Lipstadt: Irving Should Be Free
The Jewish academic who defeated the notorious British historian David Irving in court has called for him to be released by Austria where he is being held on Holocaust denial charges.
Professor Deborah Lipstadt, whose successful defence of a High Court action brought by Irving saw him branded an anti-semite by Mr Justice Gray, claimed prosecuting him would give him much-needed publicity.
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She described Holocaust deniers as “liars”, but added, “We should not allow them to become martyrs. Nothing is served by having David Irving in a jail cell, except that he has become an international news issue.”
Irving’s reputation as a serious historian was destroyed following the January 2000 court case but he has continued to find sympathetic organisations around the world willing to host his lecture tours.
It was while travelling to deliver such a speech to an Austrian student group in November last year that he was arrested on suspicion of denying the Shoah in two lectures he gave in the country in 1989.
He was later charged under Austrian laws that prohibit Holocaust denial and has been held in prison since then. He is due to appear in court on 20 February and could face up to 10 years in prison.
Lipstadt said she was against such laws on principle because they “turn Holocaust denial into forbidden fruit and make it more attractive to people who want to challenge the system”.
But despite being a supporter of free speech, she described Austria as “different” because it was “not so far the Third Reich” and felt greater sensitivity over neo-nazism and revisionism.
Stephen Smith, chair of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said at the time of Irving’s arrest: “Behind the words sits a devious ideological intent. It demands the kind of actions that no one wants repeated. It is a covert call to complete what Hitler did not finish. It is incitement to genocide.”
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