, all archive pages are collected, written and checked by a larger team of volunteers. They are all converted into HTML format so that all individual details and background information can be made accessible with direct hyperlinks .

Moreover, the project communications (e-mails, postings, conventional correspondence) of so-called "documented hate groups " ( hate groups ), right-wing extremists, Holocaust deniers and historical revisionists to members of the newsgroup or the project staff. Typical, often recurring clichés and argumentation patterns are confronted with the facts. Information about the authors themselves may also be provided. The aim is to provide information about their activities on the internet and to directly refute false claims, falsifications and misinterpretations through precise factual material.

In this way, the archive has collected the publications of some of the most famous Holocaust deniers over the years, uncovered their contradictions and critically presented their intentions: including David Irving , Ernst Zündel , Fred A. Leuchter , Germar Rudolf , Willis Carto and many others. Some of their regular followers and supporters on the net have also been made known.

Reactions of those affected

Some of the Holocaust denials presented by Nizkor were denied by their authors: Matt Giwer claimed that the reports of his alleged statements were forged by Nizkor employees. However, other network services with newsgroup archives, including the search engine Google , have authenticated his postings.

Neo-Nazis and history revisionists often attack project staff personally, claiming the website is funded by Israel or Jewish organizations for Zionism . Calls from opponents on the Internet to take action against the project are also documented: including a response machine from the racist Tom Metzger . McVay rejects such attacks, however, and is said to have won every libel case brought against him. According to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, he received daily death threats in 1996, so he did not give his address.

Media and professional reception

The Nizkor Project is used and widely praised by many pupils, students and scientists as a reliable source of information about the scene of Holocaust deniers and history revisionists. Reports from the print media in the United States rely on and cite the material offered: such as Christian Science Monitor , The Guardian , USA Today , Washington Post, and others. The American Journal of International Law , a respected journal for international law, also makes positive comments about the project and draws on its material.

On the other hand, there are some critical voices who do not consider the project's methodology to be suitable for combating Holocaust denial on the Internet: The Simon Wiesenthal Center accused the operators of increasing the awareness of hate groups and insignificant network authors rather than giving them credibility and approval Failure to withdraw.

In addition, there has been a debate since 1995 about legal measures against defamation and lying propaganda on the Internet: McVay has always spoken out against the " hate speech " laws discussed in the USA and Canada with reference to freedom of expression . In 1996 he established in the Canadian Parliament why he believed that refuting false claims was better than censoring them . In an interview with Der Spiegel , he also attacked the German prosecution of Holocaust denial as counterproductive. Proponents and opponents of law enforcement measures against Holocaust denial have, however, now converged in the target perspective.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nizkor: Funding ( Memento of the original from June 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nizkor.org
  2. ↑ Nizkor.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www1.de.nizkor.org  
  3. ↑ Matt Giwer on Nizkor ( Memento of the original from February 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.giwersworld.org
  4. ^ Press reports on Nizkor
  5. ↑ Ken McVay before the Parliament of Canada
  6. ↑ Mirror interview with Ken McVay 1996, reprint of Shoa.de ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.shoahproject.org
  7. ↑ Jörg Hutter: How can a meaningful examination of right-wing extremist websites look like? February 2001 (on McVay's argument; Bremen)