Why Is Holocaust Denial Rising Again?

Holocaust denial has always found shelter on the ideological extremes. As the Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut pointed out, it was once widespread among far-left communist thinkers who viewed Jewish suffering as politically inconvenient or secondary to class struggle. It also flourished in Islamist rhetoric and neo-Nazi circles; groups with little in common, except for one thing: their deep resistance to the idea that Jewish suffering matters.

Today, denial is not necessarily loud or crude. It slips in through academic relativism, pseudo-historical debates, and media “balance.” Daryl Cooper recently appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show to claim that Winston Churchill—not Hitler; was the real villain of World War II. This is not historical nuance. It is a quiet rehabilitation of evil.

Candace Owens made headlines for suggesting that Hitler’s mistake was “going global,” as if genocide within national borders would somehow be tolerable. And though David Irving has been exposed and discredited, his legacy survives online, whispered through anonymous forums and repackaged for young, angry minds.

But beyond politics and ideology, there is something even deeper at work: the world denies the Holocaust because it cannot bear what it says about itself.

It is easier to erase or revise the truth than to confront the fact that one of history’s most advanced, cultured societies systematically tortured and annihilated its Jewish citizens. It is easier to dehumanize the Jews again than to accept that they were fully human then. It is easier to say “never again” as a slogan than to live by it. especially when doing so would require giving up the comfort of hating Jews.

And the most disturbing truth may be this: many people, quietly or openly, respect Hitler for what he did. I was once reminded of this in a conversation at a Greek airport with a man who praised Hitler, saying he “did what needed to be done - for the entire world.” He said it calmly, almost matter-of-factly, as if stating an uncomfortable but noble historical fact.

That moment stays with me, because it revealed something many are too afraid to say out loud - that for some, Hitler didn't betray the values of civilization. He fulfilled them. He acted out the darkest fantasies of those who quietly believe the world would be better without Jews. In that sense, he is not condemned, but admired. The denial becomes not a rejection of his crimes, but a cleansing of his image, so his legacy can be preserved, even celebrated.

At a certain point, to escape the moral burden of Holocaust memory, some do not just deny it, they reverse it. They turn the victims into villains and become, in effect, pro-Nazi. In some Islamist rhetoric, this is already explicit. Hitler is not condemned but praised. The gas chambers are denied, and simultaneously wished for again.

The world has grown tired of the moral framework that emerged in the shadow of the Holocaust during the late 20th century. It is seeking a new one. But the question is: why must the memory of the Holocaust be destroyed in order to make that shift?

Perhaps because, in a world without God, there is a need to turn the murder of the Jews from a binding moral memory into a farce - so that atrocities against Jews can be committed once again.

This is not merely a crisis of memory. It is a collapse of conscience.

Holocaust denial is not about the past. It is about the present - and about what people want to permit themselves to do in the future. That is why remembering is not a passive act. It is a stand. Against forgetting. Against distortion. Against the return of old hatreds in new forms.

We do not remember to win arguments. We remember because when we forget, it begins again.