On May 14, 2025, IIBSA was honored to participate in the important international ENMA conference “Defeating Distortion – Holocaust Denial and Distortion in an Era of Antisemitic Tidal Change” with closing remarks delivered by Kim Robin Stoller as a member of the ENMA Expert Advisory Board. The conference, organized by the Bundesverband RIAS e.V. as part of the European Network on Monitoring Antisemitism (ENMA), addressed critical challenges facing European societies today.

The conference served as the closing event of the two-year project “Standardised Recording of Holocaust Distortion in Five European Countries” and launched a new ENMA report analyzing Holocaust denial and distortion across Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Poland. The report demonstrates how antisemitic narratives adapt to societal crises, are exploited for political gain, often evade legal accountability, and erode historical truth with harmful consequences for Jewish communities.

Michaela Küchler, Secretary General of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), underscored that “Holocaust distortion is not only growing – it is growing everywhere,” emphasizing the urgent need for coordinated international response. The conference brought together representatives from the European Commission, World Jewish Congress, Jewish Claims Conference, USC Shoah Foundation, and a broad spectrum of pan-European Jewish and non-Jewish civil society organizations.

The event highlighted how Holocaust denial and distortion remain persistent and adaptable threats across European countries, continuously evolving to serve as vehicles for antisemitism across the political spectrum. Participants examined various manifestations including trivialization through inappropriate comparisons of current events to the Holocaust, victim-perpetrator reversal, and conspiracy theories. The conference emphasized that while right-wing extremism remains a primary source, left-wing and Islamist actors also engage in distortion, particularly through Israel-related narratives.

Major political or social crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Israel-Hamas war after October 7, 2023, act as catalysts, triggering spikes in both Holocaust distortion and broader antisemitic incidents. Memorial sites are increasingly becoming targets of attacks, while the willingness to engage with Holocaust education varies significantly between countries.