page_title: World Jewish Congress
section_title: Fighting Holocaust denial, revisionism and glorification of the Nazis
hierarchical_section_title: World Jewish Congress / Key policies and activities of the World Jewish Congress / Holocaust legacy issues / Fighting Holocaust denial, revisionism and glorification of the Nazis
caption_attribution_description: English: Bernie Ecclestone at the 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix.
context_page_description: The World Jewish Congress was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations. According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress' main purpose is to act as "the diplomatic arm of the Jewish people." Membership in the WJC is open to all representative Jewish groups or communities, irrespective of the social, political or economic ideology of the community's host country. The World Jewish Congress headquarters are in New York City, US, and the organization maintains international offices in Brussels, Belgium; Jerusalem, Israel; Paris, France; Moscow, Russia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Geneva, Switzerland. The WJC has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
context_section_description: On repeated occasions, the WJC has urged countries to ensure that Holocaust denial is publicly condemned and fought. WJC officials have been critical of a rise of marches in a number of European countries including Hungary and Serbia by WWII Nazi veterans, far-right extremists and neo-Nazis who publicly glorify the Hitler regime and espouse anti-Semitic ideology.
  In July 2009, Bernie Ecclestone faced calls from WJC President Ronald S. Lauder to resign as Formula One chief after he had praised Adolf Hitler in a newspaper interview and said that Hitler "got things done." Lauder said someone with Ecclestone's views should not be allowed to run such an important and popular racing series. He urged Formula One teams, drivers and host countries to suspend their cooperation with him. In reaction, Ecclestone told the news agency Associated Press that "I think the people who are saying that haven't got the power to say these things." Asked if the WJC was influential, Ecclestone said: "It's a pity they didn't sort the banks out" and "They have a lot of influence everywhere." After a public outcry, Ecclestone apologized for his remarks and said he had "been an idiot."
  The WJC also criticized the US internet retailer Amazon.com for selling 'I love Hitler' T-shirts and similar merchandise praising senior Nazi officials. The items were later removed from the website.
  In February 2012, the WJC attacked the German Federal Constitutional Court for a ruling which acquitted a Holocaust denier. WJC Vice-President Charlotte Knobloch called the verdict "quirky" and said that it cast a damning light on the legal proceedings. She accused the highest German court of disposing of Germany's law that makes the denial of the Shoah a crime "through the backdoor".
  Following an interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on German public television in which he repeatedly called Israel "an artificial state" that had been built on the "lie of the Holocaust", Knobloch called on the German government to publicly condemn the Iranian leader's statements and to isolate Iran diplomatically.
  Standing alone amongst all major Jewish organizations, World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder backed Donald Trump's decision to omit any mention of Jews in his 2017 Holocaust commemoration statement. Lauder contended that other Jewish groups were "play[ing] politics" and engaging in "manufactured outrages" that distracted from "real" instances of anti-Semitic threats. The WJC also publicly backed David M. Friedman as President Trump's nominee for ambassador to Israel, in spite of critics who accused Friedman of trivializing the gravity of the Holocaust by comparing Jewish members of the liberal pro-Israel group J Street to "kapos", or Nazi collaborators.
caption: Bernie Ecclestone
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