Nothing underscores the message of Deborah Lipstadt’s book,
Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, than the
libel suit that David Irving brought against her and Penguin Books in 1996.
Irving, author of more than 30 books on World War II, including The
Destruction of Dresden, Hitler’s War, Churchill’s War and Goebbels:
Mastermind of the Third Reich, has repeatedly alleged that because no one
can produce a written order from Hitler ordering the Shoah, there was no formal,
organized genocide.
By bringing suit in British courts, Irving forced Lipstadt and Penguin to prove
the statements about him in Denying the Holocaust were true. In effect,
this meant that Lipstadt was presumed guilty until proven otherwise.
(If the case had been brought in a U.S. court, Irving would have had the burden
of proving that the statements were wrong and defamed him. Additionally, U.S.
protection of freedom of speech would have allowed some latitude in what could
be said about a public figure such as Irving.)
History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier is Dr.
Lipstadt’s own story of the five-year trial that ultimately led to a 334-page
judgment detailing Irving’s systematic distortion of the historical record of
World War II.
The Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University,
Lipstadt has served as a consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum and on its Memorial Council. In addition to Denying the Holocaust and
History on Trial, she is the author of Beyond Belief: the American Press
and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933-1945.
She initially found it difficult to believe that Irving’s suit would actually go
to trial. As preparations for trial crept forward, she grew more and more
concerned that the judge, spectators, media and the world at large would fail to
understand the corrosive nature of the anti-Semitism underlying Holocaust
denial.
Irving has claimed that the diary of Anne Frank is a forgery written by an
American screenwriter. While he claims Jewish deaths at Nazi hands were greatly
exaggerated, he alleges that civilian deaths from the bombing of Dresden were
greatly underreported.
Because the media tended to cover Irving as a historian with an alternative
perspective on World War II, Lipstadt was concerned readers would take his
allegations as factual. Lipstatdt was horrified to preview a documentary about
Irving and learn that the filmmaker felt no need to counter Irving’s statements.
In his eyes, the statements were so fallacious they needed no further
discussion. In Lipstadt’s eyes, they could easily be taken as truth by poorly
informed or anti-Semitic viewers.
History on Trial is a suspenseful, engaging courtroom drama. Lipstadt’s
and Penguin’s legal team meticulously documented examples of Irving’s
misstatements, omission of contextual information and extensive involvement with
anti-Semitic and Holocaust denying organizations. The team physically went to
Auschwitz, uncovering documentation that redesigns of the former morgues at the
camp were handled in a significantly different way than other routine
architectural changes.
In response to a request from Lipstadt, the government of Israel released Adolf
Eichmann’s memoirs, written between his conviction and execution in 1962 to the
public for the first time.
Irving represented himself during the trial. While he repeatedly dismissed his
own inaccuracies as minor errors typical of any scholar handling volumes of
information, he viewed any statement made by Lipstadt as having purposeful and
malicious intentions toward him. In one bizarre incident, he actually addressed
Justice Charles Gray as “mein führer.”
One morning, Lipstadt is approached in the corridor by an older woman, who rolls
up her cardigan sleeve to show the numbers tattooed on her arm and thanks
Lipstadt for all that she is going through to protect the truth of what
happened.
Anyone who has ever thought or said the words, “Never again,” in relationship to
the Holocaust should read this book. While nothing can take away the facts of
what happened, Holocaust deniers and those who give them unchallenged public
attention rob us all of the lessons of that terrible time.
For additional information about the trial and David Irving’s writings, read
Cambridge historian Richard J. Evans’ book, Lying about Hitler: History,
Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial. Evans served as an expert witness in
support of Lipstadt at the trial. |
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