DENIAL: HOLOCAUST HISTORY ON TRIAL PDF, EPUB, EBOOK

Deborah E. Lipstadt | 400 pages | 12 Jan 2017 | HarperCollins Publishers Inc | 9780062659651 | English | New York, United States Irving v Ltd - Wikipedia

Reliance on reliable sources even if they prove false is a valid defence. English libel law requires only that the claimant show that the statements are defamatory. The burden of proof falls on the defendant to prove that the statements were substantially true and reliance on sources is irrelevant. Lipstadt feared that such a verdict would confer legitimacy upon Irving's claims and felt compelled to defend herself. To succeed with a justification defence , the defence would need to prove as substantially true all of the defamatory claims made by Lipstadt against Irving. The judge understood these claims to be,. Lipstadt hired the British solicitor to present her case. Together they briefed the libel barrister, Richard Rampton QC. Penguin also instructed Heather Rogers as junior barrister. Penguin knew that they were going to have to dig deep to defend against Irving's claims. Lipstadt's claims would need to be backed up by experts and Penguin would foot the bill, retaining Professor Richard J. Van Pelt, Browning and Longerich were assigned to the first part. Funke wrote a report for the second and Evans the third. The lawyers for Lipstadt Mishcon de Reya and Penguin Davenport Lyons worked closely, for the most part agreeing on the way to deal with the claim. One minor setback came when Penguin and their lawyers Davenport Lyons were keen that the information provided by the experts they had instructed be incorporated in an amended defence which Heather Rogers drafted. Initially Mishcon were unpersuaded but Davenport Lyons were insistent, feeling that the amended document provided a clear statement of the strong evidence against Irving. The decision was eventually left to Richard Rampton and Heather Rogers as they would be presenting the case and both were in favour of amending; Mishcon relented. The testimony of van Pelt and Evans proved to be the most substantial. During cross- examination, Irving was unable to undermine either Evans, who had been highly critical of his scholarship or van Pelt, whose report concentrated on the evidence that contradicted deniers' arguments about Auschwitz Birkenau. Evans was assisted by two postgraduates as researchers Thomas Skelton-Robinson and Nik Wachsmann ; Evans and his students took 18 months to write a page report, finishing it in the summer of He also suggested to Penguin that they keep any terms confidential because he had no intention of settling with Lipstadt. Bays and Bateman made clear that the publisher rejected his terms. Lipstadt instructed her lawyers to reject the offer. Lipstadt not to; D. Guttenplan 's book outlined how Penguin dismissed Irving for several reasons, including contempt for him and dismay over the certainty that the publisher would have been called by Lipstadt's lawyers as plaintiff advocates if they had settled the lawsuit. Evans and his two assistants spent more than two years examining Irving's work. This research found that Irving had misrepresented historical evidence to support his prejudices. In his report and testimony, Evans suggested that in his view, Irving had knowingly used forged documents as sources, and that for this reason, Irving could not be regarded as a historian. His conclusions were that. Not one of [Irving's] books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject. All of them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about. During the trial, Evans was cross-examined by Irving. Guttenplan later wrote that the cross-examination of Evans by Irving contained a high degree of personal antagonism between the two men. It is because you want to interpret euphemisms as being literal and that is what the whole problem is. Every time there is an euphemism, Mr. That is part of In , Evans described his impression of Irving after being cross-examined by him as "He [Irving] was a bit like a dim student who didn't listen. If he didn't get the answer he wanted, he just repeated the question. Longerich testified to the meaning of the often euphemistic language used by German officials during the war regarding the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question", and argued that from onwards, the term "resettlement in the East" was a metaphor for deportation to the death camps. During his testimony and a cross-examination by Irving, Browning countered Irving's suggestion that the last chapter of the Holocaust has yet to be written implying there were grounds for doubting the reality of the Holocaust by replying: "We are still discovering things about the Roman Empire. There is no last chapter in history. Browning testified that the Madagascar Plan of —41 was "fantastic" and "bizarre", but countered Irving's suggestion that this proves the alleged impossibility of the Holocaust by stating: " I do think they took it seriously. It is fantastic, but of course, Auschwitz is fantastic, too". They would have tried to implement it just as they tried to implement the Lublin reservation plan [Browning was referring to the Nisko Plan here] and just as they tried and succeeded in implementing the death camp plans. Browning categorically rejected Irving's claim that there was no reliable statistical information on the size of the pre-war Jewish population in Europe or on the killing processes and argued that the only reason historians debate whether five or six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust is due to a lack of access to archives in the former Soviet Union. Browning responded to Irving's claim that because Browning had done work for the Yad Vashem centre in Jerusalem that made him an "Israeli agent" and thereby compromised his scholarly abilities by stating: "If that was the case, then since I had been at the [US] Holocaust Museum, I would also have been an agent of the American government, and since I have received scholarships in Germany, I would be an agent of the German government, so I must be a very duplicitous fellow to be able to follow these regimes. Robert Jan van Pelt , an architectural historian, was engaged by the defence as an expert witness. He prepared a page report, in which he examined the evidence for the existence of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. He also defended himself on cross-examination. Rampton and van Pelt had bonded on a trip to Auschwitz with Rogers and Bateman and they had spent hours talking through Irving's claims. Van Pelt took the three lawyers and around Birkenau showing them how Irving's claims were false and the mistake he had made about the physical layout. He later adapted the report he wrote into book form. In the trial, Irving represented himself. He called the American Kevin B. MacDonald , an evolutionary psychologist , to testify on his behalf. Mayer , who Irving went to pains to point out was both a Marxist and a man who would have been considered Jewish in Nazi racial theory, in his book Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? Irving also subpoenaed the diplomatic historian Donald Cameron Watt and the military historian John Keegan to testify in his case against Lipstadt; both men had refused an earlier offer to testify for Irving on their own and appeared to be very reluctant on the stand. Rather than focus on the defence's evidence against him, or on whether or not Lipstadt had defamed him, Irving seemed to focus mainly on his "right to free speech ". In his closing statement, Irving claimed to have been a victim of an international, mostly Jewish, conspiracy for more than three decades. The judgment was presented on 11 April , although the lawyers had received the decision 24 hours earlier. The written judgment came out to pages. Having considered the various arguments advanced by Irving to assail the effect of the convergent evidence relied upon by the Defendants, it is my conclusion that no objective, fair-minded historian would have serious cause to doubt that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz and that they were operated on a substantial scale to kill hundreds of thousands of Jews," [62] and "it follows that it is my conclusion that Irving's denials of these propositions were contrary to the evidence. Ultimately, the judge ruled that the defence succeeded in proving everything they claimed in trial but for two assertions: that Irving had broken an agreement with the Moscow archives and mishandled the glass plates containing Goebbels' diaries, and that he hung a portrait of Hitler above his desk. Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist, and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism Irving subsequently appealed to the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal. In light of the evidence presented at the trial, a number of Irving's works that had previously escaped serious scrutiny were brought to public attention. He was also liable to pay all of the substantial costs of the trial between one and two million pounds , which ruined him financially and forced him into bankruptcy in In , Irving pleaded guilty to the charge of denying the Holocaust in Austria, where is a crime and where an arrest warrant was issued based on speeches he made in Irving knew that the warrant had been issued and that he was banned from Austria, but chose to go to Austria anyway. After he was arrested, Irving claimed in his plea that he changed his opinions on the Holocaust, "I said that then based on my knowledge at the time, but by when I came across the Eichmann papers, I wasn't saying that anymore and I wouldn't say that now. The Nazis did murder millions of Jews. The way of fighting Holocaust deniers is with history and with truth. The case was often referred to by the media as "history on trial. Some saw the case as a vindication of the UK's strict libel laws. Evans noted that some articles assumed that Lipstadt was suing Irving even though the plaintiff's name appears first in the court filing and they could have figured this out, and also that Lipstadt was accused of "trying to silence" Irving by launching a defence against Irving's own lawsuit a lawsuit that would have ended in Lipstadt being silenced in the UK by having her book removed from circulation if Irving had won the case. Lipstadt's book on the trial, History on Trial: My Day in Court with via its Book TV programme, but the cable network was heavily criticized when it was revealed that they had planned to put together a de facto debate between Dr. Sign In. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Full Cast and Crew. Release Dates. Official Sites. Company Credits. Technical Specs. Plot Summary. Plot Keywords. Parents Guide. External Sites. User Reviews. User Ratings. External Reviews. Metacritic Reviews. Photo Gallery. Trailers and Videos. Crazy Credits. Alternate Versions. Rate This. Acclaimed writer and historian Deborah E. Lipstadt must battle for historical truth to prove the Holocaust actually occurred when David Irving, a renowned denier, sues her for libel. Director: Mick Jackson. Lipstadt , David Hare screenplay by. Added to Watchlist. From metacritic. The Evolution of Armie Hammer. Best Films of Movies I've Watched in Share this Rating Title: Denial 6. Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Another 2 nominations. Edit Cast Cast overview, first billed only: Rachel Weisz Deborah Lipstadt Tom Wilkinson Richard Rampton Timothy Spall David Irving Andrew Scott Anthony Julius Jack Lowden James Libson Caren Pistorius Laura Tyler Alex Jennings Sir Charles Gray Harriet Walter Vera Reich Mark Gatiss Richard Evans Nikki Amuka-Bird Libby Holbrook Pip Carter Anthony Forbes-Watson Jackie Clune Heather Rogers Will Attenborough Thomas Skelton-Robinson Max Befort Taglines: Based on a true story. Edit Did You Know? History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier by Deborah E. Lipstadt

For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now. Javascript is not enabled in your browser. Enabling JavaScript in your browser will allow you to experience all the features of our site. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. NOOK Book. Home 1 Books 2. Read an excerpt of this book! Add to Wishlist. Sign in to Purchase Instantly. Members save with free shipping everyday! See details. She prepared her defense with the help of a first-rate team of solicitors, historians, and experts, and a dramatic trial unfolded. Product Details About the Author. About the Author Deborah E. Related Searches. Bourbon: A History of the American Spirit. View Product. Case History Of A Movie. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the s and before, are Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History. None of this sense of outraged surprise made it through to the movie. When Van Pelt arrived from Canada, heavily jet-lagged, and took the witness stand, Irving ambushed him towards the end of the day with a specious point that would have taken a good deal of time to refute, much to our consternation. In addition, since movies of course need a touch of glamour, the role of Laura Tyler, a young paralegal assistant who helped prepare and organise the defence, is strengthened by scenes from her private life. The courtroom scenes are taken directly from the trial transcripts, as they ultimately had to be. Some of the dialogue surrounding the trial is invented, and the personality traits of some of the characters are exaggerated Richard Rampton, for example, was, and is, a bit of a wine buff, but to have him appearing in virtually every scene outside the courtroom clutching a bottle of claret seemed to be rather over the top. But none of this, apart from the initial remarks of myself and my researchers at the preparatory conference, seems to me to betray the essence of what the trial was about or how it was fought. Her allegations also affected his earnings, since his reputation was built not only on his racy and readable prose style but also on his claim to have discovered more original sources and to be more accurate and thorough than other historians were. That is where I came in. In the event, I found that Irving was indeed a Holocaust denier, at least after the late s. If Irving had merely been careless, then his mistakes of fact and quotation would have had a random effect on his arguments, some telling for them, some against. The trial was also the subject of a hastily put together drama-documentary on Channel 4 television, in which I appeared in the witness box as an old man with a white beard, which was evidently what the television people thought Cambridge professors looked like. Some time later, however, there was a more considered documentary on BBC Two, Holocaust on Trial , for which the producers phoned me up beforehand to ask me my age, height, weight and hair colour, with a view to casting an actor who at least looked vaguely like me. The programme was an effective and intelligent mix of archive footage, talking heads and courtroom scenes. Media interest in the case did not die down after the broadcast. The problem, I guess, was that it is notoriously difficult to make courtroom dramas work on the big screen. I told him I felt by this time that it had been a kind of black comedy: it was an action that should never have been brought, with many absurdities Holocaust denial being the most obvious, but by no means the only one , at the same time as it dealt with the most profound and disturbing of historical issues. Hare commented that everyone he had talked to had viewed the trial in a different light. As the two lawyers explain in the film — with the stiff-upper-lip Britishness contrasted with American brashness — the aim of the defence is to focus exclusively on Irving and his writings and speeches. In a series of meetings to prepare for the trial we assembled a starry cast of experts including Christopher Browning, the leading American specialist on the Holocaust, Robert Jan van Pelt, the Dutch-Canadian historian of Auschwitz and its buildings, and Peter Longerich, author of the major German work in the field. David Hare reduced this team to just Van Pelt and myself. What it did do very well was to transform the tedious and often pedantic detail of the courtroom proceedings into a brief and dramatic summary. In fact, Van Pelt recovered strongly the next day, though this does not really come across on the screen. Perhaps all this means is that indeed, as David Hare had pointed out to me, everyone involved in the trial had a different perspective on it. Understandable though her anxieties were in retrospect, none of us on the defence side had the slightest doubt that we would win; the only question was by how much. Overall, the film is, I think, true to the spirit and mostly also true to the letter of the whole affair. The movie also — perhaps inevitably — plays on the familiar stereotypes of the feisty American and the restrained Brit. Professor Richard J Evans was regius professor of history at the University of Cambridge from until his retirement in What the film did very well was to transform the tedious and often pedantic detail of the courtroom proceedings into a brief and dramatic summary. Your guide to the Roman empire: when it was formed, why it split and how it failed, plus its most colourful emperors. More on: United Kingdom. Denial () - IMDb

Together they briefed the libel barrister, Richard Rampton QC. Penguin also instructed Heather Rogers as junior barrister. Penguin knew that they were going to have to dig deep to defend against Irving's claims. Lipstadt's claims would need to be backed up by experts and Penguin would foot the bill, retaining Professor Richard J. Van Pelt, Browning and Longerich were assigned to the first part. Funke wrote a report for the second and Evans the third. The lawyers for Lipstadt Mishcon de Reya and Penguin Davenport Lyons worked closely, for the most part agreeing on the way to deal with the claim. One minor setback came when Penguin and their lawyers Davenport Lyons were keen that the information provided by the experts they had instructed be incorporated in an amended defence which Heather Rogers drafted. Initially Mishcon were unpersuaded but Davenport Lyons were insistent, feeling that the amended document provided a clear statement of the strong evidence against Irving. The decision was eventually left to Richard Rampton and Heather Rogers as they would be presenting the case and both were in favour of amending; Mishcon relented. The testimony of van Pelt and Evans proved to be the most substantial. During cross-examination, Irving was unable to undermine either Evans, who had been highly critical of his scholarship or van Pelt, whose report concentrated on the evidence that contradicted the holocaust deniers' arguments about Auschwitz Birkenau. Evans was assisted by two postgraduates as researchers Thomas Skelton-Robinson and Nik Wachsmann ; Evans and his students took 18 months to write a page report, finishing it in the summer of He also suggested to Penguin that they keep any terms confidential because he had no intention of settling with Lipstadt. Bays and Bateman made clear that the publisher rejected his terms. Lipstadt instructed her lawyers to reject the offer. Lipstadt not to; D. Guttenplan 's book outlined how Penguin dismissed Irving for several reasons, including contempt for him and dismay over the certainty that the publisher would have been called by Lipstadt's lawyers as plaintiff advocates if they had settled the lawsuit. Evans and his two assistants spent more than two years examining Irving's work. This research found that Irving had misrepresented historical evidence to support his prejudices. In his report and testimony, Evans suggested that in his view, Irving had knowingly used forged documents as sources, and that for this reason, Irving could not be regarded as a historian. His conclusions were that. Not one of [Irving's] books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject. All of them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about. During the trial, Evans was cross-examined by Irving. Guttenplan later wrote that the cross-examination of Evans by Irving contained a high degree of personal antagonism between the two men. It is because you want to interpret euphemisms as being literal and that is what the whole problem is. Every time there is an euphemism, Mr. That is part of In , Evans described his impression of Irving after being cross-examined by him as "He [Irving] was a bit like a dim student who didn't listen. If he didn't get the answer he wanted, he just repeated the question. Longerich testified to the meaning of the often euphemistic language used by German officials during the war regarding the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question", and argued that from onwards, the term "resettlement in the East" was a metaphor for deportation to the death camps. During his testimony and a cross-examination by Irving, Browning countered Irving's suggestion that the last chapter of the Holocaust has yet to be written implying there were grounds for doubting the reality of the Holocaust by replying: "We are still discovering things about the Roman Empire. There is no last chapter in history. Browning testified that the Madagascar Plan of —41 was "fantastic" and "bizarre", but countered Irving's suggestion that this proves the alleged impossibility of the Holocaust by stating: " I do think they took it seriously. It is fantastic, but of course, Auschwitz is fantastic, too". They would have tried to implement it just as they tried to implement the Lublin reservation plan [Browning was referring to the Nisko Plan here] and just as they tried and succeeded in implementing the death camp plans. Browning categorically rejected Irving's claim that there was no reliable statistical information on the size of the pre-war Jewish population in Europe or on the killing processes and argued that the only reason historians debate whether five or six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust is due to a lack of access to archives in the former Soviet Union. Browning responded to Irving's claim that because Browning had done work for the Yad Vashem centre in Jerusalem that made him an "Israeli agent" and thereby compromised his scholarly abilities by stating: "If that was the case, then since I had been at the [US] Holocaust Museum, I would also have been an agent of the American government, and since I have received scholarships in Germany, I would be an agent of the German government, so I must be a very duplicitous fellow to be able to follow these regimes. Robert Jan van Pelt , an architectural historian, was engaged by the defence as an expert witness. He prepared a page report, in which he examined the evidence for the existence of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. He also defended himself on cross-examination. Rampton and van Pelt had bonded on a trip to Auschwitz with Rogers and Bateman and they had spent hours talking through Irving's claims. Van Pelt took the three lawyers and Deborah Lipstadt around Birkenau showing them how Irving's claims were false and the mistake he had made about the physical layout. He later adapted the report he wrote into book form. In the trial, Irving represented himself. He called the American Kevin B. MacDonald , an evolutionary psychologist , to testify on his behalf. Mayer , who Irving went to pains to point out was both a Marxist and a man who would have been considered Jewish in Nazi racial theory, in his book Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? Irving also subpoenaed the diplomatic historian Donald Cameron Watt and the military historian John Keegan to testify in his case against Lipstadt; both men had refused an earlier offer to testify for Irving on their own and appeared to be very reluctant on the stand. Smallpox epidemics, drought, and Native American attacks unsettled Puritan society. Witch hysteria arose, then, with charges against a beggar and a Europe: A History. Here is a masterpiece of historical narrative that stretches from the Ice Age to the Here is a masterpiece of historical narrative that stretches from the Ice Age to the Atomic Age, as it tells the story of Europe, East and West. Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth. Why the Church must defend the truth. Our ongoing fascination with alternative Christianities is ondisplay every Our ongoing fascination with alternative Christianities is ondisplay every time a never-before-seen gospel text is revealed,an archaeological discovery about Jesus makes front-page news, or anew work of fiction challenges the very foundations of the Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours. Physicians in ancient Greece believed four humours flowed within the human body—blood, phlegm, black bile, Physicians in ancient Greece believed four humours flowed within the human body—blood, phlegm, black bile, and choler—determining a person's health, mood, and character. Not until the seventeenth century would a more complex view of the anatomy begin to emerge. Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History. HarperCollins Publishers. That got his attention. He got up and I explained who I was. He remembered the occasion. Not long after this, Ridley Scott started to put together a movie on the case, commissioning the playwright Ronald Harwood to write a screenplay. Harwood had just won an Oscar for The Pianist and knew a lot about the Nazi period, which he had covered in a number of plays and movies. As someone who was present for most of the three-month Irving trial, I can testify to the fact that trials are mostly tedious in the extreme, with lengthy periods of acute boredom punctuated only briefly by the occasional moment of high drama. These were very few and far between in the Irving v Lipstadt case. Also, there was no individual, personal story on which to hang the action. Movies need a human figure or figures on which to focus and with whom the audience can identify, and in a large and complex legal action there seemed to be nobody who could fit the bill. The book is her own, very personal, account of the trial, beginning with her consternation at being served with an English high court writ, and going on to depict her relations with the lawyers who handled her defence, the solicitor Anthony Julius and the barrister Richard Rampton in the lead. Lipstadt described in detail, often movingly, the frightening experience of a lone author with little or no means being sued for a large sum of money, and facing a complete loss of academic reputation if she lost. He came to see me as part of a series of interviews of participants in the Irving v Lipstadt trial and, as his assistant took copious notes, we talked for two hours about my memories and impressions of a case that now lay more than a decade in the past. In the film we see her shocked and dismayed when the writ is so unexpectedly served, and we follow her determination to defend herself in court as she makes her way to London. Once there, she is shocked all over again when Julius and Rampton tell her she will not be allowed to go onto the witness stand or indeed to say anything at all either inside the courtroom or outside it until the trial is over. Anything that distracted from this would allow him to shift this focus away and muddy the waters. The burden of the defence must rest on the contributions of the expert witnesses, they declare. Reluctantly, Deborah Lipstadt agrees. As we set to work on going through his writings, we became progressively more astonished at what we found. None of this sense of outraged surprise made it through to the movie. When Van Pelt arrived from Canada, heavily jet-lagged, and took the witness stand, Irving ambushed him towards the end of the day with a specious point that would have taken a good deal of time to refute, much to our consternation.

Home | Holocaust Denial on Trial

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the s and before, are Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History. In this gripping memoir, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first time his experience counseling Kennedy through the most dramatic moments in American history. Sorensen returns to January , when he and the freshman senator from Massachusetts Cry Witch! Amid a time of turmoil, the afflicted girls of Salem, Massachusetts cried out against Amid a time of turmoil, the afflicted girls of Salem, Massachusetts cried out against scores of accused witches. Smallpox epidemics, drought, and Native American attacks unsettled Puritan society. Witch hysteria arose, then, with charges against a beggar and a Europe: A History. Here is a masterpiece of historical narrative that stretches from the Ice Age to the Teaching this next year so re-read. Book is better on the re- read. I need to point out that the only reason why I gave this book three stars is that sometimes the style feels a little a like a list. I'm not sure how Lipstadt could have made an English trial more lively, but I'm trying to be fair. Lipstadt is da bomb! She is my new hero! She is awesome! And her lawyers are awesomer yes, I know that it is not really a word, but really there is no other way to put it. I wou Edited on the 18 Dec I would highly recommend reading this book after reading Deborah E. Lipstadt 's Denying the Holocaust , if only for context. I pick this book up because of that and because newspaper accounts of British libel law and how it effects freedom of speech. If you are interested in history, research, and freedom of thought, read this book. View all 3 comments. I was stymied by the task of writing this review for a long time. I didn't know where to start because this is a subject so emotionally charged that it's difficult to discuss. Then I realized that this was one of the central issues of the book and the trial. How do you approach Holocaust denial? Do you even dignify that position by bothering to argue it? This is the question Deborah Lipstadt has to answer when historian David Irving brought a lawsuit against her for calling him a Holocaust den I was stymied by the task of writing this review for a long time. This is the question Deborah Lipstadt has to answer when historian David Irving brought a lawsuit against her for calling him a Holocaust denier, and a liar. He brought the suit in London because British law required Lipstadt to prove that her accusations were true rather than placing the burden of proof on Irving himself as plaintiff as American law would have done. Lipstadt could have made it all go away by settling -- and there was pressure on her to do so, even from parts of the Jewish community -- but she chose to fight the suit because not to would have been to imply that it was okay to deny the murder of millions of Jews and others, though that doesn't actually enter into the narrative. The account of the trial shows clearly how frustrated Lipstadt was with the process, with the fact that her legal team would not allow her to testify, nor would they allow Holocaust survivors to take the stand. She didn't understand either position and butted heads with her lawyers on more than one occasion. She took exception to her barrister treating a visit to Auschwitz as a forensic visit rather than a memorial one. Her responses were utterly understandable and based on emotion, and that is why her team made the choices they did. The law doesn't deal in emotional arguments, it deals in facts. The weight of tears cannot be measured against the weight of evidence. Lipstadt and her team didn't have to prove that millions of people died and that Hitler was ultimately responsible, they just had to prove that in misrepresenting facts and changing words from primary documents, Irving lied. They didn't have to prove that anti-Semitism and racism are wrong, they only had to prove that Irving was a racist and anti-Semite. And only a painstaking examination of fact could ever prove those things. The book is a powerful one, particularly in our time when racism, anti-Semitism, and all manner of ugly, troll-like behavior is being enabled at the highest levels of government. Irving's behavior feels familiar to this contemporary American, a man who cannot admit either mistakes, or wrong-doing, and who is not only a Holocaust denier but who, on the night when the verdict was given in Lipstadt's favor, went on British television to talk about how, in the end, the decision was actually quite favorable to him. It wasn't, it was devastating to him, but he was either incapable of understanding that or he simply refused to admit it. When asked if he would then stop denying the Holocaust, Irving replied, "Good lord, no. I think they're complimentary, and one enhances the other. Either way, if you're at all interested in the case, one which I did find I remembered from the late s, the book and to a lesser extent the film, is well worth your time. Reading this was an eye opener and left me stunned. So, I started to read this not knowing what to expect and where it was going, and as I kept reading the pieces kind of started to fall in place to answer the first question: why would David Irving bring a lawsuit against Deborah Lipstadt for calling him a denier, a label that he was thoroughly offended by. His position is that he could not have been a denier as the Holocaust never happened. I was gripped, as I was trying to make sense of this notion; the only way I could was accepting that in this courtroom there is no awareness that the Holocaust did or did not take place. The idea along is troubling as it is baffling to me. But putting that to one side, where it now becomes the responsibility of both sides to produce arguments to prove their point. As grappled with this, which was for most of the book, I was also wondering if this was the answer to my second question? In this account she says when she first heard about this lawsuit in from her publisher, Penguin, informs her that that David Irving has taken issue of how she describes him in Denying the Holocaust , she says she did not take it seriously. She explains in her chapter headed: Prologue , The Letter she explains it was only a couple of hundred words, and describes David Irving as to be the most dangerous denier, a Hitler partisan, and one who distorts the truth. Within months, she learns that not only is he serious but he is filing a law suit against her and Penguin Publishers in London. The case would go on for 5 years, and it takes Deborah Lipstadt time to climatise to the Britsh legal system and comprehend why Irving files the suit in London, under UK law the onus is on the defence to prove that Irving is a denier, she says in her book that if this was filed in the US, than the burden of proof would be on David Irving. Deborah Lipstadt has a huge fight on her hands, not to mention the monetary cost, but people start rallying around her, amongst them are a superb British defence team to help her fight her case in London. In complete contrast, David Irving, decides to represent himself believing no legal team would be able to do this aptly as him. Deborah Lipstadt account is honest as she shares her frustrations and worries, especially for the impact on Holocaust survivors this case has. In the book she does not just give an account of the trial and what happened after words, but adds more to make me realise that David Irving is not the only denier, there are others and names a few individuals and groups. In , Deborah E. The following year, she found herself subject to a libel suit by David Irving, a British amateur "historian", who had published numerous books on Hitler and World War II. Irving accused her of defamation of character because she had labeled him a Holocaust denier whose allegations were based on his ideology of anti-Semitism. This book is her account of th In , Deborah E. Lipstadt, who on the advice of her lawyers remained silent throughout the trial, utilizes this book to voice the fears and concerns that plagued her throughout the trial. Thus, the book is both a memoir and historical account of the trial. Yet in looking at numerous reviews on Goodreads of the book, I have found myself dumbfounded by some of the criticisms launched against the author. Some reviewers have criticized her for "whining" about her dilemma and for her honest account of how she second-guessed her team of lawyers at the time of the trial, for example questioning whether it was a wise decision for her not to testify in her own defense. Yet, I cannot imagine any historian who found themselves in a similar position not harboring some of these same feelings. After all, it was her body of historical work that was being called into question and thus, a defeat in court could ruin her professionally and financially. Not to mention, the libel case had been brought in Britain and not in the United States; consequently Lipstadt found herself dealing with a legal system that she did not fully comprehend. For example, unlike in the United States, the defendant -- not the plaintiff -- shoulders the burden of proof. Thus if she failed to launch a vigorous defense, she would have lost the suit! In addition to these legal challenges, the context in which the trial took place also raised the stakes. The s witnessed a rise in xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and Holocaust denial in the United States, Britain, Germany and elsewhere. For example, the year prior to the publication of her book, a group of right-wing extremists had set fire to a memorial at Sachsenhausen, a former Nazi concentration camp located outside of Berlin. Additionally, Irving enjoyed a good reputation among some historians; this reputation allowed him to give a certain respectability to Holocaust denial. Against this backdrop, Lipstadt's fears that her case might not end in resounding victory were not without grounds. She also understood that much more was at stake than her career -- had Irving won his libel case the repercussion for freedom of scholarship and for Holocaust history would have been devastating. Even more disturbing than criticisms of her "whining" about her legal representation were those who criticized Lipstadt for failing to reference in any depth other groups targeted and killed by the Nazis. The fact is this book does not pretend to be a comprehensive history of the Holocaust or of the victims of Nazism. It is the history of a libel trial -- one in which the author came under personal and professional attack by a Holocaust denier whose motive for denying the Holocaust was anti-Semitism. Consequently, her defense as presented in the book focuses on the systematic murder of Jews by the Nazi regime and the motives of her accuser. The sad reality is that the vast majority of Holocaust deniers do so because they are anti-Semites. Thus, they do not for example call into question the Nazis' murder of communist resistance fighters, the disabled, the mentally ill, or gypsies. Instead, they call into question the gassing of Jews in extermination camps. That so many readers not all failed to grasp why the book focused on Jewish victims is disturbing, as one does not know whether to attribute it to lack of critical reading skills, ignorance of the historical context, or a latent form of anti-Semitism. As Lipstadt concludes: "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. Irving claimed that Lipstadt had libeled him in her book, Denying the Holocaust, when she wrote that he was a Holocaust denier and that in his histor In , well-known British author David Irving sued American historian Deborah Lipstadt, and her publisher, Penguin, for libel. Irving claimed that Lipstadt had libeled him in her book, Denying the Holocaust, when she wrote that he was a Holocaust denier and that in his historical writings had deliberately distorted evidence about the Holocaust. Lipstadt tells the story in the first person, which adds a lot. But when Irving quits threatening and actually files suit, things become real. Lawyers must be hired, decisions made about pre-trial and trial strategies, experts hired, and onerous documentary and other discovery undertaken. Will Penguin, her publisher, defend or try to settle? What about the time commitment and how it will affect her ability to do her research for a new book and teach her classes at Emory University? If she will have to be in London regularly and sometimes for long periods, where will she stay where she can feel at least a little bit at home? But the primary worry for her is that this will be perceived as the Holocaust itself on trial and the burden on her to fight for its victims and survivors in a venue entirely foreign to her. This book so vividly portrays the concerns, large and small, of a righteous defendant in a civil case. Though Lipstadt never mentions it, I detected a bit of sexism and possibly even some antisemitism from historians her team consulted and retained. Some never changed that view, while her own expert witnesses only understood just how intellectually dishonest Irving is after they spent 18 months checking all his citations against his representations. To me, it felt like part of why she was dismissed may have been because she was an American, Jewish and a woman; not quite the same level as a British, Anglo-Saxon male. I can see why this book was turned into a movie. Lipstadt is so open about her feelings, she characterizes all the other people involved so well, and the courtroom drama is absolutely gripping. And wow, does David Irving make a great villain. This is a standout as a personal story, as history, and as legal and courtroom drama. Jul 24, Yeva B rated it it was amazing. I loved this book, and I find it funny how many other reviewers were put off by a Jewish woman describing her anxiety and taking the matters so personally. I think she was more stoic than many would have been in her situation when a vicious antisemite decided to attack her reputation and livelihood. I think this book was beautifully written and brought me to tears on multiple occasions. Lipstadt put enormous trust into her legal team and followed their instruction at every turn, even when she di I loved this book, and I find it funny how many other reviewers were put off by a Jewish woman describing her anxiety and taking the matters so personally. Lipstadt put enormous trust into her legal team and followed their instruction at every turn, even when she didn't understand said instructions. In terms of the judge, well, I was made very anxious at how sympathetic he seemed towards Irving throughout the trial, and it wasn't me in court, I could only imagine her anxiety. When I said funny up there, I meant unnerving. I find it unnerving how many reviewers were unable to empathize with Lipstadt. I mean it was only the genocide of her people on the line. Lipstadt published a book called Denying the Holocaust. In this, she called British historian David Irving, a prolific author of books on World War Two, 'one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial'. She went on to say that he was a 'Hitler partisan wearing blinkers', and that 'on some level Irving seems to conceive himself as carrying on Hitler's legacy'. In the entire book, she devoted no more than two hundred words to Irving. Despite this, and as he had do In , Deborah E. Despite this, and as he had done on previous occasions, Irving decided to file a court case against both Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin, for the 'accusations' which she levelled upon him. These cases, and the 'provocative books' which he himself wrote, gave Irving 'a certain notoriety'. Denial: Holocaust History on Trial follows the entire trial, in which Lipstadt was victorious, from beginning to end. Denial is described as a 'riveting, blow-by-blow account of this singular legal battle, which resulted in a formal denunciation of a Holocaust denier that crippled the movement for years to come. Lipstadt's victory was proclaimed on the front page of newspapers around the world, such as The Times UK which declared that "history has had its day in court and scored a crushing victory. The San Francisco Chronicle deems it 'possibly the most important Holocaust-related trial since Adolf Eichmann was tried in Israel in In the United Kingdom, she was the person who had to prove that what she said about Irving was true; in the United States, it would have been up to Irving to prove Lipstadt wrong. She had to assemble a legal team in the United Kingdom, as well as a research assistant under her care at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked as a lecturer in Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies, to work tirelessly on amassing an extensive body of evidence. She essentially had to prove to the courts that the Holocaust happened. Denial brings together Lipstadt's extensive journal entries, as well as transcripts of the trial. Lipstadt begins by setting out her interest in, and personal reasoning for, studying Modern Jewish History and the Holocaust, and then the process of how she came to research deniers, something which posed a challenge for her from the very beginning. At first, I found Lipstadt's prose style rather accessible and easy to read, but it soon became bogged down with so much detail from the trial. At times, when a lot of participants are present in conversations or briefings, it can tend to get a little confused. This is not due to the way in which Lipstadt sets things out; rather, it has to do with the naming of characters, and the ways in which she refers to them. There is little consistency in places here; for instance, she speaks to historian Chris Browning, referring to him as 'Browning' in one sentence and 'Chris' the next. This is easy enough for the reader to work out, of course, but it does feel a little jarring at times. The confusion which I felt in particular passages may have been expected; due to the nature of the book, a lot of intricate legal language is used, and is not always explained in context. Lipstadt discusses of the personal impact which the trial has upon her, although not always in as much detail as seemed fitting. The pacing felt a little off at times, too, and some sections tended to feel a little plodding in consequence. At times, there is a curious sense of detachment in Denial , despite Lipstadt herself being such an important part of the case. This may be because she is unable to speak during the trial upon the advice of her lawyers, who do so on her behalf. I am still baffled as to how anyone can dispute the horrors of the Holocaust; there is so much firsthand evidence available to the modern historian, all of it heartbreaking. I very much admire Lipstadt for bringing such despicable Holocaust deniers to the fore in her work. As Lipstadt notes, 'In a way, I found it harder to write about deniers than about the Holocaust itself. The Nazis were defeated. Deniers were alive and kicking and reveling in their efforts. As I read, I was continually asking myself whether I was enjoying the book. Of course, given its nature and content, Denial has a lot of merit. I found that overall, however, my reading experience felt rather negative. Whilst the material here is fascinating, I did not feel as though the reportage of the trial was as well executed as it could have been. That's not a spoiler. I think anyone who has even a passing interest in Holocaust history would have been aware of Lipstadt's legal battle with a prominent Holocaust denier. In her acclaimed book, Denying the Holocaust, Lipstadt named David Irving 'one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial'. When the book was released in the UK , Irving promptly filed a libel suit against The good guys win in Deborah Lipstadt's memoir, Denial previously published as History on Trial. When the book was released in the UK , Irving promptly filed a libel suit against Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin. And this is the important detail in this story - British libel law presumes defamatory words to be untrue, until the author proves them true. Therefore, the burden of proof is on the defendant rather than the plaintiff as it would be in the US. As a result, if Lipstadt and Penguin had not fought Irving's claim, they would have been found guilty of libel and in turn, Irving could have stated that his definition of the Holocaust was legitimate. It became the task of Lipstadt and her legal team to prove that Irving was not a credible historian, and in particular that he had deliberately interpreted historical documents in a way that favoured his anti-Semitic beliefs. It was an enormous task - Lipstadt was supported by a team of solicitors, historians, and experts. Irving represented himself. What to say about this book? It's a deep-dive into the minutiae of Holocaust history, and necessarily so. Lipstadt and her team had to pick apart and verify everything from diaries and first-hand accounts of the Holocaust, to testimonies from war crimes trials and architectural drawings of gas chambers. Lipstadt was extremely frustrated that her legal team wouldn't put her on the stand her view was that she was the best person to defend her own words whereas her legal team would not give Irving the opportunity or satisfaction of cross-examining Lipstadt, and more importantly, their strategy was to rely on their expert witnesses to discredit Irving's version of history. There were other frustrations - a tense visit to Auschwitz as part of their research; a ban on Lipstadt talking to the media; the perceived fripperies in the British courts although I did love the fact that her barrister cracked open a decent bottle of red during the lunch breaks. Apr 08, Jed Sorokin-Altmann rated it it was amazing. Lipstadt, a renowned Jewish studies professor at Emery University was sued for libel by British author and holocaust denier David Irving, who alleged that Lipstadt calling him a denier in one of her books was untrue and defamatory. The British legal system is very different than ours when it comes to defamation. Unlike the United States, where the burden of proof is on the plaintiff to demonstrate that words were libelous, in Britain, the burden is on the defendant to prove that his or her words were true. This book is one part legal thriller, one part history, and one part autobiographical. It describes how Lipstadt dealt with the pressures to consider a settlement, the need to find money for a defense fund, the difficulty of a historian of her stature being unable to speak to these issues herself and having to let herself be defended through counsel and witnesses, and the painfulness but importance of being part of a trial to prove that the holocaust occurred. Some other reviews on Goodreads accuse Lipstadt of being biased, a complaint I find absurd. Of course she is biased-this is HER story. It's autobiographical, and like all autobiographies, it does not, and cannot, pretend to be objective or attempt to tell all sides of the story. This is Lipstadt's perspective about what happened to her. The book manages to be suspenseful, even for those who know the verdict. I highly recommend it. Mar 16, Lucy rated it it was ok Shelves: the-mile , libraries-archives-museums. I appreciated the premise of the book, but there were entirely too many moments when she irritated me for me truly to "like" the book. For instance, she seemed to have completely forgotten the fact that people other than Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Her stance on certain things which I did not see as necessarily pertinent to the topic of the book and which I frankly disagree with was quite clear. Dec 06, Steve Smits rated it really liked it. Having seen the recent movie Denial I thought the book might be worth the read. The movie was good, but the full-length treatment that a book provides is always certain to be more satisfying. The titles of each are suitable for attracting the interest of viewers and readers, but overlook, I think, what is also on trial here: historians, historiography and freedom of speech. David Irving is a prolific writer of histories of Hitler and World War II, well-known for taking iconoclastic and revision Having seen the recent movie Denial I thought the book might be worth the read. David Irving is a prolific writer of histories of Hitler and World War II, well-known for taking iconoclastic and revisionist views on Hitler's culpability for the massacre of the Jews in the "Final Solution" atrocities carried out by Germans. He also wrote a book on the bombing of Dresden by the allies that criticizes this as needless to the war effort and as a putative war crime because of the magnitude of casualties. She had been following the activities of Holocaust deniers and in her book "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory" wrote that Irving deliberately falsified and misconstrued facts and data about the Holocaust to the point of claiming that whatever killings that occurred were not known to or sanctioned by Hitler and that the gas chambers of Auschwitz did not exist. She was concerned that, rather than being considered a crank, Irving had garnered considerable favorable attention in literary reviews and among some recognized historians. Irving sued Lipstadt and Penguin, her UK publisher, for defamation. Defamation suits in Britain, unlike in America, place the burden of proof on the person making the allegedly defamatory statement s ; in other words, the defendant must prove the truth of her words. Under US law the plaintiff must prove that the words were untrue and in the case involving public figures that the utterance was recklessly made. The defendants would be liable for punitive awards, court costs, apology and retraction and, importantly, ceasing any further publication of the offending words. Irving had brought such suits, or threats of suits, in the past and this had caused publishers to settle for fear of losing. In this case, Lipstadt and Penguin determined to contest the suit and employed a first-rate team of legal minds and historians to prove that Irving had intentionally distorted and manipulated facts in his histories. Moreover, that his motivation for so doing was his virulent antisemitism as demonstrated by his public utterances and close ties with extremist groups around the world. Through exhaustive review of sources and examination of Irving's writing and speeches, the defendants were able to prove conclusively that Irving went far beyond the pale of plausible interpretation of facts and willfully distorted evidence that did not support his preconceived conclusions. They showed also that Irving was a rabid and extreme antisemite who had made the most shocking and appalling statements about Jews and Holocaust survivors. Irving agreed with the defense to have the case heard before a judge and not a jury and had decided to represent himself. In his testimony and cross-examination of defense experts he was astoundingly inept, often contradicting himself from one day to the next. Among the defense experts were Richard J. Evans, perhaps the world's most highly respected historian on 19th and 20th Germany, and Robert Jan Van Pelt whose research and knowledge of Auschwitz is unparalleled. Lipstadt recounts the trial with the drama it deserves. Retrieved 2 September Lipstadt November 22, ". Archived from the original on September 4, Retrieved June 14, Brandeis University Ph. Dissertation, The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved September 27, Archived at Archive. Archived at the Wayback Machine at Haaretz , December 16, Camden New Journal. Archived from the original on September 14, Archived from the original on December 14, Archived from the original on January 31, Retrieved January 31, . The Atlantic. Archived from the original on January 30, Retrieved October 18, The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 18, Retrieved May 20, Dissenting, Mr. Stephens contends that art and politics are separate realms. Stephens ignores the immense platform or megaphone the Nobel committee has awarded Mr. There will be those who will be convinced that his false claims must have some legitimacy, simply because he is a Nobel winner. Archived from the original on June 4, Retrieved April 8, Jewish Book Council. The Jerusalem Post JPost. Archived from the original on 16 June

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