Iran Media Uses Erroneous But Widely Circulated Holocaust Myth To Deny Authenticity Of The Holocaust

A Iranian news website sympathetic to the regime in Tehran published an article denying the Holocaust by pointing to an erroneous Holocaust story that claims the Nazis manufactured soap from their Jewish victims. For this website, Mashregh News, this dubious story was all the evidence needed to prove that the Holocaust is a myth and that it must be exposed as a historical falsity.

The article is an example of an often-used tactic by neo-Nazi groups and prominent Holocaust deniers. By their logic, if the soap story is a fabrication, consequently all historical facts concerning the authenticity of the Holocaust are nothing more than “Jewish myths” promoted by an “international Jewish organization.”

The current Iranian regime is no stranger to Holocaust denial. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for “experts” to investigate the veracity of the Holocaust. In December 2006, Iran played host to a Holocaust denial conference, “Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision,” which was attended by a diverse group of anti-Semites, including neo-Nazi, radical anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian activists, and Islamic fundamentalists.

One month prior, Iran’s Culture Ministry hosted a cartoon contest that sought entries deriding Jews and mocking the Holocaust. The winning cartoon was submitted by a Moroccan artist who depicted Israelis constructing a wall around the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, with the panels of the wall reflecting an image of the infamous railway leading to the gates of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Although Mashregh News is not directly affiliated with or run by the Iranian government, it nonetheless staunchly promotes the government’s ideology and features articles and interviews with top officials from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).