arts & life PHOTO BY LAURIE SPARHAM/BLEECKER STREET f i lm Rachel Weisz (left) with historian Deborah Lipstadt, who wrote the book upon which Denial is based The Holocaust Defense Naomi Pfefferman | Jewish Journal of L.A. T here was a time when the esteemed Jewish historian Deborah Lipstadt would never have imagined that one of her books might be turned into a dramatic feature film. But in 2000, a series of startling events unfolded for Lipstadt, beginning when British Holocaust denier David Irving announced that he was PHOTO BY LAURIE SPARHAM/BLEECKER STREET Denial tells the powerful true story of a Jewish historian who must prove in court that the Holocaust happened. Tom Wilkinson stars as a barrister. details Denial opens in Metro Detroit Thurs- day, Oct. 13, at the Maple Theater, Bloomfield Twp. (248) 750-1030; themapletheater.com. Dr. Deborah Lipstadt will be the keynote speaker at the annual dinner for the Holo- caust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 30, at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield. $250-$360. (248) 536-9601; holocaustcenter.org. 48 October 13 • 2016 suing her for libel in the Briti sh courts. He asserted that Lipstadt’s 1993 book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, had smeared him, dam- aging his reputation and livelihood. Irving eventually lost his case, and Lipstadt went on to write her 2005 memoir of the lawsuit, Denial: Holocaust History on Trial (previously published as History on Trial: My Day in Court With a Holocaust Denier). The story of their courtroom battle was so dramatic, and the stakes of proving the verity of the Holocaust so high, that, several years later, Hollywood producers came calling on the Jewish scholar. The result is Mick Jackson’s new film, Denial, the saga of Lipstadt’s courtroom ordeal and ultimate victory, starring Oscar- winner Rachel Weisz as Lipstadt. Denial opens at the Maple Theater in Bloomfield Twp. Thursday, Oct. 13. Lipstadt herself will visit Metro Detroit as the key- note speaker at the 32nd-annual dinner for the Holocaust Memorial Center Sunday, Oct. 30. Having taught at UCLA and currently a professor of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Lipstadt is considered one of the nation’s leading experts on Holocaust denial. But back in the late 1980s, when some esteemed professors from Hebrew University suggested to Lipstadt that she should delve into the topic, she was initially hesitant. “I thought, ‘Why would people even believe that absurdity?’” Lipstadt says. “Would someone ask a scientist to write about flat Earth theory? It just seemed over the top.” Even so, she agreed to explore the topic because of her respect for the Hebrew University professors, who viewed Holocaust denial as a new, insidious form of anti-Semitism. Six years later, her studies became the subject of her groundbreaking book, Denying the Holocaust. The tome revealed a disturbing trend of pseudo-historians manip- ulating history in an attempt to debunk the Shoah — creating the illusion that there is a valid “other side” to Holocaust history. The denier who stood out as most dangerous among them was Irving, who had earned some favorable reviews in mainstream publications as well as scholarly esteem for his books about World War II and the Third Reich. In Denying the Holocaust, Lipstadt describes Irving as a “Hitler partisan wearing blinkers,” who distorted data in order to reach his “untenable” conclusions. Irving argued that gas chambers were never used to systematically kill Jews; that there had never been a Third Reich plan to annihilate European Jewry; that Hitler was probably the biggest fan the Jews had in Nazi-occupied Europe and that Holocaust survivors were either liars or charlatans. Before the libel trial, Irving had even shown up with a camera crew at one of Lipstadt’s lectures and declared that he would give $1,000 to anyone who could prove that Hitler ordered the extermination of the Jews. “He popped up in the back … and it was a pretty horrible moment,” Lipstadt said. Early in the film, we see that interaction during the lecture, as well as Lipstadt responding to Irving that she does not debate deniers, just as she wouldn’t argue with someone who insists that Elvis is still alive. Later in the movie, Lipstadt can be seen laughing when, in 1995, she receives a letter from her British publisher, Penguin UK, informing her that Irving intends to sue her for libel. The scholar doesn’t take the threat of a lawsuit seriously and promptly tosses the letter into the trash. But a year later, Irving indeed files suit in Britain, which puts Lipstadt in an unexpectedly dif- ficult bind. In a United States courtroom, Irving would have been considered a public person and to win a libel suit would have had to prove Lipstadt maligned him with malicious intent. But in England, the reverse is the case: The burden of proof was on Lipstadt to show Irving deliberately distorted history because of his underlying anti- Semitism. In order to win, her legal team also had to prove that the Holocaust had, indeed, occurred.