ORIGINES

An atlas of where ideas come from

Where does what we think we know come from?

Pick a claim. ORIGINES shows you where it comes from, how it travelled and what the documents really allow us to say about it — always separating what is established from what remains unknown.

Investigation · Norwich, 1144 · 1144 – 1475

'Jews practised satanic rites involving the murder of children.'

Did Jews practise rites involving the murder of children?

AssessmentRefuted

No. The accusation appears in Norwich, England, in the mid-twelfth century and then spreads across Europe. None of the cases studied provides reliable evidence of any such Jewish rite; the accusation was already rejected in the Middle Ages by an emperor and by popes, and it contradicts documented Jewish religious rules. This dossier shows where the idea comes from, which documents it rests on and what they actually prove.

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Investigation · Bolsheviks, 1917 · 1917 – 1953

'The Bolsheviks: a half-Jewish government, a political movement responsible for tens of millions of Christian deaths.'

Were the Bolsheviks a Jewish government responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of Christians?

AssessmentRefuted

No, not in this form. The accusation mixes two real facts — people of Jewish origin were overrepresented among early Bolshevik leaders, and the Soviet regime caused the deaths of millions — with false claims: the first Bolshevik government had one commissar of Jewish origin out of fifteen; these atheist revolutionaries represented neither Jews nor Judaism, which the regime also persecuted; and the victims were not killed for being Christian. Born in 1918–1920, the myth of 'Judeo-Bolshevism' was used to justify pogroms, then the Holocaust.

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A

Start from a belief

Pick a claim you have heard: see its status and its evidence.

Norwich, 1144

Bolsheviks, 1917

B

Start from history

Pick a moment or a place: see the accusations linked to it.

  1. 1144Norwich — Death of William of NorwichNorwich, 1144
  2. 1150Norwich — The trial of Simon de NoversNorwich, 1144
  3. 1168Gloucester — GloucesterNorwich, 1144
  4. 1171Blois — BloisNorwich, 1144
  5. 1181Bury St Edmunds — Bury St EdmundsNorwich, 1144
  6. 1232Winchester — WinchesterNorwich, 1144
  7. 1235Fulda — FuldaNorwich, 1144
  8. 1247Lyon — Innocent IV's condemnationNorwich, 1144
  9. 1255Lincoln — LincolnNorwich, 1144
  10. 1475Trent — TrentNorwich, 1144
  11. 1917Petrograd — The Bolshevik seizure of powerBolsheviks, 1917
  12. 1919Kyiv — The Civil War pogromsBolsheviks, 1917
  13. 1919Budapest — The Hungarian Soviet RepublicBolsheviks, 1917
  14. 1920London — Churchill's articleBolsheviks, 1917
  15. 1920Warsaw — 'Żydokomuna' in PolandBolsheviks, 1917
  16. 1921London — The 'Protocols' exposedBolsheviks, 1917
  17. 1932Kharkiv — The famine in Ukraine (Holodomor)Bolsheviks, 1917
  18. 1935Nuremberg — Goebbels at NurembergBolsheviks, 1917
  19. 1936Moscow — Leaders of Jewish origin eliminatedBolsheviks, 1917
  20. 1937Moscow — The Great TerrorBolsheviks, 1917
  21. 1952Moscow — The Night of the Murdered PoetsBolsheviks, 1917
  22. 1953Moscow — The 'Doctors' Plot'Bolsheviks, 1917
  23. 1965Trent — Abolition of Simon's cultNorwich, 1144

Our principles

Sources first

Every conclusion links to the documents that justify it. No quotation is ever invented.

Statuses, not percentages

Established, not demonstrated, refuted… every status is explained, dated and open to revision.

Uncertainty shown

What we do not know is displayed. Absence of evidence is never presented as evidence of absence.

Method →

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