_Heeb_ Magazine Fake Holocaust Memoir Contest: Deadline for Submissions Only One Week Away

As we approach the April 1 deadline for entries to Heeb Magazine’s Fake Holocaust Memoir Contest, I thought I’d chime in on the online cottage industry of Heeb haters it seems to have engendered. In my 5 years as _Heeb_ Magazine’s humor editor, I’ve been on the receiving end of my fair share of hate mail. As a rule, it tends not make much of an impact on me one way or the other. Every now and then, however, something pushes me over the edge.

Now, I can understand why people would be upset if we were holding a competition that mocked Holocaust memoirs. But–and the competition rules make this pretty explicit to anyone with 3rd grade reading skills and a 10th grade sense of humor–we are making fun of fake Holocaust memoirs. So will somebody please explain to me why this would be so offensive? Did your grandfather survive the fake Holocaust? Did your fake family members perish in fake concentration camps? Were you inspired as a child by stories of fake bravery in the fake ghetto uprising? Perhaps the haters aren’t really haters–maybe they’re just faking it?

We should be so lucky. Sadly, these people are definitely for real, and according to them, mocking fake Holocaust memoirs represents not just a desecration of the memory of people who actually suffered in the Holocaust, but is also a serious threat to the Jewish people. As one person commented on our website:

"You do not realize the importance of the holocaust being a serious issue that is relevant to our peoples present and future survivival…."

Let us leave aside the question of how the murder of millions of Jews over half a century ago plays a role in Jewish survival today. Let us assume that it does and that a failure to appropriately grasp the lessons of the Holocaust (whatever they may be) would have dire ramifications for the Jews of the future. How, then, does our contest jeopardize the Jewish people? How will the memory of millions of murdered Jews be slandered by our holding up to public ridicule those frauds who slander the memory of millions of murdered Jews by publishing fake Holocaust memoirs? How will the future of the Jewish people be jeopardized if the contest demonstrates the difference between a fake Holocaust memoir, and a real Holocaust memoir? And more importantly, is the future of the Jewish people jeopardized if we think that difference matters?

And that’s why all the hate mail does nothing but convince me that this competition is worthwhile, because the difference does matter. The Holocaust is a part of history, and it should remain as such. We should remember what happened, but remembrance is not the same thing as reverence. If somebody wrote a memoir saying that on D-Day, he had invaded Normandy on the back of a dolphin, people would think he was a lunatic. But Misha Defonseca writes deranged nonsense about traveling halfway across Europe with a pack of wolves to find her parents in the Warsaw Ghetto, and it’s translated in to 18 languages. And she wasn’t able to do this because of Heeb Magazine going too far with its "irreverence"; she was able to do this because of all the people out there who–well intentioned as they may be (and I’m certainly more generous to them than they are to me)–are so monomaniacal that as soon as they hear the word "Holocaust" immediately shut off those parts of their brain that function critically, and begin to emotionally genuflect.

Onto the next accusation: Does it belittle the experiences of Holocaust survivors to hold a Fake Holocaust Memoir competition? I think it belittles them a lot more to suggest that fake memoirs should be treated with the same respect as real ones.

And the final accustation: Does it further the cause of Holocaust denial to mock fake Holocaust memoirs? I can’t see how it would do so more than fostering an atmosphere that allows people to publish them in the first place. When all is said and done, this isn’t about skewering Holocaust memoirs, or even fake Holocaust memoirs–it’s about skewering those people who believe that wringing their hands over Jewish death is a suitable replacement for embracing Jewish life.

So for all those out there sanctimoniously wringing your hands and channeling all of the affectations of outrage, please save it for the next time good taste and the Jewish people are under assault by Heeb. And don’t worry, it’s Heeb…you won’t have to wait long.

What do you think?