Holocaust distortion and denial are not about historical inquiry, as their proponents suggest, but are forms of antisemitism that seek to attack, discredit and demonize Jews. (1) Concerning levels of Holocaust knowledge, particularly among young people, make Holocaust distortion and denial particularly threatening. (2)

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) defines Holocaust denial as “denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust)”. (3) Examples include ignoring or discrediting evidence of the Holocaust, claiming it was invented after the war for Jewish advantage, or claiming that the Holocaust is a myth. Holocaust denial is not a new phenomenon. During the war, Nazi bureaucrats deliberately obscured the Holocaust through euphemistic language, and the Nazis produced a staged propaganda film of the Theresienstadt transit camp in then Czechoslovakia, painting the illusion of cheerful daily life.

After the war, pseudo-historians styling themselves as ‘revisionists’ set out to refute the Holocaust. They founded the Institute for Historical Review in 1978, convening conferences and publishing journals that ignored basic standards of historiography whilst attempting to refute the extensive evidence documenting the Holocaust. By the late twentieth century, Holocaust denial shifted away from pseudo-academic forums and toward the internet and its post-truth ecosystem. Today, denial thrives on social media platforms like Telegram and X, in podcasts hosted by self-styled experts, and on far-right websites like the Daily Stormer. It also operates at a national level, either through forms of soft denial in parts of eastern Europe that seek to rewrite national histories of collaboration during the Holocaust, or through hard denial as seen in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which sponsors conferences and cartoon contests promoting Holocaust denial.

Holocaust distortion can be harder to identify than outright denial but often poses a greater threat to the legacy of the Holocaust today. IHRA defines it as “rhetoric, written work, or other media that excuses, minimizes, or misrepresents the known historical record”, whether intentional or not. (4) Holocaust distortion is always antisemitic in effect and often serves as a gateway to outright denial. Examples include accusing Jews of ‘using’ the Holocaust for some manner of gain, minimizing the number of victims of the Holocaust, or using imagery or language associated with the Holocaust for political, ideological or commercial purposes unrelated to this history. A particularly harmful form of distortion today is Holocaust inversion, which portrays the victims of the Holocaust (Jews) as the perpetrators (‘the new Nazis’) and thereby inverts historical reality. (5) Such inversion is unsupported by factual evidence and manipulates the greatest trauma in Jewish history for political ends, causing deep hurt to Jews.

The resources in this section examine what Holocaust distortion and denial are, the forms they take, and provide tools to help educators and students understand, counter and challenge them.

1. Lipstadt, D.E. (2019) Antisemitism: here and now. New York: Schocken Books.
2. UCL Centre for Holocaust Education (2026) Knowledge and understandings of the Holocaust: Two decades of research informing classroom practice in Holocaust education (Research Digest 2). London: UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, UCL Institute of Education. Available here (Accessed: 4 February 2026)
3. International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) (2013) Working definition of Holocaust denial and distortion. Available here (Accessed: 4 February 2026).
4. International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) (2013) Working definition of Holocaust denial and distortion. Available here (Accessed: 4 February 2026).
5. Klaff, L. (2014) ‘Holocaust Inversion and contemporary antisemitism’, Fathom, 5. Available here (Accessed: 4 February 2026)