A little over a month ago, a British court came to the
welcome conclusion that amateur historian David Irving was
not libeled when he was called a "Holocaust denier" by
American professor Deborah Lipstadt.
Though 55 years have passed since the final defeat of Nazi
Germany, there are still hundreds of thousands of
eyewitnesses who can testify firsthand to the horrors
perpetrated by Hitler's Germany.
What made the Irving case serious was the fact that David
Irving is a hard worker who has published original research
on Holocaust events that are acknowledged to be of value by
professional historians. Partly because of his views, he was
given access to documents that were not shown to previous
researchers. Unlike some others, he could not be immediately
dismissed as a boor and a crackpot. In a court case that had
worldwide attention, Irving challenged one of his critics to
prove that he was wrong.
Nonetheless, labeling Irving a "pro-Nazi polemicist," the
British judge found that he deliberately misrepresented and
manipulated historical evidence to suit his own ideological
agenda and that, for the most part, the falsification of the
historical record was deliberate. The judge said that Irving
is a racist and a Holocaust denier.
The judge said that Irving "makes surprising and often
unfounded assertions about the Nazi regime, which tend to
exonerate the Nazis for the appalling atrocities they
inflicted on the Jews. . . . [and] was motivated by a desire
to present events in a manner consistent with his own
ideological beliefs . . . "
Even as the British court was applauded around the world --
and there is no doubt that it is an important victory -- the
same distortions of the historical record were being repeated
in official publications in Syria. In the Palestinian
Authority, children are brought up learning that the
Holocaust is a myth cultivated by the Jews to win world
sympathy. Irving himself will be hurt by the decision (if
only because he must somehow pay the $5 million court costs
of his opponents), but he is unbowed, unrepentant and
unconvinced. He will certainly continue preaching the same
lies.
Many find it amazing that a major historical event, with many
millions participating in various aspects, with so much
documentary evidence, can be denied or even distorted. Yet
the fact is that even now many argue that the charges are
just so incredible that they are unbelievable. If this is
possible already today, just imagine how easy it will be in
another 30-50 years.
The sad truth is that there is a parallel much closer to
home. For years we have been forced to try to convince many
of our own brethren of the historical truth of the events of
yetzias Mitzrayim and matan Torah -- which were
witnessed by millions of our own fathers and mothers, and
documented fully in written and oral traditions. This was an
historical reality that was overwhelmingly accepted by the
Jewish people for thousands of years.
All who can see so clearly how terrible it is to deny the
Holocaust, should fully realize that the same lesson applies
to all important historical truth. We have no scale on which
to weigh the denial of the Holocaust against the denial of
the historical roots of the Jewish nation, but we are sure
that both do serious damage to the future of the Jewish
people.
