Historical facts and human dignity belong together.
Antisemitism is directed against Jews. Holocaust denial rejects a documented genocide and attacks remembrance of its victims. The test asks learners to recognise that behaviour among four different examples.
The IHRA expressly includes Holocaust denial in its working definition and explains it in a separate definition of denial and distortion. These texts provide guidance rather than being criminal statutes in their own right. Criminal consequences in Germany depend on the statutory offences.
The other three answers
Assess the described behaviour rather than an assumed identity.
attending a Jewish celebration
Attending a Jewish celebration is not in itself antisemitic. The option describes participation or encounter rather than hatred of Jewish people.
criticizing the Israeli government
The Israeli government can be criticised politically like other governments. That is not automatically antisemitic. Criticism can become antisemitic, for example by collectively blaming Jews or spreading antisemitic ideas.
playing soccer against Jews
Competing against Jewish people in sport is not in itself antisemitic. Discriminatory behaviour would matter, rather than the opposing team’s Jewish identity.
Identifying antisemitism and determining criminal liability are distinct assessments.
Section 130(3) of the Criminal Code covers, among other conduct, denial of Nazi genocide in public or an assembly when it is capable of disturbing public peace. The specific statutory conditions must not be omitted.
Jewish life includes religion, culture, family life, sport and many individual ways of living. The question permits no inference about an individual Jewish person’s views on a government and no blanket equation of Jewish people with the State of Israel.
Antisemitism · IHRA working definition ↗Recognise Holocaust denial; avoid collective assumptions about Jewish people.
Remember the answer together with the distinction: ordinary encounters, sport and substantive government criticism are not antisemitic merely because they involve Jewish people or Israel.
Three words for this question
- der Antisemitismusantisemitism
- Hostility towards and disparagement of Jewish people.
- der Holocaustthe Holocaust
- The Nazi persecution and murder of six million European Jews.
- leugnendeny
- To reject an established fact or documented event.