Storm over police Holocaust blunder

Seb Ramsey

May 14, 2005

| Submit Comments | Comments (11) | Previous | Next

THE Jewish community has told of its outrage after a national police memo referred to the Holocaust as "the alleged massacre of six million Jews."

The document was circulated by the Association of Chief Police Officer's London-based National Community Tension Team (NCTT).

One of the body's tasks is to provide forces across the country with a calendar of national events which could affect local communities.

The sentence which has caused offence was used to describe the Holocaust Commemoration Day - Yom Hashoah.

But chairman of the Greater Manchester Jewish Police Association, Chief Insp Leor Giladi, said the murder of six million Jews was a fact.

"Something like this causes such deep offence to our community and there is no excuse for it," he said.

"I was looking at photos from Auschwitz when this came through, so it couldn't have been worse.

Apology

"I have had an apology from the NCTT, who say the description was taken from a usually reliable news source and wasn't read properly.

"The NCTT have said the news source website told them that the alleged wasn't meant to refer to the massacre itself, but the number killed - they said there was less of a consensus about that.

"That sort of comment is completely inaccurate. Six million Jews were killed - it's a fact."

Mr Giladi said that he had nothing but support from the bosses at GMP, who had also written to the NCTT demanding an explanation.

As well as using the word "alleged", the document also wrongly said the date of the commemoration was April 29 this year, when the 60th anniversary was actually marked on May 5.

Louis Rapaport, president of the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester, said: "I can't imagine anything that would upset the community more.

"To then give a guarded apology and say that the numbers are disputed - it's absolutely unbelievable. We've done a lot in the last few years to disprove these revisionist theories that the Holocaust never happened and that the numbers are wrong.

"The police have contacted us and been very supportive. It seems to be nothing really to do with them but the fault of this new service."

A spokesman for The Association of Chief Police Officers - ACPO - said: "The use of the word `alleged' was a mistake and resulted from inadvertent failure to properly edit material received from the Future Events News Service.

"It should not have been used.

"We have apologised to colleagues in Greater Manchester and the latest in the series of routine messages to all forces carries the same apology."

Owner of Future Events News Service, Tom Arms, apologised today.

"There seems to have been an error by a junior member of staff over-zealously following a house style guide which instructs writers to use the terms allege or alleged when referring to forthcoming criminal events," he said in a statement.

"As we are Future Events News Service, the term alleged is widely used on referring to criminal events on our database.

"Of course the horrific murder of six million of Europe's Jews during the Second World War is a matter of proven historical fact and the term alleged should never have been used."

| Submit Comments | Comments (11) | Previous | Next

Showing comments 1 to 11 and replies | View All

Robert Klinck, Gatineau (15/05/2005 at 13:47)

It's rather odd that even for recent slaughters (Rwanda, the Khmer Rouge) estimates of the numbers of victims vary greatly. Whence comes this certainty about the numbers of deaths in the welter of World War?

Hans Schneider, Zurich (15/05/2005 at 16:37)

The term "alleged" is not out of place at all. In Auschwitz there was a bronze plate prominently displayed for years stating the murder of 4 Million victims in the camp. A few years ago that plate was changed to 1 Million and still hangs there very visibly.

Richard Mallett, Eaton Bray, South Beds. (15/05/2005 at 19:44)

Regarding the statement that figure of the six million Jews killed is a fact - given that the number killed at Auschwitz (e.g.) has been revised downwards from four million to about one million, and that respected holocaust historians such as Raul Hilberg use total figures of about five million, I would be interested to know on what basis the figure of six million is assumed to be a fact ?

Frank Lowe, Greensboro, N.C.,United States (16/05/2005 at 00:24)

The murder of six million Jews during WW2 may well be fact, but the present state of documentation reveals that if this number is to be true, approximately 2,800,000 Eastern European Jews would have to have World War Two,
This because, the largest population center during this period was Poland,Ukraine, Byelorussia, and Russia and these Jews (approximately3,600,000) were evacuated in advance of Hitler's attack on Russia in June of 1941. Research by Jewish labor activist, Jacque Pat, in the US after the war revealed that, 550,000 Polish Jews were shipped to the Soviet Union during WW2 and 440,000 died in Soviet camps, or roughly 80%. This research was done in 1945 by Pat in Poland.
Indignation over lack of the facts can no longer be tolerated by non-Jewish scholars, and the sad fact with over 1,000,000 of the German camp survivors alive in 2003 of the 4.9 to 5.5 million Jews under Nazi control, then obviously someone else was massacring Jews.
As my father's distant cousin Edward R.Murrow told Jewish journalist, William Shirer after the war, "get your facts straight before you make groundless accusations". This is a prime example of such. Statistics will never tell the whole story of the misery that WW2 brought on the human race, and this constant obssession with "statistics" that are as flawed as these will promote "Holocaust denial".

T. McGuire, Alabama, USA (17/05/2005 at 14:16)

Everyone should read the book "The Giant With Feet Of Clay" By Jurgen Graf.

The six million figure seems to have no basis in fact. I might add, I don't care one way or the other, but history needs accuracy in publishing.

ian, sheffield (17/05/2005 at 18:13)

Why is it a 'blunder' to question the numbers of Jews killed in World War II? Surely the headline should have read 'alleged blunder'? Nothing in history is beyond question.

ben jason, manchester (18/05/2005 at 13:23)

11 million people in total were killed in gas chambers etc. during the war in Nazi camps. Who will remember 1million Russian POWs killed in this way.?

James Agutter, Oxford (18/05/2005 at 23:10)

The debate about numbers of Holocaust victims is so abstruse and convoluted, that it would be best left to specialist historians, working in what should be academically free environments, to provide the possible answers. But this is something Jews are just not prepared to tolerate. But why not?

Just look at the manner in which the Holocaust is used to stifle and prevent certain investigation into modern history, most notably, WWI and WWII, and also much of the history of communism. A contemporary political example, might well be the feigned sympathy for immigrants and asylum seekers world wide, even to clear detriment of native populations.

Abraham Nadler, Monsey, NJ (19/05/2005 at 18:33)

Six million were killed. Period.

If you say differently you are a holocaust denier.

If you keep spreading this doubt, keep spreading these questions, we will have you arrested, convicted, and thrown in prison in France, Germany, and Switzerland, among others.

Thank G-d people are not free to spread hate in those countries.

bob, USA (20/05/2005 at 10:30)

How could anyone really know how many? Apparently many survived the camps and have gone on to do very well.

Fred, USA (08/12/2005 at 07:51)

My grandfather was a member of the International Red Cross at Auschwitz. He was present for the trial of two German SS officers found guilty and sentenced for beating a jewish woman. Please refer to the records kept by him and his team members for all the years of the war. Ps. He was Jewish.

()

Report

News