Random Image

Ephemeral monument to Gigi Meroni in Corso Re Umberto, Torino.

Recent Updates

Showing Their Colors
Along with the eagerly anticipated yearly harvest...
KMPRINCE - Mon Jun 16, 08:37
Sure, normal life often...
Sure, normal life often continues uninterrupted during...
Michael Prince (anonymous) - Sat May 17, 09:52
I am not really shocked...
This is an interesting post. I would disagree with...
mhatlie - Thu May 15, 09:59
Through Different Lenses
A bit of a stir was sparked recently by a newly opened...
KMPRINCE - Wed May 14, 17:54
mort pour ...?
In a contemporary account of his travels through France,...
K. Michael Prince (anonymous) - Thu Apr 24, 09:06

Iran

Thursday, 7. December 2006

Holocaust Revisionism in Iran

Although today is the 65th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, the most interesting memory news in the paper this morning are the reports of the upcoming conference (10-11 December) in Iran to investigate the history of the Holocaust. Under the title of "Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision," the conference will be under the auspices of the Institute for Political and International Studies, part of the Iranian foreign ministry. 67 participants from 30 countries have been invited to attend.

Themes are to include the nature of Anti-Semitism, Jews in Iran and in the Islamic world, Zionism, freedom of conscious, the extent of the Holocaust and the existence of the gas chambers. That last item is a common trope among Holocaust deniers. The so-called Leuchter Report, easily available on the web, which supposes to disprove the possibility of gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp, has long been a centerpiece of their claims that the Jews were not murdered en masse at Nazi concentration camps. See http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/leuchter/ for a discussion of the Leuchter Report from a critical perspective.

The Iranian conference cannot be assumed to be a scientific, historical, academic conference of the usual sort when considered against the background of recent inflamitary remarks by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While Iranian vice foreign minister Mohammadi denied that the conference implies denial of the Holocaust, he question the fairness of making the Palestinians pay the price.

Read about it in today's Süddeutsche Zeitung or online in the Guardian.

Friday, 8. September 2006

Terror Memorial...



With all the goings on in Lebanon with Hezbollah and the politics around Iran at the moment, I thought it would be interesting to put up a memorial a student of mine found in Tehran. It is a memorial to the suicide bombings in Beirut in 1983, but it isn't for the Marines and French rangers. It is for the bombers! You can find a larger version of it and more pictures from the same cemetery at the Behesht Zara cemetery page at "Sites of Memory".

Since the memorial text is in English, it is obviously intended for world-wide consumption. It might mean defiance and provocation, but the wording amounts to a admission that the Islamic Republic advocates the use of suicide bombings. The attack on the U.S. embassy is not mentioned, however, only the two barracks attacks, so here at least they are only glorifying attacks on military targets.
logo

Sites of Memory

Welcome

This blog grew out of the sites-of-memory.de project. It features impressions and analysis of past and present memorial culture.

If you would like to be an author for this blog, see our call for contributors.

The blog logo is a photo of a statue at the soldiers' "Brethren Cemetery" in Riga, Latvia.

Aministrator Contact

M. Hatlie
Im Feuerhägle 1
72072 Tübingen
Germany
Cell: +49-163-1341718
e-mail

Disclaimer

The authors are solely responsible for what they write in this blog. We do not accept responsibility for the content behind any of the links posted here. We make every effort to check them, but their content can change. The owners of the webpages linked to are solely responsible for the content of those webpages.

Status

Online for 995 days
Last update: Mon Jun 16, 08:37

Search

 

About this blog
Armenian Genocide
Central Europe
Estonia
Europe
Falkland Islands
German memorial culture
Great Britain
Holocaust Denial
India
Iran
Italy
Latvia
Los Angeles
Memory Studies
Odds and Ends
... more
Profil
Logout
Subscribe Weblog