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No Denying It

1990

A military court in Lod, Israel, sen-
tenced to 30 years in prison 12 Arab
terrorists captured in a failed attempt
to attack the beaches near Tel Aviv.
Anna Mickel of Southfield was
one of the recipients of the Geri
Award, an honor given to those who
work on behalf of senior citizens.

Dr. Deborah Lipstadt speaks
of her British libel trial brought
by Holocaust denier David Irving.

T

HARRY KIRSBAUM

Staff Writer

he Jewish scholar didn't know what she was up
against. The Holocaust denier didn't know what
he was in for.
When Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of
modern Jewish and Holocaust studies at Emory University in
Atlanta, wrote Denying the Holocaust: The GrowingAssault on
Truth and Memory in 1993, the first full-length study of
Holocaust deniers, she hadn't expected legal problems to ensue.
Instead, David Irving, one of the deniers she mentioned
in her book, sued Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin
Books for libel in Great Britain.
But Irving, a self-described British historian, didn't realize
the amount of scrutiny his own books would come under
in the trial.
Speaking to 600 people at Temple Israel in West
Bloomfield on Dec. 5, Lipstadt said she first "laughed" upon
hearing of the suit. Irving is mentioned on six pages in her
book, she said, calling him "the most dangerous of the
Holocaust deniers — a Hitler partisan. He knows the truth,
but twists it for his own political and ideological objectives."
Lipstadt described how a "dream team" of historians
broke down Irving's written works and won the case.
She was vulnerable to British libel law, where the onus of
proof is on the defendant. If she had ignored the charge, he
would have won by default.
Irving, who has written more than 20 books on World
War II, considers himself a historian. Scholars have praised
his work, but add that his views on the Holocaust were
unenlightened, strange and weird, Lipstadt said.
"He said the gas chambers were fake, and more people died
in the back seat of [U.S. Sen. Edward] "Ted" Kennedy's car in
Chappaquiddick, than died in Auschwitz," she said. "We had
to prove that he knew what he was saying was false."

Proof Is In The Footnotes

Lipstadt got Anthony Julius, Princess Diana's attorney, to
lead the legal team; they quickly decided on a strategy.
They would not hall Holocaust survivors as witnesses. Irving
was representing himself. "We didn't think it was right to ask a
survivor to go up against a man like this," Lipstadt said.
She wouldn't give testimony, either.
"What I wrote in my book was true," she said, and her
side would prove that it was true by documentation.
Memoirs written soon after World War II would help
their case, but Lipstadt said scrutinizing Irving's books was
the key to winning.

1980

DI: Lipstadt at

Temple Israel.

Her dream team included Richard Evans, senior historian
at England's Cambridge University, who followed Irving's
footnotes.
"We decided to turn [Irving] into the defendant. We
would show that he was indeed a denier and does bend the
truth, and he would have to defend his words," she said.
In one Irving book, a footnoted passage said Hitler's
propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels was not an anti-Semite
until he went to Berlin and found Jews deeply involved in
criminal activity.
Irving wrote that in 1932 alone, Jews in Berlin commit-
ted 31,000 cases of fraud, mainly insurance fraud.
Following the four sources of the footnote, researchers
found that two were in German books with no references
to Jewish crime; one was from the Nazi Party press bureau;
and the fourth was a quote from a member of the mobile
killing units.
Going the extra step, Lipstadt's historians found only 174
cases of fraud in all of Germany in 1932, from German
municipal records.
"We did this over and over again," she said. "Most of this
was not glamorous or fancy. It was good research and great
lawyering."
Irving knew they had 30 or 40 instances of this kind of
information six months before trial, she said. "These
weren't just mistakes."
On the very first day of the trial, a small woman worked
her way through the crowd and tapped her on the shoulder.
Lipstadt jumped, having been warned to be on the look-
out for assault attempts.
"She pointed at her [tattooed] arm and said, 'You're fight-
ing for us,"' Lipstadt said.
She considered the trial and her eventual victory on April
11, 2000, the "seminal experience of my life."
"Every single argument [of the deniers] has been rendered
baseless, but haters are tenacious — they'll find new
things," she said. ❑

For information and full trial transcripts, visit the Web
site: www.holocaustdenialontrial.org

The Rome staff of the Hebrew
Immigrant Aid Society contributed
$5,100 to purchase supplies to aid
Italy's earthquake victims.
A police force in Tel Aviv rescued
Mayor Shlomo Lehat and seven
officials who had been held captive
by angry slum dwellers.
Dr. Guy Stern of Detroit, senior
vice president and provost at
Wayne State University, resigned
his position because of reductions
in state aid to the university.

1970
Albert B. Sabin, discoverer of the
oral polio vaccine, was made a fel-
low of science at Albert Einstein
Hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Braverman's Kosher Meats on West
Seven Mile Road in Detroit was offer-
ing corned beef for $1.09 per pound.

1960

President Joseph Kasavubu of the
Republic of Congo broke off diplo-
matic relations with the United
Arab Republic.
Samuel Berger, the first Jewish
candidate to enter the mayoralty
race in Ottawa, Canada, received
endorsements from both city news-
papers.

i

Ruth Meckler, 13-year-old pianist,
gave a recital at the Detroit
Institute of Arts.
Irving Herbert Grossman of
Detroit was installed as worshipful
master of Mosaic Lodge 530 F&AM.
Nyafat (a substitute for shmaltz)
was listed prominently in a recipe
for salmon latkes.

— Compiled by Sy Manello,
editorial assistant

