History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier

by Deborah E. Lipstadt

Book Overview

Now a major motion picture starring Rachel Weisz, Timothy Spall and Tom Wilkinson.

"A compelling book: memoir and courtroom drama, a work of historical and legal import. " -- Jewish Week

Deborah Lipstadt, author of the groundbreaking Denying the Holocaust, chronicles her six-year legal battle with controversial British World War II historian David Irving that culminated in a sensational 2000...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060593776
• ISBN13: 9780060593773
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

The Trial That Never Happened

After the trial was over an editorial cartoon appeared in the Daily Telegraph that showed a man holding up a book entitled "That Libel Trial Never Happened", by David Irving. After reading about the trial you can easily picture Mr. Irving making such a denial. Deborah Lipstadt was involved in a libel suit brought against her by David Irving who claimed his character was defamed by her calling him, in essence, a Holocaust denier. The book gives us a courtroom seat for the entire trial in which Irving represented himself. While Ms. Lipstadt exhibited anxiety about the outcome, the reader of the book will probably be shaking his/her head at what seemed to be a total farce. Mr. Irving was constantly confronted with inaccuracies, incorrect data, and suppression of important facts in the books that he wrote. His response most frequently was that he had made innocent mistakes, that he was up late working and in his tired state he made trivial mistakes. He made many speeches to ultra right wing groups, and denied that he knew anything about the organizations. He denied that he was racist, and stated that he had hired "colored" people, and then talked in a belittling way about them. The judge decides in favor of Ms. Lipstadt, and soundly criticizes Mr. Irving, although he does make a few favorable remarks about him at the very beginning of his long decision. Mr. Irving made three appeals of the decision, all of which were denied. The book is well written and quite suspenseful even though you know how it will end. It is also interesting to read some of the other reviews of this book which are obviously written by other holocaust deniers. One reviewer presents only the initial positive remarks of the judge, and seems to be a denier of the bulk of the very long decision. One other reviewer comments that this book brings nothing new to the story and mentions two other books, one by Professor Evans who testified at the trial. Admittedly if you have read these books first Ms. Lipstadt's might seem superfluous, but I thought this book was excellent, and highly recommend it. British libel trials are interesting affairs that are in direct contrast to American libel laws. If you find this book as fascinating as I did you might want to read this book: "McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial" by John Vidal. This book is about a libel suit brought by McDonalds against a couple of ordinary citizens who passed out leaflets that were critical of the McDonald's operation. It is an interesting coverage of a trial that turned out to be the longest libel trial in British history.

Con-Artists and Ideologues, Please Rise!

Want a true life legal thriller that reads like fiction? Want a plot so outlandish that it is hard to remember that it is real? Something that will make you think, laugh, get angry, and make you proud, all in the same story? Well, here it is. This is an acocunt of the case whereby Deborah Lipstadt was asked to prove in a British court of law that the Holocaust happened! The plaintiff: David Irving - a British historian who makes claims such as that no gassings took place in Auschwitz and that Hitler was unaware of the "final solution." The defendant: Deborah Lipstadt - an American historian sued by Irving for writing a book that, in its pages, takes Irving to task for practicing bad history. Irving sued for libel and, per the backwards legal system of Britian, put the burden of proof on Lipstadt to prove that libel DID NOT occur. The only way to do this? Prove that the things Irving has said about the Holocaust are not only untrue, but that Irving willfully distorted the facts. She must, in other words, prove the Holocaust. This book is Lipstadt's first-hand account of the trial. In so reading, we gradually witness Irving's "history" being held under a microscope by various witnesses who meticulously demonstrate Irving's less-than-honest methods of "history." We watch how Irving quotes only very select passages from documents (and not others), mistranslates words, phrases, and dates, discredits disfavorable evidence as bogus (while being all too ready to accept more 'favorable' evidence without question), etc. What this all leads to is one doozy of a circumstantial case that Irving's "mistakes and errors" were deliberate misrepresentations. As the prosecution liked to put it, mistakes are mistakes, but when 500 mistakes all move towards one and only one conclusoion - exculpation of Hitler - one can be sure that they are "calculated mistakes." (At one comically sad point in the book, historian Richard Evans says something to this effect whiloe being cross-examined by Irving. Irving, seemingly oblivious to the indictment, comments something like, "You mean, like a waiter who consistently gives back wrong change, always in his favor?" He had no idea he was indicting himself!) The book is of interest, then, in two different ways. First, it is strangly entertaiing for such a grave subject. (The Scopes trial has nohting on Irving/Lipstadt.)Lipstadt does a great job telling the story. Second, it is of interest to all who care about history. We get to see how history is done, and how history is not to be done. In so many words, we witness the difference between academic historians and con-artistic ideologues. As this trial recieved remarkably scant attention in the states, it is fun to read of what was a "front page" trial in Britian. We had OJ - they had Irving v. Lipstadt. So, if you are ever in a position to read a gripping true-life courtroom drama, skip the books on the OJ trial, and read Lipstadt's "History on Trial." The truth IS strange

Well worth reading

Professor Lipstadt's account of her trial for libel brought by disgraced writer David Irving manages to be full of suspense even though I knew what the judgement was. She describes the origins of the lawsuit, the months of build-up to the trial, the trial itself, and the judgement, which vindicated her of libel, and showed David Irving to be more than a Holocaust denier, but a liar and anti-semite amongst other things. The fear that although they might win, she and Penguin books would not win absolutely, is well described. I did not find Lipstadt to be humorless, just serious about what were a harrowing few years of her life. The pace of the book is excellent, it is well written and clear, and the insights into the difference between English and American law are thought-provoking. The book also shows that the British "old-boy" system is still alive and well for some people, notably Keegan with his odious writing in the Daily Telegraph, but refreshingly not so in the defence's team nor in the judge. The reactions from survivors and plain Brits - taxi drivers, restaurant patrons, hotel employees, are a heart-warming counter to this. Professor Lipstadt is remarkably restrained in her descriptions of Irving, merely letting his words and actions, as well as the judgement, get across what he is like, which is quite sufficient. There is a lot to learn from this book, not least importantly that one must be very careful about believing what one reads in newspapers and books. Many of the journalists writing about the trial made basic mistakes and put them in print, and the C-Span debacle has made it clear that even when money is not a motive, a tv channel purporting to be independent of ratings may want to entertain rather than inform.

Truth needs to be fought for

There are varying degrees of published untruth. One can accidentally cite what turns out to be a lie that has slipped into the international information supply. One can simply "forget" to search through works that might refute one's thesis. One can cite dubious claims, recklessly disregarding the inconsistencies between them and plenty of other information. But in the case of David Irving, the problem is fraud, where there is actual falsification of the historical record. Now, any work can be used in part to taunt others. But it seems to me that in the case of denying what happened to so many Jews in World War II, a primary goal must be to taunt people. Too many people are too aware of the truth for deceit to be the whole plan. The liars know they are lying, and they know that many others know it as well. So I wondered what would happen in this trial. Could liars truly get away with anything? And the answer in this case was no. It's important to realize that David Irving was not the defendant in some sort of case to censor his lies. If that had been the situation, some folks would have raised issues of freedom of speech. However, Irving was actually suing Lipstadt for defamation. If anyone's right to free speech was threatened, it was Lipstadt's. As one who strongly opposes antischolarly lies, I found this book very interesting. And I was not surprised to see how bad an impression Irving made in court. After Irving lost, even the Guardian had as a headline, "Irving: Confined to History as a Racist Liar." Lipstadt explains that the actual falsifiers of history are not the issue. "Though the battle against our opponents is exceptionally important, the opponents themselves are not. Their arguments make as much sense as flat-earth theory. However, in dramatic contrast to flat-earthers, they can cause tremendous pain and damage." And we see some of that in the reactions of some of the survivors of death camps. I wondered if Lipstadt would make any mention of the stunning number of lies that are in print about the Middle East. She did. Lipstadt naturally mentioned Holocaust denial on the part of Mahmoud Abbas and Abdel Aziz Rantisi. But she also noted, um, Nobel Laureate Yasir Arafat's denial of any connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. As well as the incresed status of various blood libel myths and the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." In addition, she explains that one of Arafat's fellow Nobel Laureates, Jose Saramago, compared Arabs in the Levant with Jews at Auschwitz. And that Tom Paulin called Yeshan Jews "Nazis and racists" who "ought to be shot dead." Now, what is to be done with the liars? Must they be refuted? Lipstadt says yes. And she says it is important to leave them dressed "in the jester's costume." I agree. At some point, the entire scholarly endeavor of our civilization will be in jeopardy if we can't pass proper judgment on such absurd lies. I recommend this book.

not a scholarly work or intended as one, but ....

definitely a quick and entertaining read. I started reading when I got on a bus at 1 PM, and finished the book at about 6 or 7 (despite napping for an hour or so in the middle of a journey). Other reviewers have adequately discussed this book's coverage of the Irving/Lipstadt trial: but I was also interested in learning about the toll litigation can take on the time and energy of even a victorious party. After reading this book, I am definitely more supportive than before of American libel law (which typically places the burden of proof on the plaintiff to show falsity, and provides that public figures can only recover if they show that their opponent was truly reckless): Britian's pro-plaintiff libel law, by encouraging libel suits, caused both Mr. Irving and Ms. Lipstadt to subject themselves to levels of scrutiny that I suspect few scholarly reputations could survive. One minor point: I wish Lipstadt had included some of the relevant documents (in particular, Irving's initial complaint) in the appendix so readers could follow exactly what the parties needed to prove.