More than 100 University of Wisconsin community members gathered in Library Mall Wednesday afternoon to remember the events of the Holocaust and come together as a community.
The rally was held in response to an ad posted on The Badger Herald website purchased by a Holocaust denier. The Herald refused to remove the ad, saying exposing it to the marketplace of ideas was the best way to approach and dispel the message behind the ad.
Many members of the Jewish community as well as other students and staff at the university disagreed with the Herald’s decision, saying the ad is simply too repugnant to be given ad space.
In an interview with The Badger Herald before the rally, UW Chancellor Biddy Martin said finding balance between free speech and the damage that speech can cause is difficult in every community. She said UW is certainly concerned about the harm this ad may cause, but she does not know if placing the ad on the site will ultimately be that damaging.
“I think that’s the question that we’re gathered here and other places around campus to debate,” Martin said. “The question of what [is] the appropriate route to take under pressure needs more debate.”
Martin added she was immensely proud of UW students for pulling the rally together so quickly, and students always impress her.
Martin later kicked off the rally with a speech honoring victims of the Holocaust. After her, four additional people spoke over a 30-minute span, remembering facets of the Holocaust or giving their own passionate personal reasons for why the ad is detrimental and wrong.
“The voice of memory is calling us to stand up to lies,” Hillel Rabbi Andrea Steinberger said. “Today you have united to stand up to hatred, to call a lie a lie.”
UW Hillel member and a planner of the event Abram Shanedling said what he had learned in school about the Holocaust became real for him when he took a trip to Poland that involved touring concentration camps. He added upon leaving the camps he knew the evil he saw was something no one should ever forget.
Another speaker, professor of education Simone Schweber, said it is important not to give legitimacy to people who spread lies. She said the ad should be taken down because this is not a controversy — it is just a person telling lies.
“When they accepted an ad from a Holocaust denier, the smart students on The Badger Herald staff made a mistake,” Schweber said.
After the speakers, first year medical student Monica Woll said it is extremely important for the Jewish community to stand up for themselves and to show how strong they are.
“I’m really proud of this community for standing up for itself here,” Woll said.
At the end of the rally, students were invited to an open forum called “Journalism, Ethics and Sensitivity” that will be held today in 272 Bascom Hall at 4 p.m.
The panel will feature Herald Editor in Chief Jason Smathers, Daily Cardinal Editor in Chief Charles Brace, journalism professors Lew Friedland and Stephen Ward and ASM Chair Tyler Junger. Dean of Students Lori Berquam will moderate the event.
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The holocaust will always be a matter for debate and inquiry.
Referring to scholarly holocaust researchers as liars and deniers is not credible.
The internet has exposed the truth of the holocaust.
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Says the liar who denies the reality that the Nazis committed mass murder.
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the internet has also exposed thousands of nigerian princes who will give me millions of dollars if I just wire them a few G’s. And a great new way to make my junk a whole foot longer. And lots of freaky sex. I’m sure you’re familiar.
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Why do we need debate about holocaust deniers when the German government themselves do not deny the events and atrocities of world war 2? They are STILL paying reparations sixty years later, I have proof of same. Why must we argue down these deniers when the Pope apologired for not intervening?
The students are wrong, not because freedom of speech should be curtailed but that there has to be a measure of reasonable argument in speech and holocaust deniers are contradicting international policy and the government of Germany who themselves own the heritage they inherited from the governing men of that time.
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no kidding. i grew up being called a nazi and a killer because im from germany. not that i knew at the age of 10 what they meant. being accused of something so horrific is pretty traumatizing as well (traumatizing in our people’s world today, not traumatizing like the actual holocaust…which none of the people on campus actually experienced)
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AntiSemitism prompted Holocaust denial in the first place to create a false debate about devious and conspiratorial Jews… The same methods used by the Nazis. Not exactly a coincidence.
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jews are the worlds most sophisticated predators?! who are you? UW has once again disappointed me with it’s rampant and blatant hate speech against the jewish community. this university has a serious issue that does not exist at any other school like it, and i really think that it’s time to take a look at this and wonder why. we are a group of very talented, diverse, highly educated individuals and to throw around hateful and uneducated words is a terrible reflection of this academic institution and the students who attend it.
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My guess is that he doesn’t go here and the Herald was brought to his attention by the Holocaust denial ad. Best to ignore him.
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“we are a group of very talented, diverse, highly educated individuals”
Isn’t that every ethnicity? Or are some ethnicities truly better than others?
FYI, white Anglo-Saxons are the epitome of beauty and success (/sarcasm).
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why is there a picture of the Israeli flag? Badger Herald- we’re talking about the Holocaust- please be conscientious enough to separate Israeli nationalism from the Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, whether or not Hillel has the decency and integrity to do so.
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Hillel is the most dominant jewish group on campus. I’m pretty sure they’ve already grouped the two together.
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The star of David has long been the symbol of Judaism going back more than 2,500 years. It is more than just a design on the flag of modern day Israel.
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I seriously cant believe that these idiotic comments are coming from actual uw students.
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The photo of an Israel flag is ideal for this rally because it shows this rally is not about holocaust denial, but Israeli nationalism.
As an american I will not waste my time worrying about what one group of foreigers did to another group of foreigners on a foreign soil.
War is war and the historical record shows Germany was attacked by the Jewish community with a global boycott beginning in 1933 and the Poles had killed 58,000 Germans in the Danzig corridor in the 1930’s.
Germans was exercising it’s right to protect itself.
The rest of the story is war time propoganda.
The reason most kids today do not know these facts, is because they are not exposed to this side of the issue, which is the truth. They are fed a pack of lies from a lobby that has a financial self interest, and if they do not tow the line are accused of being a Neo Nazi. Wake up america, this scam has gone on long enough.
I invite everyone to read Don Heddesheimers book-” The First Holocaust- Jewish fund raising using holocaust claims during and AFTER World War One. “
A real eye opener.
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Oh, so that’s what it was! The Nazis were just protecting themselves when they murdered six million innocent Jews!
The level of stupidity required to be a Holocaust denier is truly astounding.
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actually, an israeli flag i think is very appropriate. after during ww2 no other country would allow jewish immigrants in while they were being persecuted. thats a big reason why israel exists today, the jewish people needed their own homeland and their own army to protect themselves, because no other country initially did during the holocaust and let them deteriorate in the concentration camps. you are very narrow minded wisconsin#1
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Talk about over-sensitivity. Naysayers of the Holocaust are clearly misinformed at best, and antisemitic at worst. To acknowledge that there’s even an argument here is just fuel in an unnecessary fire. The whole reason the ad was created to begin with was to rile up all of the righteous do-gooders on campus, and it seems to have done its job. Was it the right decision to run the ad; I think so but they should’ve expected this backlash, and I think it’s fair to assume the Herald was not jabbing at the Jewish community or being insensitive by doing so. As for the term coastie being derogatory, as brought up by Andria Steinberger in the Daily Cardinal article on the ad? Get over it people. The term coastie refers to people from certain geographical locations (not necessarily on the coast) who dress, talk, and act a certain way. Yes, there some Jewish women from those locations that dress, talk, and act that way. There are also plenty of short women, tall women, brunette women, blond women, financially stable women - it’s not a Jewish issue. Not everyone is attacking the Jewish community; I think most of our campus has been past that for a while. Including the Badger Herald. This is a free speech issue, not a Jewish one. It should serve as an example to future situations that arise - is someone’s right to freedom of speech and an institution’s right to print freely allowed to infringe upon another group’s right to be understood correctly and treated fairly? That’s the question that should be on the table right now, not whether this particular ad is undermining this particular community.
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Who do you think you are? This is the 21st Century - were you never taught sympathy, and that one human, regardless of race, religion, etc is not different than the next? “Jews are perhaps the worlds most sophisticated predators…” Sure, depending on your definition of predators, an individual of Jewish faith may be a ‘predator.’ But, so are Christians, Muslims, African American’s, Canadians, and even Athiest’s from Wisconsin. So you, sir, are ridiculous.
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Why doesn’t everyone realize that these comments are open to the public and probably 98% of the offensive comments are coming from non-students. Probably most of them not even from Wisconsin.
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Mearsheimer has a decent point about the disproportionate amount of power that the Israeli lobby exercises in American Politics.
That said, Mearsheimer is not a holocaust denier. The holocaust happened and it was horrible. Like many terrible historical events it should be accepted and learned from.
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Mearsheimer is a putz.
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The only way to shut people up is with facts. We need evidence. Proof. Not censorship. And being a coastie has nothing to do with one’s religion. Uggz + leggings + North Face = coastie (or even worse, a coastie-wanna-be if you’re not actually from the coastal region of the U.S.)
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Dude, you can’t be the real Steven E. Romer! Not the one I found on Facebook.
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Hey Badger Herald - Maybe you should google who “Steven E Romer” is before you let someone post under a name like that. We’ve now crossed the line from anti-semitism into outright racism, thanks.
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I am the grandmother of two students at UW Madison. my girls are both jewish and I am a holocaust survivor. It is quite disappointing that your newspaper would accept an ad such as this. shame on you! rodi glass
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Ms. Rodi Glass- Why must the history books on one chapter of world history be closed.
American taxpayers are paying for the United States Holocaust Museum and others in the United States.
These taxpayers have every right to continue to research this event. Between 1945 and 1960 the American people were told that there were 22 extermination camps in Poland, Germany and Austria. American army investigators searched 16 suspect sites in Austria and Germany for several years follwing world War 2 and discovered there were no extermination camps in those two countries. In other words, the reports of Jews being gassed in Austria and Germany, reports taken very seriously, were found to be false.
That left 6 suspect sites to be examined. These sites were Auschwitz, Treblinka, Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor and Majdanek.
American investigators were refused permission to inspect these sites.
Historians had to rely on the information supplied to them by the Russians. We were told 6,000,000 victims but there was no verification of any kind allowed.
Since 1978, holocasut historians or revisionists have uncovered a massive amount of evidence, forensic evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt no gassings had taken place at the last remaining 6 suspect sites.
It has now become something of a standoff with many persons claiming they saw these gassings with their own eyes and revisionists saying the science does not support it. It seems like it should be an easy issue to solve. The problem is one side has used their influence, money, and power to silence the other side.
Now, a unbiased, uninterested observer would have to ask themselves, what is this other side so fearful of? People with truth on their side do not act that way.
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rudulf…you can create rhetoric by picking and choosing pieces of history to fit your skewed understanding of the past, but don’t expect an intelligent person to just nod along and agree with you as if you’re lecturing on some revolutionary conspiracy. There are two sides to every story, and often more interpretations of those two sides than is necessary. Perhaps you should enlighten yourself and visit a Holocaust Museum or at least audit a history course on WWII. Maybe, you should actually go to Germany and Poland to see what remains of the concentration camps that were not destroyed since you clearly won’t take anyone’s word for it other than your ignorant mentors.
You say the Jews are running a worldwide conspiracy for over fifty years? The Israeli lobby might one of the most powerful, but I ask you who’s party-line are you trying to tow? I would ask you, but then again, you’re not an unbiased, uninterested observer. Are you? Please refrain from tainting the UW system and its students with your ignorant comments. Thanks.
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rudulf,
what history book are you reading? were some of your chapters ripped out or just blatantly ignored? Or were some of the pages stuck together since you were obviously too busy pleasuring yourself to images of Hitler rather than reading the actual words. Do actual research, because based on your intriguing lecture above (no, really…very impressive), it seems like you just google words and click the first thing that comes up. Is that what you do? Are you a googler? I’m sure you also think 9/11 was a government conspiracy, scientology isn’t a cult, and that Aliens are vicariously running the white house.
Don’t just spout off the rhetoric of some self-proclaimed expert. Stop being a sheep and think for yourself for once. You honestly think all the world’s Jews have created the most elaborate hoax of all time by fraudulently claiming the existence of the holocaust for their own monetary and political benefit? You can say whatever you want about Jews as a people, that’s your right, but do you actually think the rest of the world would succomb to something so ridiculous?
Stop blaming other people for your misfortunes. Take responsibility for your own life and let others peacefully live their’s.
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For many decades we have heard the many stories from the Jewish community about how they suffered and how terrible the Germans were and the free speech allowed or given to them. Where’s the free speech from those whose research uncovered many things that were not in line with what the Jews have said? Where’s the free speech on the many research with personal interviews and the physical evidence which uncovered facts contrary to what the Jewish community have claimed for over six decades? Suppressed - that’s what has happened to free speech. And why? If the Jewish community thinks what they have said and written about is true, then what do you Jews have to worry about? Why suppress and call everyone anti-Semitic?
Why can’t the Jews talk honestly about the Bolshevik Revolution in which the Jews killed, murdered millions of White Christians? Is that anti-Semitism? Is the truth anti-Semitism?
A higher institution or in this case a university should allow freedom of expression, allow others’ opinions and facts to be expressed. Why should anyone or everyone be exposed only to one side of the issue when the one side could very possibly be false?
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Imagine you ran an ad saying that there never was slavery in the South and that blacks are making it all up! Or that there was no genocide in Darfur, or never an Irish potato famine. How about if an ad ran claiming that no Chinese were slaughtered in Nanking during WWII or that one million Armenians were not killed as an act of genocide in the Ottoman Empire around WWI?
What kind of place would this world be if we continued to deny the horrors and inhumanity that history has laid at our doorstep? Clearly the denial of the Holocaust is thinly veiled antiSemitism, but in a deeper sense, it is an inhumane act of cowardice and invalidation of millions of innocent people who were murdered, tortured, raped, beaten and otherwise victimized without cause. To run an ad supporting the attempted revision of history is to be a party to the spread and fomentation of hate.
There is far more evidence for the Holocaust of WWII than there is for any other Holocaust in history, yet this is the only one that is challenged and allowed to be denied in the media as if it is a valid proposal. We must keep in mind that the Holocaust was not an event recorded by Jews, but rather by Poles, Russians, Germans, the Catholic Church, Italians, Hungarians, Resistance fighters, partisans, the U.S. armed services, including many leaders such as Patton and Eisenhower first-hand, and has been documented in film, photographs, testimonials on all sides, depositions and log books. Holocaust deniers have only the ignorance and lack of intellectual curiosity in their bag of tools to be successful with their already infamous campaign.
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Imagine you ran an ad saying that there never was slavery in the South and that blacks are making it all up! Or that there was no genocide in Darfur, or never an Irish potato famine. How about if an ad ran claiming that no Chinese were slaughtered in Nanking during WWII or that one million Armenians were not killed as an act of genocide in the Ottoman Empire around WWI?
What kind of place would this world be if we continued to deny the horrors and inhumanity that history has laid at our doorstep? Clearly the denial of the Holocaust is thinly veiled antiSemitism, but in a deeper sense, it is an inhumane act of cowardice and invalidation of millions of innocent people who were murdered, tortured, raped, beaten and otherwise victimized without cause. To run an ad supporting the attempted revision of history is to be a party to the spread and fomentation of hate.
There is far more evidence for the Holocaust of WWII than there is for any other Holocaust in history, yet this is the only one that is challenged and allowed to be denied in the media as if it is a valid proposal. We must keep in mind that the Holocaust was not an event recorded by Jews, but rather by Poles, Russians, Germans, the Catholic Church, Italians, Hungarians, Resistance fighters, partisans, the U.S. armed services, including many leaders such as Patton and Eisenhower first-hand, and has been documented in film, photographs, testimonials on all sides, depositions and log books. Holocaust deniers have only the ignorance and lack of intellectual curiosity in their bag of tools to be successful with their already infamous campaign.
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Why do you morons tow the line for the ADL, an organisation that defends the mass murders of Palestinian childredn?
http://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/adlsupportsmass_murder.html