Denial [Movie Tie-in]
Page 44
Taylor, A. J. P., 22
television, 182
Holocaust deniers and, 17–20
Irving’s 1993
interview on, 212
Irving’s views on newscasters of, 176–77, 247
Lipstadt’s appearances on, 88, 278–80
Temple, The, 52
Temple Mount, 8–9
terrorists, 72
Thatcher, Margaret, 200
Thin Blue Line, The (documentary), 33
39 Steps (Buchan), 201
Times Literary Supplement, 187
Today show, 19
Tooby, John, 153, 154
Topf, 132, 147, 148
Torah, 73
Torquay, Irving’s visit to, 176–77
Treblinka, 41, 117–18, 194, 197, 198, 258, 304
Trench, John, 46–47
Trevor-Roper, Hugh, 22, 312n trial, 69, 73, 75–284
Browning’s testimony at, 189–98
chain of documents in, 99–108
closing arguments at, 243, 253, 255–64, 294
costs of, 70
death toll distortions and, 167–71, 207–8
Evans’s testimony at, 199–209, 212–21, 223, 264
Funke’s testimony at, 223, 233–41, 253
Holocaust as random killings vs. systemic genocide at, 109–25
Irving’s concessions in, 93, 114, 115, 119–20, 257–58
judgment in, xiv–xv, 223, 253–54, 256, 265, 267–89, 291–92
Keegan’s testimony at, 186–89, 282
last regular session of, 243–53
length of, 70, 73
Lipstadt’s breaking of silence at, 239–40
Lipstadt’s silence during, xxii–xxiii, 85, 103, 110, 158, 269
Longerich’s testimony at, 223–31
MacDonald’s testimony at, 151, 154–59, 188
media coverage of, 77–78, 80, 85, 87–90, 103, 124–25, 139, 183, 189, 256, 268, 269, 271–72, 276–84, 291
Millar’s testimony at, 186
mistranslation issues and, 143, 161–62 “no holes” trap and, 138–39, 140, 146–47
opening day of, 75, 77–86, 93
photographic distortions and, 205–8
Rampton’s cross-examination of Irving at, 99–107, 110–19, 122–24, 128–32, 161–67, 173–82, 186, 243–53
reactions to judgment in, 275–84
second day of, 88–97
second week of, 109–25
third day of, 103–7
Van Pelt’s testimony at, 120, 128, 133–49, 161, 197
Watt’s testimony at, 120–22, 186
truth:
in history, xxii, 17, 40, 67
Irving’s subordination of, 32
T. S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism, and Literary Form (Julius), 28, 29
Turner Diaries, The (Pierce), 245
Tyler, Laura, 116, 271, 276, 287, 298
typhus, 108, 132, 135, 208–9
UCLA, 16
Ukrainian Jews, 228–29
Ukrainians, Ukraine, 13, 228–31
in World War II, 228–29, 299
Ultra, 111
United States, 17
conspiracy theories in politics of, 6
First Amendment freedoms in, xiv, xxii, 31, 313n
Holocaust deniers in, xxi, 16–17
Irving’s contributors in, 296
libel law in, xiv, xxi, 31–32, 313n
National Alliance in, 245–48, 264, 274
synagogues in, 4, 73, 269
in World War II, 18, 107, 170, 225, 325n
United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 58, 137
Unverwüstliches Berlin (Weiglin), 250, 251
Uris, Leon, 6, 78
Vaillant-Couturier, Marie, 129–30, 261, 273
van Pelt, Robert Jan, 41, 56, 59–64, 79–80
appearance of, 133
at Auschwitz and Birkenau, 54, 59–64
background of, 41
credibility of, 110
Irving’s legal appeal and, 292–93, 294
as Jew, 64
recommended to Morris, 36, 41
Tanakh of, 133–34
testimony of, 120, 128, 133–49, 161, 197
“vernichte” (euphemism for “annihilation”), 225
Verwaltungsführer der SS, 83, 104–5
violence:
connection between words and, 240
political extremism and, 236, 237
Wachsmann, Nik, 43, 45, 53–54, 67, 189, 251
background of, 43
Wall, The (Hersey), 6
Wallant, Edward, 6
Wannsee Haus, 55, 64
“Wahrheit macht frei” (“The Truth Makes You Free”), 237, 238–39
Warsaw Ghetto uprising, 5, 162–63, 257
Washington, D.C., 288
British embassy in, 47–48
National Archives in, 293–94
Washington, University of, History Department of, 15
Washington Post, 91, 155, 156–57
Washington Post Book World, 25
Waters, Ray, 287
Watt, Donald Cameron, xv, 120–22, 186, 278–79, 283
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 293
Weiglin, Paul, 250
Weimar government, 164
Weiss, Paula, 281
West Bank, 300
Westerbork, 134
Wexner, Abigail, 37, 38, 275–76
Wexner, Leslie, 37–39, 79, 275–76
Wexner Heritage Foundation, 37, 281
White House Office of Presidential Personnel, 58
Wiesel, Elie, 124
Wiking-Jugend, 20
Wilmott, Chester, 187
witness statement, 33
women, Irving’s views on, 177, 183
Worch, Christian, 236
World War I, 221
World War II, 35, 37, 56, 81, 299
Allied bombing of Dresden in, see Dresden,
Allied bombing of Allied bombing of Pforzheim in, 206, 207
atom bomb and, 125
Bletchley Park intercepts in, 111
effects of destruction of Lidice in, 325n
Irving’s books on, xiii, xx, 18–19; see also specific books
photographic distortions and, 205–7
see also Eastern front, murder of Jews on; Holocaust; specific countries
Yad Vashem, 197
Yevtushenko, Yevgeny, 13
Zeit, Die, 23
Ziedan, Yousef, 300, 328n
Zionism, 6, 300
Zitelmann, Rainer, 22–23
Irving’s correspondence with, 117, 118
Zündel, Ernst, 236, 239, 240
Leuchter sent to Auschwitz by, 21, 33, 35
trial of, xx, 21, 44–45, 96, 100, 122, 311n, 322n
Zyklon B, 60, 62, 118, 136–37, 315n
dropped from roof, 138, 140, 142
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the author
* * *
Meet Deborah E. Lipstadt
About the book
* * *
Why I Wrote History on Trial
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
Read on
* * *
Cold: On the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz
About the author
Meet Deborah E. Lipstadt
DR. DEBORAH E. LIPSTADT is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, where she directs the Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies. She is 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.
Professor Lipstadt was a member of the official White House delegation to the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz (January 26–27, 2005). She served as a historical consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and was subsequently appointed by President Clinton to two consecutive terms on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. She was a member of the Ex
ecutive Committee of the Council and chaired the Educational Committee and Academic Committee of the Holocaust Museum. In addition, Professor Lipstadt has been called upon by members of the United States Congress to consult on political responses to Holocaust denial. From 1996 through 1999 she served as a member of the United States State Department Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad. In this capacity she, together with a small group of leaders and scholars, advised Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on matters of religious persecution abroad.
“She advised Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on matters of religious persecution abroad.”
Professor Lipstadt has taught at the University of Washington and UCLA. In Spring 2006, she was a visiting professor at the Pontifical Gregorian Institute in Rome where she taught a course on Holocaust memoirs. She is frequently called upon by the media to comment on matters of contemporary interest. She is widely quoted in and a regular contributor to a variety of periodicals.
She maintains a Weblog (blog) at www.lipstadt.blogspot.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
About the book
Why I Wrote History on Trial
THIS BOOK TRIES TO CONVEY THE EXPERIENCE of going from a relatively quiet existence as a professor to being a defendant in a six-year legal battle that garnered worldwide attention. For three months in the winter of 2000, in courtroom 73 of the Royal High Court in London, Judge Charles Gray presided over Irving v. Penguin and Lipstadt. I sat quietly listening as David Irving attacked me and my work. He aimed his barbs not only at me, but at Holocaust history and at the Jewish community. Much, if not all, of what he said about me was simply wrong. Yet there was little I could do to challenge it because at the insistence of my attorneys I was neither testifying nor giving press interviews. Though my words had provoked this libel case, I had to depend on others to make my case for me. For someone who has always tried to maintain control over her life this was excruciatingly difficult.
Though keeping quiet was extraordinarily hard, in many other respects I was lucky. I had a stellar legal team. They tracked Irving’s sources. At that point, his inventions and distortions could not abide the light of day. His claims collapsed.
I faced another obstacle. I had to raise 1.5 million dollars to pay for my defense. Luckily a group of people, both Jews and non-Jews, stepped forward to assist me. They asked for no public recognition. In fact, many of them thanked me for the opportunity to be part of this effort.
“Keeping quiet was extraordinarily hard.”
In addition, my university, Emory, supported me in an unprecedented fashion, giving me travel funds, reduced teaching loads, and great moral support. Emory even hired someone to teach my courses while I was in London, thereby preserving the students’ opportunity to learn about the Holocaust. One of my objectives in writing this book was to inform readers not only about the mendacity of Holocaust deniers, but also about the sort of goodness exemplified by my supporters. This generosity is a major part of the story.
“My interactions with Holocaust survivors were profoundly powerful.”
Another significant aspect of this experience was the response of Holocaust survivors. My interactions with them were profoundly powerful. They sat quietly in court while Irving ridiculed them and claimed that they were either liars or psychotic. They kept telling me that I was their “hero.” While I appreciate being praised for what I do, I found their adulation unnerving. I felt undeserving of such gratitude from Holocaust survivors.
Only after the trial did I realize that their praise had less to do with what I had done and far more to do with what had not been done sixty years earlier, when they so desperately needed help. I was reminded of the verse in Exodus that describes Moses’s encounter with an Egyptian taskmaster beating an Israelite slave:
And Moses looked here and there and he saw that there was no person and killed the Egyptian.
Rabbinic commentators, uncomfortable with the textual suggestion that Moses was checking to ensure no one would see him kill the Egyptian, say he was actually looking for a “person, someone of stature” to do justice. When he realized there was no one to dispense justice he knew he had to act on his own.
“For the Holocaust victim, the callousness of the bystander was almost as painful as the cruelty of the perpetrator.”
During the Holocaust the victims looked “here and there” for help. There were few persons, governments, or institutions, including the Red Cross and the Vatican, willing to respond. It was not necessarily antisemitism which motivated their inaction. Many simply did not care. In the face of evil they were neutral. All that Jews heard was a resounding, if not deafening, silence. For the victim, the callousness of the bystander was almost as painful as the cruelty of the perpetrator.
Now, many decades later and in vastly different circumstances, survivors felt that there was someone to fight for them. This time there was no neutrality. In defending myself against Irving I had pierced the silence that so haunted them. It did not matter that my fight could not, in any way, be compared to the suffering they experienced. It did not matter that I faced no physical threat. It did not matter that my battle could not bring back their loved ones or mitigate their suffering. My fight became symbolic of what had been absent sixty years earlier. In dramatic contrast to the Holocaust, this time they, for they saw themselves as standing by my side, won.
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
Since the publication of History on Trial Professor Lipstadt has heard from many readers. Here, she shares her responses to the questions they most often ask her.
“There is a massive cache of documents about the Holocaust in general and the killing process in particular.”
In what way was history on trial?
Because I was the defendant and the trial was being held in a UK courtroom we had to prove the truth of what I had written about David Irving. We had to demonstrate that his “version” of history as it regards the Holocaust was bogus. And we did precisely this. We also demonstrated that you can’t say history means anything you want it to mean. You must maintain a fidelity to the facts. There is a massive cache of documents about the Holocaust in general and the killing process in particular. We know in fairly great precision how the murders and, for that matter, the entire Final Solution were conducted. While various historians may interpret these documents differently, they can’t and don’t invent things that are not there.
Besides debunking Irving, what else did the trial accomplish?
This trial was a victory for history and historians. A stellar team of historians did scrupulous research which guaranteed our victory. In essence, this trial was emblematic of the passing of the torch of memory from Holocaust survivors, the youngest of whom are in their seventies, to historians. Poet Paul Celan asked who will be the witnesses for the witnesses? This trial demonstrated that historians will be those witnesses.
The trial also demonstrated to people who might have thought that there was a semblance of truth to deniers’ arguments that they are bunk. We proved to Judge Gray and to four judges from the Court of Appeal that deniers have made up their claims out of whole cloth.
Why did you fight back?
In Britain the defendant must prove the truth of what she wrote. If I had not defended myself, Irving would have won by default and could have claimed that the Royal High Court of Justice declared his description of the Holocaust to be legitimate.
Remember, this is a man who moved in two worlds. His books were being reviewed in venues such as the New York Times and the Times Literary Supplement. Privately he was telling audiences at his talks things like: “More people died in Senator Kennedy’s car in Chappaquiddick than died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.” He wasn’t dangerous because of absurd statements such as this. He was dangerous because he was thought of as a serious historian with a “bit” of a problem about the Holocaust.
“In Britain, the defendant must prove the truth of w
hat she wrote.”
Does David Irving understand that the suit backfired on him?
I have no idea, but it certainly did. If he had not sued me, no one would have known the extent to which he fabricated and misrepresented evidence. Historians had long known that he wasn’t telling the truth when he claimed he could exonerate Hitler, prove no one was gassed in Auschwitz, or demonstrate that there was no plan to murder the Jews. However, no one knew how blatant his misrepresentations of history were. Irving may have thought he could get away with mangling history. Once he sued me, his house of cards collapsed.
“No one knew how blatant his misrepresentations of history were.”
Would the trial and its outcome have been different if there had been a jury?
I don’t think so. However, we might have presented the case differently. A jury might not have read the thousands of documents as carefully as Judge Gray did. We would have had to follow the historical narrative in a more orderly fashion and present the experts’ findings in greater detail in the courtroom. It probably would have been—I shudder at the thought—a much longer trial.
The other difference would have been that a jury would have delivered a verdict, but not the 350-page judgment which so stunningly excoriated Irving. The Observer described the judgment as “one of the most crushing judgments ever dumped over an English plaintiff.”
What’s happened to Holocaust denial since your trial?
Many Holocaust denial groups have fallen upon hard times. Some have closed up shop. Irving and (by extension) the deniers’ loss was so overwhelming—if not embarrassing—that much of the support for the denial movement melted away. It may eventually resurrect itself, but for the moment it seems to be on the ropes. This is not just my opinion. Bradley R. Smith, a leading Holocaust denier, recently wrote: “Irving’s defeat at that trial was the most serious single blow that revisionism has ever received. . . . It was the Lipstadt trial that convinced serious people that, okay, revisionists had taken an interesting run at the Holocaust story, they had failed in full view of the Western world, and there was no reason to worry about Holocaust revisionism any longer.” For once I find myself agreeing with a denier.