What Impact did the fact that I am a woman have on my legal case?

I was in LA this weekend and was asked a question I had not been asked before. What impact did the fact that I am a woman have on the response to my legal travails? I think there are two aspects to this. First of all, it seems to me that Irving was particularly excited about going after a woman. It was easier for him to make the case that I was simply the puppet of the "enemies of truth," i.e. the Jewish community. After all, women could never lead a conspiracy but they certainly can be its puppets.

In terms of the response to the trial, it is possible that after four months of watching Irving try to tear me down and my willingness to remain silent in the face of his, sometimes quite personal, attacks, people's sympathies towards me were enhanced because I am a woman.

It is all speculative... so treat this post as that.

Lipstadt in Denver December 4th

I will be participating in the Denver Jewish Book Fair which is sponsored by Mizel Center for Arts and Culture at the Denver Jewish Community Center.

My talk is on Sunday, December 4th at 7 p.m. For information check out the program of the Mizel Center .

I would be delighted to see you there.

The New Criminologist on Irving's arrest

The New Criminologist has an interesting comment about Irving's arrest. At the end of the post there is a cautionary comment about the dangers of deniers:

This is not usually done on the TNC news desk, but on a personal note, I have spent the last 14 months researching historical revisionism and holocaust denial for a major upcoming project, and as a result have seen the destructive results denying the Holocaust can do.

The rabid anti-Semitism and manipulation of evidence used by these “historians” to prove their ludicrous beliefs is an affront to all people with even a basic grip on reality. The idea that the Holocaust was an invention of “a worldwide Jewish conspiracy” is not only laughable, but also sickening.

Revisionists claim that these laws are a threat to their freedom of speech. They are not. They are stopping the spread of hysterical hate propaganda. Would these same people think it would be justified to allow an open debate encouraging pro-extremist opinions, such as those shared by al-Qaeda, to impressionable students?"

While I don't agree that Holocaust denial should be outlawed, I recognize that some people, such as the author of the New Criminologist, do.

People often ask me, given that I am against these laws, just how dangerous deniers are. Right now I think they pose a relatively limited danger. My trial, together with other reversals they suffered, have left deniers in the Western world on the ropes. [The case is quite different in the Arab/Moslem world.]

However, even if deniers do not present a clear and present danger, we must remain aware of the insidious ways in which misinformation can creep into the historical record.

If anyone doubts how deniers could potentially skew the historical record, I urge them to compare the commonly held perception of the bombing of Dresden with the historical reality.

Most people think of the bombing as something that is well nigh an Allied war crime that caused 100s of thousands of deaths. They are convinced that Dresden had no military significance and the city was bombed just to humble the German people. [Even if this were indeed so, I find it strange that no one considers the Nazi bombing of London a war crime....]

In fact the facts about the bombing are quite different:

1. Dresden had military significance. There were numerous factories in the city which made equipment for the German army and airforce. The city was a railway hub and thousands [probably over 10,000] German soldiers and officers passed through the city on a daily basis.

2. The war, from the perspective of the soldier on the ground, was hardly over. The Battle of the Bulge, which had ended but two weeks earlier, had hardly been an Allied victory and it was very fresh in the Allied memory. For the soldier on the ground the war was certainly NOT almost over.

3. There is no documentary evidence of strafing. Frederick Taylor, the British historian, points out in his study of the bombing that on other occasions when British and American pilots engaged in strafing, they wrote about it in their reports. That was not the case in Dresden. [Yet David Irving claims it is.]

4. The death toll was, according to the Nazi era Dresden Police, between 25-30,000. While not a small number, this is nowhere near the 100s of thousands people, such as Irving claim, it was.

How did we come to have such a different perception of the bombing of Dresden? Taylor identifies 3 sources:

1. Goebbels who believed that frightening the German people was the way to make the fight to the finish. He took the Dresden police’s death toll and added a zero. Hence 25,000 became 250,000.

2. Communist East Germany which used the bombing as a means of demonstrating the compassion of the USSR [which did not participate in the bombing] and mendacity of the USA and UK [which did].

3. David Irving, whose book on Dresden makes false claims about death tolls of up to 250, 000. Irving's influence was greatly inflated when his version of the bombing was relied upon by Kurt Vonnegut, the author of Slaughterhouse 5.

For more details on the bombing of Dresden – both the reality and perception – see Hdot.org, the website on Irving v. Lipstadt and Penguin UK. Click on evidence and read the section of Richard Evan’s report on the topic. See also Frederick Taylor’s book, February 13, 1945: The Bombing of Dresden. For how this played out in the trial itself see History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving.

As you will see the historical record can be changed.

Irving's "counterfeit credentials"

D.D. Guttenplan - whose book, The Holocaust on Trial, was his account of Irving vs Lipstadt - comments on Irving's arrest in the Op Ed pages of today's L.A. Times. Here are some excerpts:

The rights of a 'paper Eichmann'
'Holocaust denier' David Irving, still capable of making headlines, deserves obscurity -- but also free speech.

By D.D. Guttenplan, D.D. GUTTENPLAN, London correspondent for the Nation, is the author of "The Holocaust on Trial" (W.W. Norton, 2001). He is currently writing a biography of I.F. Stone.

WHAT DO YOU DO with a problem like David Irving? Until a few years ago, the British author of "Hitler's War" was usually described as a "controversial historian." But in April 2000, a British high court judge held that Irving not only had denied the reality of the Holocaust but was an anti-Semite, a racist and a neo-Nazi sympathizer who "deliberately falsified and distorted" historical evidence in the service of his right-wing views.

Justice Charles Gray's damning 333-page judgment — which ended Irving's libel suit against academic Deborah Lipstadt for calling him a "Holocaust denier" — turned Irving from controversial to disgraced. It also cost Irving his London home (in Britain, the loser in a libel case has to pay the winner's costs), leaving him a bankrupt, marginal figure reduced to lecturing credulous audiences of conspiracy enthusiasts and collectors of Nazi memorabilia. Yet for all that, he is still capable of making headlines.

[...]

Countries that outlaw Holocaust denial do so not because they love liberty less than we do but because their history is different from ours. Holocaust denial causes real pain to survivors and their families. To fail to acknowledge that pain, or to treat it as a particularly Jewish problem that need not trouble anyone else, is to deny our common humanity — precisely the denier's aim.

As important, in Germany and Austria Holocaust denial is not just hate speech but also a channel for Nazi resurgence, like the Hitler salute and the swastika, which are also banned. Countries where the experience of occupation and the shame of collaboration still rankle have different views than ours on the balance between dissent and disorder. And Bosnia and Rwanda should have taught all of us that these are not simple questions. Sticks and stones may still break bones but name-calling can clear a path to genocide.

[...]

As for Irving, he seems to me exactly what Pierre Vidal-Naquet meant by "a paper Eichmann." A distinguished classical scholar who lost both parents to the Holocaust, Vidal-Naquet coined the term to describe Irving's French ally, Robert Faurisson. "Confronting an actual Eichmann, one had to resort to armed struggle," wrote Vidal-Naquet. "Confronting a paper Eichmann, one should respond with paper." Which need not be passive.

Indeed, Deborah Lipstadt's exposure of Irving's unsavory views in her book "Denying the Holocaust" was effective enough on its own that Irving was willing to risk financial ruin to try and force her, or her publishers, to back down.

In Austria, a country dogged by its own failure to come to terms with the Holocaust, and where Kurt Waldheim's Nazi past was no bar to electoral success, Irving's arrest is not much more than a symbolic gesture. The threat of a 20-year prison term, even if it doesn't come to pass, only burnishes Irving's counterfeit credentials as a martyr to free speech.

Whatever their motives, the Austrians have every right to deny Irving a platform, even to deport him. They do not, though, have the right to rescue him from well-deserved obscurity.

My reaction to Irving's arrest

In the past 24 hours I have been repeatedly asked about my reaction to David Irving's arrest.

I do not know if Irving wanted to be arrested for the PR value of it [his name has now appeared in the media far more than in many previous months] or if he felt that he was “unstoppable” and the Austrian police would never find him.

He may have thought that this was a means, in fact, of gaining some sympathy even from those who have no patience with his Holocaust denial, anstisemitic, and racist comments. I have received a number of emails from people who have little – if any—sympathy for him. Yet they are troubled by what appears to them as an infringement of his civil rights. Ironically, some of these people support hate speech and hate crime legislation. [They don’t seem to grasp the inherent contradiction in their views. Irving was arrested under a form of hate speech regulation.]

I am personally opposed to making Holocaust denial a crime. [This would of course be impossible in the US.] However, I understand Germany and Austria’s sensitivity about this matter. Their history is unique when it comes to the Holocaust.

In the course of my court battle all of his fancy claims about no gas chambers, no plans for annihilation of the Jews, no Hitler complicity and so much more were dismissed by the judge a complete bunk. He did not prevail on even one of his contentions about the historical record.

Some people who have attended his talks since the end of the trial have come away with the impression of a pathetic figure whose only audience is a sorry group of extremists, haters, and losers.

Many historians who have read my book and looked at Judge Gray’s decision -- John Keegan and D.C. Watts excepted – have concluded that when it comes to history they can trust nothing Irving says without checking it out on their own first.

I close with something Anthony Julius said to me at one point during the lengthy preparations for this trial when I was tired and frustrated by the disruption to my life this legal battle had caused. After listening to me rail against Irving, Anthony said: “Think of fighting David Irving as you would the shit you step in on the street. It has no relevance unless you fail to clean it off your feet prior to reentering you home or office.”

My feet are clean, i.e. my fight with him is over. What Austria decides to do is its business.

"Irving's reputation as a historian was shredded"

The BBC has posted a background piece regarding Irving's arrest. Here are some excerpts:

How 'Holocaust denier' fought and lost
By Jon Silverman
Legal Affairs analyst

David Irving's reputation as a historian was shredded at the High Court in April 2000 in a devastating judgement.

At the conclusion of a libel action brought by Mr Irving against American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, Mr Justice Charles Grey described Mr Irving as a "falsifier of history" an "associate of right-wing extremists" and "an active Holocaust denier".

In a book, Ms Lipstadt had branded Mr Irving "one of the most prominent and dangerous Holocaust deniers".

The three-month case was among the most colourful in British legal history.

[...]

Wider issues

Mr Justice Grey's judgement comprehensively dismantled Mr Irving's case and his reputation. It was later published as a book.

Although a libel action, it was Holocaust denial which was, by implication, on trial.

In Britain, to deny the Holocaust is not a criminal offence but it is in Austria and that is why Mr Irving has been arrested there.

In a co-incidence of timing, one of Mr Irving's associates, convicted Canadian Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, is standing trial in Germany, having been extradited to face charges of inciting racial hatred and spreading Nazi propaganda. Like Austria, Germany has a Holocaust denial law, as does France.

Lawyer James Libson, who represented Deborah Lipstadt in her battle with Mr Irving, believes it is right that they should have.

"Given Britain's history, it would be ridiculous to have a Holocaust denial law here. But in countries like Germany and Austria, where far-right, neo-Nazi parties are highly visible, it is different. However, the Holocaust denial message is still being disseminated, despite the law," he says.

Bankruptcy

Mr Irving is an undischarged bankrupt and the Trustee in Bankruptcy is still trying to recover assets tied up in archive documents and World War II diaries in his possession. Some are thought to be quite valuable.

Since losing his Mayfair flat, the disgraced historian has relied on an international network of supporters for financial help and from his speaking engagements abroad, which are invariably in front of extreme right-wing, anti-Semitic audiences.

Despite the mortal blow to his reputation in 2000, he remains a showman and may well relish the opportunity to grandstand before a wider audience if put on trial.

More Press Coverage of Irving's arrest

Although Irving was apparently arrested on Nov. 11, it took a good number of days before the press seemed to notice. But now that they have ... The following are courtesy of Dan Yurman:

Historian Arrested on Holocaust Denial Charge

Los Angeles Times Fri, 18 Nov 2005 0:34 AM PST
Right-wing British historian David Irving has been arrested in Austria on a warrant accusing him of denying the Holocaust.

Austria arrests historian on charges of Holocaust denial

USA Today Thu, 17 Nov 2005 10:25 AM PST
British historian David Irving was arrested last week in southern Austria on a warrant accusing him of denying the Holocaust, the Interior Ministry said Thursday. Irving was detained on a warrant issued in 1989, a government spokesman said.

Historian arrested for holocaust denial

TVNZ Thu, 17 Nov 2005 10:44 PM PST
British historian David Irving, known for his controversial views on World War Two, has been arrested in Austria on suspicion of denying the Holocaust, an interior ministry spokesman says.

David Irving held on Holocaust denial charges

Haaretz Daily Fri, 18 Nov 2005 4:10 AM PST
VIENNA - Right-wing British historian David Irving has been arrested on a warrant accusing him of denying the Holocaust, Austria's Interior Ministry said yesterday.

BRIT HELD IN AUSTRIA FOR HOLOCAUST DENIAL

Daily Mirror Fri, 18 Nov 2005 1:01 AM PST
HISTORIAN David Irving is facing up to 20 years' jail after being arrested in Austria on charges of denying the Holocaust.

Irving arrested in Austria

There have been several news reports indicating that David Irving was arrested in Austria on Nov. 11. Here are some excerpts from an AP report published in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Thursday, November 17, 2005 · Last updated 11:51 a.m. PT

Historian charged with denying Holocaust

By WILLIAM J. KOLE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

VIENNA, Austria -- Right-wing British historian David Irving, who once famously said that Adolf Hitler knew nothing about the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews, has been arrested in Austria on a warrant accusing him of denying the Holocaust.

Irving, 67, was detained Nov. 11 in the southern province of Styria on a warrant issued in 1989 under Austrian laws making Holocaust denial a crime, police Maj. Rudolf Gollia, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said Thursday.

Austrian media said the charges stemmed from speeches Irving delivered that year in Vienna and in the southern town of Leoben.

[...]

Irving in the past has faced allegations of spreading anti-Semitic and racist ideas. He is the author of nearly 30 books, including "Hitler's War," which challenges the extent of the Holocaust.

Besides his assertion that Hitler knew nothing about the Holocaust, he also has been quoted as saying there was "not one shred of evidence" that the Nazis carried out their "Final Solution" on such a scale.

[...]

Irving remained in custody Thursday at a prison in Graz, 120 miles south of Vienna, the Austria Press Agency reported, although that could not be confirmed.

If formally charged, tried and convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison, said Otto Schneider of the public prosecutor's office.

But Schneider said it was unclear whether there were sufficient legal grounds to continue holding Irving on such a charge so many years after the alleged offense was committed. A decision was expected by the end of next week on how to proceed, Schneider said.

In March, more than 200 historians from around the world petitioned C-SPAN to cancel a project that would have included a speech by Irving as a counterpoint to a lecture by Deborah Lipstadt, a renowned Holocaust expert at Emory University.

Irving once sued Lipstadt for libel for calling him a Holocaust denier, but his lawsuit was dismissed in 2000 by a British court, which ruled that Irving was anti-Semitic and racist and misrepresented historical information.

[...]

Irving has had numerous run-ins with the law over the years. In 1992, a judge in Germany fined him the equivalent of $6,000 for publicly insisting the Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz were a hoax.

Other media reporting on this include the U.K.'s Guardian, BBC and TimesOnline. The latter notes:

Christoph Poechinger, a spokesman for the Austrian Justice Ministry, said it was likely that charges would be pressed against Irving and that he would be kept in custody until the case came to court.

"There is a grave danger that he will repeat the offence, therefore it is likely he will be kept in custody until it comes to court. A warrant has been outstanding since 1989 and the case will probably be made a priority, but I doubt it will come to court before Christmas," Herr Poechinger told the Austrian newspaper Der Standard.

Lipstadt at N.Y. Hebrew-Union College (Nov. 22)

Prof. Lipstadt will be speaking at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York on Nov. 22:

History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier. A Lecture by Emory University Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt.

Tuesday Nov 22 2005 - 7:30 pm to - 9 pm

Deborah Lipstadt, the Director of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies and Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish Thought and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, will discuss her recent book, History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving, the story of her successful six year legal battle against Irving, who sued her for calling him a Holocaust denier and right wing extremist. Reception 7:00 PM; Lecture 7:30 PM. Photo ID req. RSVP to lkaplan@huc.edu.

Contact Information: lkaplan@huc.edu, (212) 824-2293

Lipstadt in Toronto (Nov. 13)

Prof. Lipstadt is one of the featured speakers at the 2005 UJC General Assembly, which will take place in Toronto:

Seeing Ourselves Through the Holocaust Looking Glass:
The impact of the Holocaust on Jewish identity
Sunday, November 13, 2005
2:30pm – 4:00pm

"The Final Word"

In the Summer 2005 issue of Emory University's Emory Magazine, Associate Editor Paige Parvin writes about Prof. Lipstadt, History on Trial and the C-SPAN controversy. Here are some excerpts:

The Final Word
By Paige P. Parvin 96G

History Professor Deborah Lipstadt recounts her court battle against Holocaust denial and how she became a public defender of historical truth

Deborah Lipstadt is not accustomed to being quiet.

Even as a kid growing up in Queens, Emory's Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies and chair of the Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies earned a reputation as "feisty and combative" at the Jewish day school she attended, frequently causing her mother to be summoned to the principal's office to defend her red-haired daughter's argumentative nature.

"I had the impression that although she did not appreciate these school visits, she admired my gumption," Lipstadt writes in her most recent book, History on Trial . "I knew I had been named Deborah because she loved the biblical character. When I was still quite young, she had described how Deborah led her people in battle and dispensed justice. I liked the notion that I was named after such a person."

So it follows that some five decades later, when Lipstadt was sued for libel by British author and Holocaust-denier David Irving, she was hardly at a loss for words. But her defense team deemed it best she remain silent throughout the three-month trial, staying out of the witness box and away from the press, in order to keep the focus where it belonged: on Irving's credibility rather than her own.

An eloquent, outspoken college professor and scholar to whom words are as powerful as weapons, Lipstadt called the imposed quietude "excruciatingly hard." Dutifully biting her tongue, she took notes and filed away her impressions, waiting for the time when she could tell her own story. That time came in February of this year with the release of her book History on Trial: My Day in Court With David Irving .

In the months since, Lipstadt has appeared on TV and in the press around the U.S., Europe, and even in Australia, now unfettered by a promise of silence. The book, described as a "legal thriller" with commercial appeal, has been favorably reviewed and is selling well, she reports.

History on Trial is a blow-by-blow account of the Irving v. Lipstadt trial, from the moment Lipstadt learned of the lawsuit in 1995 to the judge's sweeping ruling in her favor five years later. At issue was Lipstadt's 1993 scholarly book, Denying the Holocaust: An Assault on Truth and Memory , in which she referred to Irving, calling him "one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial." Irving sued her for libel in Britain, where the burden of proof rests with the defense--meaning Lipstadt had to prove, in essence, that Irving was indeed a Holocaust-denier as her book claimed. The lawsuit put Lipstadt in an international spotlight and so dominated her professional and personal life that when it was over, she was compelled to depart from academic writing to put the experience into her own words.

A blend of journalism and journal, historical fact and human feelings, History on Trial was both more and less difficult to produce than a scholarly work, Lipstadt says--and considerably more intimidating because of the deeply personal nature of the work.

"The book was a chance for me to tell the story from my own perspective," Lipstadt says. "After keeping silent throughout the trial, it was a chance for my voice to be heard."

[...]

During the late 1970s and 1980s, Lipstadt taught history at the University of Washington and later at the University of California in Los Angeles; but UCLA was a poor research fit for her and she was denied tenure. Soon afterward, two professors at the Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem asked if she would be willing to look into the Holocaust denial movement, an international network that seeks to minimize the devastation of the Holocaust and cast Jews as sympathy-seekers.

Lipstadt agreed, somewhat dubiously.

"Convinced that deniers were fringe extremists," she writes, "I asked these two leading Holocaust scholars: why study the historical equivalent of flat-earth theorists? [The scholars] believed this a new, potentially dangerous form of anti-Semitism. Though they thought it should be analyzed, I was not entirely convinced."

But as she began to examine the practice of Holocaust denial more closely, Lipstadt quickly came to understand their concern. What was most alarming about Holocaust deniers, as she explained to the audience during a talk at the Atlanta History Center in April, was their mask of legitimacy, their insidious portrayal of the Holocaust as a two-sided "issue" subject to academic debate. Leaders of the movement had created scholarly looking organizations such as the California-based Institute for Historical Review; held national and international conferences; and published journals that aspired to academic credibility.

Indeed, Holocaust deniers were so successful in cultivating a serious image that throughout the 1990s college newspapers accepted advertisements from these groups, despite policies that otherwise prevented ads promoting hostility toward any religious or ethnic group. The editors claimed that to reject these ads would be to curb academic freedom of speech.

"If you appear looking like a neo-Nazi, people know exactly how to categorize you," Lipstadt says. "So [the Holocaust deniers] figured out instead how to become Holocaust revisionists . . . they were [posing as] serious historians looking at an issue. And there is a direct link between the attempt to rewrite history and the attempt to push a certain political agenda."

With his silver hair, square jaw and ruddy complexion, David Irving is the picture of the tweedy British history buff. Although he did not finish college, his first book, The Bombing of Dresden , was published when he was only twenty-five to considerable acclaim and commercial success. Known for his thorough research methods that relied mainly on primary sources, Irving quickly became a prolific historical writer. He has written more than two dozen books on history and World War II in particular.

But even in his early work, a theme began to emerge: Irving repeatedly sought to elevate the wrongs of the Allied Forces while minimizing those of the Nazis. [...]

When Lipstadt began researching Holocaust denial, the trail naturally led to Irving. In scholarly circles, he was beginning to gain a reputation for his sympathy with Hitler and the Nazi party and his questionable research and theories on the Holocaust itself. Many historians believed his personal ideology was compromising his work. When Hitler's War was re-released in 1991, for instance, Lipstadt found striking contrasts between the two versions: the gas chambers had disappeared, as had any mention of the Holocaust.

As a public figure, Irving left no doubt where he stood ideologically. A frequent speaker to far-right-wing audiences and groups associated with the neo-Nazi movement, he had publicly declared Auschwitz "Disneyland for tourists," Hitler "the best friend the Jews had in Europe," and the Holocaust a "fabrication" and "legend." He is infamous for tastelessly quipping, "More women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz."

So it's not surprising that when Lipstadt first learned Irving was suing her and British publisher Penguin for libel because she had called him a Holocaust denier, her first response was to dismiss it as "nothing more than sound and fury."

Despite the weighty evidence in the court of public opinion, the British Royal High Court required a more deliberate analysis, and Lipstadt was obliged to mount a formidable defense. While funding for the trial ultimately came from a range of sources, Lipstadt has long praised Emory for its early and sustained support. When she first learned of Irving's intent to sue, she became panicked about money, wondering where the funds for her legal expenses would come from. Emory's board of trustees voted to allot $30,000 to her defense before she even asked. Later the University gave more, as well as leave with pay to attend the trial. "I am grateful for the University's commitment to moral engagement," she says.

"Every so often a colleague tackles a problem of such immense social consequence that the university must support the efforts," says University Provost Earl Lewis. "Deborah Lipstadt earned University support for courageously and truthfully speaking about the relationship of the past to the present. She knows that to deny the Holocaust is to render damage to all humanity. It was an important call, and correct call, for Emory to support her in the ways it did."

[...]

During the trial--in which Irving represented himself, declaring no one else as capable of doing so--Lipstadt's defense produced instance after instance in which Irving twisted the truth to conform to his own skewed views of history. Cambridge historian Richard Evans was recruited as an expert witness and worked with two researchers to examine Irving's writings. After some initial skepticism on his part, what he found shocked him deeply.

"A knotted web of distortions, suppressions, and manipulations became evident in every single instance we examined," Evans wrote in his report for the court. "I was not prepared for the sheer depths of duplicity which I encountered in Irving's treatment of the historical sources, nor for the way in which this dishonesty permeated his entire written and spoken output. ...His numerous mistakes...are calculated and deliberate."

Throughout History on Trial , Lipstadt often quotes directly from the court proceedings, giving the reader a window into the courtroom and a sense of the drama that pervaded the ordeal. Many of the most sensational moments sprang not from testimony about Irving's historical research--although that certainly provided ample evidence against him--but from accounts of Irving's public expressions of his personal views.

Ultimately, Justice Charles Gray agreed with Lipstadt that Irving was both an antisemite and a racist, as well as a liar and a cunning manipulator of history. In his 355-page judgment, he found that Irving's "falsification of the historical record was both deliberate and ... motivated by a desire to present events in a manner consistent with his own ideological beliefs even if that involved distortion and manipulation of historical evidence."

Irving was ordered to pay the $3 million cost of the trial, and the judgment was the lead story in newspapers and media around the world. After trying to have her "libelous" book pulled from shelves, David Irving had instead given Lipstadt and her work the spotlight on a world stage.

[...]

For Lipstadt, at the heart of the Irving trial lay conflicting desires--one to speak out against Irving in the name of Jews and Holocaust victims, and another to refuse to dignify his arguments by engaging in a debate. The notion that the very existence of the Holocaust is a matter for discussion is one that Lipstadt has resisted from the beginning.

"Our objective was not to prove the Holocaust had happened. No court was needed to prove that," she writes of her legal defense. "Our job was to prove the truth of my words, namely that Irving had lied about the Holocaust and had done so out of antisemitic motives."

[...]

Five years after the trial, Lipstadt continues to battle the misguided perception that she and Irving are on opposite sides of an argument. A few weeks after her book appeared, the TV network C-Span invited Lipstadt on Book TV to discuss History on Trial --welcome publicity for any author. C-Span planned to air a lecture by Lipstadt at Harvard to educate viewers about the book.

But there was a catch: C-Span also intended to feature a talk by Irving in the next time slot, for "balance." When she learned of this plan, Lipstadt canceled her appearance on a long-held principle.

"How can one debate someone, on any topic, who deliberately lies and falsifies history?" Lipstadt wrote in a letter to the New York Times. "I would be delighted to appear on C-Span, but not as part of a debate that is no debate."

C-Span's decision to air Irving back-to-back with Lipstadt sparked a national response. Editorials appeared in newspapers around the country, including one by Richard Cohen of the Washington Post : "This is the Crossfire mentality reduced to absurdity, if that's possible," he wrote. "For a book on the evils of slavery, would it counter with someone who thinks it was a benign institution?"

The network received more than three thousand letters and e-mails, including one from Emory's Edward Queen of the Center for Ethics, objecting to the move. Some five hundred university historians and high-profile journalists signed a petition supporting Lipstadt and criticizing C-Span:

[...]

C-SPAN wound up producing and airing a show that offered commentary on History on Trial by Washington Post writer T.R. Reid, as well as video clips from past appearances by both Lipstadt and Irving. For Lipstadt, the controversy was a sobering reminder that even though she had won a resounding victory against Irving in court, the dangers he and others like him pose are still clear and present--and must continue to be brazened out.

"Our all-encompassing victory notwithstanding, [the trial] was not the last battle against deniers or, for that matter, against antisemites, because anti-Semitism itself cannot be 'defeated'," she writes in History on Trial. "It will wither away, or not--probably the latter--of its own accord. Since anti-Semitism and, for that matter, all forms of prejudice are impervious to reason, they cannot be disproved. Therefore, in every generation they must be fought."

Lipstadt says she is looking forward to returning to the research on modern anti-Semitism she had only just begun ten years ago, when the letter from Penguin hijacked her academic career. But she acknowledges that the Irving trial has changed her and shaped her as a scholar and teacher.

"My voice has more resonance now," she says. "I happen to be one of those people whose battle got a lot of attention. It's no more important than anyone else's. But students tend to resonate to people who stand up and fight for something."

Jacob Cherry, an Emory College junior from Westchester County, New York, took Lipstadt's Holocaust studies course last year. Although she routinely devotes only one lecture during the semester to the Irving trial, Cherry says Lipstadt's personal experience lends an added layer of poignancy to her teaching about the Holocaust.

"She is one of the most inspirational, passionate people I've ever known," Cherry says. "She is one of those professors who you know, when you look back thirty years from now, you will remember what she said. It's amazing to get to take a class from such a central figure in Holocaust studies."

Although Lipstadt has maintained she never set out to defend the truth of the Holocaust, in many ways the Holocaust survivors and Jews who supported her fight looked to her to do just that. It was a bittersweet burden she both resisted and bravely embraced. And it was finally the victims who brought out the strongest emotion in Lipstadt, leaving her feeling "particularly unnerved." Many survivors contacted her during the trial and afterward; [...]

"Dear Professor Lipstadt," one woman wrote. "You do not know me and we will probably never meet. ... My mother was killed in Auschwitz. If David Irving had won my mother would have been a victim a second time! So too would everybody else who perished there. I loved my mother very much and have not seen her since April 14, 1939 when I was fourteen years old. She was killed on October 23, 1944. Gratefully yours, Anna Bertolina."

This letter, and dozens of others, touched Lipstadt deeply. In a moving passage of her book, she describes her feelings about those who perished in the Holocaust and her role in preserving their memory.

"In Jewish tradition...Taking care of the dead is called hesed shel emet, the most genuine act of loving-kindness, because it is then that we most closely emulate God's kindness to humans, which also cannot be reciprocated," Lipstadt writes. "For five years I had the privilege to do hesed shel emet, to stand up for those who did not survive or who could not stand up for themselves. I did not choose this field of research in order to perform this act of hesed. I did not write my book on deniers expecting to engage in this act. I did not choose this fight. But now, as I look back, I am filled with gratitude. If someone had to be taken out of the long line to fight this battle, I feel gratified to have been the one."

"Appreciating the Triumph of Truth"

In the November 3 issue of Harvard Law School's The Record, Amos Jones cites Prof. Lipstadt, Simon Wiesenthal and Rosa Parks as examples of people who have made "bold enemies on their righteous missions to reconcile the human family". Here are some excerpts:

Amos's Sermon: Appreciating the Triumph of Truth

By Amos Jones

BERLIN, October 29, 2005 - It all started with a lie. The annexation of Austria. The invasion of Poland. The foray into Russia. The genocide of six million Jews and elimination of six million others, and the abuse of millions more who survived long enough for the Allies' liberation of the concentration camps and the countries occupied by Adolph Hitler's Germany sixty years ago this year. This is the city from which the villains of the Third Reich ruled. Fifty million people died in World War II, and it all happened because of the lie that is racism.

[...]

The demise of fact

Before shuttling to Berlin on the cheap for three days during our annual fly-out week, I attended a lecture across campus titled "The Demise of Fact in Political Discussion." Delivered on Tuesday by the highly regarded communications expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the University of Pennsylvania and sponsored by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, it presented her argument that today's political partisans are challenging what once would have been considered fact, molding their readings of fact to political goals and preventing real deliberation from taking place. [...]

Jamieson lamented adherence to facts "as convenient to ideology" and questioned the media's "split-the-difference relativism," which lazily reports as though certain facts are disputed simply because one side says that they are.

[...]

The costs of correcting

We can thank a number of dedicated journalists and historians for ensuring that the truth has come out. In many cases, it has taken them years to correct distorted records. Sometimes chroniclers of fact have found it necessary to confront and fight liars publicly. Exposing these most intransigent wretches rarely goes unpunished.

The cover of the current Emory Magazine features a triumphant Deborah Lipstadt, that Southern university's Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, who in February released "History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving." In this book, she recounts the landmark libel trial in the United Kingdom that resulted five years ago in her being cleared of charges brought by a famous Holocaust denier who claimed that she defamed him inasmuch as the Holocaust never occurred. The British legal system essentially required Professor Lipstadt, an unimpeachable authority on the Holocaust, to prove in court that the Holocaust happened. The trial was five years ago. She won.

A recent obituary in The Economist pays tribute to Simon Wiesenthal, a famed Nazi hunter who died on September 20 at the age of 96. The article began: "One of the stranger conversations in Simon Wiesenthal's life occurred in September 1944. He was being taken by SS guards, in his faded striped uniform, away from the advancing Russians. Somewhere in the middle of Poland, he and an SS corporal scavenged together for potatoes. What, the corporal asked him mockingly, would he tell someone in America about the death camps? Mr. Wiesenthal said he would tell the truth. 'They wouldn't believe you,' the corporal replied." We know the rest of the story. [...] Wiesenthal's concurrent pursuit was to remind the world about the dangers of Nazism and to warn on the lecture circuit and in books about motivating trends in far-right politics. Insisting that world leaders had a duty to combat racism, he faced constant threats. In 1982 neo-Nazis blew up his house. Yet Wiesenthal pressed on, because, according to The Economist, "his survival of the Holocaust gave him a duty to seek justice for the millions who died."

On Monday, our own country paid tribute to Rosa Parks, the civil-rights pioneer who rejected white racism fifty years ago, December 1, when she refused to leave her seat for a white man on an Alabama bus. As E.R. Shipp of the New York Times wrote last week, black Americans had been arrested and killed for disobeying bus drivers. [...] As the cradle of the movement, nearly ten of Montgomery's black churches were firebombed the evening the court order forcing desegregation of the buses was announced. Once integrated, many buses were shot at terrorism-style. Within weeks of the integration, the Parks family had to leave Montgomery for good because of white people's violent retaliation against them. The family would settle in Detroit, where Rosa Parks died at the age of 92, on October 24.

Respecting honesty

It was predictable that Lipstadt, Wiesenthal, and Parks would make bold enemies on their righteous missions to reconcile the human family. History reveals that liars hate the truth and the people who tell it. Recall that prophets tend to be murdered. Yet ordinary people, the backbones of mass social movements, often understand the challenge and appreciate the response.

[...]

Bill Pretzer, a curator of political history at the Ford museum, revealed how student visitors today often are in disbelief that what happened on the bus could have occurred in America: "They say, 'What do you mean can't sit there? That's impossible,'" he told a reporter. "Which is why we need to keep looking at this. There is a danger that if we don't spark peoples' imaginations as to what in fact happened, we risk it one day happening again."

Lipstadt at Cleveland "Festival of Jewish Books and Authors" (Nov. 17)

Prof. Lipstadt will be one of the featured authors at the Jewish Community Center of Cleveland's seventh annual "book fest". Here is a review of History on Trial from the Cleveland Jewish News:

All you can read buffet

[…]

Debunking the lies of a Holocaust denier

By: MARILYN H. KARFELD Senior Staff Reporter

History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving. By Deborah E. Lipstadt. New York. HarperCollins Publishers. 2005. 346 pp. $25.95.

It seems hard to believe today that David Irving, whose name is almost automatically followed by the phrase Holocaust denier, would sue Emory University historian Deborah Lipstadt for libel for calling him just that.

But in 1993, when Lipstadt, a professor of Jewish studies, published her groundbreaking book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, Irving, a British citizen, was a World War II historian and Hitler biographer of some repute. Holocaust denial was still the province of fringe right-wing extremists, yet to emerge as a significant tenet of a global anti-Semitism movement.

In just a few paragraphs in her book, Lipstadt calls Irving one of the most dangerous proponents of Holocaust denial, who distorted and manipulated documents and historical evidence.

In his books and speeches and in the trial, held in London, Irving insisted that Hitler did not order the mass extermination of Jews and that he even tried to halt some of the killings. Among his many outrageous statements: The murder of six million Jews was a myth; most of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were the victims of typhus and unauthorized shootings by rogue soldiers at the front; and “more people died in the back seat of Edward Kennedy’s car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz.”

Two years after the publication of her book on Holocaust denial, Irving sued Lipstadt and her British publisher Penguin UK for libel. He chose a British courtroom rather than an American one because the libel laws in Great Britain favor the person bringing the suit. The defendant must prove that what he or she wrote was the truth.

In America, the burden of proof falls on the plaintiff, not the defendant. And a public figure like Irving has to show that these statements were written with reckless disregard for the truth.

After five years of legal jockeying and $1.5 million in research expenses and legal costs, the case against Lipstadt finally went to trial in 2000.

During her 10 weeks in court, her attorneys refused to put her on the stand or allow her to talk to the press. The articulate professor chafed against the restrictions. In her latest book, History on Trial, Lipstadt finally has her chance to speak about the trial, which was heard by a judge, not a jury. She does so in absorbing, well-paced prose, and her personal memoir reads more like a novel than a nonfiction account.

Although most readers probably know the trial’s outcome, Lipstadt still provides a sense of drama, recording in vivid detail her misgivings and feelings and those of her legal team. The testimony of historians debunking Irving and his many distortions and lies makes for riveting reading.

Knowing that Holocaust survivors were counting on her to stand up for them, Lipstadt frequently worries that the case isn’t going well. She fears that the judge, who often appears to support Irving in his comments and questions, might rule in her favor but in such an even-handed way that she won’t be truly vindicated.

The highly publicized trial resulted in a huge victory for Lipstadt. The judge declared it “incontrovertible that Irving qualifies as a Holocaust denier.” His statements, the judge said, confirm that he was an anti-Semite and a racist who “deliberately skewed the evidence to bring it in line with his political beliefs.”

In Britain, the loser has to pay the defense costs. But after losing his appeals, Irving declared bankruptcy. Lipstadt decided that it wasn’t worth her time and energy, not to mention huge sums, to go after any of his assets.

The trial to her had not been about documents and money. It was, she writes, about “historical - as well as my personal - integrity.”

Deborah Lipstadt speaks on Thurs., Nov. 17, at 7:30 p.m. at Siegal College of Judaic Studies in Beachwood. Free, but limited space. Reservations required. 216-454-4050 or rsvp@siegal college.edu

Lipstadt at Houston Jewish Book & Arts Fair (Nov. 3)

Prof. Lipstadt will be discussing History on Trial on Thursday, November 3, at the Houston JCC's Jewish Book and Arts Fair:

Deborah Lipstadt
8:00 P.M.
History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving

Deborah Lipstadt, an acclaimed author, professor, and media commentator on Jewish matters, is also an expert on the Holocaust denial movement. When she called David Irving, a well-known writer on World War II, a Holocaust denier, he sued her and her publisher, Penguin UK, for libel in a London courtroom. Five years later, Lipstadt won a resounding victory. This book, a riveting chronicle of that legal battle, is also an inspiring personal story of perseverance and the definitive account of the trial that tested the standards of historical and judicial truths.

Other Venues for Nov. 8 "Conversation with Deborah Lipstadt"

As noted in the previous post, New York's 92nd Street Y will be broadcasting this event to other venues. Here is the full list of locations and participating organizations:

Abington, Pennsylvania: Old York Road Temple - Beth Am
Albuquerque, New Mexico: JCC of Greater Albuquerque
Dayton, Ohio: Dayton Jewish Community Center
Irvine, California: Merage Jewish Community Center of Orange County
Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Naples, Florida: Temple Shalom
New York, New York: Jewish Home and Hospital Life Care System
Omaha, Nebraska: Jewish Community Center of Omaha
Reading, Pennsylvania: Jewish Community Center of Reading
Utica, New York: Jewish Community Federation of the Mohawk Valley
Winnipeg, Manitoba: Rose & Max Rady JCC

If you plan to be at the 92nd Street Y for this event, you may purchase your tickets online.

"Conversation with Deborah Lipstadt" Satellite Broadcast (Nov. 8)

Prof. Lipstadt will be discussing History on Trial at New York's 92nd Street YMHA on Tuesday, Nov. 8:

HISTORY — HISTORY ON TRIAL: A CONVERSATION WITH DEBORAH LIPSTADT

History on Trial is Deborah Lipstadt's chronicle of her legal battle with Holocaust denier David Irving, a sensational libel case that The Daily Telegraph of London proclaimed did "for the new century what the Nuremberg tribunals or the Eichmann trial did for earlier generations." Deborah E. Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies and director of the Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University. She is also the author of Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. DR. MARGOT KREBS, chair of the English department at the Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, facilitates the discussion.

This event will be broadcast via Live from NY's 92nd Street Y, the Y's satellite broadcast program, to other participating venues, including Naples, FL. Temple Shalom.

Irving touts "brilliance of his failed defense" to atheists

In July of this year, Irving was invited to address a small group of atheists in Alabama. The Southern Poverty Law Center's Fall 2005 Intelligence Report notes:

Strange Bedfellows
Disgraced Holocaust denier hosted by Alabama atheist

David Irving, a writer whose Holocaust denial activities caused a British judge to label him "a right-wing, pro-Nazi polemicist," has been repeatedly hosted by the largest neo-Nazi group in America. David Duke, the famous former Klan leader, has organized talks and book sales for him. Others who've tried to help Irving sell his wares — the judge called them "deliberate" falsifications designed to slander Jews and hold Hitler up as a hero — include a host of other white supremacists.

And then there is Larry Darby.

Darby is not your typical host for Holocaust deniers. He is president of the Alabama-based, nonprofit Atheist Law Center. The bespectacled Darby is normally a lonely voice in supremely conservative Alabama, arguing against religion in all forms.

But in early July, Darby hosted Irving — who he described as "an expert on World War Two, the Nazi era and the erosion ... of free speech" — and about a dozen atheists at a meeting in the Holiday Inn of Prattville, Ala. Most of those who attended seemed to know little about Irving's background. Others, who heard about the appearance by e-mail, expressed their shock privately.

[...]

For his part, Irving told those who assembled in Prattville of the case that ruined his career as a purported historian. Irving had sued Deborah Lipstadt, a well-known Holocaust scholar who had accused him of pro-Nazi sympathies and false reporting in his books. At the conclusion of a hugely publicized libel trial in London, the court found that Lipstadt was justified in her published criticisms.

In Prattville, Irving emphasized the brilliance of his failed defense, and complained about how he'd been ordered to pay some $5 million in court costs for Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books. Darby — whose ad for the Irving event said that Lipstadt's defense was funded "by the usual enemies of Free Speech" (Jewish groups helped pay for the defense) — listened without comment.

[...]

Christopher Browning to speak on Holocaust Denial in the Courtroom

Prof. Christopher Browning, who was one of the expert witnesses for the defense during the trial, will deliver the Holocaust Memorial Lecture at Washington University in St. Louis on Nov. 9:

Scholar Christopher Browning talks on Holocaust Denial in the Courtroom for the Assembly Series

By Mary Kastens

Oct. 17, 2005 — Considered by many to be the preeminent scholar on the Holocaust, Christopher Browning will present the Holocaust Memorial Lecture titled "Holocaust Denial in the Courtroom: The Historian as Expert Witness" at 11 a.m., Nov. 9 in Graham Chapel as part of the Assembly Series. His talk will touch on his experience as an expert witness in recent famous court cases involving Holocaust deniers.

How ordinary Germans came to accept the wholesale massacre of Jews is a central theme in Browning's pioneering scholarship of the Holocaust. The exhaustive research he conducted is evident in his definitive account, The Origins of the Final Solution: September 1939 to March 1942. This research was sponsored by Israel's Holocaust Museum as part of a multi-volume series about the Nazi era and the development of the Final Solution.

Browning's approach sets him apart because he does not see the Final Solution as a master plan established by Hitler alone at the beginning of the Nazi era, but rather as a series of decisions made by many people that evolved over a period of time. In a February 2004 interview in The Atlantic Monthly, he said, "The various perpetrators who became involved in the Final Solution and their decision-making processes were not unique." He says the Holocaust was not a mystical event that we cannot understand. It was a coming together of common factors and ordinary people.

He is the Frank Porter Graham Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He has been an expert witness at various trials of accused Nazi criminals in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as well as in the "Holocaust Denial" trials of Ernst Zundel in Toronto (1988) and Irving vs. Lipstadt in London (2000).

The event is free and open to the public. Graham Chapel is located north of Mallinckrodt Center on the Washington University Hilltop campus.

For more information, call (314) 935-4620 or visit the Assembly Series Web page (http://assemblyseries.wustl.edu).

Lipstadt at University of Maine (Oct. 16)

On Sunday, Oct. 16, Prof. Lipstadt will address the participants at the groundbreaking ceremony for a Holocaust Education Resource Center at the University of Maine:

Groundbreaking set for Holocaust center

By DAN McGILLVRAY
Staff Writer

AUGUSTA -- A scholar who has researched the Holocaust and human rights issues will speak Sunday at the University of Maine at Augusta.

Deborah Lipstadt is director of an institute in Emory University that is devoted to Jewish studies. Earlier this year her book, History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving was published.

"She will probably talk for about 45 minutes and then have a question and answer (period)," said Sharon Nichols, executive director of the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine.

Lipstadt, who teaches at Emory University in Atlanta, will be the featured speaker at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Michael Klahr Holocaust Education Resource Center that will be built on the University of Maine at Augusta campus.

Work on the building will start next spring, said Nichols.
[...]

The ceremony Sunday begins at 1 p.m. with a lecture in Jewett Hall Auditorium by Professor Phillip Silver of the University of Maine. From 2 to 4 p.m., Silver and his wife, Professor Noreen Silver, who also teaches music at UMaine, will conduct a cello-piano duo in the auditorium. The price is $10 and tickets are available at the door.

The outdoor groundbreaking begins at 4:15 p.m.

Lipstadt begins her speech at 5 p.m. She is expected to talk about her 6-year legal battle in London with David Irving. He had accused Lipstadt of saying that he denied the Holocaust in Europe. In the end, a judge concluded that Irving was a Holocaust denier, a falsifier of history, and a racist.

Historians estimate that approximately 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazi regime and collaborators

After Lipstadt concludes her address at 6 p.m., a social reception hour will be held until 7 p.m.

Lipstadt is Atlanta's "Best Local Intellectual"

The critics at Creative Loafing, an Atlanta weekly which featured History on Trial and Prof. Lipstadt on the cover of their April 6/05 issue, have declared Prof. Lipstadt to be Atlanta's "Best Local Intellectual":

Best Local Intellectual: Deborah Lipstadt

DEBORAH LIPSTADT, a professor of modern Jewish and Holocaust studies, is one of the most popular faculty members at Emory. But what really sets her apart is a book written a dozen years ago in which she lambastes one of the world’s most infamous Holocaust deniers, David Irving. Irving turned around and sued Lipstadt for libel in British court, but the judge found in favor of Lipstadt, calling Irving a racist and anti-Semite. Sweet. Lipstadt was back in the news last spring when she refused to allow C-Span to tape a lecture she was giving. Why? The network wanted to air it back-to-back with one by Irving. Seems the battle against Holocaust deniers isn’t over yet.
www.lipstadt.blogspot.com. www.hdot.org.

Lipstadt Interviewed on Radio "WHYY"

Prof. Lipstadt was interviewed by Marty Moss-Coane this morning on Philadelphia's WHYY program "Radio Times". In addition to addressing questions from Coane, and callers to the program, about the life and times of the late Simon Wiesenthal, Prof. Lipstadt also discussed Holocaust denial, the Irving trial and her book, History on Trial. The interview can be heard here.

Lipstadt in Des Moines (Sept. 21)

Prof. Lipstadt will present a lecture in Des Moines, on Wednesday, Sept. 21:

Professor to speak about Holocaust

Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of Holocaust studies at Emory University, will present "History on Trial: Holocaust Denial and False History" at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Embassy Suites, 101 E. Locust St. in Des Moines. Advance tickets are $10 and available at the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, 910 Polk Blvd. in Des Moines. Tickets are $15 at the door.

Lipstadt to speak at Kansas University

Professor Lipstadt will be speaking at the University of Kansas, (Lawrence, Kansas) on Sept. 14:

Author Lipstadt to Speak at KU About Winning Libel Suit by Holocaust Denier

Humanities Lecture Series is the oldest continuing series at KU

Lawrence, Kan. - infoZine - The University of Kansas' Hall Center for the Humanities will open its 2005-2006 Humanities Lecture Series with professor and author Deborah Lipstadt, who will speak on "History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving," at 7:30 p.m., Sept. 14 in the Woodruff Auditorium of the Kansas Union. The event is free and open to the public.

Lipstadt, professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, will expound on her book "History on Trial," which details her 2000 libel trial in London when Irving sued her for calling him a Holocaust denier and right wing extremist. The judge handed down a stongly worded decision declaring Irving to be a Holocaust denier, a falsifier of history, a racist, an anti-Semite and a liar.

The libel trial was described by London's Daily Telegraph as having "done for the new century what the Nuremberg trial did for earlier generations." Lipstadt's lecture will analyze the major issues involved in her lawsuit in London and link them to the rise of the "new anti-Semitism."

Lipstadt is also the author of Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory and Beyond Belief: The American Press and The Coming of the Holocaust.

Founded in 1947, the Humanities Lecture Series is the oldest continuing series at KU. More than 150 eminent scholars from around the world have participated in the program, including author Vladimir Nabokov, painter Thomas Hart Benton and author Aldous Huxley. Recent scholars have included Edward Said, Dava Sobel, Sherman Alexie and E.O. Wilson. Shortly after the program's inception, a lecture by one outstanding KU faculty member each year was added to the schedule.

Upcoming speakers in the 2005-2006 series include author Salman Rushdie, human rights scholar Samantha Power, and attorney and author Scott Turow.

For more information, please contact the Hall Center at hallcenter@kuedu or call (785) 864-7822

Australia's Law Society Journal Interviews Lipstadt

The August 2005 issue (Vol 43 No. 7 Pages 28-29) of the Australian Law Society Journal contains an interview with Prof. Lipstadt. Here is the text of the article:

Defamation ruling: The Holocaust is undeniable

Discriminating between good, bad, and totally unacceptable historical method

POST-MODERNISM, WITH its emphasis on point of view and the relativity of truth, has its limits.

These limits emerged in the trial of David Irving v Penguin Books and Another, a six-year legal marathon triggered in 1996 by a British author of well-received books on the Nazi regime, David Irving, who asserted that American historian and teacher of modern Jewish and Holocaust studies at Emory University, Professor Deborah Lipstadt, had libelled him in her book, “Denying the Holocaust: The growing assault on truth and memory” (1993). Irving protested Lipstadt had called him “a denier, a Hitler partisan and a right-wing ideologue”. (She agrees she did).

Lipstadt was in Sydney recently to give lectures on the Holocaust during Limmud Oz, the Festival of Jewish Learning and Culture, and between times to discuss her newly released account of the trial, History on Trial: My day in court with David Irving. Anyone seeing her interviewed by the ABC’s Lateline presenter, Tony Jones, will sympathise with her protest to her Scottish QC Richard Rampton that she be allowed to talk to the media in London during the preparation for the trial, because “I do media well”.

She does indeed, as LSJ can also testify. But she reports having been unable to deflect some radio and television talkshow hosts elsewhere from taking what she considers an alarming line on David Irving’s stance.

For some in the media, denial is an intriguing idea. They conceive denial as a possible ‘other side’ of the Holocaust story.

To anyone conversant with the vast post-war writings on the Nazi regime there is nothing ‘intriguing’ about claiming Hitler never gave an order to annihilate the Jews of Europe, that the Jews who died in concentration camps had died of typhus or some other illness, or that there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz.

Rather, the claims can only be dismissed as lies, while Irving’s libel suits recall Goebbels’ observation that the big “impudent” lies Hitler talks about in Mein Kampf will succeed only for as long as dissent is squashed by the state. Pursuing Lipstadt in a six year trial process and filing suit against others who have challenged his writing can only be seen as an attempt by Irving to use a state institution to protect his lies from exposure.

Had he been an American writer, says Lipstadt in her book, the guarantees and freedom of the press which have evolved over centuries out of the First Amendment to the USA Constitution, would have scuttled any attempts by him to harass critics of his work. It would have been up to him to prove the critics wrote falsely, not Lipstadt’s responsibility to prove that what she wrote was true: as the Brits have it, words written are untrue until proven true.

“Absurd,” Lipstadt told one of her American interviewers.

She was even more flabbergasted to discover that under English law, if she failed to respond to Irving’s charge, she would give him the decision by default, a point largely overlooked by those members of the Jewish community who advised her to ignore the complaint.

Lipstadt’s regret over the differences between English and US laws on defamation is heartfelt. Little wonder: six years of her life, huge resources of intellectual, emotional and physical stamina, not to mention considerable sums of her own money as well as large amounts donated by others, were consumed by the trial – with more having to be raised to fund Irving’s appeal, even though he eventually withdrew it. Attempts to secure costs from him have had to be abandoned.

However, without the trial, there would have been no book, and that would be a loss to both the legal profession and the lay person.

History on Trial is a unique record, fascinating on multiple levels: as an inquiry into historiography – discriminating between good, bad and totally unacceptable historical method; as a detailed account of a long, complex legal process, and, through Lipstadt’s American perspective, an interesting commentary on the differences between US and English legal systems.

It works very well for the reader that Lipstadt is a nonlawyer with formidable research, analysis and recording skills, and that she had powerful motivations to produce the fullest record possible of a trial whose outcomes were of concern not only to the Jewish community with which she identifies, but for anyone familiar with the Nazi story. An energetic fusion of intellect and passion drives the narrative, while Lipstadt in her role as the innocent abroad, unfamiliar with the English legal ambiance and its practitioners, creates scope for candid snapshots of legal representatives and their support staff, and for comprehensive expositions of procedures that leave few questions unanswered.

Her voice is strong and everpresent in the story, questioning herself, her legal representatives and the English system, protesting at its weirdness: why is she known as “Another”? – “I’ve got a name”. Why can’t she be called to the witness box and speak for herself? Why shouldn’t she talk to the media? Why do her lawyers get to know the judge’s decision before she does? Why does her QC grill her aggressively as if he were supporting Irving instead of her? And Judge Gray, why does he bend over backwards to encourage Irving (a self-representing plaintiff), and then come down with a ruling that unequivocally declares Irving’s “falsification of the historical record was deliberate ... motivated by a desire to present events in a manner consistent with his own ideological beliefs even if that involved distortion and manipulation of historical evidence”. It was “incontrovertible” said Judge Gray, “that Irving qualifies as a Holocaust denier”.

Occasionally there’s an impression Lipstadt is directly addressing Americans, or the Jewish community.

In “a note to the Reader” she says that from the time Irving issued his threats, she had kept a detailed record of all her conversations with her lawyers and others involved in the case. Then she decided to start a journal where she recorded conversations and her own thoughts.

LSJ put the question of readership to her when we met up at the serviced apartments which were her Sydney base.

“It did change over time,” she said. “Initially lawyers and academics were the only ones I thought would be interested, but then so many different kinds of people contacted me to offer support and encouragement. The staff of the hotel where I was staying, for instance, kept a close watch on the progress of the trial. All kinds of people turned up to the hearing. I realised that a lot of ordinary people were perturbed by the idea that Irving wanted to suppress the right of people to challenge his distorted representation of the Holocaust and Hitler’s role in it.”

Lipstadt’s research into denials of the Holocaust came on the heels of an inquiry she had conducted into US press reports in the years that the Nazis began systematically persecuting the Jews. Her findings on that subject were published in the book Beyond Belief: The American press and the coming of the Holocaust.

This work had been prompted by questions from some of her students as to what their parents could have known during the period. Could more have been done to save the Jews of Europe? And how could a repeat Holocaust be prevented in the future?

The Jewish press in the US had a very clear picture of what was happening in the earlier stages of Nazi persecution, Lipstadt told LSJ, because many of the people being persecuted or observing attacks on others were their own relatives who were writing letters at least up to the time that the Nazis were fully organised. But later, getting news out became more difficult.

“The time to prevent a genocide is before it happens,” she said. “Once it’s really under way, it’s hard to stop. You have to be alert to the early signs.”

In the mainstream press, Lipstadt discovered “small articles in obscure places” (like the comics or the weather reports), and found a report of the murder of a million Jews placed at the bottom of page six next to an ad for ‘Lava’ soap.

“The more horrible the reports became, the more incredulity they tended to arouse.”

Lipstadt inherited the Holocaust at a remove. Her father left Germany before the Nazis came to power and her mother was born in Canada. She grew up in New York in an Orthodox home, attending Jewish schools, but raised with “an appreciation of surrounding secular society”.

“We were never formally taught about what took place in the Hitler period, but there were passing references at school and from the rabbi –“Hitler, may his name be erased”.

Her parents were “autodidacts”, left-wing, civil-rights workers and opposed to the Vietnam war. They had books on the Holocaust at home, says Lipstadt, but these were only part of a collection that canvassed the “tapestry of our Jewish lives”.

Summer camps and, later, a visit to Israel, brought her to a fuller understanding of the “deep imprint of both the Holocaust and Israel on the psyche of the Jewish people”.

Thereafter she studied for a doctorate in modern Jewish history, eventually focusing on the Holocaust, especially the question of how the bystanders, Jews and non-Jews, reacted.

Her account of the preparation for the defence against Irving’s suit, including a visit by the legal team to Auschwitz, makes for riveting reading: discussions of the various stratagems employed by notorious deniers other than Irving, the details of the documents sought and offered as part of discovery, the interaction with Irving before and during the trial, and descriptions of the buzz of activity that goes on in legal offices, the to-ing and froing between solicitors and counsel, all offer a unique insight into the workings of the legal system, through an approach not quite novelettish, but at that level of superior historical writing which can almost compete with a novel for narrative power, character interest, period and place, not to mention high drama and a thrilling denouement.

But Lipstadt is wasting no time resting on her laurels. Holocaust denial will go on, she says. That denial is based on a new anti-semitism, a phenomenon she is currently researching and which is the subject of her next book.

For sure, Deborah was well named.

MARY ROSE LIVERANI

History on Trial reviewed in SPLC Intelligence Report

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Summer issue of their Intelligence Report features a review of History on Trial:

Defending Truth
A scholar recounts her titanic legal battle with Holocaust denier David Irving

By Heidi Beirich

History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving
By Deborah Lipstadt
New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005, $25.95 (hardback)

In her new memoir History on Trial, Deborah Lipstadt, a renowned Emory University professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies, tells a captivating tale of the British libel trial that she was forced into when the English Holocaust denier and Third Reich "historian" David Irving foolishly sued her. Irving claimed Lipstadt had ruined his reputation by describing him as a Holocaust denier and Nazi admirer in her 1994 work, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. The trial, which began in January 2000, proved Irving was indeed as Lipstadt had written, and that he was a mean-spirited, racist buffoon and shoddy historian to boot.

History on Trial is peopled with somewhat eccentric characters whose dedication to defending the truth about the Holocaust is inspiring. And Irving — who, in one of the greatest Freudian slips of all time, actually referred to the judge as "Mein Fuhrer"— adds troubling color to the story. The book is a real page-turner, holding the reader until the end, even when the outcome of the trial is already known.

The book has some interesting tidbits about Irving. He comes across as a truly vile human being who likes to mock Holocaust survivors and hang out with neo-Nazis. The most telling anecdote describes how Irving approached former Nuremburg prosecutor Robert Kempner in 1969 to say that he intended to go to Washington to prove that the official record of the Nuremburg trial was falsified. Kempner noted at the time in a recently unearthed memo to J. Edgar Hoover that Irving made "anti-American and anti-Jewish statements." It seems Irving dedicated himself to Nazi views long, long ago.

Memory, Scholarship and the Law
There is a disturbing aspect to the memoir. Although the trial ended in a total legal victory for Lipstadt — and Irving will forever be tagged, as he was by Judge Charles Gray, as a slipshod researcher, a "racist" and an "anti-Semite" — the victory outside the courtroom was less than complete.

This is partly due to the nature of British libel law, which puts the burden of proof on the defendant, rather than on the plaintiff who is claiming to have been libeled (which is how the American system works). As a result, publishers are often reluctant to release controversial books in Britain. Indeed, as Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz points out in his afterword to Lipstadt's book, British libel law has led to a "chilling of free speech" and a stifling of academic inquiry. A case in point: The publication in Britain of John Lukac's The Hitler of History was delayed three years because of threats from Irving. When it was finally distributed — even though that wasn't until after the absolutely decisive verdict in Lipstadt's favor — Lukac's publisher, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, had toned down the sections on Irving for the British market.

Another result of the British system is that defending even a flawless book can cost a fortune in legal fees. Indeed, the Lipstadt case might not even have seen the inside of a courtroom if it hadn't been for the willingness of Penguin Books, Lipstadt's publisher, and several donors to absorb the enormous costs of a drawn-out trial. Up to that time, Irving's skillful employment of libel threats had allowed him to maintain a reputation as a serious historian for far longer than he should have been able to. The trial was necessary for the truth about Irving to come out.

Another distressing aspect of this tale is the considerable academic cowardice that Lipstadt had to contend with when Irving sued. Lipstadt writes that a leading Holocaust historian suggested that she simply let Irving win. When she replied that that would effectively validate Irving's denial of the Holocaust, the reply was, "So what?" Others thought that going to court would transform Irving into a celebrity or free-speech martyr, as if that unlikely possibility mattered more than proving that his writings on the Holocaust are deeply flawed and animated by virulent anti-Semitism. And still others warned that Lipstadt was cheapening herself by becoming a media personality. It is unsettling that prominent historians would find defending the truth about the Holocaust so unimportant.

Truth and 'Fairness'
It is downright scandalous that a Hitler apologist like Irving could be taken seriously for so long by so many distinguished historians. For decades, Irving was publishing works on World War II to great applause, even though many falsified parts of the Nazi record. As the historical research presented at the trial made clear, Irving's obvious aim was to cleanse Hitler of his crimes. Irving was intent on dismissing the reality of the Holocaust, thereby relieving the Nazis of responsibility for their crimes, and he also used his research to legitimate Nazis lies about Jews.

The celebrated British military historian, Sir John Keegan, is Exhibit No. 1 of this problem. He praised Irving's book Hitler's War even though it falsely argued that Hitler did not know about the Final Solution — and Keegan was not alone in his praise. Even after Irving lost his libel case, Keegan criticized Lipstadt in an editorial, writing that the trial "will send a tremor" of fear through historical circles. Keegan also wrote that Irving's denial of the Holocaust was only "a small but disabling element of his work." Historians like Keegan have protected Irving's reputation over the years — even though Irving's work is sub par, something revealed by the in-depth examinations of his work and documentation undertaken by the defense team's assemblage of leading experts. Those studies, compiled by notable Holocaust historians such as Christopher Browning, will now stand permanently as a rebuttal to the disturbing farce that Holocaust denial "research" represents.

But the idea that Holocaust denial is merely the "other side of the story" persists in sometimes remarkable quarters. Just this March, the American cable channel C-SPAN was planning to televise a speech by Lipstadt about her memoir. In the interests of what a C-SPAN producer described to Lipstadt as "fairness and balance," C-SPAN decided to air a presentation by David Irving as well that would represent "the opposing view." C-SPAN apparently thought there was some kind of legitimate historical debate over the existence of the gas chambers and Hitler's knowledge of the Final Solution — a complete and utter misreading of contemporary historical scholarship. In fact, C-SPAN's bizarre position drew an angry letter of protest signed by more than 200 historians from around the world.

Lipstadt's memoir is a powerful reminder that truth needs to be vigilantly defended. If Irving and his ilk had their way, the largest state-ordered mass murder in history would actually disappear from the record.

Intelligence Report
Summer 2005

Lipstadt cited on Darfur genocide

In an article about Darfur in today's (July 21) issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, columnist Jane Eisner cites Prof. Lipstadt. Here are some excerpts:

American Rhythms | Each of us can help Darfur: Just let the horror seep in
By Jane Eisner

I had, until now, shied away from writing about the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, on the weak but justifiable grounds that my job is to opine about national issues, and this was something happening on a distant continent.

Now I feel too guilty to stay silent.

[...]

Guilt might even have motivated some of the nation's clergy to remind congregants that if we are all, indeed, God's children, then we can scarcely sit by as 300,000 people or more are slaughtered and nearly two million displaced.

I can attest: Guilt works. I heard this very message from my rabbi Saturday, and my conscience hasn't left me alone since. I can no longer pretend it's not in my job description to express outrage and demand action against what is being called the worst genocide since World War II.

That historical analogy weighs heavily on Jewish people, and on Monday, they responded in kind. Just about every major religious and communal Jewish group in the nation signed a document calling upon President Bush to promote immediate and comprehensive international intervention in Darfur.

"What excuse do we have?" asks Deborah E. Lipstadt, the Emory University historian who has detailed how the Holocaust was downplayed and denied as millions of Jews and others were murdered in Europe.

"If we're going to talk about the Holocaust, about what was, then we have to be concerned about what is or we lose all moral credibility."

[...]

The truth on trial

Prof. Lipstadt was recently interviewed by David Marr, of the Sidney Morning Herald:

The truth on trial
DAVID MARR

Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday 09th of July 2005

David Irving is on the road in Florida and Alabama, flogging his books to the faithful. He calls his tour "Hurricane David" but there's barely a breeze behind the disgraced historian as he swings through the southern United States this week. The venues of his talks in Montgomery, Orlando and West Palm Beach are secret to all but his followers. Entry: 10 bucks at the door and satisfactory ID.

This is a man who has fallen a long, long way. Gone are the Rolls and the flat in Mayfair. The praise of great historians has dried up. Universities that matter no longer invite him to lecture. Newspapers all but ignore him. For 30 years, his books on Nazi Germany and World War II were published by the leading houses of the world. Now he self-publishes. The belligerence that made him a feared adversary in the courts is now confined to his brawling website, where he pursues his grudges against Australia, Jews, Israel and his nemesis, Deborah Lipstadt.

Over scrambled eggs in a Sydney cafe last week, she puzzles over his latest web attack. "Nature Alert: Slab-throated Dip coming to Australia. Lipstadt will continue her lucrative and well-financed global Smearfest against British historian David Irving." And so on. The abuse defeats us both: what on Earth is a "slab-throated dip"?

Nothing much about Irving surprises this fiery woman after so many years spent grappling with him. On a long list of his faults she includes: "Hatred. A visceral hatred for Jews and other minorities and an adoration of the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler. He's also a bully." Lipstadt reckons he's one of those people who love to be hated. "Otherwise, he wouldn't say the things he says."

She has in mind remarks such as this, delivered to a gathering in Calgary in 1991: "More women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz. Oh, you think that's tasteless. How about this ... I am going to form an Association of Auschwitz Survivors, Survivors of the Holocaust and Other Liars. A.S.S.H.O.L.S."

Irving made Lipstadt famous by suing her and losing. For some time, he had combined a career as an iconoclastic historian - demanding the right to tell uncomfortable truths - with a penchant for suing his detractors. Most folded. Lipstadt and the publisher Penguin Books did not. "I hope this doesn't sound self-serving," she says, buttering her last piece of toast. "But David Irving underestimated me."

At the time, 1995, she was a youngish, rather obscure professor of Holocaust studies at Emory University in Atlanta with a great deal to learn about the quirky way libel is handled in the British legal world. She could not be sued in the US for what she said about Irving in her book Denying the Holocaust. But in Britain, the onus was on her and Penguin to justify the remarks she made about Irving in those pages: that he was a Holocaust denier, an anti-Semite, a racist and a falsifier of history. "My impression is that he sued me because he's been waiting to get me," Lipstadt says. "He saw me as a representative of the Jewish community, I don't know why. I'm a Jew. I'm an active Jew. I live a Jewish life. But he thought that by going after me he could go after the Jewish world."

Penguin was insured. Lipstadt's backers in America raised $US1.75 million ($2.3 million) for the fight. Together they assembled a team of forensic scholars to re-research Irving's books. By the time the trial opened in London, they had honed their counter-attack to 19 examples of lies and fakery - from Irving's wild guesstimates of the death toll in Dresden to his slippery claims that Hitler was a friend of the Jews. In April 2000, a London court delivered a crushing victory to Lipstadt that would leave Irving's reputation as a scholar in ruins.

This battle is the subject of a riveting new book by Lipstadt: History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving. No one who loves history can fail to be fascinated by the unpeeling of Irving's lies by Lipstadt's team of academic sleuths. They shred the man's scholarship and conclude: "This is not how a historian works."

It's a courtroom drama that reached its comic depths on the last day of the trial, when Irving addressed the judge as "Mein Fuhrer". Lipstadt writes: "There was a moment of intense silence as the entire courtroom - Judge Gray included - seemed frozen. Then everyone erupted in laughter ... Irving, who seemed not to have grasped what had happened, marched on."

Lipstadt's interest in the phenomenon of denial goes beyond the Holocaust. She is pleased that Edgar Ray Killen has finally been convicted for the Mississippi Burning murders. "They did it but it took 40 years." And while she is in Sydney she will join Professor Ronald Suny of the University of Chicago to discuss the first great race slaughter of the 20th century. "That Turkey turns itself into a pretzel to deny the Armenian genocide is a mark of shame," Lipstadt says. "And it does Turkey no good because they know it happened."

On her fourth visit to Australia, Lipstadt is well aware we have a denial industry of our own - denying Aboriginal massacres and denying the stolen generations. As she talks about the general principles and purposes of denial, she moves back and forth between denials of the Holocaust, Aboriginal slaughter and even the moon landing, which some believe was filmed on a sound stage in Nevada. Lipstadt sees even these strange souls illustrating an important truth: "Scratch a lie like that and you'll find some political motive." What's theirs? "You can't trust the government."

And these lies make life easier for us. "If someone said to you, 'You know, we've found out the Aborigines really weren't murdered and that they very happily gave up their land,' you'd say, 'Oh my God, I live in a better place, I live in a better society. I don't have this society that has this terrible shame and legacy."' And what's wrong with living under this delusion? "When you grapple with the past you rise above it."

The work of deniers is oddly easy. They don't have to prove much. All they have to do is cast doubt. But this requires they have public reputations as scholars. Lipstadt saw Irving as "the most dangerous of deniers" because he had built a reputation as a serious, if rather quirky, historian. "He was fresh. He had a vibrant way of writing." But Lipstadt believes the problems with Irving were always underestimated.

Right from the beginning, there were historians contesting his facts. When his first book, The Destruction of Dresden, appeared in 1963, they queried Irving's controversial death count: up from about 40,000 to 135,000. Each book that followed over the next 30 years provoked similar academic brawls over the facts. But somehow none of this really dented Irving's standing as a scholar.

Lipstadt says the public looks at historians slugging it out in this way as "two little boys having a pissing match". So were we lazy all those years not checking Irving's footnotes for ourselves? "No. There is an unspoken element of trust that if a historian sits down and writes this and a serious publisher publishes it, then I can, by and large, believe that it's the truth."

How high on the list of sins does Lipstadt place the sheer invention of sources: "The highest. For all historians. It doesn't matter what you're writing about, if you're writing the history of cooking or the history of fashion or the history of the Iraq war - if you invent a source, I can trust nothing you say."

Of course, all sides in these familiar historical brawls claim to be the genuine article, fearlessly devoted to accuracy. On his website, Irving boasts he is spearheading "the international campaign for real history". For Lipstadt, what distinguishes real historians is the way they deal with evidence that contradicts their own conclusions. Real historians acknowledge this difficult material and give their reasons for dismissing it. Fakes like Irving, simply ignore it.

The to-and-fro of contending historians might have continued for eternity, unresolved. But Irving sued.

Early in History on Trial, Lipstadt writes: "I did not believe that courtrooms were the proper place for historical inquiry." The American was amazed by the rituals of English law. She was appalled to be ordered by her legal team to shut up - no evidence in court and no interviews with the press - until the whole thing was over. But she discovered an English courtroom could be "a pretty damn good place" to settle great questions of history.

There was no jury. The judge spoke German. There was lots of time. The plaintiff could no longer bluster his way through. "In court we said: 'Mr Irving, show us the document.' He was compelled to show us the document and when you look at the document it showed he was completely lying about what happened there, or he's making it up, or he's reversed the dates, or he's put someone at a meeting who wasn't there, or he quotes half a speech. What we show is that you can't trust anything the man says unless you go and document it and prove it. And that's what's led in part to his downfall - that and his bizarre comments and bizarre behaviour."

Bankrupt and yet to pay a ££2 million ($4.7 million) bill for court costs, Irving has only one public asset these days: his claim to be a martyr for free speech. It is a claim Australia has done much to bolster by banning him from these shores six times since 1992. That this is the result of intense lobbying by the Jewish community is no secret. And Irving's travel plans have now been frustrated by the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments. But each time this happens the Australian press gives - as it must - a thumbnail account of Irving's Holocaust-denying views. It's great publicity.

Lipstadt does not believe in making Holocaust denial a crime. In History on Trial, she writes: "Those laws would render denial 'forbidden fruit', making it more - not less - alluring." She acknowledges that preventing Irving from entering this country draws attention to his views. But when asked if she therefore disapproves of Australia's ban, she ducks the question. "I don't think any good would come from having him come here."

So should he be banned from America? "There's no grounds on which he can be banned from the United States. No. I think it's pathetic. He comes to the United States now, he travels around the country, he talks to his most ardent followers - he talks to them in diners."

But wouldn't he be reduced to the same fleapits in Australia by this time? "That could well be the case. But I don't know whether there's a sense that he might give succour, give strengthening, reinforcement to people who do bad things."

Lipstadt's absolute bottom line is that she won't debate Irving - or any Holocaust denier. "First of all it suggests there are two sides to this story. Second of all, as we show in the trial, they are liars. For them to make the argument that this didn't happen, they've got to be lying about the facts. I can debate someone where we have diametrically opposed positions - abortion, death penalty, things that are very emotional and important ... But I can't debate someone who is simply making things up. That's what the deniers are all about."

History on Trial by Deborah Lipstadt is published by HarperCollins ($45). Professor Lipstadt's website is http://Lipstadt.blogspot.com. David Irving's website is www.fpp.co.uk. The judgement can be read at www.hdot.org.

Lipstadt interviewed on Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV

Australian Broadcasting Corporation's TV program Lateline's July 5 edition features Prof. Lipstadt and History on Trial in two segments:

New book details Irving Holocaust Case (Transcript)

In 2000 historian David Irving attempted to sue American author Deborah Lipstadt, claiming she had defamed him by calling him a holocaust denier. Mr Irving lost the case and historians say the result has significant implications.

[Real Video | Windows Media]

History on trial (Transcript)

Academic and historian Deborah Lipstadt discusses her latest book History on Trial which details her battle with David Irving, who was suing her over claims he was a holocaust denier.

[Real Video | Windows Media]