Iranian Book Makes Mockery Of Shoah

by Erica Morris - Thursday 2nd October 2008


Nearly three years after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad labelled the Shoah a "myth", Holocaust survivors this week expressed sadness over a shocking new book in which students in the country mock the murder of millions by the Nazis.

Featuring a series of offensive illustrations including one showing Jews leaving and then re-entering a gas chamber, under a counter that reads '5,999,999', the publication was unveiled in front of Iran's education minister during an Al-Quds Day event last Friday.

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A cartoon of a Jewish hospital patient on life support breathing in the poison used in the Nazi gas chambers Zyklon-B is also included in the book, whose front cover provides a taste of things to come with an image of a hook-nosed Jew drawing body outlines on the ground.

"All this denial is not only terrible but also a great lie that should not, and cannot, be continued," said UK-based Shoah survivor Roman Halter.
"We, the survivors, cannot believe that at this time there are still people who do not acknowledge that the Holocaust happened."

Ben Helfgott, who survived both the Buchenwald and Theresienstadt concentration camps, added: "It is very sad to see that people in Iran are continuing with their hatred and their determination to try and destroy Israel. One of the ways they're doing it is trivialising the Holocaust. They are behaving in exactly the same way as the Germans under Hitler, the propaganda is no different. We should take it very, very seriously."

Written by student members of the Basij militia, the 100-page book does not stop at mocking the Nazi genocide in pictures.

One comment reads: "How did the Germans emit gas into chambers while there were no holes on the ceiling?"
"Answer: 'Shut up, you criminal anti-semite. How dare you ask this question?'"

During last Friday's Al-Quds rally, thousands of participants chanted 'Death to Israel'. It followed Ahmadinejad's address to the United Nations last week, during which he again predicted the demise of the Jewish state during a speech to the United Nations general assembly. "The Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse," he said.

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