Holocaust

Did Lufthansa offer free business class upgrades to people in Israel to apologize for the Holocaust? No, that's not true: The company publicly denied it. Two online AI detectors said the image purportedly providing the proof was likely to have been generated by AI. The claim originated from a post (archived here) published by the @0xRacist X account on March…

Did Pope Francis order the closure of the Vatican Secret Archives over a scandal revealed in the Epstein files in March 2026? No, that's not true: The post claimed Pope Francis ordered the sealing of the archives in March 2026, but he died in April 2025. There are no legitimate news reports of the Vatican sealing the archives as of…

Did President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan quietly drive themselves to a Virginia nursing home to serve breakfast to elderly residents on Christmas Day 1983? No, that's not true: This is a completely made-up story that is contradicted by historical records, including President Reagan's personal diary entry for that date. It was published by a Pakistani-based spam factory…

Did the phrase "One of ours all of yours" originate in Nazi Germany after all the residents in a Czech village were killed in retribution for the killing of an SS officer? No, that's not true: The phrase, which was displayed on a lectern at a DHS press conference, is not present in historical records of Nazi slogans, nor is…

Did Florida ban "The Diary of Anne Frank" from public library shelves? No, that's not true: A graphic version of Anne Frank's diary was removed from school library shelves in Escambia County, Florida, after a complaint that it minimized the Holocaust with the inclusion of Frank's description of her private thoughts about sex. A group that tracks book bans recently…

Has the woman photographed wearing a pink hijab posing next to a swastika been identified as Linda Sarsour, senior advisor of the Zohran for NYC campaign? No, that's not true on two counts. Linda Sarsour is not the senior advisor of the NYC mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani -- the "senior campaign advisor" is Zara Rahim. The photo of the…

Did Cardinal Robert Sarah once say "The Jewish people have slain our messiah -- I shall never forget that"? No, that's not true: Contrary to a meme that was shared widely in April 2025, we could find no record of the Guinean cardinal having written or uttered words to that effect. After the death of Pope Francis, Sarah was mentioned…

Did President Trump post a message on Truth Social that showed a slashed-through upside-down pink triangle symbol that looked like the badge used in Nazi camps to identify those imprisoned as being homosexual? Yes, that's true: The image appeared as the social media preview card when Trump posted a link to a Washington Times opinion piece about military recruitment ads.…

Was there a debate that took place in the UK in May 2024 about removing the Holocaust from school curricula? No, that's not true: A social media post making the claim in May 2024 began circulating in 2019. Years earlier, a 2007 report circulated about one UK school where the Holocaust was not taught as an optional topic. The British…

Did the International Ice Hockey Federation ban Israel from international competitions, and was the ban still in effect as of February 21, 2024? Not quite: Although the governing body did ban the Israeli National Team from competing in its championship events, that ban was lifted shortly after it was announced for a competition. Both the initial ban and the lift…