Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Hiding history’s truth

Tuesday, April 18, 2000 | 9:41 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

A reputable historian makes clear the difference between known facts and his interpretation of how those bits and pieces of knowledge fit into what has happened. This is not what Hitler biographer David Irving has been doing for many years. He has used his respected position to go one step further and misinterpreted known facts in an effort to cast doubt upon the existence of one of the world's most tragic happenings. Very simply, Irving became an apologist for Hitler and denied his role in the Holocaust, which according to the historian didn't happen as reported.

American history professor and writer Deborah Lipstadt exposed Irving and several other Holocaust deniers in her book "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory."

Lipstadt reveals, "Irving is one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial. Familiar with historical evidence, he bends it until it conforms with his ideological leanings and political agenda. A man who is convinced that Britain's great decline was accelerated by its decision to go to war with Germany, he is most facile at taking accurate information and shaping it to confirm his conclusions. A review of his recent book, Churchill's War, which appeared in New York Review of Books, accurately analyzed his practice of applying a double standard to evidence. He demands 'absolute documentary proof' when it comes to proving the Germans guilty, but he relies on highly circumstantial evidence to condemn the Allies. This is an accurate description not only of Irving's tactics, but of those of deniers in general."

Irving rewarded Lipstadt's accusations with a lawsuit that just last week ended in London. His libel case fell on its face for lack of being able to defend his own position. The 334-page decision read by High Court Judge Charles Gray declared Irving a "right-wing, pro-Nazi polemicist." Even more damaging to a historian, who has written more than 30 books about World War II and Hitler, the judge said he "has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence. ..."

Irving dismissed what American troops and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower had found when entering Nazi death camps. Photos and films of what took place in the factories of death and the statements and confessions of those who saw and even participated in the slaughter were cast aside by Irving.

Adolf Eichmann's diary tells of the Holocaust and calls it the "most enormous crime in the history of mankind." He wrote that he had witnessed the "gruesome workings of the machinery of death; gear meshed with gear, like clockwork." Eichmann declared it "the biggest and most enormous dance of death of all times."

Eichmann also wrote about what he saw in January 1942 in the town of Minsk, " 'When I arrived at the place of the execution, the gunmen fired into a pit the size of several rooms. They fired from small submachine guns. As I arrived, I saw a Jewish woman with a small child in her arms in the pit. I wanted to pull out the child, but then a bullet smashed the skull of the child. My driver wiped brain particles from my leather coat. I got into the car. Berlin, I told the driver. I drank schnapps like it was water. I had to numb myself. I thought about my own children. At the time, I had two.' "

Eichmann's diary was released by Israel and presented by Lipstadt's defense lawyer during the trial in London.

Yes, Irving, there was a Holocaust, and even deniers of truth can't change history no matter how hard they try to mislead their students and readers.

Thursday I'll take a closer look at Irving and others who are trying to change history in the minds of those who didn't experience it.