2016
Cairn
Valérie Igounet, « Les premières voix françaises du négationnisme (1945-1953) », Archives Juives, ID : 10670/1.54vkry
In the context of a post-War France traumatized by the Jewish genocide, it was difficult for antisemites to make themselves heard. They thus had to reframe their arguments, in order to integrate hatred of Jews into new discourses. Holocaust denial reared its ugly head three years after the end of World War II. It reframed the fundamentals of classic antisemitic discourse while taking into account the creation of the state of Israel, thus revealing one of its objectives : to deny the historical legitimacy of the newly created Jewish state. Between 1945 and 1953, the first voices of Holocaust denial sprung from opposite sides of the political spectrum. On one side we find a self-proclaimed fascist, and on the other a concentration camp survivor, the second becoming the founder of a discourse that would ground itself not in politics, but in the search for historical truth.