Iran's President Acknowledges Jewish Holocaust

Repudiates denials by his predecessor

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani repudiated his predecessor's Holocaust denials on Wednesday, saying the Nazis "committed a crime against Jews" but that the question of "scale" should be left to historians.

"The Nazis carried out a massacre that cannot be denied, especially against the Jewish people," he said in an informal conversation with a small group of U.S. reporters, including NBC News.

Last week, in Tehran, Rouhani hedged when asked by NBC News' Ann Curry to comment on ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinjead's repeated denials that the Holocaust happened, saying he was a politician and not a historian.