Northpinellas: Professor sustains Holocaust's memories

She calls him a history revisionist and worse -- an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. He calls her a "mediocre" person who is propagating the "Holocaust industry" for money.

Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of religion at Emory University, and David Irving, a prolific English author who has written on the Third Reich, are fighting bitterly over the extent of the suffering and death of Jews during World War II.

Lipstadt will speak Wednesday evening at Temple B'Nai Israel in Clearwater about what she calls the Holocaust denial movement, as well as her 32-day libel trial in the Royal High Court of Justice in London that drew international attention last year. The trial was the result of a lawsuit brought by Irving against Lipstadt and her British publisher, Penguin.

In his suit, Irving claimed Lipstadt libeled him in her book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, by calling him a dangerous spokesman for Holocaust denial, someone who fraternized with extremists such as anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, someone who spins historical truth to fit his right-wing political and ideological agenda.

Lipstadt won.

"It was the first trial of a scholar being sued by a Holocaust denier," Lipstadt said by telephone from Atlanta. "His reputation (was) left decimated."

With the court case over for now (Irving is appealing the judgment), he and Lipstadt are relegated to exchanging verbal barbs through the media.

Each time Lipstadt speaks, she and Irving get another opportunity to spar from afar. At the Clearwater temple, Lipstadt will discuss the trial and Holocaust denial, which she calls a new form of anti-Semitism, as part of the temple's Gorn Visiting Scholar program.

"People feel sympathy for Jews, and the anti-Semites can't stand that," said Lipstadt, who said she has received plenty of hate mail since the book came out in 1993. "Drop dead, Jew b----," was one, she said. "Some are really ugly," she said.

Irving, speaking from his home in London, called Lipstadt's lecture circuit a "traveling circus."

"She goes from one corner of your country to another propagating the Holocaust industry," he said. "The Holocaust industry, that's where the money is. It opens up the hearts of people, and their pocketbooks, too. It's not going to survivors. It's lodged in the coffers of lawyers. It's reprehensible. It may create more anti-Semitism."

Lipstadt said Irving is a "low-life parading as an academic" spreading a "denial industry," and called his concern for survivors a "little bit strange."

Irving says that although "there's no doubt that it happened, the Holocaust was substantially smaller than it's been propagated."

He said he "developed the theory that Adolf Hitler was a rather weak leader," and that the killings were "systematic to a degree, but that the system stopped short of Hitler's (directions)."

And he said 6-million Jews were not killed as reported. Irving said he doesn't know the exact number. "I'm not an expert on the Holocaust," he said. "It's boring, boring, boring."

He would say only that the number was "smaller."

"If it's so boring, then why does he write so much about it?" Lipstadt said.

According to Lipstadt, Irving is just one voice in a Holocaust denial movement spreading throughout the world. She admits it's "not a tremendous movement; there are more people who believe Elvis Presley is alive," but that it's still dangerous.

Holocaust survivor Sam Schryver agrees with Lipstadt.

Schryver, 78, of Clearwater said Holocaust deniers caused him to break his decades-long silence and talk about his three-month imprisonment at age 22 in the Westerbork transition camp, the "last stop before the death camp."

During the war, his family was wiped out at other camps, like Sobibor.

"Holocaust deniers attempt to deny my suffering and the suffering of millions of others," Schryver, a Dutch native, said. "They have forced me to speak out. It's not an easy thing to talk about."

He said although he can't reason with Holocaust deniers because they are "either plain anti-Semitic, ignorant or stupid," he can discuss his experiences with young children, and often gives talks at St. Petersburg's Holocaust Museum.

"Young people have to learn this for their protection," he said.

For him, the lectures have paid off.

He once received a letter from a child. In it, the child wrote, "Now that I've met a real survivor, I know the Holocaust really happened," Schryver said.

Schryver called Lipstadt a "brave woman" for her battle against Holocaust deniers.

Schryver said he would respond to someone who denied the Holocaust by saying: "I grant you that the Holocaust never happened. I grant you that, provided you can tell me, where is my father? Where is my mother? My uncles? My aunts? My neighbors? My schoolmates? Where are all those people? Show me them and I grant you the Holocaust never happened."

If you go

Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of religion at Emory University and author of Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, will speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Temple B'Nai Israel, 1685 S. Belcher Road, Clearwater. The event is free. Call 531-5829.

Recent coverage

A blow to Holocaust deniers (April 17, 2000)

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