Mick Hartley

Daniel Finkelstein writes what I think is the most eloquent article yet on David Irving’s imprisonment:

One of Irving’s contentions, one that helped to bring him a three-year prison sentence, was that “74,000 (Jews) died of natural causes in the work camps and the rest were hidden in reception camps after the war and later taken to Palestine, where they live today under new identities”. Let’s examine this for a moment, shall we?

Yesterday my mother told me of the day, as a young girl in Westerbork concentration camp, she said goodbye to her aunt and uncle and to her 14-year-old cousin, Fritz. These much-loved family members had been listed for the Tuesday transport train to Auschwitz. My mother still has the pitiful letter from her aunt promising that “we will meet again”. But, of course, they never did. David Irving presumably thinks that Fritz and his parents survived and are living in Israel. In which case, the joke is over: they can come back now, don’t you think?

With her own eyes, my mother saw Anne Frank arrive in Belsen (she knew the family), yet still Irving and people like him contend that Frank’s story is fake. And I have been to countless meetings, met dozens of people, who saw the Nazi crimes themselves, lost relatives, were scarred for life, only survived (as my mother did) because of unbelievable moments of good fortune.

It is difficult, even for me now, born in safety, free to bring up my sons as Jews, sitting at a desk typing my article in civilised Britain, it is difficult not to feel anger, rage at Irving. It is difficult not to wish him behind bars. And I do feel rage. But I do not wish him behind bars, not for giving his opinion, not for delivering a lecture, however warped and horrible his opinion is. I still believe in the power of truth. And my belief in truth is what separates me from Irving.

The admirable author Deborah Lipstadt had it right when she destroyed Irving in the courts, challenging his methods as a historian, undermining his reputation, demonstrating his falsehoods and his distortions. It is always tempting to fear the liar and believe, as Mark Twain did that “A lie can make it half way around the world before the truth has time to put its boots on”. But I have more faith than that. I believe that by allowing free exchange, by allowing anyone to assert anything, the truth will triumph,provided that its friends are vigilant and relentless.

So, no, David Irving should not be in jail. We can do better than that. I wish I could tell you that the Irving trial is the only way in which my belief in the power of truth is being tested. But it isn’t. Across the Middle East now, Holocaust denial has become commonplace. It was not difficult last week to spot the banners reading “God Bless Hitler”. The President of the Palestinian Authority denied the full truth of the Holocaust in his PhD. I wish I could tell you that never again will anyone be able to kill millions of Jews, but as we speak Iran is well down the nuclear path and threatens to eradicate Israel.

David Irving is the least of our troubles. But through it all we must hold fast to this: that we must always be ready to meet force with force, but lies — lies we fight with truth.