Iran Announces Conference on Holocaust

[surria]

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran, whose president has denied the Holocaust, said Sunday it would hold a conference to examine the scientific evidence concerning Nazi Germany's extermination of 6 million Jews.

Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has recently provoked global condemnation for saying the Holocaust is a "myth" and calling for Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth. Iran further alarmed Western countries last week by restarting its research at a nuclear facility after a two-year freeze.

"It is a strange world. It is possible to discuss everything except the Holocaust," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. "The Foreign Ministry plans to hold a conference on the scientific aspect of the issue to discuss and review its repercussions."

Asefi did not say where or when the conference would be held or who would attend.

Earlier this month, the Association of Muslim Journalists, a hard-line group, proposed holding a similar conference. But Asefi said he was not aware of the association's wishes. He said the conference he announced was planned and supported by the ministry.

On Saturday, Ahmadinejad urged the West to be open-minded enough to allow a free international debate on the real aspects of the Holocaust.

Rep. Tom Lantos (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., has said he understood Iran was considering a conference to call into question the evidence that the Nazis conducted a mass murder of European Jews during World War Two

[Grant]

The Germans kept excellent records. I have seen documentaries which have included both German film footage from during the war, and allied footage from the immediate post-surrender period. I have personally known survivors and seen the tatooed numbers on their arms.

The Germans killed Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and anybody else they considered inferior or defective. The six million were just the Jews. There were millions more.

There is no doubt in my mind that the events of the Holocaust took place as they are represented in the memorial to the "Shoa" in Israel, and that the numbers are correct.

[michael_ital]

I doubted the figure of 6 M myself, until I watched the actual footage of Adolf Eichmann's trial. Being the architect and bookeeper of such records, he himself admitted on the stand during the trial in '62 that it was indeed 6M.

[Nimble]

It is OK to dislike and condemn what the zionist Jews are doing to Palestinians, but it is totally unnecessary for the Iranian president to play on this holocaust issue over and over again. Mitigating Hitler's views and actions in any way is an insult to all non-arians, including Somalis for that matter. The enemy of your enemy isn't always your friend.

[San_dheer]

What is their problem. Why does it matter to them?