This excerpt is from David Duke's _My_Awakening_ [Free Speech Press: Covington, LA, 1998, pp. 418-419] It is a handy summary to give to someone who comes to "Revisionism" cold:
A prime example of the persecution of the Holocaust questioners is the story of historian David Irving. His books are found in almost every library in the world. Irving has written more than thirty volumes on the Second World War published by a half dozen of the most prominent publishers in the Western World, including: The Viking Press, Harper & Row, Little, Brown, Simon & Schuster, and Avon Books.
The most respected historians in the world, including A.J.P. Taylor, Trevor Roper, Gordon Craig, and Stephen Ambrose have praised his works. He has researched in the German State Archives for more than thirty years, as well as in the U.S. National Archives, the British Public Records Office, the government archives of Australia, France, Italy and Canada,- and even the former Soviet Secret State Archives. He was the first historian to challenge the validity of the widely heralded (and later debunked) _Hitler_Diaries_ [846] In the course of his wideranging research, Irving has uncovered many documents that challenge parts of the Holocaust orthodoxy.
While he was in Germany, Irving quoted the videotaped admission of the head curator of the Auschwitz State Museum, Dr. Francizek Piper. Piper had admitted that the facility shown to the world (and more than 40 million visitors) for 40 years - as a genuine Nazi-built gas chamber - is not authentic. Polish Communists had actually built it after the war. For simply quoting Piper's admission, the governent charged Irving with "Defaming the memory of the dead."
Although he had clear evidence proving the truth of his statement, Irving was forbidden to present it at his trial or even to call Dr. Piper as a witness. For making his statements of historical fact, the German government fined him 30,000 marks. In "the German State's interest" they banned him from using the German State Archives where he had labored for more than thirty years, and to which he had donated priceless collections of original documents.
The German government has now banned him from the country. Canada, France, Austria, Italy, South Africa, Australia and many other nations have subsequently banned him at the behest of the Jews. His publishers have been harassed and intimidated into canceling contracts. He has been physically attacked and has had lectures broken up by pipe-wielding thugs.
In Canada, at the request of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the authorities seized, shackled, and deported him from the country in handcuffs. The Toronto Globe & Mail asked why he had been handcuffed and then answered its own question, 'Did someone think he might use his typewriter?'
With the American tradition of First Amendment rights, few realize that in the so-called "Free World" it is possible for a historian to be jailed simply for voicing an opinion about a historical event of 50 years ago. Speaking inside his home near the U.S. embassy in London, Irving did an interview with a French television station, again repeating the fact that the main gas chambers shown to tourists at Auschwitz are fakes. For making this statement in his own living room in London, he was prosecuted in the Paris courts. In France, it is illegal to challenge any of the crimes against humanity as alleged in the Nuremberg Trials Charter of 1945 - even if one does so in his own home and in another country.
There are those who say that we should not debate aspects of the Holocaust any more than we should debate those who say the world is flat. Yet, would any knowledgeable person be afraid to debate an advocate of the flat Earth theory? Would he urge the passage of laws to prevent the advocate of that theory from speaking, writing or publishing? Would he try to have his livelihood destroyed, have him fined thousands of dollars, and if that did not work, cast him into prison?
I believe in freedom of speech because I am not afraid. I believe that my ideas are well reasoned and that I can back up my opinions with logic and evidence. In an atmosphere of free and open discussion, I fear not, for there is not a truth that I dread. What do the opponents of David Irving, or of all revisionists, fear?
Our libraries and schools are extremely well stocked with Holocaust literature. Newspapers and magazines surge with an endless stream of related stories. Theater and television screens light up with drama, commentary, interviews, and images of the Holocaust. It would seem that with this much overkill, there should be little to fear from the David Irvings of the world - unless of course, they think that his evidence is convincing, his reasoning sound and his presentation eloquent. Thus, to protect their popular version of the Holocaust, they seek to hound this man to the ends of the Earth.
What "historical fact" is so weak that it must be protected by terror, by jail, and deportation? What do the opponents of David Irving and the other revisionists fear? Are the revisionist arguments so convincing that their opponents must use naked political oppression to silence them?
Thought for the Day:
"Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge...it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened."
--George Washington