The Katz Fallacy: The Art of Procrustes

Steven Katz's gargantuan, long foretold, tome made a sizeable splash two years ago. The overly annotated, 700 page text, The Holocaust and Mass Destruction before the Modern Age , volume 1 of a projected three part study, The Holocaust in Historical Context, is a tour de force, if only because it sets out to demonstrate the author's inflexible preconception that the Holocaust stands alone, that it is unique (an arguable, long cherished conclusion by several prominent scholars, and popularly upheld by most survivors and bureaucrats associated with institutional Holocaust interpretation).

Unrelentlessly, Katz supplies the reader with an unbroken list of quasi-genocidal, semi-genocidal and non-genocidal events. Each is subjected to a meticulous (heavily annotated) examination as to its identity as an example of mass killing, each and every time to inform the hapless reader that it is not the same as the Final Solution. Annoyingly, almost all the instances of mass murder cited by Katz (presented as if he had uncovered them himself) are much too well-known to historians. Nevertheless, Katz, who is not a trained historian, discusses them as if terra incognita when, in fact, there is a long sense of déjà-vu running through his interminable (and hence repetitive) text.

At the heart of this fallaciously constructed argument lies the common error of a priori proof. Having adopted "uniqueness" as a given, an axiomatic truth, Katz proceeds to parade before his reader carefully pre-selected example after example of non-Holocaust events, thereby arriving at his conclusion by default, employing the following faulty syllogism:

  1. The Holocaust is unique (the implied first premise);
  2. None of these events resemble the Holocaust (second premise);
  3. Therefore, the Holocaust must be unique. (Quod erat demonstrandum!)

The obvious fault lies in the first premise and the conclusion; they are both the same. The argument could just as well be stood on its head by reversing the order and making the conclusion the first premise and it the conclusion. It is a classic case of circular reasoning. One might just as well eliminate the second premise since all the cases used to illustrate their non-Holocaustness are automatically treated in a transparent Procrustean manner, squeezed into a pre-conceived format, no matter their size and shape. That is, each illustration is subjected to Katz's idiosyncratic and purposely shrunken definition of the Holocaust qua genocide.

This approach, of course, is a delight for the converted but an assault on common sense for the skeptical and those sensitive to rigorous methodology. Katz sided with the proponents of unique ness even before he began his research: the outcome is, therefore, predictable. His thesis cannot be disproven because there is no one in the text around to challenge it, logically, philosophically, and historically, the author having jettisoned self-criticism.

The inherent lack of logic stems from the concept "unique": uniqueness lacks specific criteria. Hence, anything can be dubbed unique, the Holocaust and all non-Holocausts. This leaves one totally unenlightened, each event conveniently compartmentalized and isolated from others; by virtue of an artificial, narrow definition, the Holocaust is rendered impermeable and all examples are automatically excluded from harboring any substantive similarity.

Philosophically, the idea of uniqueness is a technical term employed only by art historians, critics, and occasional art connoisseurs. For them, uniqueness is an attribute of aesthetics, signifying primarily originality, namely, creative innovation. Applied to historic events, however, the appellation "unique" means little unless used, incorrectly, as a substitute for "unprecedented," a temporary status valid only until a sufficiently similar event occurs, somewhat like a world sport's record that waits to be surpassed.

Now Katz has absolutely no intention of letting the Holocaust be upstaged by either prior or subsequent events. To do so, he has concocted such a closed definition of genocide that the definition literally coincides with the Holocaust, thereby eliminating all others events. But since absolute coincidence is impossible, therefore, in Katz's schemata, the Holocaust will remain indefinitely safe from interlopers seeking to joint it on the tiny pedestal erected by the promoters of uniqueness. By digging a wide protective trench around the Holocaust, a pit filled with his discarded examples of non-Holocausts, Katz shrewdly, but ultimately unpersuasively, builds his case. Were he to continue his argument - as he promises with two more volumes - he will have literally squeezed the Holocaust out of history, by making it totally unaccessible as a result of his overkill approach to proving uniqueness.

Unfortunately, Katz squanders his opportunity: instead of asking key questions such as - how do genocidal episodes relate to each other and to the Holocaust in particular, he is unremittingly intent on showing how these events are distinct and conceptually unrelated to it. Instead of erecting a framework for pre-Holocaust genocide history, Katz compiles an anarchic collection of disparate information to serve one goal only, to uphold a foregone conclusion, namely, the incontestable peculiarity and specificity of identity of the Holocaust.

The only trouble with this is, having done so, there is little left to say about the Holocaust of any relevance: comments about the Holocaust will either 1) fortify the idea of its uniqueness and, therefore, though redundant, are acceptable as legitimate and valid statements, or 2) they will not contribute to the notion of its uniqueness and, consequently, are per se inadmissible and, as must follow, in contradiction of the orthodox (Katzian) canon. Herein lies the ultimate danger of his long journey toward a predetermined destination: by draping the shroud of uniqueness over the Holocaust, its identity becomes blurred, having less and less in common with other genocidal experiences. The Holocaust thus compartmentalized by a deeply flawed methodology is needlessly mystified rather than humanized, brought further from human comprehension rather than closer to intelligibility. If anything, the genocide of the Jews of Europe needs to be woven into the fabric of history and not condemned to a meta-historic status of trans-human experience.

Henry R. Huttenbach

Opposing Genocide Deniers Ineffectively

The act of genocide denial is essentially a political one; it is a public declaration (backed by a modicum of formal authority) seeking to negate the historicity of a particular genocide. The denial can originate from several quarters, from governments, private organizations, informal groups, and from prominent or otherwise "qualified" individuals.

Counteracting effectively these acts of genocide denials remains a constant concern and, often, a point of bitter contention and source of considerable frustration, especially on the part of academics, most of whom lack the skills of counter-denial, an act not academic by nature. In many instances, a common means resorted to, because of its obvious convenience, is an open letter or advertisement signed by many people of the same opinion. It is convenient because it requires a minimum of thought and effort on the part of the signatories, except for the drafters of the text. However, is it effective and correct?

A case in point is a petition published in the February 2, 1996, issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education in opposition to the Turkish government's refusal to acknowledge that during World War I the mass deaths of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were caused by an act of government supported genocide. The petition was circulated by a professor who gathered a number of signatories, many of them prominent literary authors. Their appeal was aimed at "the US government, institutions, and citizens to deny Turkey's genocide denial tactics." Collectively they urge that, henceforth, the Armenian tragedy be referred to publicly as a genocide. The signatories included writers from Norman Mailer and Susan Sontag to John Updike and Kurt Vonnegut.

There is, in theory, nothing wrong with this practice except, in practice, it is fundamentally flawed. Virtually none of these literary personalities is qualified to render judgment on the issue. None to my knowledge has the training and/or background to speak authoritatively on the merits of the dispute, one way or the other. While this author is well-versed in things genocide and whose research leaves no doubt there was in fact a genocide perpetrated on the Armenians, Messers Mailer et.co., to the best of ones knowledge, are less than amateurs about this period of history.

The appeal seen one dimensionally is an effective public relations act: here is a text making a claim about the historicity of an event, impressively supported by an array of celebrities from the cultural scene. However, the appeal, studied more carefully, collapses under its own weight. The claim of genocide rests on isolated conclusions that are left unsubstantiated (academically speaking) and corroborated by unqualified signatories. This, of course, is the nature of political discourse, where points are made in these ways, one being which side can come up with the "best" character witnesses. Unfortunately, these practices run counter to sound academic practices and do more harm than good. The indictment and trial in absentia in Paris of Professor B. Lewis on charges he (foolishly) publicly denied the historicity of the Armenian Genocide, belongs to this politicized duel between deniers and their opponents. But Lewis, at least, is no novice to Near Eastern history and should know better than let himself get ensnared unnecessarily in the political trap of "history-by-court-order." As for the glamorous signatories of similar petitions, like the one under review, there is little to commend them except their naiveté, which can do more harm than good.

At present, there is a bitter propaganda battle for public attention and opinion. It is waged by the Turkish government on one side and by Diaspora Armenians and their sympathizers on the other. It consists of advertisements, letters to editors, appeals to Congress, articles in scholarly journals and national newspapers and private correspondence to prominent persons, including university presidents. The vocabulary is often intemperate; words like "fraudulent," "historian-cum-lap dogs," "Turkey's little Tiger," and the "so-called Armenian Genocide," abound. Scholars actively (as authors) and passively (as signatories) are being drawn into the ranks of both sides in the hopes of either corroborating the Turkish government or establishing the historicity of the genocide of the Armenians. It is not a pretty picture; in fact, it is an ugly business.

Perhaps, if at all possible, scholars should refrain from joining those "lobbying" for history. This is a controversial proposal. Is it wise to have the past receive the seal of approval from governments? Is that a function of the state? Is scholarship served by researchers having their findings given an imprimatur by legislation? A case can be made that in a democratic society, governments should not be involved in these disputes. However difficult it might be, scholars should, perhaps, rest their case on the reliability of their work and not engage in extra-curricular battles for validation. Yet, perhaps, this is too much to ask.

Combating denial is thankless, distressing and sordid. No one has come up with a formula to silence permanently the deniers, anymore than there is an effective way of dealing with terrorism. The deniers are somewhat in the league of terrorists; theirs is a cowardly and deceitful crusade. The traditional tools of scholars and of civil society in general are far from satisfactory. But that is the price of living (and thinking) in an open society. While measures should and must always be taken, one must take equal care that the measures do not play into the hands of the enemy. In this case it does.

Henry R. Huttenbach

Stalin's Final Solution: What Might Have Happened

During Stalin's long dictatorial grip on the Soviet Union, from 1928 to 1953, the lot of Jews and Judaism declined dangerously. For the quarter century that Stalin held absolute power, the fate of Soviet Jewry depended increasingly on a man whose antisemitism evolved from a traditional Orthodox Christian prejudice and Marxist ideological antipathy to a quasi-pathological obsession. His animus began as a result of his seminarian training in Georgia; it was then influenced by his exposure to late tsarist Russian culture and further aggravated by his affiliation with leading revolutionaries of Jewish origin, all of whom outshone him as personalities and intellects in the early years of Bolshevik rule in the 1920s. By the time he came to power, Stalin presided over a militantly anti-religious Soviet state increasingly oriented toward the russification of its multi-cultural populations, in particular the Jews.

Not accidently, a disproportionate number of those purged (arrested, imprisoned, and killed) from the party at Stalin's command in the 1930s were Jews. That Stalin allowed no news of Nazi brutalities against Jews in Poland during the duration of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939-1941) to be broadcast in the Soviet Union leads one to entertain serious suspicions as to his motives. That he initiated a broad campaign of culturecide against Yiddish-speaking intellectuals, directly after World War II in the wake of the Holocaust, further deepens these suspicions. At the same time, in the USSR, no reference per se was allowed to Hitler's racist policy of extermination of the Jews, a million and a half having been Soviet citizens. Instead this racial crime of genocide was subsumed into one against all the Soviet people in general, ideologically interpreted as an action of a bourgeois, capitalist state against a proletarian state. Finally, shortly before his death, Stalin culminated his (mis)treatment of Jews by concocting the famous "Doctor's Plot," the last hysterical rantings of a conscience-wracked man obsessed by the fear of imagined and real enemies, among them the proverbial Jew, the arch-conspirator.

And yet, from a broad all European perspective, were it not for the existence of the powerful Soviet Union, Stalin notwithstanding, the war could have been won by Germany. In that case, Jewish history would have completely ceased in Europe, and Israel would not have been brought into existence. Ironically, Jews in the Soviet system could count on a modicum of security short of genocide. Or did they?

In a recently published book, L'holocauste inachevé (The Unfinished Holocaust) by Alexander Borchagovsky, that question is raised and answered. According to Borchagovsky, had Stalin not fallen ill and died, he would have embarked on a post-Hitlerian Soviet-style Final Solution. He concludes that Stalin had laid plans that included special concentration camps just for Jews, equipped with gas chambers. The first round of that campaign, Borchagovsky maintains, was the 1948 frontal assault on Jewish culture. His evidence comes from seventy volumes of documents found in the KGB archives. It is reported, for example, that as early as the Molotov-Ribbentrop negotiations in 1939, Stalin had every intention of removing all vestiges of Jewish influence from Soviet society. According to Bocharkovsky Stalin never forgave Jews such as Kamenev and Trotsky who, he felt, had publicly humiliated him.

More and more, Stalin thought in terms of a twin Jewish nationalist (Zionist) and Jewish cosmopolitan (Universalist) plot against him. He was convinced that there existed an international Jewish conspiracy. Egged on by post-war reports from the Ministry of the Interior, Stalin learned about the existence of anti-Soviet dens of Jewish conspirators, of Jewish agents working for the United States' intelligence. Dozens of trials followed, culminating in the Doctor's Plot trial. Were it not for the death of Stalin on March 6, 1953, accusations against Jews would have escalated and mass deportation 'to the East' not far behind.

How much credibility can one give such a book? The general information about Stalin has been known for some time and causes little controversy. Its interpretation is what smacks of sensationalism. The book has all the hallmarks of planned revisionism, not of Jewish history but of Stalin's. Borchagovsky's book, though based on new archival materials, harbors a thesis drawn from insufficient particles of data. He is intent on raising Stalin the Tyrant above Hitler the Dictator, so much so, one begins to wonder "why?" The book reads like an exposé, a sensationalized version of revisionism, hardly like a sober monographic analysis, despite its calm tone.

A clue might be in Borchagovsky's age. Born in 1913 he is of the generation most scarred by the Stalin reign of terror, the Stalinshchina. He belongs naturally to those most affected by Krushchev's anti-personality cult campaign and the general de-Stalinization movement in the last decades of the USSR, not least the drive promoted by Gorbachev in the spirit of glasnost. In this context, the book makes sense in its determination to unmask Stalin's terror, a lot of which still remains unknown.

At present, Borgachovsky's motives remain unclear, why he would want to portray Stalin in terms that leave Hitler's genocide somewhat lessened in the minds of his readers. His historic proof is weak unless stronger evidence surfaces, which might be the case as scholars gain greater access to the archives. Whether Stalin's portrait can be drawn in Hitlerian colors remains to be seen.

There is a macabre or sardonic joke presently making the round in Jewish circles in Moscow to the effect that, once everything is known about Stalin, the Jews in Auschwitz would not have prayed so hard for the speedy arrival of the Soviet army. None of this, though, should distract from the fact that at mid-century, the Jewish people had endured the most dangerous period in their long history at the hands of the twin tyrannies from the right and from the left. The thought, even if unsustainable, that a post-1945 Stalinist slaughter might have followed Hitler's, is chilling and sobering.

Henry R. Huttenbach

The Pink Triangle and the Yellow Star: Only One Genocide*

As every student of the Nazi system knows, each concentration camp inmate wore a sign, classifying him or her according to half a dozen categories, ranging from common criminal to Jew. Among these insignia was the pink triangle, reserved for those associated with homosexual behavior. On account of these Nazi designations, considerable confusion of victimization has occurred in the minds of those seeking to understand in what manner these various groups of inmates can be spoken of in the same breath as their fellow prisoners, the Jews, that is as victims of genocide.

At first glance, all those incarcerated wore a patch, from which, in theory, one could reason that, though they entered via different routes, they all faced the same fate, group extermination. That, of course, was far from the truth. Only two categories of Kazetnicks faced wholescale extermination: the Gypsies and the Jews. Only these two were arrested en masse and automatically deported to and incarcerated in ghettos and concentration camps. That was not the case for all the other categories of prisoners, including homosexuals.

Only a handful of criminals, the most hardened, convicted of violent crimes, were removed from regular prisons and shipped to the camps where they were not exterminated; only a small percentage of known homosexuals were arrested and condemned to the same camps, but many of those survived. In most instances, those classified as homosexuals had been imprisoned on poli tical grounds and stigmatized post facto as sexual "deviants." The vast majority of known practicing homosexuals in the Nazi Party and, for example, in the officer corps of the Wehrmacht, lived with no fear of disgrace, let alone of arrest and automatic death.

For example, Sturmbannfürher Rudolf Lange, the senior SS officer in the Baltic region (a notoriously brutal man who participated in the January 1942 Wannsee Conference) was, according to survivors of the Riga ghetto, sexually involved with at least one of his SS subordinates, Maywald. Like numerous other ranking Nazis, he was not prosecuted for sexual "misbehavior." Practicing the governing rules of discretion, Lange maintained a façade of "respectability," that is, he was a family man and presented himself publicly and socially as impeccably "straight."

At no time, throughout the 12-year Nazi regime was there a general round-up of homosexuals nor, during their incarceration a so-called Aktion which frequently and regularly wiped out entire sub-categories of Jewish inmates, whether all children under twelve, or all Jews in camp hospitals, or all those deemed unable to work.

Besides, as many Jewish survivors can attest, homosexual prisoners were often given the opportunity to volunteer for the front, an option never offered to Jews. In all too many instances, homosexuals in the camps harbored and expressed antisemitic attitudes, an observation that in itself does not obviate the possibility of their being subject to group extermination, but still is an index of their conscious apartness from those ( e.g. Jews) condemned to group annihilation. Gypsies, incidentally, were not known to have felt the urge to vent (if any) negative sentiments against Jews, with whom they shared a common tragic end. Homosexuals, however and in fundamental contrast, never had to suffer the anxiety of being existentially threatened. On the contrary, as social studies of the Third Reich, underscore, there was ample room in Nazi German society for homosexuals, despite prevailing prejudices against "deviant" sexual behavior. At no time was there a totalist policy to expunge all forms of homosexuality. At no time did homosexuals have to face their version of a Final Solution. To suggest otherwise is to forge history and to serve the politically correct agenda of a few post-Auschwitz scholars and their public.

The victimization of certain individuals qua homosexuals by the Nazi regime is, without doubt, a historic fact and one of the several crimes against humanity; the existential group victimization of Jews is also an undisputed fact. The two, however, differ as light and day. The suffering of homosexuals falls well outside the boundaries of genocide; that of the Jews and Gypsies lies well within the parameters of genocide. To mention them together without stressing this existential distinction, this difference in kind, is, at best, a sign of serious intellectual myopia, at worst, a demonstration of willful obfuscation for sundry anti-academic reasons.

It is high time to clarify with greater precision the various categories of Nazi victimization. The assignment of the pink triangle was not an automatic death sentence; the wearing of the yellow star was.

Henry R. Huttenbach

* I am grateful to Mr. Ernst Haas, a survivor of the Riga ghetto, for prompting me to write this essay.

L'Affaire Jeffrey and Teaching Nazism

According to various reports, Professor Christina Jeffrey has regained her reputation. The ADL has retracted its accusation that she is/was antisemitic. It is gratifying to learn that a more contrite Abraham Foxman, according to Jeffrey, agrees "that we have to face up to the broader issue of how reputation can be destroyed by such accusation . . ." and that there is an urgent need "to discuss ways to restrain ourselves . . . and to become more sensitive about the use of language . . . including, sometimes, anti-semitism." No doubt readers of The Genocide Forum will be pleased to learn of the developments, a useful case study for all teachers of the practice of tolerance and the vicissitudes of intolerance.

This leaves, however, one issue open, Jeffrey's so-called, original sin, when, over ten years ago, in her capacity as grant application evaluator for the Department of Education, she advised, in clumsy language to be sure, that should the Holocaust be taught, more emphasis must be given to Nazism. This eminently wise suggestion was misunderstood to mean that the Nazi view of the Jews may have a basis in reality. That, of course, is not what Jeffrey meant; what she suggested, all too correctly, is that the National Socialist philosophy of racism, however convoluted and despicable, needs to be taught carefully and analytically.

It is simply not enough to mouth the words "racism" and "antisemitism" and leave it at that. The students deserve and need a thorough grounding in the nihilistic world view of the genocidists, just as they deserve to see the graphic sufferings of the victims. The two go together. "Nazism" should not become a simplistic epithet, and "racism" should not be left unexplained. There are many kinds of racism: some lead to genocide, others do not. The racism against Blacks in the United States led to slavery, to segregation, to persecution and to lynchings, but never to genocide. It has never approached genocide.

And one needs to know why. Teachers of the Holocaust need to know why so they can distinguish cogently for their students the differences, the essential differences, between each kind of racism. Without that ability, the teaching of the Holocaust will suffer significantly. By equating the two, Nazi and US racism, one fallaciously creates a false impression that the latter could lead to the former. That is nonsense. But it is convenient nonsense when misusing the Holocaust as a device to teach tolerance in grade and high school social science classes.

Professor Jeffrey was making a major pedagogical point that got lost in the self-centered and self-righteous howling aimed at her person by those blinded to her reasoning. She made a similar point about the KKK: the teachings of white supremacist racists need to be thoroughly examined, not because they may be correct, but precisely because they lead to dangerous (false) conclusions and dreadfully inhumane actions.

To test her thesis, one need only look at major texts on the Holocaust and note how peripherally and cursorily the problems of National Socialist thought are dealt with. No wonder so many complain that the Holocaust is "incomprehensible" to them; had they been tutored in the rudiments of National Socialist Rassenkunde and Weltanschaung they would have little difficulty seeing why and how the road to Auschwitz was taken.

Professor Jeffrey was arguing against ignorance. We owe her a real debt and post facto apology for ignoring her warning. She has recently been appointed a House consultant by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in the presence of ADL director Abraham Foxman who at long last openly admitted he had changed his mind about her as an antisemite after he had belatedly "looked at the record." We hope that the next time the record will be consulted a little sooner and not post facto.

Henry R. Huttenbach