Real History and Television Schlock

Posted Tuesday, October 31, 2000

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Atlanta, Georgia, Tuesday, October 31, 2000

Truth wins as trial on Holocaust is revisited

by Phil Kloer

TV REVIEW

"Holocaust on Trial"

8 tonight on GPTV (50031)

Grade: A

THERE is no document signed by Adolf Hitler authorizing the Final Solution, the extermination of the European Jews. Therefore, if such a plan existed, Hitler was unaware of it.

Anne Frank's father edited portions of her diary before publication. Therefore, the diary is a fraud.

The gas chambers at Auschwitz are so bomb-damaged that the holes used to drop the poison gas through the ceiling cannot be found. Therefore, poison gas was not used at Auschwitz.

Such monstrously twisted "logic" is part of the dream world of Holocaust deniers, a loosely knit international community that ranges from anti-Semitic skinheads to academics who string together minor facts in order to construct a major abomination: The notion that the Nazi Holocaust did not exist, or if it did, was not all that widespread.

Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt exposed the movement and its methods in her 1993 book, "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory," and was sued for libel by one of those she took to task, British historian David Irving.

The British trial, which ended in April with a verdict in favor of Lipstadt (that Irving was a Holocaust denier) became more than just Lipstadt vs. Irving; it wound up being a search for historical truth.

Too bad (and too typical) that it didn't get a fraction of the attention of a big juicy U.S. murder trial or anything scandalous involving a celebrity. But an excellent new one-hour PBS "Nova" examines both the trial and the monumental issues at stake.

Because the London judge did not allow cameras in the courtroom, "Nova" restages the trial using actors who quote from the transcript. This can be a risky technique but seems to have been used responsibly here. And because Lipstadt did not testify, the focus is completely on Irving.

In a Hannibal Lecter sort of way, Irving is a very compelling character. Originally a respected historian whose early books on the Nazis were considered important, he was one of the key figures in debunking the fraudulent "Hitler diaries" in 1983.

But at some point, he went off the rails, seizing on small details in an attempt to downplay or excuse the mass murder of Jews while still posing as a respected historian. News clips shown in court found him addressing a neo-Nazi rally in Germany and making anti-Semitic comments at a conference.

We never get into Irving's head to discover what changed in him, but that isn't the point. Instead, the documentary takes Irving's arguments apart, piece by piece, much as Lipstadt's book did. Although Lipstadt has no voice, literally, in this re-creation, in a way the entire program is her voice, clearly laying out her life's work.

In April, the trial judge found that Irving had "misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence" and that he was "an active Holocaust denier." Lipstadt, and the truth, had won.

In an interview hours after the verdict, however, Lipstadt said, "The nightmare is not over. There is no end to the battle against racism, anti-Semitism and fascism."