Copyright 2000 PR Newswire Europe Limited Press Association Newsfile
January 31, 2000, Monday 0840 EST / 1540 GMT

IRVING NOT ANTI-SEMITIC - JUDAISM EXPERT TELLS COURT

BY Cathy Gordon and Jan Colley, PA News

A Judaism expert today told the High Court Holocaust libel trial that he did
not consider controversial historian David Irving to be anti-Semitic.

Author Kevin MacDonald, professor of psychology at California State
University, was giving evidence on Mr Irving's behalf during his damages
action against American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books over a
claim that he is a "Holocaust denier".

Mr Irving, the 62-year-old author of Hitler's War, asked Prof MacDonald, who
has written books on Judaism and anti-Semitism: "Do you consider me to be an
anti-Semite?"

Prof MacDonald replied: "I do not consider you to be an anti-Semite. I have
had quite a few discussions with you and you almost never mentioned Jews -
never in the general negative way."

During the trial in London before Mr Justice Gray, who is hearing the
lengthy case without a jury, Mr Irving has been accused by Richard Rampton
QC, for Prof Lipstadt and Penguin Books, of making "grossly anti-Semitic"
statements.

Mr Irving has vehemently denied an allegation by the defendants that he has
made statements "designed to feed the virulent anti-Semitism" still alive
and kicking throughout the world today.

Mr Irving is seeking damages over Prof Lipstadt's 1994 book, Denying The
Holocaust: The Growing Assault On Truth And Memory which he says alleges he
has distorted statistics and documents to serve his own ideological purposes
and reach historically untenable conclusions.

The defendants have accused him of being "a liar and a falsifier of=
 history".

Mr Irving says Prof Lipstadt's book has generated "waves of hatred" against
him.

He asked Prof MacDonald today if he had ever heard him express "any
anti-Semitic utterances or beliefs".

Prof MacDonald replied: "No I haven't."

Mr Irving rejects the claim that he is a Holocaust denier. He does question
the number of Jewish dead and denies the systematic extermination of the
Jews in concentration camps.


FACTUAL ERRORS IN LA TIMES NEWS STORY OF 01.07.00

Los Angeles Times
Retraction of Irving vrs. Lipstadt Trial Coverage
01.31.00

For the Record
http://www.latimes.com/news/state/20000131/t000010001.html

Holocaust story--A Jan. 7 article examined the movement to question the
extermination of European Jews during World War II. The article cited a 1993
Roper poll that suggested that 22% of Americans thought it possible the
Holocaust did not happen. A year later, Roper asked the question a different
way because of complaints that the original question was confusing. The
result: 1% said it was possible and 8% said they did not know.

The article said academics at respected institutions have supported
revisionists. Specifically, they are Arthur Butz, an electrical engineering
professor at Northwestern University, which has disavowed his book, "The
Hoax of the Holocaust," and Robert Faurisson, a former literature professor
at the University of Lyons, which has disavowed his views. The article also
said claims that Jewish Holocaust victims' remains were made into lampshades
have been dismissed as myth. In fact, a lampshade made from human skin was
introduced into a criminal trial and submitted to a U.S. congressional
committee.

And some readers may have read the fact that historians have revised the
estimated death toll at Auschwitz from 3 million to 1.1 million to imply
that the overall number of Jews who died during the Holocaust therefore is
lower. In fact, many historians now believe that the number of Jews who died
is closer to 5.1 million than 6 million--the most commonly accepted
figure--for reasons generally unrelated to Auschwitz.

###

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor