Holocaust Denial: Laws and Public Policy
Holocaust denial has been present since the fall of the Third Reich and continues to build an underground following to this day. This paper presents a look at the major players in Holocaust denial and revisionism, the various laws allowing and restricting denial and appropriate suggestions to help prevent this movement from continuing to thrive behind the guise of freedom of speech.
Holocaust Denial and the Law: A Comparative Study
The understanding that law has a representative function in society and that every unpopular accused needs to be prosecuted sets the dynamic for this book – an incisive read into one of the thorniest problems of expression and interpretation of history. It is extensively researched and carefully written with evidential proof about how courts in Germany, France, Canada and United States resolved dilemmas posed by Holocaust-denial litigation. While on one hand the work gives an understanding of the legal processes or situated forces in question when adhering to the principles of legal fairness, on the other hand it studies criminal prosecution of the deniers and critically assesses the need of “protecting” the Holocaust from its (right wing) extremist commentaries. Though some might argue that Holocaust Denial is old news as there’s a general acceptance of deniers, Robert Kahn advocates that society must criminalize Holocaust denial “for its assault on truth; the offense it gives to survivors; or the danger of a right-wing (or anti-Semitic) revival it carries with it.” (p. 2). Very few books on comparative criminal procedures can be read in common parlance. Kahn writes the severity and complexity of the problem with clarity, painstakingly explaining every narrative, legal provision, code and related symbolic representation in the legal cases lucidly. This substantiates diverse legal norms and the attitudes both for and against them, an insightful read for criminal lawyers, criminologists, researchers with an interest in legal pluralism, legal writing, international law and human rights, as well as scholars of history and genocide studies. He demonstrates that a specific historical experience of a country with the holocaust has an impact on the expectations of how the denial trial should unfold; for example, when thinking about a criminal trial, the inquisitorial (judge-centred) approach bears a different procedural meaning for a German or French than for an American, as does the idea of political censorship. Kahn agrees with Geertz’s anthropological interpretation that all law is local knowledge and not just a “placeless principle” (p.5) – as oft-perceived in the West, political factors
Negotiating the cultural and economic outcomes of sport heritage attractions: the case of the National Baseball Hall of Fame
ABSTRACT Contemporary museums must balance their roles as commercial entities and repositories of various, and often dissonant, heritages and histories. Sports museums in particular often have clear commercial and nostalgic aims, particularly through tourist visitation, though the extent to which they represent more challenging narratives remains unclear. This paper examines how one of the most famous sports museums in the world, the National Baseball Hall of Fame (NBHF) in Cooperstown, New York, balances its dual role as tourist attraction and repository of baseball's sometimes checkered past. It was found that different sections of the museum provide greater or lesser degrees of engagement with more controversial issues, although the commercial outputs and appeal of the museum remains clear throughout. Utlimately, the NBHF demonstrates that balancing veneration and critique in collections can be commercially prosperous, and can provide a template for other sport and popular culture museums who may be wary of incorporating more challenging narratives in their exhibits. Furthermore, the symbiotic relationship between the Hall of Fame and the village of Cooperstown, particularly in creating and maintaining cultural and economic outputs, requires further exploration.