SOURCE: "Lies about the Holocaust," in Commentary, Vol. 70, No. 6, December, 1980, pp. 31-7.

An American educator and historian, Dawidowicz wrote and edited several studies of the Holocaust. In the following essay, she refutes the arguments of Holocaust denial writers.

Historians are always engaged in reinterpreting the past. They do so sometimes on the basis of newly found documentary sources, sometimes by reconsidering the known data from a different political position, or by taking into account a different time span, or by employing a new methodology. Every historical subject has undergone revision as each new generation rewrites the history of the past in the light of its own perspectives and values. But the term "revisionism" has applied specifically to dissident positions which are at variance with mainstream history on several subjects from the Civil War on. Three of these subjects have been politicized beyond the limits of historical truth—World...