Revising history

Not Anti-Semites. Not Neo-Nazis. They are ‘Revisionists.’

This is the word Holocaust Deniers now use to describe themselves. They believe they are average historians who are just revising the accepted truth that six million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis during World War II.

Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, director of the Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, told an anxious and intrigued audience on September 22 about her personal experience with a denier of the Holocaust.

For any denier, the use of well-designed tactics to persuade people from their ‘place of innocence,’ is essential, said Lipstadt. David Irving, British writer specialized in World War II, decided to sue Lipstadt for libel after she published discrediting anti-Semitic ideas concerning the author.

Lipstadt told her audience that deniers of the Holocaust know the truth, but decide to twist it to their advantage. Like many others, Irving chooses to remove Hitler’s responsibility from World War II.

When the two finally squared off in a courtroom, Nazi excerpts were read from April of 1943 and ‘blood dripped from Hitler’s words,’ Lipstadt said. Irving attempted to methodically change the sequence of the dictator’s statements to make it seem as if he actually wanted the expulsion of Jews to stop.

Lipstadt, represented by a world-renowned lawyer and with the entire Jewish community on her side, won her case. The impact of Lipstadt’s trial brought Europe from ‘hardcore to soft-core denial,’ she said.

After Lipstadt’s presentation of her experience in court, she provided the audience with a question Holocaust Deniers are frequently presented with: ‘Why would Jews make it up?’

Lipstadt entertained this question by digging deep into the idea of stereotypes. Deniers claim that through history, the Holocaust has been created as an attempt at Judaic acquisition of money and land. They claim that by manipulating others with their overblown political power, Jews have gotten others to believe in the Holocaust.

The most touching aspect of her time in court, Lipstadt said, was the response of Holocaust survivors and their families. She knew she had truly won when an elderly woman lifted her sleeve, pointed to a faded ink grouping of numbers and stated, ‘You are fighting for us, you are our witness.’

In response to Dr. Lipstadt’s speech, audience members were both overjoyed and a bit perplexed.

‘I envy you for being able to sit in a room with someone spitting venom,’ Fairfield University Junior Bob Reidy told Lipstadt in her question segment.

Dr. Karen Hills, following each word with her pen and notepad, was delighted to finally hear the talented public speaker in person. ‘I have followed the case, and it was wonderful to hear her comments and details,’ she stated.

Phyllis Feinberg, sitting pensively with her husband by her side, felt Lipstadt left out details concerning Irving and his background. ‘There are still many people out there like Irving,’ she replied. ‘They need psychiatry for their problems, but it may just be how they were brought up.’