As I awaited the appeal hearing, I learned some disconcerting news. Prior to the trial, Irving had threatened the British publishers of John Lukacs’s The Hitler of History, that if they published this book, which so excoriated him, he would do to them what he was doing to me. Weidenfeld & Nicolson shelved the book for three years. I was delighted when, nine months after Gray’s judgment, the book appeared in the United Kingdom. My delight was short-lived when I read the British reviews. Reviewers complained about the “significant emendations” to the section on Irving and decried the fact that the publisher had “toned down” the American edition. What emerged, the Guardian believed, was a “much less incisive attack on Irving.” The Observer declared that, had the book appeared without the changes, it would have been a triumph of “free speech over a bully.” Weidenfeld & Nicolson were not alone in their lack of publishing fortitude. Heinemann, a division of the publishing giant Bertelsmann, had contracted to publish Evans’s expert report. Suddenly, on the eve of publication, it cancelled the contract because, I was told, of its fear of a libel suit. Though another publisher stepped in, I was disheartened by these developments.3
Sometime after the trial, the historian Richard Breitman, who was doing research on the Nuremberg trials, sent me a copy of a memo he found in the National Archives in Washington. It provided some added insight into Irving. In 1969, former Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Kempner sent a memo to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, describing how, during a recent trip to Germany, he had been visited by David Irving, a “young man, who made a nervous and rather mentally dilapidated impression” and who voiced many “anti-American and anti-Jewish statements.” Irving told Kempner that he was planning to visit Washington to check whether “the official record of the Nuremberg trial was falsified.” Kempner, who dismissed this notion as “nonsense,” was troubled because Irving could have easily checked the Nuremberg record in London. It was not this, however, that prompted Kempner to write to Hoover. “Completely unsolicited, he stressed twice very emphatically that Sirhan Sirhan did the right thing in killing ‘that big fat-faced’ Kennedy. If he, Irving, were an Arab, he said, he would have done the same thing, because of Robert Kennedy’s alleged pro-Israel remarks.”4
This occurred two decades before Irving espoused Holocaust denial. It seemed to begin to answer the question Rampton had raised in his closing argument: what came first—Irving’s denial or his antisemitism?
In mid-June 2001 we reconvened in Court 73 for the appeal hearing. I asked Harry Mazal, who had come with his wife, Jerry, to join van Pelt and Evans at the experts’ table. Given the time and energy that he and his THHP colleagues had devoted—quietly, privately, and voluntarily—to this case, it seemed highly appropriate. Irving entered wearing, what appeared to be, the same suit he had worn for the ten weeks of the trial. He was accompanied by “Brunhilda” and his barrister, Adrian Davies, a man in his forties with a round, very white, soft pudgy face, thick neck, and, I soon discovered, a high-pitched nasal voice.
When the court usher (Janet Purdue was nowhere to be seen) called “Silence,” the tribunal of three lord justices—Mantell, Buxton, and Pill—entered. Davies began by arguing that Irving might be a sloppy historian, but he was not a deliberate liar. He had simply arrived at “reasonable alternative positions” regarding the evidence. He then began to chronologically plow his way through much of the material covered in the trial. The judges demonstrated amazing patience. I had none, particularly as the first day dragged into the second and the third. Soon the appeal hearing had metamorphosed into a minitrial. When I complained to James about the exceptional leeway the court was giving Irving, he explained that British courts traditionally give unlimited time to oral arguments, particularly when one party has represented itself. Furthermore, he continued, given the court’s sensitivity to the high-profile nature of this case, it did not want to be seen as penalizing Irving.
Toward the end of the second day of the hearing, Davies, sounding rather agitated, announced: “Milords, we are withdrawing the Polanska Palmer and Germar Rudolf affidavits.” I was completely flummoxed by this. This was the evidence on which Irving had hinged his appeal. Moreover, we had expended significant money and energy refuting it. I tried to gauge Irving’s reaction. His large frame was hunched over his desk, as he busily scribbled notes. He had a nervous little smile on his lips but his eyes were focused on the papers in front of him.* The lord justices looked perturbed.
When the session ended, Harry Mazal, who, together with his colleagues, had invested hours of research on what he called the “idiot affidavits,” bemoaned the fact that their work had been in vain. Smiling, Rampton counseled him, “Wasted energy? You’ve sunk their case without firing a shot.” Irving’s lawyers, Rampton speculated, probably recognized that Rudolf’s report would be demolished by our rebuttal. This would have dealt Holocaust deniers a grievous blow.
Later that night the defense team gathered at the Ritz Hotel. Harry and Jerry had planned a celebration dinner. Richard and James assured everyone that victory was in the offing. Harry and I refused to get our hopes up but a couple of hours of good food, drink, and company forced us to relax. When Harry rose to give a toast, he still had the withdrawn affidavits in mind. “Sun Tzu’s Art of War, which was written over twenty-five hundred years ago, says: ‘To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.’”
Finally, after two more days of arguments by Davies, the hearing ended. Four weeks later I returned to hear the court’s decision. About an hour before court, I met Anthony and James in their offices. They handed me the judgment. “It’s over. We won. Conclusively and completely.” I looked at them and asked, “What’s next?” James laughed: “Believe it. It’s over. It’s done. He can’t do anything to you.” When I looked skeptical, James continued, “Now we press him for reimbursement of our costs.”
A few minutes later we left for court. Irving’s place was noticeably empty. I kept waiting for him to rush in at the last moment but he did not. Within a few moments the three judges entered. Lord Justice Pill, speaking extraordinarily softly, said that Justice Gray’s ruling—which they praised for its “comprehensiveness and style”—stood. The appeal was rejected. The lord justices criticized Irving for withdrawing his so-called “new” evidence at the last moment. After the lord justices ordered that Irving pay our costs, they rose and left the room. I looked at James in a somewhat tentative fashion. Smiling he said, “Deborah, it’s over. Believe me, it’s over.”5
As the legal team rose to congratulate one another, I reflected on the fact that this battle was fought by Jews and non-Jews, in the common conviction that antisemitism and extremism are evil dangers to society. Our all-encompassing victory notwithstanding, this was not the last battle against deniers or, for that matter, against antisemites, because antisemitism itself cannot be “defeated.” It will wither away, or not—probably the latter—of its own accord. Since antisemitism and, for that matter, all forms of prejudice are impervious to reason, they cannot be disproved. Therefore, in every generation they must be fought.
As we began to press Irving for our costs, some newspapers tried to uncover the source of his funds. This was of more than passing interest, because British law stipulates that third parties who fund libel actions can be dunned for costs if the party they supported loses. The Observer obtained a copy of Irving’s list of 4,017 contributors, over half of whom lived in the United States. A former U-boat commander, currently “a tax avoidance specialist” living in Hawaii, had on one occasion asked Irving to meet him in Amsterdam where he handed him a paper bag with $50,000 in cash. Another supporter was a Floridian, who loaned Irving $45,000. Two contributors—one from Sweden and another from Switzerland—had loaned him over $25,000. Irving told the paper that if he were ordered to reveal the names of his supporters, “I’ll come straight back here and destroy all the files.”6
The press also uncovere
d the identity of “Brunhilda,” who had consistently been at Irving’s side. She was a former Australian beauty queen who, in 1991, had married a New Zealand financier, Sir Frank Renouf. She had told Sir Frank, who was almost thirty years her senior, that she was the Countess Griaznoff and that her father was dead. When the couple honeymooned in Australia, Sir Frank discovered that her father—a truck driver—was very much alive.7 After six weeks of marriage, Sir Frank left his wife, who continued to call herself “Lady Renouf.”
After the appeal she introduced Irving to Prince Fahd bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, the son of the governor of Riyadh and nephew of King Fahd. The prince, who had recently accompanied his father on a trade mission to England, where he met the queen and the prime minister, invited Irving to his estate in Surrey. A few days later, in a phone call from Riyadh, the prince agreed to support Irving. But, according to Renouf, tragically, the following day, the generous and fit prince died suddenly.8
Our effort to recoup some of the funds we had expended on this effort turned out to be far more complex than I anticipated. In March 2002, Irving paid Penguin a small portion of their costs. Irving claimed he was now bankrupt and could neither pay the rest of their costs nor any of mine. I was skeptical about this claim because he continued to travel regularly to the United States, sell his books at his lectures, and live in London’s upscale Mayfair neighborhood.9 A court-appointed trustee took Irving’s books, papers, and other personal items to determine if they had any monetary value. We informed the court that we had no interest in Irving’s personal papers or any other personal items.10 Despite this disclaimer, Irving—ever the model of historical accuracy—accused me of trying to take his “lifetime possessions, properties, and rights.”11 We were only interested in those items that might have some monetary value. We thought a university or archive might be interested in purchasing them. That way we would avoid putting them on the open market and attracting collectors of Nazi memorabilia. The defense fund was long depleted and we still owed Rampton a significant amount of money for conducting the appeal, a cost that Penguin had rather unexpectedly left for me to carry.
There were some documents of interest to historians. Our researcher, Tobias Jersak, and the appraiser whom we asked to evaluate the collection, discovered that it contained Third Reich–era material—including diaries, letters, and notes by various German leaders—that were not in other archives or libraries. These included the notes made by Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, the Chief of Germany’s Wehrmacht in his cell at Nuremberg. In it Keitel admitted to having knowledge of the crimes against the Jews. We knew of no other historian who had a copy or who had been able to examine it. Unsure of how Irving might have gotten this, we speculated that Keitel’s family, trusting Irving to treat the field marshall’s legacy well, had given him access to this document. Irving also had obtained portions of the diary of Nazi State Secretary Herbert Backe, who was head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Nutrition. Backe was one of those primarily responsible for the low food rations given to Jews. Here too we assumed that Backe’s widow or members of his family had allowed Irving to see the diary and copy those portions in which he was interested. Tobias and the appraiser also found telephone logs, letters, and photographs that they believed could constitute evidence of Irving’s extensive contacts with deniers in other countries and with Nazis and their family members.
Aside from these documents, about whose provenance some of the lawyers expressed concerns, the rest of the collection seemed to be of limited value. It reminded me of the material that languishes on eBay, for example, a bronze bust of Goebbels. Irving v. Penguin and Lipstadt had been a battle over historical—as well as my personal—integrity. It had been one we could not afford to lose. This would have been a battle over documents and money. Despite the fact that we almost certainly would have won, it did not seem to be worth our time and effort. In June 2004, after consulting with James, Laura, and Danny Davis, Mishcon’s specialist on bankruptcy and insolvency matters, I decided not to pursue the matter. As I left their offices after making my decision, I knew that this was the right decision. However, I felt a sense of disappointment that unless Irving decided to share these documents, historians would not have access to them. It seemed strange to be ending this long imbroglio feeling that I had somehow failed my colleagues.
When I climbed into a taxi to go to my next appointment, the driver asked me if I was in London on business or pleasure. When I explained why I was there, he immediately recalled the case. “Haven’t heard much from or about David Irving since your trial. Seems to me that for most Brits he’s toast, burnt toast. Well done.” I wasn’t sure if his last two words referred to Irving’s condition or the job a wonderful team of people had done.
As my life began to take on some semblance of normalcy, I tried to make sense of what we had accomplished. We had won an overwhelming victory. Virtually all the claims posed by Holocaust deniers prior to the spring of 2000 had been demolished. David Irving had been far less formidable a foe than any of us imagined. His fanciful claims had crumpled under the simple weight of the facts.
However, even as I felt gratified by this, I knew that Holocaust denial arguments—including those discredited in court—continued to have a lease on life. Deniers, such as Hutton Gibson, the father of filmmaker Mel Gibson, repeated Irving’s claims about the amount of fuel needed to dispose of bodies and the impossibility of gas chambers. His son engaged in what I considered “soft core” denial. When asked by Reader’s Digest about his father’s comments regarding the Holocaust, Gibson said, “My father never lied to me in his life.” He responded to the question “The Holocaust happened, right?” by saying, “Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. World War Two killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps.” Then he added a strange and rather telling non-sequitur. “In the Ukraine, several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933.” This ambiguous answer reminded me of David Irving’s definition of the Holocaust, which posits that virtually no Jews were targeted by the Nazis for “murder.” Many simply lost their lives and the Holocaust was no different and certainly no worse than what happened in the Ukraine in the 1930s, under the Soviet regime. From Gibson’s statement I could only conclude that he does not really believe that European Jewry was singled out by the Germans to be completely annihilated. Gibson repeated these views in an interview with Diane Sawyer. “Do I believe that there were concentration camps where defenseless and innocent Jews died cruelly under the Nazi regime? Of course I do; absolutely. It was an atrocity of monumental proportion.”12
Once again Jews died—as opposed to being deliberately murdered. And once again Gibson fails to make any mention of the Final Solution as an attempt to annihilate European Jewry. It was particularly disconcerting that Gibson made these comments during the publicity campaign for The Passion of the Christ, a film that many critics considered not only a dangerous distortion of the historical record but one that was capable of arousing antisemitism.
Holocaust denial has proliferated in the Islamic world, particularly in the Middle East. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), who was the secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee, wrote in his book The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement that the six million figure was “peddled” by the Jews, and that the actual number may be even fewer than one million. When he became prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, he was asked to clarify his comments. Rather than repudiate them and acknowledge that they were false, he said that he wrote the book when the Palestinians were at war with Israel. “[T]oday I would not have made such remarks . . .” Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who served as the “general commander” of Hamas until his assassination by Israel in April 2004, expressed his outrage at the Zionists’ success in spreading the propaganda of the “false Holocaust” and claimed that no one has clarified how the “false gas chambers worked.” Maintaining a consistent level of historical accuracy, Rantisi decried
the fact that David Irving “was sued” because of his Holocaust denial.13
Holocaust denial is not the only form of false history that is gaining ground in the Muslim world. Yasser Arafat has repeatedly denied any historical connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. Increasingly the myth of the blood libel has been spread, as has the perennial myth of world Jewish domination. The manuscript museum at the famed Alexandria Library recently exhibited The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Egyptian weekly Al-Usbu interviewed Dr. Yousef Ziedan, the director of manuscripts at the library, in conjunction with the exhibition. Regarding the Holocaust, the weekly quoted Dr. Ziedan as saying, “[A]n analysis of samples from the purported gas chambers has proven that these were sterilization chambers, without a sufficient quantity of cyanide to kill.”14
A different kind of historical distortion was evident in Europe during the buildup to the Iraq war. The grotesque equation of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with Hitler—irrespective of how much one opposes their policies—constituted a gross whitewash of Nazi crimes. Equally troubling was the use of Nazi motifs to attack Israel’s policies. Nobel laureate Jose Saramago compared the situation of the Palestinians with the Jews in Auschwitz. When asked whether there were gas chambers in Gaza, he said, “I hope this is not the case. . . . But what is happening is more or less the same.” British poet Tom Paulin declared that Jewish settlers in the West Bank are “Nazis and racists . . . [who] should be shot dead.”15 While these metaphysical attacks on Jews may not cause physical harm, they leave Jews terribly dispirited and prompt them to question their place in a supposedly enlightened Europe. For me, they were a stark reminder that while I might have won a single solitary battle, the struggle against the distortion of history—particularly inconvenient history—is ongoing.
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