Posted on 02/25/2006 9:36:44 PM PST by churchillbuff
Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt was once sued by David Irving, but that doesn't mean she supports the jail sentence given to the Holocaust denier this week.
"I'm in principle against laws that promote censorship. I'm in principle against laws on Holocaust denial. I'm in principle against laws that prevent the publishing of cartoons in Denmark," Lipstadt, a professor of Jewish and Holocaust studies at Emory University in Atlanta, told JTA on Tuesday, a day after an Austrian court sentenced Irving to three years in prison for statements he made in 1989 saying there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz.
Lipstadt said, however, that she understands the need for laws on Holocaust denial in countries such as Germany and Austria, given their records during World War II.
The sentence sent a potent message to both local extremists and the international community.
But it also added fuel to freedom-of-speech debates sparked by recent violent protests against Danish cartoons of the Islamic prophet Mohammed.
Irving, 67, was arrested in November, when he entered Austria to give a lecture at a far-right student fraternity.
Irving's lawyer, Elmar Kresbach, lodged an immediate appeal after the sentenced was announced on Monday. He told reporters the sentence had been meant as a political warning.
"Irving had expected certain strictness by the court because he was a very well-known case," he said. "But the sentence was too harsh. It became a bit of a message trial and the message was too strong."
Austrian prosecutors on the case want Irving to spend more time in jail. The prosecutors appealed Tuesday, saying that his sentence of three years is too lenient, given Irving's importance to right-wing extremists.
Irving, who faced up to 10 years in jail, had pleaded guilty to the charges. But he also had said he had changed some of his views and now believed that the gas chambers had existed and that "millions of Jews died."
"I was wrong, I recognize my guilt," he told the court, in fluent German. "I have changed my ideas since 1989. History and historic research are like a tree in constant growth."
Judge Peter Liebetreu was not convinced. "The court did not consider the defendant to have genuinely changed his mind," he said after pronouncing the sentence. "The regret he showed was considered to be mere lip service to the law."
Lipstadt was not alone among Jewish observers in expressing concern over the latest chapter in Irving's well-publicized effort to deny the Holocaust.
"The sentence against Irving confirms that he and his views are discredited, but as a general rule I don't think that this is the way this should be dealt with," Antony Lerman, director of the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research, told JTA. "It is better to combat denial by education and using good speech to drive out bad speech."
"Freedom of expression is important," he said. "Once you start legislating about history, it could lead to a rocky road."
Other Jewish groups, however, praised the verdict.
"The sentence confirms David Irving as a bigot and an anti-Semite and also serves a direct challenge to the Iranian regime's embrace of Holocaust denial," Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said in a statement.
Amos Luzzatto, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, welcomed the verdict for both the message it sent to local extremists and to the international community in the wake of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's declarations that the Holocaust is a myth.
"Even more than the conviction, it was fundamental to remove Irving's audience," he said. "An Irving appreciated by supporters of the Iranian president gains strength and listeners; on the other hand, an Irving whom no one pays attention to is finished."
Irving looked shocked when the verdict was announced. "Of course it's a question of freedom of speech," he said. "The law is an ass."
Austria was part of the Third Reich during World War II, and the country only began to come to terms with its Nazi past in the late 1980s, after it came to light that President Kurt Waldheim had lied about his World War II activities as a soldier in the German army.
The country, which currently holds the presidency of the European Union, is one of 11 countries that have laws making Holocaust denial a criminal offense.
The Austrian law subjects to prosecution anyone who "denies, grossly plays down, approves or tries to excuse the National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against humanity in a print publication, in broadcast or other media."
In the weeks before Irving's trial took place, violent protests over cartoons depicting Mohammed ignited debates over the limits of free expression and led some to question the validity of legislating what one could say about the Holocaust.
"I don't think there's a parallel between this and the cartoon, but in the eyes of the general public that thinks about issues of free speech, it's an understandable connection," Lipstadt said.
Britain and the United States have no laws on Holocaust denial.
Both the Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League acknowledged the dilemma in their statements.
"While Irving's rants would not have led to legal action in the United States, it is important that we recognize and respect Austria's commitment to fighting Holocaust denial, the most odious form of hatred, as part of its historic responsibility to its Nazi past," Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center said.
This was not the first time Irving had tangled with the law for his views.
In 1992, a German court fined Irving for having publicly declared that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. He was barred from entering Germany and several other countries.
In 2000 he lost a highly publicized libel lawsuit in London against Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin books, after Lipstadt called him a Holocaust denier in her 1994 book, "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory."
That victory, perhaps, helps support her conviction that books, and not laws, are what should fuel the fight against denying the Holocaust.
"We don't need laws to fight Holocaust deniers. We've got history on our side," she said.
As a Jew, I think this sentence is absurd. Do the Austrians think they're really opposing Nazis who forbade free speech by forbidding it themselves?
It is a abomination of the freedoms we hold dear in America. They are becoming like those whom they despise.
As much as I dislike looking to orgs like the ACLU for wisdom, I do remember something that one ACLU lawyer said that spoke to me as being a fundamental truth about freedom.
When those Nazis wanted to march in that town that was predominantly Jewish. My initial reaction was, how could they be allowed to do that. Then the ACLU lawyer made the statement, that if we suppress their right to free speech, there could come a time when the same will be done to us.
We protect our rights to free speech, when we protect the rights of free speech of others. Especially when what they have to say is diametrically opposed to what we believe and know to be true. Otherwise, who decides what is allowed to be said and what is not.
"I may disagree with what you are saying, but will defend to the death your right to say".
That is a fundamental tenet of freedom. How is it they don't know that. Do they think might makes right?
"The sentence sent a potent message to both local extremists and the international community."
It is a consistent message and everyone gets it.
The sadder thing is that Pat Bucahanan probably doesn't believe that the Holocaust happened either.
Freedom of speech seems to be guarunteed if you want to criticise the president, insult our soldiers, or demand gay rights. But make a statement discrediting a historical account, and youre in jail for years.
The worst part of all about this is how Irving was quickly deported by the U.S. He resided in the United States for a while, coming from canada, then was deported back to canada, then back to Europe. the reason for being deported? A simple paperwork error in renewing his visa. Of course, illegal immigrants and terrorists get to stay in the US as long as they want, and any actions against them is considered a "racist intolerant act".
I have mixed emotions over letting NAZIs march. The best reaction is probably to line up on both sides of the street and turn your backs to them. Let them have their little march, and let them know how you dispise their inferior intellect.
I've heard it said, that the best response to free speech, is more free speech.
As it turns out, the march happened just the way you described it. The Nazis were revealed for being the bigoted, ignorant, little men that they are. Free speech at its best.
The truth needs no protection from the government.
Regards, S4T.
Austria has had that law since l948 IIRC. Irving made a statement that was against Austrian law in 1989. He denied the existence of crematoria and the death of millions of Jews. He knew very well that this law existed when he made that statement of denial.
Denial is controversial, controversy sells books. He wrote several Holocaust denial books.
After the verdict, he was shown clutching his latest book, title clearly visible. The man has been sued and is now bankrupt. He needs money badly.
And he never expected that Austria would enforce its law.
Too bad for Irving, he took a gamble and lost one. He will appeal. His book sales will pay for his legals.
In public, quite clearly, he let the world know what scum he was. He admitted that he was wrong, there were crematoriums at a particular death camp, and yes, several million Jews were killed by the Nazi's during WW2.
You could see the fear written all over his face, the man was almost urinating himself. He KNEW he had been lying, he KNEW he had been caught out.
For me, an Austrian by birth, it was a very sweet moment. He has been CRUSHED and his books are worth about as much as the effing KORAN!
I hope his appeal fails.
What is sad to me, is how the terms xenophobia and racism are tossed around on this forum, because some forum participants don't like it that citizens object to being taken advantage of.
When people do this, they deminish what true racism is. It's like calling someone a NAZI who isn't. The true NAZI is a vile animal capable of most anything. They aren't your average run of the mill human, which improper insults actually imply.
> It is a abomination of the freedoms we hold dear in America.
The law in question is not an American one.
You will not be so gleeful when that same power of government is used to suppress the truth.
Do you think that truth needs the protection of government? Or that the governmental power that was used to suppress his free speech, could not be one day used to suppress your free speech? Government is power, not truth.
Just imagine how the Clintonista's would have used that power. Do you know nothing of the wisdom of our forefather's? There is a reason that they made the freedom of speech 1st in the Constitution.
The suppression of free speech is a double-edged sword.
Thank God.
I was offering an opinion based on an American perspective.
No, I don't know anything about your forefathers, I'm an Aussie mate and we are doing quite well thank you, even without your 1st amendement.
I think the Austrians might have been sick of watching this scum make money from telling lies.
Please remember, this is the first time as far as I am aware, this law has been enforced. Irving went back to Austria knowing he would be arrested. That was the publicity he was after.
Well, sorry but it backfired.
Keep your standards. I understand what they mean to you. Let the Austrians keep theirs.
No worries mate.
We have the same problem here in America with publicity whores who will say anything to get on the news to hawk a book. We except it as being part of the cost of freedom.
As long as we don't have to send our boys there to Austria to save them from the consequences of their actions, I couldn't care less what they do.
Cheers and G'day mate.
We preferred toga parties and rug dancers to Neo-Nazi lecturers. Being in a frat must not be quite as much fun in Austria.
As I posted before regarding this issue, Austria wishes to correct nazi history by using nazi tactics. It just wont work.
To hell with Irving. But don't let him take the principle of free speech with him.
Besides, he'll become a martyr now. This is not only wrong, it's counterproductive.
No, Irving wasn't deported.
It's Ernst Zündel you mean to be defending. I don't mind his deportation, but I understand that there are suupporters for exceptions to the immigration laws. Irving went to Austria voluntarily after being told to stay out on pain of arrest by the Austrian government.
I hesitate to get into this again, but it's not the first time it's been enforced, they have been over a hundred prosecutions. The law, which dates to 1947, bars political expression, which obviously includes speech, specifically support for or minimization of the crimes of the Nazi government. You're right that Irving wanted the attention, he had been warned by the Austrian government to stay out of the country, and opted to enter to make speeches to two neonazi groups. Unfortunately the court gave him the publicity he wanted, I'd have preferred to simply see him deported, but it's their country and they're entitled to define threats. As an aside, though he rejected his former views to the court, he has now recanted on his own rejection. A very stupid move when the prosecutor is appealing for a longer sentence.
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