Deborah Lipstadt - Denying the Holocaust

The incident occurred at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis on February 9, 1990. It was subsequently revealed that the teacher had been arrested for stealing war memorabilia from a local museum ( Indianapolis News , Feb. 16, 1990).

Indianapolis Star, Feb. 22 and 23, 1990.

The Sagamore, Feb. 26, 1990.

“Like your uncle from Peoria,” was how actress Whoopi Goldberg described the neo-Nazi Tom Metzger, whom she hosted on her television show in September 1992. Metzger, an ardent racist and antisemite, advocates the forced racial segregation of blacks. Goldberg acknowledged that he was particularly dangerous because he appeared so civil. Howard Rosenberg, the television critic of the Los Angeles Times, wondered why, if Goldberg recognized this, it was necessary for her to host him on her show. Obviously she had fallen prey to the same syndrome afflicting those who invite the deniers to appear ( Los Angeles Times, Sept. 21, 1992).

New Orleans Times-Picayune, Aug. 26, 1990.

From a letter signed by David Duke accompanying the Crusader, February 1980, as cited in David Duke: In His Own Words (New York, n.d.).

Interview with David Duke conducted by Hustler magazine, reprinted in the National Association for the Advancement of White People News, Aug. 1982.

Jason Berry, “Duke’s Disguise,” New York Times, Oct. 16, 1991. See also Letters to the Editor, New York Times, Oct. 19, 1991.

Jason Berry, “The Hazards of Duke,” Washington Post, May 14, 1989. He also tried to appear as if he had modulated his views on other topics. No longer did he speak of sterilizing welfare mothers; now it was “birth control incentives” ( Los Angeles Times, June 10, 1990). See also Lawrence N. Powell, “Read my Liposuction: The Makeover of David Duke,” New Republic, Oct. 15, 1990.

Jacob Weisberg, “The Heresies of Pat Buchanan,” New Republic, Oct. 22, 1990, pp. 26–27.

Ibid., p. 26.

Report of the Anti-Defamation League on Pat Buchanan, Los Angeles Jewish Journal, Sept. 28, 1991.

New York Times, Feb. 14, 1992.

David Warshofsky (pseud.), interview with author, December 1992. “Warshofsky” is a regular participant in the Institute’s meetings and is in constant communication with various deniers both in the United States and in Europe.

Robert D. Kaplan, “Croatianism: The Latest Balkan Ugliness,” New Republic, Nov. 25, 1991, p. 16.

“Croatia,” Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (New York, 1990), Israel Gutman, ed., p. 326.

Some of the key Slovakian separatists have engaged in actual denial. Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Mar. 17, 1992.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Nov. 6, 1992; The Times, Mar. 6, 1988.

Daily Telegraph, July 10, 1992.

Sunday Telegraph, Jan. 12, 1992.

Daily Telegraph, July 10, 1992.

Independent on Sunday, May 10, 1992.

Frederick Brown, “French Amnesia,” Harpers, Dec. 1981, p. 70.

Nadine Fresco, “The Denial of the Dead: On the Faurisson Affair,” Dissent, Fall 1981, p. 467.

Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Assassins of Memory: Essays on the Denial of the Holocaust (New York, 1993), pp. 40–41; Serge Thion, ed., Vérité historique or vérité politique? (Paris, 1980), pp. 187, 190, 211.

Vidal-Naquet, Assassins of Memory, p. 115.

Ibid.

Guardian, July 3, 1986; Le Monde, July 4, 1986.

New Statesman, Apr. 10, 1981, p. 4.

Annales d’Histoire Revisionniste, vol. 1, Spring 1987; Judith Miller, One by One by One: Facing the Holocaust (New York, 1990), p. 134.

Miller, One by One by One, p. 137; Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Oct. 23, 1987.

Time, May 28, 1990; U.S. News & World Report, May 28, 1990, p. 42; Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1990, pp. HI, H7. In the following parliamentary election Le Pen’s party was routed but this resulted from a change in the voting system and not a loss of support. Miller, One by One by One, p. 138.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Oct. 23, 1987; Alain Finkielkraut, Remembering in Vain: The Klaus Barbie Trial and Crimes Against Humanity (New York, 1989), pp. 35–44.

L’Express, Oct. 28-Nov. 4, 1978; Gill Seidel, The Holocaust Denial (Leeds, England, 1986).

New Statesman, Sept. 7, 1979, p. 332.

The Times, May 11, 1990; Jewish Week, Sept. 15, 1989.

Dokumentationszentrum, 1988 Annual Report, Vienna, Austria.

Austrian News, Embassy of Austria, Press and Information Dept., Washington, Oct., 1989.

Spotlight, June 1, 1992.

In 1991, the Gallup organization conducted a poll of Austrian attitudes toward Jews commissioned by the American Jewish Committee. Fifty-three percent of the people surveyed thought it was time to “put the memory of the Holocaust behind us” and 39 percent believed that “Jews have caused much harm in the course of history.” An almost identical proportion believed that Jews had “too much influence” over world affairs; close to 20 percent wanted them out of the country. These statistics indicate a country “ripe” for an antisemitic ideology such as Holocaust denial. Fritz Karmasin, Austrian Attitudes Towards Jews, Israel and the Holocaust (New York, 1992).

Jewish Telegraph Agency, Aug. 18, 1992, p. 4; Nov. 11, 1992.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Nov. 2, 4, 1992.

Arab News, May 8, 1988.

New York Times, Dec. 10, 1989.

New Statesman, Sept. 7, 1979; Searchlight, Nov. 1988, p. 15.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Dec. 22, 1992. Outside of the League, some Australians have been able to voice Holocaust denial charges with impunity. Dr. Anice Morsey, a prominent member of the Australian Arab community, has accused Zionists of fabricating the story of the Holocaust. She maintained that the Jews who were killed were fifth columnists or spies. Morsey asserted that Israel was the financial beneficiary of this hoax and Germany the victim. Morsey’s views did not seem to have hampered her career. Subsequent to making that statement she was appointed ethnic affairs commissioner by the Victorian government. An Nahar, Nov. 8, 1982, quoted in Jeremy Jones, “Holocaust Revisionism in Australia,” in Without Prejudice (Australian Institute of Jewish Affairs), Dec. 4, 1991, p. 53. Kenneth Stern’s forthcoming Holocaust Denial contains a useful survey of recent Holocaust denial activities throughout the world (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1993), chap. 2.