During the last year, while doing research for my World War 2 blog, I came to the conclusion that the internet is a vast wasteland of bad information and pitiful self promotion (i.e., facebook, twitter, etc.).

While none of this is exactly ground breaking news for many people, it certainly was for me. Although I’ve been using the net for over 15 years, mainly to read about my favorite sports teams and keep up on current events, I hadn’t stopped to read anyone’s blog or discussion forum. That is, not until I started a blog of my own. If there is one person out there that is interested in any particular subject, there is a blog about it. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing; the internet provides the largest forum in the world for people to express their opinions on subjects they are passionate about, which is wonderful. That’s also not to say anyone is going to care about another World War 2 blog.

With all this being said, I think the most useless, misinformed and, for lack of a better word, ignorant blogs or discussion forums I came across were those that attempted to debate whether or not the Holocaust actually happened. These blogs rank behind \”How to Turn a Pepsi Can into a Car Muffler\” and discussions on how to get those darn bread crumbs out of the bottom of the toaster.

The Holocaust DID happen; that is not open for debate. The discussion on these blogs generally goes something like this: some malcontent, usually the site’s webmaster, will post some ridiculous claim that the Nazis did not use the gas chamber to murder Jews; rather, it was simply a place to disinfect their clothes. My favorite is when some of these people claim that the actual number of Jews that perished in these camps is only around 100,000. ONLY? They then try to attribute these deaths to cold weather, disease and other natural causes, never once acknowledging that the victims should never have been present in the camps in the first place. This declaration is usually followed by some good Samaritan offering irrefutable proof that the holocaust DID happen. These are generally the people who live in the real world and can back up their claims with official documents from the German government, pictures, accounts from Holocaust survivors (people who were actually there) and the fact that a lot of these death camps are still standing today. After that, the \”discussion\” usually breaks down into name calling and other gibberish by the people who want to convince us that the Holocaust is just some kind of Jewish conspiracy. Enough! Why waste any more effort on these folks?

There is a school of thought that everyone deserves a chance to be enlightened. I also understand that if, given the seriousness of the subject, you can get one person to change their mind, then you have decreased the chance of something like the Holocaust from ever happening again. The reality is that these people do not want to believe the truth; that’s a far cry from merely being uninformed. Knowledge can cure ignorance, but as we have seen time and time again, it doesn’t cure hate. So the next time you come across one of these blogs, ignore it! Don’t add fuel to their fire by trying to convince them of the truth. I know you can’t simply ignore hate and expect it to magically go away, but there should be no discussion on this matter. The Holocaust is as real as the sun is yellow, the sky is blue, and the grass is green.

Or so I thought they were until I read a blog where people were discussing the conspiracy theory by the Crayola Crayons Company that involved giving objects color so we would have to buy their products . . . Please stop the insanity.

I’m trying to do my part: my Pepsi can went into the recycle bin (instead of on the back of my car) when I was done with it, I spread out some wax paper on my counter and put my toaster on it upside before I went to bed last night and hopefully, I stopped one person from futilely trying to help those who don’t want to be helped but would rather wallow in mindless hate and denial.

Author Bio: Brent Cummings is the webmaster of http://www.worldwar02.com, which is a site dedicated to all things pertaining to World War 2 including articles, pictures, quotes, timeline, casualty lists and the Holocaust.

Category: World Affairs
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