How an antisemitic conspiracy theory made its way to a state capitol

Summary

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Consider This from NPR

Episode: How an antisemitic conspiracy theory made its way to a state capitol

Date: April 29, 2026
Host: Juana Summers
Reporter: Tom Dreisbach

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Overview

This episode investigates how a blatant antisemitic conspiracy theory—namely Holocaust denial—progressed from extremist fringes to an official hearing in the New Hampshire State Legislature. Through interviews, historical context, and a detailed case study, the episode reveals how Holocaust denial is gaining new momentum, particularly within segments of right-wing political movements. The report also examines the muted response from political and community leaders, the underlying causes and effects, and what it means for the normalization of hate in American politics.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Incident: From Fringe to State House

• HB 1162 and the Unexpected Amendment

  • Democratic Representative Lauren Selleck introduced a routine bill to extend a nonpartisan commission on Holocaust and genocide education. She anticipated a quick, noncontroversial hearing (03:13).
  • Republican Representative Matt Saboran Dichwanier unexpectedly introduced an amendment to add a member of a Holocaust denial group to this commission, bringing books that questioned established Holocaust history (03:39).

  "He requested that the committee accept an amendment from him to put a member of the specific Holocaust denier group on the commission." — Lauren Selleck [04:20]

• Testimony from Extremists

  • The amendment was backed by associates with histories of antisemitic activism, culminating in direct testimony by Germar Rudolf, a notorious German Holocaust denier (04:55).

  "The kind of antisemitic conspiracy theory that you'd find on a neo-Nazi message board was suddenly put forward at a hearing as if it were just another legislative proposal." — Tom Dreisbach [05:29]

• Immediate Aftermath

  • The amendment had little chance of passing, but the hearing itself provided extremists with a significant platform and was considered a success by those involved (19:14).

2. Muted Political and Community Response

• Lack of Formal Consequences

  • Despite outrage from Jewish leaders, there was little public or legislative backlash; the incident barely registered in local media (06:39).
  • Republican legislative leaders published a brief op-ed. No formal censure or meaningful consequences were enacted.

• Concerns Over “Kicking the Hornet’s Nest”

  • Victims' families and officials worried that publicizing the event would further embolden hate groups and incite more antisemitic activity (07:16).

3. The Broader Context: Holocaust Denial’s Resurgence

• Profile of Germar Rudolf

  • Rudolf, a former chemist convicted of Holocaust denial in Germany and with a criminal record in the US, has been a key figure in modern Holocaust denial, giving the movement an air of false legitimacy (09:36).

  "Rudolph is a hardcore denialist. He says, no gas chambers, no plan to kill the Jews. It's all a myth." — Deborah Lipstadt [09:30]

• Historical Background: The David Irving Trial

  • The episode recounts the pivotal London libel case, where Deborah Lipstadt defeated Holocaust denier David Irving, whose main scientific source was Rudolf’s debunked report (10:22).

  "After my trial, we were pretty optimistic that we had shown that every claim they made was based on thin air." — Deborah Lipstadt [10:56]

• Rudolf's Ongoing Influence

  • Despite legal defeats and criminal convictions, Rudolf continues to appear on far-right platforms (e.g., Stu Peters' show), sharing media space with current and former Trump administration officials (12:14).
  • Host Tom Dreisbach notes the increased normalization of figures like Nick Fuentes and Rudolf in right-wing spaces (12:38).

• Younger Conservatives and Antisemitism

  • Surveys from Yale and the Manhattan Institute suggest a growth in overt antisemitism and Holocaust denial among young conservatives (14:26).

  "Overt antisemitism and Holocaust denial is gaining momentum, particularly among young conservatives." — Tom Dreisbach [14:26]

4. The Political Environment in New Hampshire

• New Hampshire's Unique Political Structure

  • The state's unusually large legislature (400 members, each representing only a few thousand people) allows people with limited political experience or extreme views to gain office (20:22).

  "Anybody can play politics in New Hampshire." — Dante Scala, Political Scientist [20:15]

• Profile of Rep. Saboran Dichwanier

  • Young, Air Force vet, new Free State Movement member, and proponent of various right-wing legislative measures, including Sharia law bans and sharing antisemitic conspiracy content on social media (21:06, 21:42).

  "On his Facebook page, he posted this video, 'the Jews are Antichrist,'...Still, publicly, he said very little about his proposal on Holocaust denial." — Tom Dreisbach [21:45]

5. Attempts to Hold Accountable – and Their Limits

• Reporting and Confrontation

  • Reporter Tom Dreisbach makes repeated attempts to interview Saboran Dichwanier, who ultimately only replies via email, standing by his proposal (23:05).

  "He praised Gamar Rudolf as a world authority on the Holocaust, and he said Rudolph's criminal record was irrelevant to his testimony." — Tom Dreisbach [23:10]

• Responses from Peers

  • Democratic Representative Anita Burrows, whose family perished in the Holocaust, confronts Saboran Dichwanier directly, but he refuses to engage (24:13).

  "He just walked away from me. Just turned and walked away." — Anita Burrows [24:28]

• Official Party Response

  • Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte issues a statement denouncing antisemitism only after NPR's reporting; the state GOP declines comment. Congressional candidate Brian Cole rejects Saboran Dichwanier's endorsement upon learning of his support for Holocaust denial (25:25).

6. National Trends: Antisemitism on the Rise

• Broader Issues

  • Multiple recent reports of anti-Jewish rhetoric among young Republican activists nationwide; even as some conservatives denounce antisemitism, others with KKK-aligned talking points are promoted into positions of greater power (25:25–28:00).

  "I have seen more antisemitism in the last 18 months on the right than at any point in my lifetime." — Senator Ted Cruz [26:40]

• Deborah Lipstadt’s Reflections

  • Despite years of fighting Holocaust denial, Lipstadt notes that hate requires constant confrontation; victories are always provisional (27:16, 27:31).

  "It's a fight that you have to continue every day." — Deborah Lipstadt [27:31]

  "Continue fighting. Continue fighting. That's right. There's no end to this.” — Deborah Lipstadt [27:33]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Shocked would be an understatement. I could barely speak." — Lauren Selleck, on hearing the proposal [05:54]
• "The Jews are Antichrist... we don't hate them, but we don't want them to have power in a Christian society." — (Video shared by Saboran Dichwanier) [21:45]
• "If any candidate chips away at Jewish power or does something that hurts Jewish power, I will support it." — Quoting white supremacist Ryan Murdo [08:22]
• "Are you Matt? I just want to let you know that my grandpa's entire family was wiped out in Dachau and Auschwitz. He just walked away from me." — Anita Burrows [24:13–24:37]
• "It's extremely concerning... It doesn't matter [what state]." — Deborah Lipstadt [11:25]
• "Anybody can play politics in New Hampshire." — Dante Scala [20:15]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:05–01:00 – Introduction, framing the issue of right-wing antisemitism
• 02:26–04:55 – The hearing: Holocaust deniers testify in NH legislature
• 06:17–07:16 – Selig and others struggle over how to respond to the incident
• 09:00–10:56 – Deborah Lipstadt contextualizes Rudolf and Holocaust denial’s legal battles
• 12:14–12:38 – Far-right media connections and normalization
• 14:26 – Data on rising antisemitism among young conservatives
• 20:15–21:06 – New Hampshire's political landscape enables extremists
• 23:00–24:13 – NPR's attempts to question Saboran Dichwanier and Democratic colleagues' responses
• 25:25–28:00 – National pattern: normalization of antisemitism; failure to enforce consequences
• 27:16–27:33 – Lipstadt on the endless work of confronting hate

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Conclusion

The episode demonstrates how explicit Holocaust denial and antisemitic conspiracy theories, once relegated to the extreme fringes, have found new venues and legitimacy in American state politics—facilitated not by public support, but by the lack of strong condemnation and meaningful consequences. The willingness of elected officials to give platforms to deniers, coupled with a muted institutional response, paints a troubling picture of the current political climate and the normalization of hate. As Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt reminds listeners, such hate does not simply disappear; it requires active, ongoing resistance.

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Transcript

[Juana Summers]

It's consider this where every day we go deep on one big news story today.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Antisemitic bigotry has no place in a civilized society. It has no place in our universities, and it has no place in the United States of America. No place.

[Juana Summers]

President Trump says his administration is committed to fighting anti Semitism. But a growing number of pro Trump commentators are warning about hatred of Jews on the political right from charlatans who

[Tom Dreisbach]

claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty.

[Juana Summers]

The podcaster Ben Shapiro says he's been shocked to see people he once worked with, like Candace Owens, promote anti Semitic conspiracy theories. Dan Bongino, Trump's former deputy FBI director, calls anti Semitism a cancer on the MAGA movement.

[Tom Dreisbach]

This portion of people who claim to be part of our movement and our cause, who think it's edgy or cool to talk about how much they hate the Jews.

[Juana Summers]

Now an NPR investigation reveals the story of how a state Republican official tried to turn a conspiracy theory into law and how it all connects with a bizarre criminal case involving a German Holocaust denier and a suspicious bottle of baby oil. Consider this how anti Semitic extremists took their ideas from the fringes to the halls of a state Capitol. From npr, I'm Juana Summers.

[NPR Sponsor (Carvana Ad)]

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[Lauren Selleck]

On NPR's Wildcard podcast, Julio Torres says he doesn't need to prove himself to anyone.

[Tom Dreisbach]

When someone makes me feel like I have to prove something to them, I just walk away. Really, I'm like, seek help.

[Lauren Selleck]

Watch or listen to that wild card conversation on the NPR app or on YouTube @NPRWildcard. Foreign.

[Juana Summers]

Tom Dreisbach has today's story.

[Anita Burrows]

Good morning and welcome to the New

[Juana Summers]

Hampshire House Executive Departments and Administration Committee.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Today is it was a gray morning in January in a gray committee room for the New Hampshire State Legislature when Representative Lauren Selleck started testifying.

[Lauren Selleck]

And I'm here to introduce HB 1162.

[Tom Dreisbach]

New Hampshire requires public schools to teach about genocide and the Holocaust. And Selig's on this state commission that sets standards and helps provide lesson plans

[Lauren Selleck]

to further enhance their ability to teach about Holocaust and genocide.

[Tom Dreisbach]

She's a Democrat and Jewish herself, but the commission includes people of different backgrounds. It's nonpartisan. That morning, Selig was introducing A bill to extend the commission's term for just a few more years. She told me it was literally one sentence long.

[Lauren Selleck]

And we anticipated the hearing for that bill would be very quick because we couldn't imagine anyone would have an objection to extending this commission. And that's all I'm asking for, is a three year extension. Thank you.

[Tom Dreisbach]

You're like, I'm just going to get through this real quick and then we'll move on to other things.

[Lauren Selleck]

Absolutely. Except we were wrong.

[Matt Saboran Dichwanier]

Morning, Madam chair, members of the committee. I'm state representative Matt Siborndy Chouanier, and today I'm introducing an amendment.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Selig watched as a young republican state representative started testifying. His name is Matt Saborin D. Chouanier. And as he himself admits, it's kind of a mouthful. He brought with him a big pile of books with titles like mis Chronicling Auschwitz and debating the Holocaust. And as he kept talking, Selig realized that these were not standard history books. They, they came from an extremist group that calls the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust a hoax.

[Matt Saboran Dichwanier]

They ask tough questions and conduct professional research, something that we should all take seriously.

[Tom Dreisbach]

And Saborin D. Choignir was proposing that the leader of this group get a seat on the state commission.

[Lauren Selleck]

He requested that the committee accept an amendment from him to put a member of the specific Holocaust denier group on

[Matt Saboran Dichwanier]

the commission if we were going to have Holocaust and genocide education taught in New Hampshire public schools, which I think it should be and needs to be accurate and reliable.

[Lauren Selleck]

And he was then followed by some of his associates.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Those associates included a man who leads weekly protests outside a synagogue in Michigan. Another writes for white nationalist websites and has called for the government to seize the property of Jewish people. And then the group's leader spoke.

[Germar Rudolf]

So my name is Gemma Rudolph Gamar

[Tom Dreisbach]

Rudolf is a German immigrant and a longtime activist in the Holocaust denial movement. For decades, he has denied the overwhelming evidence that Nazis used gas chambers to commit mass murder. Rudolph said the commission needed someone like him, someone with, quote, unparalleled insight into the Holocaust, but also the courage to

[Germar Rudolf]

tell inconvenient facts, which a lot of people don't want to hear, but I think students need to be told. Both sides.

[Juana Summers]

Thank you for your testimony.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Under this proposal, a Holocaust denier would join the commission on equal footing with the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Their testimony lasted less than 20 minutes. But what was supposed to be a quick, non controversial hearing was suddenly hijacked. The kind of anti semitic conspiracy theory that you'd Find on a neo Nazi message board was suddenly put forward at a hearing as if it were just another legislative proposal.

[Lauren Selleck]

Shocked would be an understatement. I could barely speak.

[Tom Dreisbach]

And let me say up front, there was very little suspense about whether this amendment would pass. It did not have public support in the state house. For Selig, that wasn't the problem. Instead, the problem was how do we respond. She had mixed feelings about it.

[Lauren Selleck]

I personally, had I been in a position of power, would have probably sought his censure or some other consequence.

[Tom Dreisbach]

But Republicans control the state house and she wants to work with Republicans to make progress on things like education.

[Lauren Selleck]

I probably would not have drawn additional attention to this issue. I would have let it die a quiet death.

[Tom Dreisbach]

And as word got around, the response was pretty muted. There was an op ed in the newspaper from state House leaders who said holocaust denial has no place in the legislature. And Selig and another member of the commission gave a speech on the state house floor about the importance of genocide education in general.

[Lauren Selleck]

Only by learning history can we work to prevent atrocities from continuing to happen.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Though they did not reference the incident with the Holocaust deniers, it hardly made a blip in local media. And as days, then weeks passed, Sabor and Dichwanir faced no formal consequences. Jewish leaders in the state were outraged. But there was also a fear that bringing more attention would mean kicking the hornet's nest of online anti Semitic hate. At a time of deadly anti Jewish

[Juana Summers]

violence, two gunmen opened fire at Bondi beach in Sydney, Australia. Hundreds of people were gathering for an event marking the first night of Hanukkah. Two Israeli embassy staff members were shot and killed overnight while leaving an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Suspect is dead after a vehicle rammed through the doors of the Temple Israel synagogue. And here's where I should say I've covered domestic extremism for almost a decade. And I was also torn about whether to cover this incident. On the one hand, Holocaust denial is widely understood as a form of hatred against Jewish people. And extremists showing up at a government hearing is newsworthy. On the other, extremists want attention. Just getting the chance to speak at a state hearing for less than 20 minutes was seen as a breakthrough for their movement. White supremacist in New England named Ryan Murdo celebrated online.

[Germar Rudolf]

If any candidate chips away at Jewish

[Tom Dreisbach]

power or does something that hurts Jewish power, I will support it. There's a danger that reporting on these figures only elevates them. And even though New Hampshire is an important state politically, presidential Candidates campaign there every four years. This was just one state lawmaker who only represents a few thousand people. So I called up someone who's been thinking about these exact questions for decades. Deborah Lipstadt. She's a Holocaust historian at Emory University. She also helped lead the Biden administration's efforts to combat antisemitism. And when I mentioned that Gaermar Rudolph had testified in New Hampshire.

[Deborah Lipstadt]

Oh, an old timer. He's one of the founding fathers.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Turns out she encountered him a long time ago.

[Deborah Lipstadt]

In the sky played a outsized role in the 90s in perpetuating all sorts of lies about the Holocaust.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Rudolf studied chemistry in Germany. And when German prosecutors brought charges against a former Nazi officer, Rudolph wrote a report for his defense claiming that his chemical analysis disproved the use of poison gas at the Auschwitz death campus.

[Deborah Lipstadt]

Rudolph is a hardcore denialist. He says, no gas chambers, no plan to kill the Jews. It's all a myth.

[Tom Dreisbach]

His background as a chemist gave the Holocaust denial movement the appearance of legitimacy, even as experts debunked his work as pseudo scientific nonsense. In today's Germany, Holocaust denial is a crime. And Rudolf was convicted there and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. After getting out, he came to the U.S. so Lipstadt seemed surprised that Rudolf had popped back up. In part, that's because of her personal history with him and his ideas.

[Narrator/Reporter (Tom Dreisbach continuation)]

The argument that the Holocaust did not take place is now at the center of a libel case in London. British historian and self described revisionist David Irving filed suit against Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Back in the 90s, the writer David Irving sued Lipstadt because she called him out for deliberately falsifying the historical record of the Holocaust. You might have heard about this case. They made a movie about it several years ago called Denial. Lipstadt fought back and won. The judge said that Irving is an

[Germar Rudolf]

active Holocaust denier, anti Semitic and racist.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Irving had relied on and cited Garmar Rudolph's report to prove his case. Lipstadt's team of lawyers and historians ripped it apart.

[Deborah Lipstadt]

After my trial, we were pretty optimistic that we had shown that every claim they made was based on thin air. Putting people at a meeting who weren't there, adding words in their mouth, changing sequence of events, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And we really thought that this had demonstrated what these people were all about.

[Tom Dreisbach]

But now, 26 years later, here was Rudolph again peddling the same claims, this time with the help of a state lawmaker.

[Deborah Lipstadt]

It's extremely concerning now. One could say it's the New Hampshire state legislature. It was in California. It was in New York. It wasn't Florida. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Lipstadt said to ignore the incident would be to treat it as almost normal. As I began reporting, I found that Gamar Rudolph had been taking the same message from the 1990s and bringing it to new audiences online.

[Stu Peters]

Our friend Garmar Rudolph is one of the world's foremost Holocaust historians.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Rudolph has appeared several times on a show hosted by the far right extremist Stu Peters. And even though Peters is pretty fringe and overtly anti Semitic, he has a significant reach on the right. Before Trump's reelection, Peters hosted the future Trump health secretary.

[Stu Peters]

We had the opportunity to sit down

[Tom Dreisbach]

with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A top Trump trade advisor.

[Stu Peters]

Peter Navarro, thank you so much. Appreciate it. God bless you, Stu.

[Tom Dreisbach]

God bless you. And Trump's FBI director, Kash Patel.

[Stu Peters]

Thank you so much for being Patel. Thank you so much for making the cash Patel. We always enjoy it.

[Tom Dreisbach]

He appeared on Peter's show eight times.

[Germar Rudolf]

Thanks, Stu.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Appreciate it.

[Germar Rudolf]

Happy New Year.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Thanks, Stu.

[Germar Rudolf]

Always love coming on your show.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Thanks so much, Stu. Appreciate it. You've got a great show.

[Stu Peters]

Thank you.

[Tom Dreisbach]

So that's all to say. Gamar Rudolph, a hardcore Holocaust denier, has been reaching the same audience as some top officials in the Trump administration. At the same time, online anti Semitic extremists like Nick Fuentes have gone increasingly mainstream. So mainstream that Fuentes has been praised by major figures like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly. And of course, he even got the chance to have dinner with President Trump back in 2022. And it appeared Rudolph was trying to seize that momentum, too. So, first, could you just introduce yourself? What's your name, and what's the title you like to go by these days?

[Germar Rudolf]

My name is German Rudolph, and there's no title attached to it.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Rudolph responded to my email quickly and agreed to an interview over zoom. He had one condition. He would record the interview for his own purposes, too. My goal was not to get bogged down in a debate about his various false claims about how the Nazis didn't use gas chambers, or how he's insulted survivors of the Holocaust and called them liars, including Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. But I did want to know how and why Rudolph's movement seemed to be gaining traction. In his telling, it's about October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, leading to the war in Gaza, followed by growing criticism of how Israel conducted that war.

[Germar Rudolf]

More people are willing to listen and to hear us make our case than has been the case before October 7th. So there's a link between what has happened in Gaza and people being willing to hear about people who have a different take on historical events than the mainstream media and mainstream academia.

[Tom Dreisbach]

And let me just say, you do not have to take the word of a Holocaust denier at face value. Experts told me that extremists have been trying to co opt criticism of Israel's government with blatantly antisemitic conspiracies. And there's survey data from Yale University and the conservative Manhattan Institute, which suggest that antisemitism is now growing on both the left and the right, but that overt antisemitism and Holocaust denial is gaining momentum, particularly among young conservatives. Rudolph claimed to me he is not personally bigoted toward Jewish people. But while I was digging into his background, it was clear he makes common cause with open anti Semites. I mean, you spoke at a conference in 2024 called the Jewish Problem. I think any reasonable person would say that participants in a conference like that are clearly anti Jewish.

[Germar Rudolf]

Well, most of them probably are, yeah.

[Tom Dreisbach]

But you are not.

[Germar Rudolf]

I just said some aspects. I'm opposed to the Jewish religion. I'm not opposed to a person just because they're Jewish.

[Tom Dreisbach]

My reporting also turned up something else in Rudolf's background. A criminal record, not just in Germany, but also in the United States. I contacted a court in Pennsylvania, got the full trial transcript, and what I found raised even more questions about this proposal to add him to a commission on children's education. Back in 2019, Gamar Rudolph was living in Pennsylvania, and one day a police officer found him around 4am at a children's playground, naked from the waist down. Rudolph claimed it was a misunderstanding. He's an active triathlete. He's actually written about how he once got workout tips from David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader. That morning he said he was just at the playground to exercise. And he was not naked, he said, just wearing a pair of what he called six skimpy tiger print shorts. At one point, the police officer asked, aren't you the person that was arrested for being naked in this park in the past? And Rudolph said yes. In fact, he had been stopped by police several years before for swimming in the river naked. But he resolved the case without charges. The police officer also said, well, if you're just working out, what are you using that bottle of baby oil for? Rudolph testified that he gets dry skin when he works out and his go to lotion ever since having kids is baby oil.

[Germar Rudolf]

I haven't bought any other lotion ever since. I use baby oil as my lotion

[Tom Dreisbach]

to this day, which he brought with him to the playground. Here's what he told me.

[Germar Rudolf]

So that's the lubricant, the lotion that I have been using ever since. That's all there is to it. You know, people have perverted fantasies because of whatever they watch online, and then they project their fantasies and what they are watching on me. That's all there is to it.

[Tom Dreisbach]

The jury in his case did not buy his explanation. They found him guilty of open lewdness and indecent exposure, and he was sentenced to probation. Rudolph appealed and lost. And then two years later, he was charged twice in one month for trespassing on school grounds and disorderly conduct. He later pleaded guilty to those charges. None of that was mentioned when he testified in New Hampshire. Do you understand why a reasonable person would look at these charges in recent years that took place at a school and a children's playground and have concerns that you would be involved in children's education through the Holocaust Commission?

[Germar Rudolf]

No, I don't see the connection.

[Tom Dreisbach]

You don't?

[Germar Rudolf]

No.

[Tom Dreisbach]

As an immigrant, a green card holder, Rudolph's criminal convictions could complicate his legal status in the US he got that green card in part because of his marriage to an American woman. But they have since divorced. And the Trump administration has tried to deport pro Palestinian activists on green cards because it argued that they promoted anti Semitism. But at least so far, it appears the administration has taken no action against Rudolf. So how did a German Holocaust denier with a criminal record, both here and in Germany, end up testifying to the New Hampshire State Legislature? Rudolph said Representative Saboran Dichwanier reached out.

[Germar Rudolf]

I don't know how he stumbled over what we were doing, but he wanted to contribute. He wanted to help out with various projects we have.

[Tom Dreisbach]

He invited Rudolf to testify at this hearing, and Rudolf invited the two other speakers. He said getting that platform to speak was big for his movement.

[Germar Rudolf]

So I consider that a success. Yes.

[Tom Dreisbach]

And it turns out Saborin Dichwanir was also watching how everyone else would react.

[Germar Rudolf]

He expected a lot of backlash. That has not materialized to the degree he had feared, and he is rather relieved about that.

[Tom Dreisbach]

He's right that Saborhan Deshwanir is far from a pariah in New Hampshire politics. While I was reporting, a Republican candidate for Congress, Brian Cole, said he was honored to receive Saboran Dichwanir's endorsement. For decades Outright Holocaust denial has been a taboo, the kind of thing basically no elected politician would pursue. Before now, one of the few open Holocaust deniers in office was actually David Duke. He served in the Louisiana state legislature back in the early 90s. But if Holocaust denial is now having a resurgence, New Hampshire politics might be the first place you'd see it.

[Dante Scala]

As one activist told me, like, 25 years ago, anybody can play politics in New Hampshire.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Dante Scala is a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire, and he explained what sets the state legislature apart. The state's House of Representatives is massive. It has 400 members. They each represent just a few thousand people. People can win a state House seat without much money, experience, or vetting.

[Dante Scala]

And there's a positive to that, but you can also imagine, you know, some negatives to that one negative.

[Tom Dreisbach]

It tends to attract people with intense ideological views.

[Dante Scala]

You could really think of it in a lot of ways as a legislature of activists. And with that intensity sometimes comes extremism.

[Tom Dreisbach]

In a way, I came to think of it like an early warning system for where some strands of political activism are headed. Digging into Sabor and Dichwanir's biography helped fill in some more details. He's young, in his mid-30s, and served in the Air Force, but said he left because he thought the military was getting too progressive. A few years ago, he moved to New Hampshire to join the Free State Movement, an influential group of libertarian activists. And since getting elected in 2024, he's pushed for expanding gun rights, the Firearms Freedom and Federalism act, outlawing Sharia law.

[Matt Saboran Dichwanier]

This is a resolution condemning SH law and political Islam. This is.

[Tom Dreisbach]

And on his Facebook page, he posted this video, the Jews are Antichrist, which featured a traditionalist Catholic priest calling Jews the Antichrist. They are the Antichrist people, and therefore we don't hate them, but we don't want them to have power in a Christian society. Still, publicly, he said very little about his proposal on Holocaust denial, in part, it seems, because not many people were asking. So I emailed him to ask for an interview. No answer. A week later, I emailed again, no answer. I called, left a voicemail, and emailed again. Still no answer. Check 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4. Check 1, 2. So I went to the New Hampshire State House myself. Okay, I just arrived, and I'm going to see if I can talk to Representative Saborn D. Schwanier in person. I made an educated guess about what committee hearing he would go to. Then I saw him coming up a big set of stairs. I was at the Top when I approached him. Representative Saborn Deswanier. My name is Tom Dreisbach. I'm a reporter with npr. I've been trying to reach you. Oh, about the testimony by Holocaust deniers. Yeah, yeah. Could I talk to you for a moment?

[Matt Saboran Dichwanier]

Actually, I don't have time.

[Tom Dreisbach]

You don't have time? Okay. When would you might have time?

[Matt Saboran Dichwanier]

I'll let you know. Thank you.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Sabor and Deshwanir had been walking up the stairs, but all of a sudden he turned around, went back down. Okay. And he just walked out of the building. Now he's going to the parking lot. Appears he's leaving the state capitol. Later that day, I emailed him again, and he finally agreed to answer questions in writing, and he basically doubled down. He praised Gamar Rudolf as a world authority on the Holocaust, and he said Rudolph's criminal record was irrelevant to his testimony. He said he wanted students to, quote, distinguish truth from taboo and said, my position is not hatred. Later on Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 14, he posted on Facebook it was a picture of himself presenting his Holocaust denial proposal to the legislature. He added a caption, ahead of our time. At one point while I was reporting, I learned that I was not the only one to try to talk to Sabor and Dichwanir about his support for Holocaust denial.

[Anita Burrows]

I saw him in the cafeteria, and I said, are you Matt?

[Tom Dreisbach]

And he said, yeah, that's Anita Burrows. She's a Democratic state representative from the White Mountains region of New Hampshire. She told me just a few days after his testimony, she walked right up to him in the cafeteria.

[Anita Burrows]

And I said, I just want to let you know that my grandpa's entire family was wiped out in Dachau and Auschwitz. He just walked away from me. Just turned and walked away.

[Tom Dreisbach]

He didn't say a word.

[Anita Burrows]

Didn't say a word to me.

[Tom Dreisbach]

What would you have liked to say?

[Anita Burrows]

I wish I had had this picture. I wish I had had this picture of my grandma and grandpa.

[Tom Dreisbach]

She showed me an old picture of her grandpa Max. It was black and white, the corners turned up. Max came to the US From Poland before the war, and his whole family back home was killed.

[Anita Burrows]

So this is why this stuff really hits me hard.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Burrows was first elected to the state legislature in 2018. Now she said she feels like she's on the front line of watching bigotry

[Anita Burrows]

become normalized because I never experienced any kind of anti Semitism until I came to the New Hampshire State House.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Really?

[Anita Burrows]

Yes.

[Tom Dreisbach]

In response to our reporting, Governor Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, sent a statement she denounced hate and antisemitism and added, criminal Holocaust deniers have no business serving on state commissions. I also contacted Brian Cole, the candidate for Congress who was honored to get Sabor and D. Schwanier's endorsement. He said he had no idea about his support for Holocaust denial and subsequently ran rejected that endorsement. The state Republican Party did not respond to our requests for comment. Versions of what's happening in New Hampshire are reflected around the country. Just in the last year, multiple group chats among young Republican activists have been exposed using racist and anti Semitic slurs. Politico reported that a Trump appointee said he had a, quote, nazi streak. Now, some other conservatives call antisemitism a cancer, destroying the Maga movement. I have seen more antisemitism in the last 18 months on the right than at any point in my lifetime. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas spoke at a Republican Jewish Coalition conference earlier this year. And it is growing and it is gaining real purchase, especially with young people. Deborah Lipstadt, a Holocaust historian, was initially cautiously supportive of the Trump administration's efforts to counter antisemitism. But she's also been disturbed by the number of administration officials with ties to antisemitic extremists.

[Deborah Lipstadt]

You know, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. This is a lot.

[Tom Dreisbach]

But Lipstadt also has a longer view. She has been fighting Holocaust denial for decades. As you look at the world now, how do you feel about what kind of difference you've made?

[Deborah Lipstadt]

If I weren't inherently an optimistic person, I would be very depressed. I have come to recognize hate and prejudice. It's not something that you solve and it goes away.

[Tom Dreisbach]

It's a fight that you have to continue every day.

[Deborah Lipstadt]

Continue fighting. Continue fighting. That's right. There's no end to this.

[Tom Dreisbach]

There may be no end, but there are different phases. And right now, things that would have gotten people thrown out of politics or elected office or even led to some sort of censure, seem to have little to no effect. Last year, I reported on how a young Trump administration official shared a talking point that you mostly hear from the Ku Klux Klan and neo Nazis. She posted that Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was lynched by an anti Semitic mob in 1915, was actually a murderer and a rapist. The American Jewish Committee said her comments made clear that she was unfit for office, but she denied that she was anti Semitic and faced no consequences. Actually, she was promoted. Her name is Kingsley Wilson and she's now the Pentagon press secretary.

[Juana Summers]

This episode was reported and produced by Tom Dreisbach, with help from Karen Zamora. It was edited by Barry Hardiman with help from Monika Evstatieva, Bob Little and Christian Monroe. Audio engineering by Jimmy Keeley. Tony Cavan is NPR's managing editor for Standards and Practices. Legal support from Johannes Durgi. Thanks also to Dan Baric and our colleagues at New Hampshire Public Radio. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigun.

[Tom Dreisbach]

Foreign.

[Juana Summers]

I'm juana summers.