A Dangerous Falsifier of Holocaust History

I read an article today on Yahoo! entitled "Holocaust Denier Gets Three Years in Jail." According to the article, British revisionist historian David Irving was recently sentenced to three years in prison by an Austrian court for denying the Holocaust. Irving originally denied that there were no gas chambers at the Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz. However, during his one-day trial, he admitted that he had "made a mistake."

Six million Jews perished at the hands of Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution." Not only did Hitler systematically exterminate innocent Jews, but others who he felt were undesirable such as homosexuals, the mentally ill, Communists, Gypsies, Jehovah Witnesses, and prostitutes. Anyone who was in a political camp that opposed Hitler's insanity was also eliminated. Millions of people were shipped in cattle cars to Nazi death and extermination camps in both German and Poland. They were told that they were being relocated to settlement camps.

Once in these death factories, the victims were subjected to mental and physical abuse and torture. They were slaves in forced labor, starved, beaten and tortured. Doctor Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death, subjected many victims to cruel experiments. Twins were targeted for especially cruel experiments that led to disfiguration and death. Inmates were shot and hung in public executions. Those who were not immediately executed died of diseases such as typhus.

However, the preferred method of extermination of most inmates was the gas chambers. On or about July 31, 1944, the entire Gypsy population of Auschwitz was exterminated in these gas chambers. Those who fought against the Nazis were shot. Frightened inmates were herded naked into these huge chambers of death and exposed to Zyklon-B, a lethal poison gas. Once these prisoners died, their bodies were taken by the Sonderkommando crews, composed of male Jewish inmates, to the crematoria and burned. The fat from the babies and women were used to fuel these hell fires. Later, the ashes were dumped into a pond in what was known as "The Little Wood."

Toward the end of the war, the Nazis began to cover their tracks, destroying the crematoria and forcing the prisoners to go on lengthy death marches in the harsh winter. Many died on these marches from exhaustion or were shot if they failed to keep pace. Over the decades, less than ethical individuals such as Irving have emerged to publicly deny the Holocaust both verbally and in print.

Did Irving in fact make an innocent "mistake" or had he deliberately falsified history for his own financial benefit? Irving is the author of a Holocaust denial book entitled "Hitler's War." The book is allegedly a bestseller. You can download it for free HERE. In his 1977 book, Irving claims that Hitler was not aware of the genocide against the Jews nor did he mastermind a "Final Solution." He thought that the gas chambers of Auschwitz weren't even worth mentioning in a footnote in his book due to the fact that they are merely a Jewish "myth."

Having written both a screenplay and novel entitled "The Roar of the Beast" that deals with the atrocities of the Holocaust, I have done years of painstaking research. I have read testimonies from both Nazis and Jews who admitted the existence of the Auschwitz gas chambers. I have viewed many photos proving the existence of these death factories. I am appalled that anyone could sincerely deny the existence of not only the Holocaust, but the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

One excellent book I recommend is entitled "Sonderkommando: The Holocaust Odyssey of Daniel Bennahmias." The book is written by Rebecca Camhi Fromer and is available at The University of Alabama Press. This 1993 book chronicles Bennahmias false imprisonment in Auschwitz and his forced assignment as a Sonderkommando. Bennahmias was one of a handful of Sonderkommando who were fortunate enough to survive to document the atrocities he was forced to participate in. Wanting to cover their tracks, the Nazis would systematically execute the entire Jewish Sonderkommando approximately every four months and replace them with new victims.

Irving deserves the sentence he's recently received. Of course he's entitled to free speech, but he is not entitled to financially profit from deliberate hateful false representations of history. At the time he published his bestselling biography, he knew or should have known that his statements and version of Holocaust history were false. In fact, he not only knew and profited from such, he used the court system to sue Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt for libel. Fortunately, he lost his case as the court upheld Lipstadt's claims that Irving "is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist."

Irving became an icon to Neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers across the world. Despite Irving's cult following, his books have been widely discredited. Not only did Lipstadt have the courage to oppose Irving, so did the Anti-Defamation League. Apparently, Irving has no academic credentials as a historian and has never earned a college degree. Yet, despite his qualifications and his blatant racism, he has been a speaker for the California-based Institute for Historical Review (IHR), the leading Holocaust-denial organization in the world. He has also lent his name and endorsement to a Nazi regime newspaper in Germany. Irving also spoke at a conference with former KKK leader and Neo-Nazi David Duke.

Clearly, Irving was not attempting to present an alternative history of the Holocaust, but deliberately intended to support Neo-Nazi hate groups and to sell copies of his book. In May 1992, a German court found Irving guilty of violating hate crime laws when he asserted that the Auschwitz gas chambers were "fakes" built after the war as Polish tourist attractions. In May 1988, Irving testified under oath that he found "no document whatsoever indicating the Holocaust occurred." In April 1990, a German newspaper quoted Irving as follows: "The holocaust of the Jews in the Auschwitz gas chambers is a fabrication." In 1989, Irving attacked Holocaust survivors' eyewitness testimony, claiming, "I do not think there were any gas chambers or any master plan. It's just a myth and at last the myth is being eroded.... Eyewitness evidence is a problem for psychiatrists."

Irving is now conveniently and maliciously attacking survivors of the Holocaust, essentially claiming they are mentally ill for bearing witness to the atrocities they witnessed. Irving goes even farther by threatening the Jews with violence, stating in February 1992, "The Jews are very foolish not to abandon the gas chamber theory while they still have time." He also claims that the Jews "have exploited people with the gas chamber legend." Yet, Irving's version of history is factually inaccurate with hundreds of mistakes including wrong names and dates as well as false and undocumented statements. Ironically, Irving boasts, "My reputation is, oddly enough, more important than money."

I support the Austrian legal system for having the moral conviction to indict such an evil person as Irving. Now, when he is proven wrong in a court of law and must face the consequences of his malicious actions, he is seeking pity and forgiveness from those he has wrongfully harmed. He is not being sincere, but is playing the sympathy card to circumvent his inevitable incarceration. Irving feels that his sentence is in violation of his rights to free speech. He stated, "Of course it's a question of freedom of speech. The law is an ass." But many individuals feel otherwise such as State prosecutor Michael Klackl who commented that "He is everything but a historian ... He is a dangerous falsifier of history." Klackl feels Irving has abused his rights to free speech. The Simon Wiesenthal Center adamantly supported the verdict. Irving plans to appeal the decision.

-- Des Manttari,
Editor-in-Chief,
Phoenix Genesis

(c) 2006: Phoenix Genesis/MBS LP

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