The history of Holocaust denial is that of a contagious idea in search of an environment in which to thrive. Already conceived by the perpetrators at the time of the mass killings, after the war this anti-historic thesis developed new survival strategies within a hostile culture that had recognised the Shoah as its founding event. What strategies? From the "Faurisson affair" to the explosion of Internet hate speech, the evolutionary success of the "paper Eichmanns" is linked to their ability to intercept and rearrange elements that are alien to their ideological matrix: first and foremost the principle of freedom of expression. That is why, far from neutralizing the phenomenon, the criminalization of Holocaust denial is bound to amplify its rhetorical effects.
Keywords: Holocaust Denial, Censorship, Freedom of Expression, Semiotics