Holocaust Denial Seen Gaining Ground : Anti-Semitism: Need for vigilance and education is stressed after a poll finds that 22% of Americans think it is possible that the extermination of 6 million Jews in World War II never occurred.

Hundreds of thousands vote for a former neo-Nazi who cast doubt on the Holocaust. Ads in college newspapers deride the “irresponsible exaggeration” that 6 million Jews died.

A poll finds that 22% of Americans think it is possible that the Holocaust never happened.

Even as the United States Holocaust Museum is inaugurated, there also is a growing movement of Holocaust denial that has a potentially large audience, some scholars say.

Three new books--”Holocaust Denial” by Kenneth S. Stern, “Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory” by Deborah E. Lipstadt, and “Assassins of Memory” by Pierre Vidal-Naquet--argue that people disputing the existence of the Holocaust should not be dismissed as “flat-earth types,” but should be taken seriously.

“Looking historically at how anti-Semitic canards have worked . . . we’re seeing one that’s at its incipient and beginning stage,” Stern said in an interview. “It may be one that in the next century, when there are no more survivors or liberators, will turn into a vehicle for anti-Semitism.”

Holocaust denial began even before World War II ended, but Stern said it first received attention outside neo-Nazi circles when Arthur R. Butz, a professor at Northwestern University in Boston, wrote “The Hoax of the Twentieth Century.” In 1979, the California-based Institute for Historical Review was launched to promote Holocaust denial as a serious enterprise.

Activity has stepped up in recent years as television and radio talk show hosts have given people who dispute the Holocaust air time.

Last year, Bradley Smith, who heads a group called Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, placed ads in student newspapers at Cornell, Duke, Michigan and Northwestern universities suggesting that the Holocaust was fabricated, stirring up controversy over freedom of speech and hate messages.

Even if respected historians rebut their accusations, Stern said, groups attacking the Holocaust gain ground and are given a veneer of respectability, and the existence of the Holocaust is made a subject of debate.

There has been success in recent years in promoting Holocaust education. Some states now mandate teaching about the Holocaust, and many religious groups have made teaching about the Holocaust a priority.

Eugene Fisher, director for Catholic-Jewish relations of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that when he started giving talks in the mid-’70s, there was a great deal of ignorance about the Holocaust.

“That’s not true now. People know what it is,” Fisher said.

The Holocaust Museum that opened last month is also an important sign of commitment to the memory of the Holocaust, he said.

“It’s a pretty strong institutional, American statement, saying, ‘We’re not going to let this be forgotten,’ ” Fisher said.

He added that while there is a need for continued vigilance to keep alive the memory of the Holocaust, recent events should be kept in perspective.

“I wouldn’t want the crazy types to overwhelm what is the mainstream: Americans do want to remember this,” he said.

Others express greater concern, particularly in light of an American Jewish Committee poll released last month in which 22% of adult respondents said it seems possible that the Nazi extermination of Jewish people never happened. An additional 12% responded that they did not know whether it was possible.

Holocaust survivors such as Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel expressed shock at the poll results, and others said the findings showed the need to take seriously groups that deny the Holocaust.

“Clearly, there are people who are making an effort to promote Holocaust denial,” said David Singer, research director for the American Jewish Committee. “Clearly, these people have to be taken seriously in the context of these findings.”

Education is not enough, according to Stern. People who deny the existence of the Holocaust must be confronted and exposed, he said.

For example, he said, hundreds of thousands of people voted for David Duke in presidential primaries, even though his activities denying a major tragedy of the 20th Century were well known, Stern said.

“Holocaust denial is not about historical truth. It is about anti-Jewish hatred as part of a political agenda--and must be confronted as such,” he said.