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[Irving family]
News
February 4, 2000
The
Shmooze on Friday
Survivor hired Irving’s daughter
BRITISH
Holocaust revisionist David Irving, banned from entering Australia since 1993, was reported recently to be savouring the irony that his daughter, Beatrice Irving, is an Australian citizen and public servant.
But he might not be so enthused to learn that she was given her first job in the Queensland Public Service by a
Jew who is not only an ordained rabbi, but a Holocaust survivor. (Irving is currently suing
Holocaust denial expert Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin
Books in London for libel.)
Rabbi Uri Themal, executive director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs in the Queensland Premier’s
Department, told our Canberra corespondent Bernard Freedman that he gave Ms Irving her first Public Service appointment as his temporary personal assistant about eight years ago when he was heading what was then the Queensland Bureau of
Ethnic Affairs.
Born in Berlin in 1942, Themal had to hide with his mother from the Nazis for the duration of World War II.
“Beatrice was not at first going to tell me about her connection with David Irving because she was afraid I would not employ her, he recalled. “I don’t judge people by association, but by performance. She is the complete opposite of her father. She is very much into multiculturalism and community relations, and for a long time she didn’t have anything to do with her father.
Her parents were divorced a long time ago.
Ms Irving has since become a permanent public servant in another department, where she holds a more senior position.
According to a report in The
Australian this week, Irving, currently in the midst of a libel trial in London, plans to get around the ban on his entry to Australia by using his daughter’s naturalisation to obtain an entry visa.
Website comment: Ever since his adult daughter Beatrice moved to Australia, Mr Irving has kept in regular touch by letter, phone and e-mail. He was fully aware of her then employer. The above nonsense story was however widely repeated during February 2000, until Beatrice issued a denial through the Australian
Associated Press.
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