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Hatred on YouTube 7/16/2013 11:35:30 AM
I wrote this blog in response to Holocaust denial and hatred on YouTube. Recently I was sent a link to a YouTube video that was most vile and disturbing, it was entitled: “Holocaust, Hate Speech & Were the Germans so Stupid”. It was a thirty minute tour-de-force in Holocaust denial. Someone had clearly done a thorough job in creating revisionist history. The result was a well researched, highly professional and polished video that presented some compelling (although false) arguments and information as to the impossibility and exaggeration of the Holocaust. I will not repeat any of the arguments purported in this film as I would only be giving them more credence. I will only say that my blood boiled when I watched it. Even more disturbing than the lies perpetrated within the film were the comments, hundreds of them, that were congratulatory, a verbal pat-on-the-back to the demon creator. The comments reflected each commenter’s eagerness to accept and believe the evil persuasion of the film. I probably should have ignored the rabid vitriol that these hate-mongers advocated, how they basked with pleasure in their anti-Semitism, but I could not. I felt compelled to answer, to defend the victims, to debunk the lies, to accuse these faceless haters of being ignorant and incendiary. So, I responded in kind to their comments and went to sleep. Little did I know that I would ignite a firestorm of activity, like flies drawn to an open wound or maggots attacking the dead these gleeful Jew haters felt compelled to respond and tried to bait me by attacking the incontrovertible testimony of my own mother (if you are reading this blog, by now you know that I have written a novel based on my mother’s survival of the Holocaust). At first I was frightened, I felt exposed to a murderous population that might seek me out in order to destroy me. Then, of course, I realized that my responses and identity were anonymous. I went forth into the arena prepared for battle with these minions of Satan. I would not back down until I had slain my adversaries with words and facts. It seemed like it would be relatively easy to refute these, for the most part, ignorant individuals whose knowledge of 20th Century history was minimal at best. However, regardless of my solidly built arguments exposing the myths of the film, and my dramatic presentation of my own mother’s ordeal (Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen), memories and loss (family and friends); I was unable to persuade or dissuade, what could only be considered, the cancerous growth that was firmly rooted and growing within these bigots.
Inexplicably, the replies from the monsters ceased as quickly as they had begun and I returned to the normalcy of my life. I didn’t give a thought to any of it until a week or two passed and I decided to write a blog about this disturbing occurrence. I returned to the YouTube site and was notified that the video had been removed. Not because of inflammatory content, but because of some kind of copyright infringement. In reality, I could not have been more pleased then to see this ugly content removed regardless of the reason.
The lesson learned is that although I could not “change the spots on the leopard” so to speak, and probably didn’t convince a soul as to the absurdity of the film. Still, I stood up for what was morally right and I was not cowered by the cruel provocative taunts that were hurled at me through cyberspace. Beware; those who spouse hatred, some of us will never back down. We will fight you wherever you assemble.
