A Holocaust Revisionist Critique of the Thinking of Deborah Lipstadt

Preliminary Note: In the interest of fairness and accuracy, the following essay was emailed to Dr. Deborah Lipstadt prior to its publication on the CODOH web site. She was asked to identify any problems, errors, misinterpretations, falsities, etc. If need be, these would be eliminated or corrected. Paul Grubach and CODOH have no desire whatsoever to publish any false or misleading material. Quite predictably, she never responded.

I. The Importance of Deborah Lipstadt

In her 1993 critique of the Holocaust revisionist movement, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, Dorot professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, Deborah Lipstadt, attacked British historian David Irving and labeled him “one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial.”[1] In response, Irving sued Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin UK, for libel. The subsequent trial in London, beginning in January 2000, received world-wide coverage, as the media spotlight fell upon the historiography of the Holocaust and the ongoing battle between traditional and revisionist views of the Jewish tragedy in WWII.

The trial ended in April of 2000. Irving lost his case and Lipstadt’s victory was front page news worldwide. However, the trial’s implications were far from over. As historian Daniel Jonah Goldhagen so rightly noted in The Washington Post’s Book World, “The trial was an event, covered around the world, of substantial social and political importance.”[2]

The Daily Telegraph of London proclaimed the Irving-Lipstadt courtroom drama did “for the new century what the Nuremberg tribunals or the Eichmann trial did for earlier generations.”[3] “A ll critics agreed,” Bookmarks Magazine noted, “that Lipstadt’s story is a fascinating one and an important historical lesson for the record.”[4] The influential Kirkus Reviews claimed that Lipstadt’s version of events, History on Trial, is “A fascinating and meritorious work of legal—and moral—history.”[5] Even the contemporaneous Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, took the time out from meetings with President Bill Clinton to praise Lipstadt for her “important victory on behalf of the Jewish people.”[6]

Although well known attorney Alan Dershowitz claimed that Lipstadt’s victory was the most important courtroom defeat for Holocaust “denial” in recent history, Irving didn’t lose his case because of any inherent flaw in Holocaust revisionism.[7] For one thing, the maverick British historian, who represented himself in court, is not a lawyer, and he squared off against a very talented legal team. But just as importantly, David Irving himself has stated that he is not an authority on the Jewish tragedy of WWII or Holocaust revisionism. Indeed, he has admitted that he has not even read important Holocaust revisionist studies–most notably, Arthur Butz’s The Hoax of the Twentieth Century.[8]

Even the trial judge, Mr. Justice Charles Gray, pointed out in his final ruling that Irving was at a disadvantage because he could not cross-examine Lipstadt in regard to his claim that there was an international Jewish conspiracy to silence him. “Irving has been greatly hampered, “ the British magistrate noted, “ in presenting this aspect of the case by the unexpected decision of the Defendants, in full knowledge of the allegations which Irving was making about the conduct of Lipstadt, not to call her to give evidence and to be cross-examined by Irving. It goes without saying that the Defendants were perfectly entitled to adopt this tactic but it did place Irving, acting in person, at a disadvantage.”[9]

In the eyes of the mainstream media, Deborah Lipstadt has emerged as one of the world’s most important authorities on “Holocaust denial.” Establishment media sources have “lionized” her, and she is looked upon as a major defender and spokesperson for the Jewish community in particular, the forces of “morality, peace and justice” in general. The state of Georgia’s most important newspaper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, put it in these terms: “In Britain, as in the United States, she had been widely portrayed as the defender of good against David Irving’s bumbling prince of darkness.”[10]

In contrast to this bombastic picture, Lipstadt, in a refreshing burst of honesty, hinted that she really did very little to deserve this exaggerated praise. “During the [press] interviews,” she writes, “a number of reporters commented on my ‘dignity’ during the trial. Since I had done nothing but remain silent, I was, at first, perplexed by their reaction.”[11]

It is important to penetrate and analyze her thinking, because it is reflective of a large and powerful segment of the Jewish community in particular, the Western mainstream media in general—two entities that wield enormous power and influence. Her books and statements express in a very clear way the distorted ideological line of thought that “justifies” and “legitimates” the current sociopolitical status quo in parts of the world today.

II. Lipstadt’s Dogmatic View of Holocaust Revisionism and Her Refusal to Debate

One of Lipstadt’s most important claims is that Holocaust revisionism is utter nonsense, on a par with flat earth theory, implying that her orthodox view of the Holocaust is as certain as our knowledge of the earth’s spherical nature. In her own words: “[Holocaust revisionist] arguments make as much sense as flat-earth theory.”[12]

Here we have an excellent example of the fallacy of “faulty analogy.” As logician Alex C. Michalos points out, this flaw in reasoning is committed when the analogous or compared things have more differences than similarities.[13]

In addition to scientific experiments that can be performed here on earth to demonstrate the earth’s spherical nature, there are photographs from outer space.[14] By way of contrast, one of the foremost Holocaust authorities, historian Raul Hilberg, admitted that scientific proof for the existence of the “Hitler gas chambers” is missing. No authentic and genuine autopsy report exists to show that Jews were killed with poison gas. No one has ever produced any photographs of Jews being gassed.[15]

As the late Jean-Claude Pressac (widely considered to be an authority on the alleged Auschwitz gas chambers) has pointed out, in the blueprints, construction documents and work orders that trace the construction and subsequent use of the buildings that allegedly housed the “Auschwitz gas chambers,” there is no explicit reference to the use of gas chambers or Zyklon B for homicidal purposes.[16] This was also reluctantly admitted at the Irving-Lipstadt trial in London.[17]

Notwithstanding the capture of literally tons of German documents after WWII, no documentary evidence of a wartime extermination order, plan or program has ever been found. Hilberg admitted as much during his testimony in the 1985 trial in Toronto of Revisionist activist Ernst Zundel.[18] Lipstadt herself confirms there is no written order from Hitler authorizing the destruction of the Jews.[19]

One of the most important pieces of “evidence” traditionally adduced to “prove” the “Holocaust” is the testimony of Rudolf Höß , a commandant of Auschwitz. Lipstadt and Christopher Browning (a prominent Holocaust historian who was a part of her defense team at the Irving-Lipstadt trial) have admitted that Höß ’s confessions are unreliable, as he had been tortured by the British into confessing to a fantastic and unbelievable number of murders.[20]

Dr. Lipstadt insists “the existence of the Holocaust [is] not a matter of debate.”[21] But as we have just pointed out, negating this viewpoint is the fact that all the necessary photographic, documentary, and scientific evidence needed to prove Lipstadt’s version of the Holocaust is missing.

Lipstadt adds this most revealing caveat to her claim that Holocaust revisionism is as absurd as flat earth theory: “However, in dramatic contrast to flat-earthers, they [Holocaust revisionists] can cause tremendous pain and damage.”[22] This may be interpreted as an implicit admission that Holocaust revisionism has much more credibility that she cares to publicly admit. If Holocaust revisionism is inherently ridiculous and absurd, the equivalent of flat-earth theory, how could a public airing of it possibly cause “tremendous pain and damage?” A public airing of a belief system that is inherently stupid and foolish would be a golden opportunity for Lipstadt and her colleagues to expose its absurdity and subject its proponents to public humiliation, and ultimately, relegate the Revisionist movement to the dustbin of history.

“When I received invitations to debate deniers,” she writes, “I consistently declined, explaining that while many things about the Holocaust are open to debate, the existence of the event is not.”[23] To debate the Holocaust skeptics, Lipstadt insists, “would give them a legitimacy and stature they in no way deserve. It would elevate their anti-Semitic ideology—which is what Holocaust denial is—to the level of responsible historiography—which is what it is not.”[24]

Despite what Lipstadt writes, if hard evidence for the Holocaust is overwhelming and the claims of Revisionists ridiculous, to engage the latter in debate would not lend them credibility and respect. Quite the contrary! Crossing swords with these “cranks” would be a golden opportunity for Lipstadt to expose their quackery and stupidity. Only if Revisionism has intrinsic validity will it gain stature by a public hearing. The Jewish lady’s refusal to debate carries with it the implicit recognition that Revisionism has more legitimacy than she cares to admit.

Even if Revisionism is pure balderdash, the public interest would still be served if it was given serious attention in the mainstream media. The truth of the traditional view of the Holocaust could be proven anew. Lipstadt has been quoted as saying that she is “only interested in getting at the truth.”[25] If this is so, then a more complete perception of the truth would be gained in a public debate where her “Holocaust fact” clashed with “Holocaust denial fiction.”

Karl Popper, a prominent philosopher of science, proposed that a statement (a theory, a conjecture) has the status of belonging to the empirical sciences if, and only if, it is potentially falsifiable.[26] If the Holocaust cannot be questioned nor debated, and must be blindly accepted as a “fact,” then it is not falsifiable. If it is not falsifiable, then it is not a scientific theory. Lipstadt’s position violates the cannons of good science. A true scientific theory is open to continuous question and debate.

Lipstadt’s ulterior agenda is, I believe, readily apparent. What she is saying is that one must accept the traditional view of the Holocaust doctrine without question, a priori. She wants to prevent the public and mainstream media from giving Holocaust revisionism a fair and public hearing, because once the public does this, this would spell doom for her traditional version of the Holocaust.

Furthermore, her position is self-contradictory. She writes: “Deniers, I argued, should be stopped with reasoned inquiry, not with the blunt edge of the law.”[27] Reasoned inquiry includes the fair and reasoned examination of the opponent’s arguments, and a willingness to publicly debate the opposition. Refusing to debate your opponents is not “reasoned inquiry.”

She continues: “Deniers…distort, falsify, and pervert the historical record and, consequently, fall entirely outside the parameters of any historical debate about the Holocaust.”[28] If this is indeed an accurate description of the methods of “Holocaust deniers,” then it would be in the best interests of Lipstadt and her fellow establishment historians to publicly debate them, because this would be a golden opportunity to publicly expose their distortions, falsifications, and overall idiocy. It would be a wonderful opportunity to expose the “Holocaust deniers” as the fools and charlatans that we allegedly are. If the “Holocaust deniers” really do distort, falsify and pervert the historical record, Lipstadt should relish the idea of debating them, because this would be an opportunity for her to expose them and help destroy the revisionist movement once and for all.

It appears as though Lipstadt’s “justification” for refusing to debate is nothing more than a conscience-salving self-deception designed to cover up her fear and insecurity in regard to the validity of Holocaust revisionism. It is actually a somewhat favorable sign for Holocaust revisionism that some of its major detractors like Deborah Lipstadt refuse to debate. It sends the implicit message to the public at large that Holocaust revisionism has more credibility than its opponents dare to publicly admit.

Her real ulterior agenda was laid bare by California psychology professor Kevin MacDonald. At the Irving-Lipstadt trial he pointed out: “They [the Jewish-Zionist Holocaust lobby] think…that their version of events [should] be accepted as the truth and that dissent from certain of these tenets should be viewed as beyond the pale of rational discussion.”[29]

Lipstadt wants her Jewish-Zionist version of the Holocaust to be accepted as “the truth,” and all dissent or questioning of it to be rendered taboo. In this way her traditional view of the Holocaust will be accepted by mainstream society without question. It thus becomes self-perpetuating.

III. Are Holocaust Revisionists Fascists and Nazis? Lipstadt’s Serious Omission

Another of Lipstadt’s most important dictums is that Holocaust Revisionism is intimately connected to a neo-fascist/neo-Nazi political agenda, adding: “One of the tactics the deniers use to achieve their ends is to camouflage their goals. In an attempt to hide the fact that they are fascists and anti-Semites with a specific ideological agenda, they state that their objective is to uncover historical falsehoods, all historical falsehoods.”[30]

In History on Trial, Lipstadt makes a determined effort to “prove” that Holocaust revisionism is, in essence, a “neo-Nazi movement.” In this regard, she quotes her defense attorney, Richard Rampton: “The bridge between Holocaust denial and the Hitler apology from antisemitism is very easy to build, because what more would an historian who is an anti-Semite want to do in the exculpation of Hitler…what more would he want to do than to deny the Holocaust?”[31]

Rampton further charged that David Irving deliberately ignores or attempts to “rationalize away” evidence that does not fit his preconceptions. In his own words: “What he [Irving] does not like, he ignores .”[32] This charge could very well hurl back at his client, Deborah Lipstadt.

In her 1993 book, Denying the Holocaust, she cited an article by a noted expert on political extremism, Laird Wilcox.[33] In that 1988 article, Wilcox pointed out that possibly 25% of Holocaust revisionists are neo-Nazi apologists, which meant that the majority, 75%, were not. She must have been aware that Wilcox made this point, because she briefly discussed the Wilcox article in which he made this point. Yet, because it contradicts her claim that Holocaust revisionism is a “fascist/neo-Nazi movement,” I believe she ignored it and failed to bring it to the attention of her readers. Thus, Rampton’s charge—that Irving ignores what he does not like—hurls right back at his client, Deborah Lipstadt.

IV. Miscellaneous Criticisms of Lipstadt’s View of the “Nazi Final Solution”

A comprehensive discussion of the National Socialist “Final Solution” to the Jewish Question is beyond the scope of this article. However, a few important comments are called for, since this is a topic of discussion in Lipstadt’s books.

Lipstadt has discussed the current debate among establishment historians concerning the nature of the “Final Solution.” She writes that “intentionalists contend that Hitler came to power intending to murder the Jews and instituted an unbroken and coherent set of policies directed at realizing that goal. In contrast, functionalists argue that the Nazi decision to murder the Jews did not originate with a single Hitler decision, but evolved in an incremental and improvised fashion.”[34] Yet, nowhere in History on Trial or elsewhere (to my knowledge) does she cite the evidence from the Irving-Lipstadt trial that undermines both viewpoints.

Judge Gray made this statement in his “Final Judgment,” which Lipstadt failed to inform her readers of: “In this connection, Irving, in order to rebut the claim that Hitler displayed a vindictive attitude towards Jews on this (or any other) occasion, drew attention to the willingness of Hitler on occasion to approve some merciful disposal for individual Jews or groups of Jews. Irving instanced the permission given by Hitler for 70,000 Jewish children to leave Romania and travel to Palestine. Longerich [a German defense expert for Lipstadt’s defense team] agreed that there were times when Hitler exempted certain Jews from deportation or extermination.”[35]

If Hitler ultimately intended to murder the Jews of Europe and wipe them off of the face of the earth, why would he allow 70,000 Jewish children—the seeds of future Jewish generations—to escape the National Socialist grasp and leave for Palestine? It is evidence like this that calls into question all traditional views of the Final Solution, and which Lipstadt fails to bring to her reader’s attention.

Lipstadt tries to explain away the fact that there is no single document to prove the existence of the infamous “Nazi gas chambers.” In her own words: “[Historians] do not, as Irving kept demanding, seek a ‘smoking gun,’ one document that will prove the existence of the gas chambers.”[36]

This is very misleading. Let us assume for the sake of argument that historians found an authentic and genuine document (i.e., forensic studies showed that is was not a forgery), dated between 1941 and 1945, signed by Adolf Hitler and it stated: “I, Adolf Hitler, hereby order that all Jews under German control are to be murdered in homicidal gas chambers.” If such a document were found, this would be proof that the National Socialists did have a policy (or at least attempted) to murder Jews in gas chambers. In fact, historians have found a single document that proves that Hitler did order into existence a policy to kill the incurably sick.
In October 1939, Hitler had one of his secretaries type on his own headed notepaper a memorandum that contained this order: “Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. med. Brandt are commissioned with responsibility of extending the authority of specified doctors, so that, after critical assessment of their condition, those adjudged incurably ill can be granted mercy-death.”[37] Here we have a single document proving that Hitler did authorize the incurably sick to be killed. So if there was a written order from Hitler authorizing the incurably ill to be killed, why wasn’t there a written Hitler order to mass murder Jews in gas chambers?

By the mere fact there is no single, authentic and genuine, war-time document ordering the mass murder of Jews in gas chambers is just one more good reason to be skeptical of the existence of the “Nazi gas chambers.” (Establishment historians offer only twisted and contorted rationalizations as to why there is no single document ordering the mass murder of Jews in gas chambers.)

Lipstadt continues. She claims that not a single document, but a “convergence of evidence” proves the existence of the “Nazi gas chambers.” In her own words: “[Historians] seek a nexus or convergence of evidence [to prove the existence of the Nazi gas chambers].”[38]

Here, Lipstadt puts forth the worn out and fallacious “convergence of evidence proof” for the traditional view of the Holocaust that has been refuted by revisionists in other studies. Revisionist historian Mark Weber revealed that one could use a convergence of evidence to “prove” that inmates were gassed en masse at Dauchau concentration camp, where it is now generally agreed there were no homicidal gassings.[39] A convergence of evidence (complete with eyewitness testimonies, expert reports, and an onsite, physical study of the murder weapon itself) could be employed to “prove” the Germans murdered prisoners in “steam chambers” at Treblinka.[40] But it is now agreed no one was ever murdered in such a manner, as this “convergence of evidence” is entirely false. In point of fact, the evidence used to “prove” homicidal gassings in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, etc. is not really qualitatively different from the evidence used to “prove” the mythical gassings at Dauchau and in the phony “steam chambers” of Treblinka.

For a thorough refutation of this “convergence of evidence proof,” I refer the reader to the analysis of Revisionist scholar Carlo Mattogno.[41]

V. Does Deborah Lipstadt Have the Psychological Characteristic of an Extremist?

Two experts on political extremism, Professor John George and Laird Wilcox, pointed out that one psychological characteristic of a political extremist is that she openly advocates double standards and feels no guilt for so doing.[42] As we shall soon see in the following sections, Lipstadt appears to display this psychological characteristic in regard to the race and ethnic intermarriage issues. It is somewhat ironic that she condemns her ideological opponents of extremism, yet she herself exhibits a prominent characteristic of a political extremist.

VI. The Zionist Politics and Hypocritical Double Standard of Deborah Lipstadt

In order to understand the agenda and emotional driving force behind Lipstadt’s behavior and public pronouncements, one has to know something about her intense political sympathies.

Lipstadt points out that she is an “openly identifying Jew,” and owns up to an early perception that her Jewish ethnic group is different from the surrounding non-Jewish society.[43] “As a young child,” she reminisces, “I remember sensing that these Central European Jewish homes, with their heavy, dark furniture and steaming cups of tea accompanied by delicate homemade strudel and other distinctly European pastries, were different from those of my American schoolmates.”[44]

She expresses pride in the fact that, early in life, she marched in solidarity with those who wanted to implement Black-White integration policies in the United States: “My mother and I marched in Harlem in solidarity with the Birmingham-Salem civil rights protestors. We took a vicarious pride in the fact that Andy Goodman, one of the civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi, had lived down the block from us and we always pointed out this building to visitors.”[45]

Early in life, she did not have a passionate attachment to Israel and political Zionism: “In 1966, anxious to experience travel abroad, I made a relatively impetuous decision to attend Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Though my family were supporters of Israel, I was not driven by a Zionist commitment.”[46] Yet, when she visited Israel for the first time, it was akin to a religious experience: “Going to Israel was not a purposeful choice but was to have a life-changing impact.”[47] In Lipstadt’s own words: “It was time to go ‘home’ [Israel].” Never before had I thought of Israel with such emotion.”[48]

The politics of Deborah Lipstadt are pervaded by a hypocritical double standard. She actively worked to create a racially integrated, multicultural society in the United States. And, all throughout her books she pays lip service to “racial equality,” and ardently condemns non-Jews that reject ethnically integrated, multiracial societies outside of Israel. Yet, she most passionately identifies with Israel—an ethnically segregated society whose government actively works to ensure Jewish supremacy and to destroy any chance of an egalitarian, multiracial society from developing between Jews and Arabs.

Far from working for an integrated society in which Jews and Arabs functioned as social and political equals, the Jews who founded Israel created a society in which Israeli Jews dominate “Israeli” Arabs, a separate and unequal society in which discrimination against non-Jews and Jewish supremacy are an integral part of the established social order.[49]

Diplomat, international lawyer and statesman (a former Undersecretary of State in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations), the late George W. Ball, describes in stark terms the racist foundations of the Jewish state that Lipstadt so ardently identifies with: “The Jewish plan for an exclusively Jewish state, free of the inconvenient presence of native peoples was scarcely new. Theodor Herzl [founding father of modern Zionism] had laid out the framework for such a system in 1898, when he sought a charter from the Ottoman Sultan…One of the provisions of that abortive charter gave the [Jewish Colonial] Society the power to deport the natives, and Herzl sought such powers whether the new Jewish homeland was to be in Argentina, Kenya, Cyprus or Palestine. The Jewish Land Trust incorporated this doctrine in its rules, which designated all of its properties exclusively for Jewish use and even prohibited the employment by the Jewish tenants of non-Jews, thereby forcing such persons to seek employment abroad.”[50]

Predictably, the Zionists ended up producing an Athenian democracy for Jews and second-class citizenship or feudal servitude for non-Jews.[51]

Just recently, an important Israeli official made it perfectly clear that it was a goal of Zionist policy that Israeli Jews in Jerusalem are to be segregated from Palestinian Arabs in order to make certain that Jews remain the dominant element in that city, and that the ethnic/racial character of the city remains predominantly Jewish. In the article's own words: ” Israel 's separation barrier in Jerusalem is meant to ensure a Jewish majority in the city and not just serve as a buffer against bombers, an Israeli Cabinet minister acknowledged Monday.”[52] This clearly contradicts Lipstadt’s publicly stated policy of favoring ethnically integrated, multiracial societies where all ethnic and racial groups function as social and political equals.

Why the contradiction? That is to say, why does Deborah Lipstadt favor creating ethnically integrated, multiracial societies in the United States and Europe, yet she most passionately identifies with the Israel–an ethnically segregated state where Jewish dominance and racialism are the order of the day?

Enter California State University Professor Kevin MacDonald, an evolutionary psychologist who Lipstadt bitterly attacks. MacDonald pointed out that certain powerful Jewish groups favor ethnically integrated, multiracial societies outside Israel because societies such as these foster and accommodate the long-term Jewish policy of non-assimilation and group solidarity.[53]

MacDonald and African-American intellectual Harold Cruise observe that Jewish organizations view white nationalism as their greatest potential threat and they have tended to support Black-white integration policies presumably because such policies dilute Euro-American power and lessen the possibility of a cohesive, nationalist Euro-American majority that stands in opposition to the Jewish community.[54]

In a racially integrated, multicultural society with numerous different and competing ethnic groups with divergent interests, it is very unlikely the surrounding gentiles can ever develop a united and cohesive majority to oppose the very cohesive Jewish community. “Tolerant” gentile populations that have only a week and feeble sense of their own racial/cultural identity are less likely to identify certain powerful groups of Jews as alien elements against which they must defend themselves. Gentile populations that have a strong racial/cultural identity are more likely to identify certain groups of Jews as alien outsiders, against which they must compete with. Thus, a racially integrated, multicultural society (outside of Israel) is what most Jewish-Zionist groups prefer, because in such a cultural milieu they can gain tremendous power and influence.[55]

Lipstadt bitterly condemns the personhood and theories of Professor MacDonald.[56] Yet, her hypocritical behavior actually vindicates MacDonald’s theories. If the creation of racially integrated, multicultural societies were truly her ultimate goal, we should expect that she would insist on such society in Israel just as earnestly as she insists on such a society in the US and Europe. But this is not the case. She is proud of the fact that she marched in solidarity with those who worked to build an integrated society in the US, yet she most passionately identifies with an ethnically segregated, apartheid state in the Middle East. This suggests that she is indeed using “racial brotherhood” ideologies in the service of her own Jewish-Zionist nationalism.

V. The “Holocaust,” European and Jewish Identity, and the Ethnic Double Standard

In her books, Lipstadt condemns the Holocaust revisionist Institute for Historical Review (IHR) for bringing to light some of the damaging effects of the lies and exaggerations in the Holocaust story. In a tone of self-righteous hypocrisy, Lipstadt claims: “[The former Director of the IHR] revealed another of the IHR’s true agenda items with his warning that acceptance of the Holocaust myth resulted in a radical degeneration of acceptable standards of human behavior and lowering the self-image of White people. These racist tendencies, which the IHR has increasingly kept away from the public spotlight, are part of the extremist tradition to which it is heir.”[57]

In other words, it is “racist and extremist” for non-Jewish Europeans to be the least bit concerned about the negative effect that the Holocaust ideology has on the European identity.

Enter Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt, an important member of Lipstadt’s defense team who authored the very important anti-Holocaust revisionist tome, THE CASE FOR AUSCHWITZ: EVIDENCE FROM THE IRVING TRIAL.[58] He claimed that Holocaust revisionism is an evil assault upon the Jewish self-image and identity. In a frank and honest discussion, he admitted that when he read Holocaust revisionist literature, he “had come face to face with a dangerous personal abyss.” His implicit conclusion is that this is one of the main reasons why Holocaust revisionism should be attacked and destroyed.[59]

Professor van Pelt then quotes Jewish writer Erika Apfelbaum as to why Holocaust revisionism is “so evil” and why it should be attacked and refuted. She stated: “Current Jewish history is deeply rooted in Auschwitz as the general symbol of the destruction of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. For someone whose past is rooted in Auschwitz, the experience of reading through the revisionists’ tortured logic and documentation is similar to the psychologically disorienting experience of sensory deprivation experiments or solitary confinement in prison, where one loses touch with reality. The insidious effect of reading this [Holocaust revisionist] literature is to lose one’s identity as a survivor and, more generally, as a Jew. Therefore, the revisionist allegations serve to dispossess the Jews from their history and in doing so, in seeking to destroy a people’s history, a symbolic genocide replaces a physical one.”[60]

Consider the overall “moral” judgments in this whole scenario. According to Lipstadt, van Pelt and the Holocaust lobby in general, it is “evil, racist and extremist” for white gentiles to be the least bit concerned about the damage that certain Holocaust lies and exaggerations are doing to the European collective identity. Indeed, Europeans and Euro-Americans are supposed to just meekly accept what the Jewish power elite says about the Holocaust, no matter how damaging it is to the European collective self-identity. Yet, it is positively demanded that Jews fight against Holocaust revisionism, so as to protect and vindicate the Jewish self-identity.

At the beginning of his tome, van Pelt quotes Jewish-Zionist theologian and “moral beacon” Elie Wiesel. He says that the alleged mass murder of Jews at Auschwitz “signifies…the failure of two thousand years of Christian civilization…”[61] He is clearly referring to all European Christendom.

Further evidence showing that Lipstadt’s traditional view of the Holocaust is indeed a psychological assault upon the entire European world, and not just upon the Germans and those who were allied with them during WWII, was demonstrated by the remarks of Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, in a special Knesset session marking the 60^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. According to The International Jerusalem Post, “Sharon blamed the Western allies for knowing about the annihilation of Jews in the Holocaust, but doing nothing to prevent it.” He said the “sad and horrible conclusion is that no one cared that Jews were being murdered.”[62]

According to the “morality” of Lipstadt, van Pelt, Wiesel, Sharon and the Jewish-Zionist power elite that they represent, European Christians are supposed to meekly accept the aforementioned statements as “the truth,” and any attempt to debunk certain Holocaust lies and exaggerations and their ensuing moral implications is of course “racist, evil and extremist.”

Using language very similar to that of Apfelbaum, the European Christian could say: “The insidious effect of reading the lies and exaggerations in the Holocaust literature is to lose one’s identity as a European Christian. Therefore, the ‘gas chamber’ tale and some other false Holocaust allegations serve to dispossess European Christians from their history, and in doing so, in seeking to destroy a people’s history, a symbolic genocide replaces a physical one.” The problem is of course, the predominate “morality” in the Western world doesn’t allow the European Christian to think this way.

Just as Jews have the right to maintain a good collective self-image, so too with non-Jews of European descent. They too have the right to fight against those historical lies and distortions that damage their collective self-identity.

VI Deborah Lipstadt and Her Hypocritical Talk on Ethnic Intermarriage

Since Lipstadt’s pronouncements on racial/ethnic intermarriage accurately reflect the duplicity, deception and hypocrisy that characterize so much of what Jewish and non-Jewish mainstream media outlets promote, a thorough discussion is called for.

When asked by Lipstadt’s attorney Rampton about his views on interracial marriage, historian Irving stated: “I have precisely the same attitude about this as [Lipstadt]…I believe in God keeping the races the way he built them.”[63]

In response, Lipstadt writes: “As soon as Irving said this, I began to pulsate with anger. This was not my view. I was deeply troubled by intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews because it threatened Jewish continuity. Color or ethnicity were entirely irrelevant to me.”[64] She goes on to say that she was very disappointed that nothing was done to clarify her position on racial intermarriage at the trial, and that false ideas were floating around about her position on racial intermarriage.[65]

If ethnicity is truly entirely irrelevant to her, and Jewish continuity was her only concern, then we should expect that she would have adopted the following policy. It is acceptable for Jews to marry non-Jews of any color or ethnic group, as long as the non-Jewish partner adopts the Jewish religion and Jewish cultural customs. But she did not adopt this policy; she is flatly opposed to intermarriage—period. As the Jewish journalist Dan Gutenplan pointed out: “[I]t was hard not to feel queasy listening to Rampton quiz Irving about his attitude to ‘intermarriage between the races’—on behalf of [Lipstadt] who has written, ‘We [Lipstadt and her fellow Jews] know what we fight against: anti-Semitism and assimilation [of Jews and non-Jews], intermarriage [between Jews and non-Jews] and Israel-bashing.’”[66]

Furthermore, she may not be revealing how she really feels about intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews. As Jewish author Ellen Jaffe McClain pointed out in Embracing the Stranger: Intermarriage and the Future of the American Jewish Community, Lipstadt is simply flatly opposed to intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews: “Although people like Deborah Lipstadt, the Emory University professor who has written and lectured widely on Holocaust denial, have exhorted Jewish parents to just say no to intermarriage, much the way they expect their children not to take drugs, a large majority of parents (and more than a few rabbis) are unable to lay down opposition to intermarriage [between Jews and non-Jews] as a strict operating principle.”[67] According to this, she is not just “deeply troubled” by intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews—she loathes it.

There is even evidence within History on Trial itself that suggests Lipstadt may be engaging in deceit when she claims that “ethnicity is entirely irrelevant to her.” On pp. 12-13, she implicitly condemns the policy of the former Soviet Union on the issue of the Holocaust, because of the USSR’s refusal to validate the concept of a “Jewish ethnicity” by identifying the victims of the Holocaust as Jews. In her own words: “To have identified the victims [of the Holocaust] as Jews would have validated the notion of ethnicity, a concept contrary to Marxist ideology.”

So let’s get things straight. She implicitly condemns the Soviets for refusing to validate the concept of “Jewish ethnicity.” (The reader is encouraged to read pages 12 and 13 to see for himself that this is correct.) Yet, when it suits her ideological purposes to condemn David Irving and weasel her way out of her dilemma, on page 182, she claims that “ethnicity is entirely irrelevant to her.”

There is more evidence that she is possibly being duplicitous when she claims that “color and ethnicity are entirely irrelevant to her.” Dr. Oren Yiftachel, an Israeli professor at Ben-Gurion University, pointed out that Israel is not a democracy in the sense in which it is currently understood in the West. Rather, it is an “ethnocracy”—a land controlled and allocated by ethnicity. In his own words: “The Israeli regime is ruled by and and for one ethnic group in a multi-ethnic reality. Factors that make Israel an “ethnocracy” include the facts that 1) immigration to the Jewish state is restricted to Jews only. Some 2.5 million displaced Palestinians who would like to return are not allowed to migrate to Israel; 2) military service is according to ethnicity; 3) economic control is based on race, religion, and ethnicity; 4) The country’s land regime entails transfer of land ownership in one direction, from Arab to Jewish control, but never back again.”[68]

If ethnicity is entirely irrelevant to her, then why does she passionately identify with apartheid Israel–a state that is based on the principle that the Jewish ethnic group is to be preserved for all time, and is to remain separate from and dominant over non-Jews within the state?

Lipstadt may have made this statement—“color and ethnicity are entirely irrelevant to me”—to meet the propaganda needs of the moment. That is, to “refute” the allegation of David Irving and hide her strong feelings of Jewish racialism. Said claim does not appear to reflect her real feelings.

VII. Closing Statement

The work of Deborah Lipstadt contains fallacies, apparently false claims, omissions and flawed judgment calls that are riddled with a hypocritical double standard.

One question remains. Why Didn’t Deborah Lipstadt testify at the Irving-Lipstadt Trial? She pointed out that Rampton was against putting her on the witness stand. In his own words: “If we go to trial, I will probably not put you in the witness box. You are being sued for what you wrote. Having you give testimony will not advance our case. It will only divert the judge’s attention from the main focus, David Irving.”[69]

She then adds that “according to British law, Irving could not compel me to give testimony. I listened to Rampton with mixed emotions. I was relieved that I would not have to be cross-examined by a man whose views I abhorred and who certainly would use the opportunity to cross-examine me as a way of ‘settling scores’ for the wrongs he felt he had suffered. At the same time, I was disappointed that I would not be able to openly express my contempt for him. I feared that people would think that I was frightened of facing him.”

In the same vein, she adds: “…I was worried we had made a tactical mistake, allowing Irving to portray me as not only scared of facing him but having something to hide.”[70]

One suspects that Rampton, being the shrewd attorney that he is, may have realized that it could end up being a total disaster if Lipstadt was cross-examined by Irving. Irving could have caught Lipstadt in the hypocritical double standards, fallacies, omissions, bad logic, etc, that we have shown here.

One of Lipstadt’s defense team experts, Dr. Richard Evans, was quoted as saying: “Irving is essentially an ideologue who uses history…in order to further his own political purposes.”[71] Should we take out the name of David Irving from the sentence and put in Deborah Lipstadt’s?

She admits that Evans may have “thought me a hyperbolic, American, Jewish woman who was more an ideologue than an open-minded historian.”[72] An “ideologue” is one that promotes a body of ideas, distorted and untrue in the main, that serves the political, social and psychological needs of a power elite. Based upon what has been revealed in this essay, could Deborah Lipstadt be described as a Zionist ideologue?

Prominent British intellectual John Keegan made this most cogent comment: “Prof. Lipstadt…seems as dull as only the self-righteously politically correct can be. Few other historians had ever heard of her before this case. Most will not want to hear from her again.”[73]

Is Deborah Lipstadt a self-righteous Zionist ideologue that operates with hypocritical double standards? I will let the reader be the judge.

At the dawn of a new age of reason, Lipstadt’s books will, I believe, stand as a testament to the political, moral and ideological corruption that currently pervades Western Society.

Notes

copyright 2006

[1]

Deborah E. Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (The Free Press, 1993), p. 181, passim.

[2]

See Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s book review of Deborah Lipstadt’s History on Trial in The Washington Post’s Book World. Online: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0060593768/ref=dp_nav_1/104-4071788-3073504?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155&s=books.

[3]

Quoted on dust jacket of Deborah Lipstadt’s History on Trial: My Day in Court With David Irving (Harper-Collins, 2005).

[4]

Online. For URL, see footnote 2.

[5]

Ibid.

[6]

Lipstadt, History on Trial, p.278.

[7]

Ibid, p.304.

[8]

Personal communication to Paul Grubach.

[9]

See The Hon. Mr. Justice Gray, “Judgment to be Handed Down on Tuesday, 11^th April 2000, Between David John Caldwell Irving and Penguin Books Limited, Deborah Lipstadt.” Paragraph 3.7.

[10]

Lipstadt, History on Trial, p. 268.

[11]

Ibid, p.269.

[12]

Ibid, pp. 16, 301.

[13]

Alex C. Michalos, Improving Your Reasoning (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970), pp.109-110.

[14]

Irving Copi, Introduction to Logic, 5^th ed., (Macmillan, 1978), pp.486-491.

[15]

The Sault Star (Canada), “Scientific evidence of Holocaust missing,” January 18, 1985, p.A11; See Hilberg’s testimony in Barbara Kulaszka, ed., Did Six Million Really Die? Report of the Evidence in the Canadian “False News” Trial of Ernst Zundel—1988 (Samisdat, 1992), p. 39. Online: http://zundelsite.org/english/dsmrd/dsmrd09hilberg.html. Jean-Claude Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers (Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1989), p.429. Online: http://www.mazal.org/Pressac/Pressac0429.htm

[16]

Pressac, p.429. Online: http://www.mazal.org/Pressac/Pressac0429.htm.

[17]

See Paul Grubach, “Convergence of Evidence: Reflections on the Irving-Lipstadt Affair,” The Revisionist. Online: http://www.codoh.com/revisionist/tr09irving.html.

[18]

Barbara Kulaszka, ed., Did Six Million Really Die? Report of the Evidence in the Canadian “False News” Trial of Ernst Zundel—1988 (Samisdat, 1992), pp.24-25. Online: http://zundelsite.org/english/dsmrd/dsmrd09hilberg.html.

[19]

Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, pp.127-128.

[20]

Vanity Fair, December 1993, p.117.

[21]

Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, p.1.

[22]

Lipstadt, History on Trial, p.301.

[23]

Ibid, p.18.

[24]

Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, p.1.

[25]

Vanity Fair, December 1993, p.117.

[26]

The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1967 ed., s.v. “Karl Raimund Popper,” by Anthony Quinton.

[27]

Lipstadt, History on Trial, p.xx.

[28]

Ibid, p.25.

[29]

Ibid, p.158.

[30]

Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, p.4.

[31]

Lipstadt, History on Trial, p.260. Also, see Rampton’s statements on p.259.

[32]

Ibid, p.259.

[33]

See Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, p.187. The article being referred to is Laird Wilcox, “The Spectre Haunting Holocaust Revisionism, “ Revisionist Letters (Spring 1989). Online: http://www.codoh.com/revisionist/letters/rlspectre.html.

[34]

Lipstadt, History on Trial, p. 23.

[35]

See Hon. Justice Mr. Gray, Paragraph 5.209.

[36]

Lipstadt, History on Trial, p.133.

[37]

See Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews: Student Edition (Holmes & Meir, 1985), pp. 225-226.

[38]

Lipstadt, History on Trial, p. 133.

[39]

See the video, “The Weber-Shermer Holocaust Debate: The Holocaust Story in the Crossfire.” Available online: http://store.noontidepress.com/. Also, see Pat N. Mason, Jr. , “Exchanging Views on the Holocaust: Debating the Undebatable: The Weber-Shermer Clash,” The Journal of Historical Review, January/February 1996, p.30.

[40]

See Paul Grubach, “Convergence of Evidence: Reflections on the Irving-Lipstadt Affair,” The Revisionist. Online: http://www.codoh.com/revisionist/tr09irving.html.

[41]

Carlo Mattogno, “’Denying History’?—Denying Evidence!: The Phony ‘Convergence of Evidence’ to ‘Prove’ the ‘Holocaust,’” The Revisionist, September 2005, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 9-44.

[42]

See discussion in Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (University of California Press, 2000), p.88.

[43]

Lipstadt, History on Trial, p.283.

[44]

Ibid, p.3.

[45]

Ibid, p.5.

[46]

Ibid, p.6

[47]

Ibid, p.6.

[48]

Ibid, p.9.

[49]

See the study by Israeli academic, Dr. Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State (Zed Books Ltd., 1987).

[50]

George W. Ball and Douglas B. Ball, The Passionate Attachment: America’s Involvement with Israel, 1947 to the Present (W. W. Norton & Company, 1992), p. 29.

[51]

Ibid, p.65.

[52]

Mark Lavie, “Barrier Meant to Ensure Jewish Majority,” Associated Press Release, July 11, 2005. Online: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/07/11/international/i073139D24.DTL

[53]

Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (Praeger, 1998).

[54]

Ibid, pp. 255-257.

[55]

MacDonald, passim.

[56]

Lipstadt, History on Trial, pp.151-159.

[57]

Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, p.144; Denying History, p.17.

[58]

Robert Jan van Pelt, The Case For Auschwitz: Evidence From the Irving Trial (Indiana University Press, 2002).

[59]

Ibid, p.70.

[60]

Ibid.

[61]

Ibid, p.6.

[62]

Liat Collins, “From the Ashes,” The International Jerusalem Post, February 4, 2005, p. 3.

[63]

Lipstadt, History on Trial, p.182.

[64]

Ibid.

[65]

Ibid.

[66]

Lipstadt quoted in D.D. Guttenplan, The Holocaust On Trial (W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), p.209.

[67]

Ellen Jaffe McClain, Embracing the Stranger: Intermarriage and the Future of the American Jewish Community (Basic Books, 1995),  p.18.

[68]

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1999, p. 120.

[69]

Lipstadt, History on Trial, p.53.

[70]

Ibid, p.89.

[71]

Ibid, p.43.

[72]

Ibid, p.67.

[73]

Ibid, p.282.