Last week, Iranian President Ahmadinejad once again outraged the world by calling the Holocaust a “myth”.
To be honest, it is embarrassing to me as a Muslim when I see a Muslim leader espouse such vitriol. This summer I went to the Dachau concentration camp and it was one of the most heart wrenching experience. I watched Schindler’s List and La Vita e Bella beforehand to prepare myself, but you just cannot. Seeing the camp, the barracks, the crematorium, you find yourself hating mankind. The Holocaust showed the atrocities that man is capable of committing. It showed that we as a world need to make sure that a tragedy like this never happen again. In fact, maybe if we had focused more on the Holocaust, than instead of just coming up with the slogan “Never Again”, we might have followed through on it too. Maybe the genocide in Rwanda, the chemical attacks against the Iraqi Kurds, the mass killings of Bosnian Muslims might not have happened. Maybe the world right now would be focusing on the rampant raping and extreme brutality against women taking place in Congo, instead of worrying about a nuclear Iran.
By denying the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad is not just hurting Jews, but he really is doing a disservice to everyone.
