Warsaw,
Poland, Friday, May 18, 2007 4:37 pm David
Irving exhibit, talk in Warsaw, Poland, cancelled under
pressure
EXHIBITION chief Grzegorz Guzowski, head of the
Ars Polona company, today [Friday May 18, 2007]
ordered the immediate closure of David Irving's
stand, Focal Point Publications, on the third day of the
Warsaw Book Fair, and the cancellation of his planned
lecture (on the political problems of writing modern
history) in the Mickiewicz Hall of the Soviet-era Palace
of Culture this evening.
He explained to Mr Irving that they had come under
pressure from outside bodies. [A website
source states: "The ban was initiated by the Director
of Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum Piotr Cywinski, who
apparently complained ."]
Mr Guzowski was extremely courteous and apologetic to
the author, but made plain that they were not prepared to
resist these pressures. Mr Guzowski undertook to
reimburse all fees, airfares and expenses incurred by Mr
Irving, whose Focal Point stand was a popular draw for
two days with many visitors from Eastern European
countries. During this final morning at the stand he had
already recorded four television interviews with Polish
news corporations.
He signed several publishing deals with eastern
European publishers, including one with a Danzig-based
Polish publisher, for his explosive memoirs and for the
Heinrich
Himmler biography on which he is working.
Intervening in a television interview being given by
Mr Guzowski in front of the stand, as security officials
hurried to pack up its contents, Mr Irving said, "It is
ironic that Poland, whose freedom Britain has twice
fought to preserve, is now surrendering to such outside
bodies once again."
A NOTE on press accuracy. The
Scotsman reported on May 19, 2007: "Historian
David Irving, a convicted holocaust
denier, was escorted out of an international book
fair in Warsaw where he was
planning to display his
books, Polish organisers said on Saturday. "We asked him
to leave," said Grzegorz Guzowski, the book fair
organiser. He said Irving's publishers did not send
materials detailing his work to the fair
until a few hours before the
deadline."
THE Austrian arrest warrant, dated 1989, was for
Wiederbetätigung, not "holocaust denial". As
for the Warsaw Book Show, the Focal
Point booking for the exhibition was submitted on April
6, 2007 and accepted the following day. The
application provided this catalogue description: "We
publish David Irving's world-famous books and
biographies. His Hitler biography was a best-seller in
Poland and worldwide." [Click
to view]
