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