Thread by @manwithoutatan

Alright then.

International colleagues, I want you to see exactly what is happening over here—an anatomy of atrocity denial as part of a broader campaign of bigotry.

The account below is run by Marie-Luise Vollbrecht, at the Humboldt University in Berlin. 1/

Vollbrecht became infamous recently when, at her university’s “Night of Science”, she planned to give an anti-transgender paper—a topic not actually connected to her research profile. Facing criticism, her uni postponed her talk. 2/

This did not stop organs of the German press from denouncing the “cancel culture” that was “hounding” a young academic and “denying” her academic freedom. Meanwhile, Vollbrecht’s social media presence went into overdrive. 3/

This included, yesterday, arguing that being trans was intimately connected to Nazism. This claim was refuted by a number of scholars, who instead demonstrated that trans people were VICTIMS of National Socialism. 4/

Vollbrecht also attempted to argue that “whoever was gay went into a concentration camp but whoever was transsexual could apparently apply for a transvestite licence.” 5/

Shout-out here to @dana_mahr1, who in responding to this nonsense directly referred to Liddy Bacroff. Go check out their reporting on this if you can read German; as for me, here’s my talk on Liddy from April. Tl;dr: Vollbrecht is bleating garbage. 6/ vimeo.com/732940672

In response to all this criticism, Vollbrecht declared she had made the “faux pas” of asking for sources (which she implied were not forthcoming; in fact they were in multitudes), but that she couldn’t understand how “transsexuals count as victims today if they weren’t Jews.” 7/

Here, in answer to that—and sorry once again to point to something that contains me—but here are @KatieLMSutton @ankahajkova @MarisaElana and I talking about just that via @MJHnews in June. 8/ mjhnyc.org/blog/transgend…

Some of Vollbrecht’s fans and followers saw this as “relativising” the Holocaust and insulting Jewish victims. A common refrain: “schäm dich”—“you should be ashamed.” To this I ask if they believe that the MUSEUM FOR JEWISH HERITAGE should be ashamed. 9/

Far too much has happened to cover all of it—random Vollbrecht fans responding to actual subject-matter experts with Wikipedia screenshots should give you some idea of it—until we get to the next tweet. 10/

Vollbrecht asks “what could Jews do to avoid extermination? And what could transsexuals do. (sic) Perhaps you’ll work out how you’re making yourself look.” Vollbrecht’s implication is that trans people had a choice: they could have simply not been murdered, but they chose to. 11/

I cannot begin to tell you the disgust and the contempt I have, not just for this view, but for someone who will seriously look at the mass persecution and murder of a marginalised community and declare “they brought it on themselves.” 12/

That trans people were persecuted and murdered by the regime is a fact that cannot be disputed. And a growing number of scholars—@L_Marhoefer, @KatieLMSutton, @wjnewsome, @zavinunn, @ankahajkova, @JenniferVEvans, me, and more—have spoken and written extensively on it. 13/

Yet Vollbrecht would have you believe not only that trans people could just NOT have been killed, but that to suggest otherwise has a tinge of antisemitism because it equates this suffering with that of the Jews in the Shoah. 14/

This is not the suffering Olympics, and Vollbrecht’s cheap attempt to mobilise the suffering of Jewish people against those drawing attention to other Nazi atrocities is cynical and horrific. Nor must it be allowed to gain any degree of traction. 15/

Vollbrecht’s transphobia is pretty run of the mill, as awful as that is to say. But here she’s taken several steps much further: she has equated trans people with their own murderers, then denied their persecution, then claimed that if they WERE killed it was their own fault. 16/

And she has done this while at the same time heavily implying that to draw attention to this murder and persecution and suffering is anti-Jewish.

This is nothing short of atrocity denial, and it is occurring in Germany in 2022. 17/

Germany loves to laud its culture of remembrance. Here, a member of one of the country’s most eminent institutions of learning is actively distorting the past and demonising victims of Nazi atrocities. For this she is being celebrated as a bastion against “cancel culture.” 18/

She is nothing of the sort. This is nothing but hatred and the excusing of National Socialist crimes, through the cynical instrumentalisation of another group’s suffering.

It is despicable, inhuman, deeply shameful. It is also pure, unadulterated fabrication. 19/

To put it mildly, nothing that Vollbrecht has claimed here is borne out by the voluminous historical record, and in fact is at most junctures completely contrary to historical fact. It is hard to imagine that any of this is in error; in my opinion this is deliberate. 20/

Historical atrocities are not word games, not playgrounds for modern bigotries. Nor is it “cancel culture” to push back with evidence and expertise against this perversion of the record. It is well past time to see that this infantile discourse has catastrophic consequences. /fin