Should David Irving, Holocaust denier, be allowed to run tours to Poland?

It seems that the, formerly convicted, British Holocaust denier David Irving is starting to run tours to former nazi concentration camps and other sites in Poland.


[cracowtours.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/holocaust-denier-to-lead-tours-to-auschwitz-and-treblinka/]

Holocaust denier to lead tours to Auschwitz and Treblinka. Is Holocaust denial illegal in Poland?

Yes. And Poles don't normally take lightly the accusation that their family members weren't shot and gassed.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I do agree with him on this point:

Erm....a holocaust denier in Auschwitz??? Isn't that a good thing?

I don't think he is the right man for the job but, then again, who's to say that the current folk that do that job are any more accurate in their numbers? The range of numbers I've heard bandied about is staggering!

He has his position so let him defend it.

Except that he's not exactly a denier. Revisionist, like. Numbers, methods, policies.

He is a denier in part as he sought to dispel the gas component. I watched one of his presentations and he was very clear about the lack of traces present.

Well...there is nothing inherently bad about revisionism.

Revisionism is not revanchist, BB? David Irving has no reason to distort the figures. Although I suspect him of being paranoid, he comes across as lucid and as sb who has done his homework through trawling numerous archives.

It doesn't make him a 'Holocaust denier'. He is contesting details, not the fact as such.

Well, not exactly. He was unequivocally stating that the gassing element was fabricated, thus denying a crucial element of the Holocaust.

To me the crucial element are millions dead. As for the gassing, there's a door from the gas chamber in Dachau in one of the US Holocaust museums. Fake, as historians now agree that there was no gas chamber in Dachau. It was still there years after they came to this agreement.

He gives arguments. Counter-arguments are non-existent, to my knowledge.

He is contesting the fact that there was a systematic plan to annihilate certain groups of people.

He is contesting the Endloesung in the popularly known version. He doesn't deny the existence of Einsatzgruppen, sole purpose of which was to eliminate the undesirables, of which the Jews were the most important part. Such a wide action seems like needing some systematic plan.

Yes there is.

Can't this guy find a job doing something else?
Clearly some despicable folks want to revise history to their twisted narrative and feed it to others... Ugly stuff.

Not exactly the same but last year there was uproar in Philadelphia because "history" tour guides were tinting our Founders' history. Some were merely uneducated idiots while others clearly had an anti-American-patriotism ideology and agenda.

Exactly the sort of people you don't want -who shouldn't be- "informing" others by twisting and polluting our history.
They tried to cover their misinformation and lying by saying it was their free speech right. Can you believe that?

As you clearly admire him so much, why not go on his tour? It's only $2,650 and that price includes seven nights of accommodation in 4* hotels plus access to the great man himself.

No it isn't!

If new facts are found our evaluation of our knowledge of events needs to be revised...revisionism is actually needed and happens everywhere all the time..nothing inherently bad about it!

Only if the corrections are correct of course but that is the duty of the scientists and historians.

I disagree.

"Holocaust denial consists of claims that the genocide of Jews during World War II-usually referred to as the Holocaust[1]-did not occur at all, or that it did not happen in the manner or to the extent historically recognized. "


And what do you think of this guys "facts"?

Given the context, I disagree.
Again.

I don't know much about him and his facts actually...I told before I don't care for that number haggling...

Giordano Bruno was a revisionist...he got burned for it.

Revisionism is a good thing!

Of course you are right...


Provided they are acting with sincere and not sinister intent.

Over here when we hear the term "history revisionism" it raises a red flag because we generally see it as an intentional distorting of history. We get a lot of that over here. :s

Well...either the new facts and theories are faulty or not is a matter of discussion...but revisionism is neutral.

We certainly don't want history to be twisted, but how do you know the official line is right in every detail if you shut the opponents up. Doesn't that make the official version twisted, or at least suspect?

I think BB is right.

The very nature of history, and of any kind of research for that matter, is revisionist. Without revising the old or the present we'd still be worried about the possibility of falling of the edge of the flat world. Most of the official holocaust body of studies is revisionist too. The revised Hitler's stand on Jewish issues. The British revised their practice of slavery and decided it would make sense to abolish it, and the women rights activists were/are certainly revisionists.

A vast majority of the official so called "studies" on holocaust are not real studies at all. I'd call it a mix of propaganda, business and politics.

Well, then you are right, of course, I didn't know this definition.

For me it looks like censorship of science, though, staunch defence of a dogmatic canon. Consequently, Irving looks like Giordano Bruno.

Anyway, even if he claimed that no single Jew was killed during the WW2, then stupidity is not considered a crime, in general. Only in this very case - and the law is applied to people who actually have something to back up their claims.

edit: the discussion has livened up... as usual

Sure. Isn't this the whole point of this thread?
I think we need to closely examine this guy's motives.
For having a Holocaust denier running history tours of Auschwitz is like having a KKK dude giving history tours about slavery and civil rights...
They may as well hire Sokrates! :s

Yes, that's why I wonder!

What is he doing there? He can hardly deny the Holocaust if he actually walks the ways of the victims there...

*scratches head*

See the definition of Holocaust denial. Methods and extent.


I'd say his motives may stay a mystery to us, whatever we do. We can examine the arguments, though.

That one?


And visiting the place where that happened would help support the denial how exactly?

*goes googling*

Saying that revisionism is a good thing when not knowing the context is no great thing.

"Irving has expressed racist and antisemitic sentiments, both publicly and privately. Irving has often expressed his belief in the theory of a sinister Jewish conspiracy ruling the world, and that the belief in the reality of Holocaust was manufactured as part of the same alleged conspiracy.[64] Irving uses the label "traditional enemies of the truth" to describe Jews, and in a 1963 article about a speech by Sir Oswald Mosley wrote that "Yellow Star did not make a showing".[64] In 1992, Irving stated that "...the Jews are very foolish not to abandon the gas chamber theory while they still have time" and claimed he "foresees a new wave of antisemitism" the world over due to Jewish "exploitation of the Holocaust myth".[76] During an interview with the American writer Ron Rosenbaum, Irving stated his belief that Jews were his "traditional enemy" etc... [Wiki]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Ruling - Ruling from his court case:

" Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist, and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism. "

Not silly!

I don't like that most people raise automatically their eyebrows if they hear only the word "revisionism" or that labeling someone "revisionist" is meant to be something bad, something despicable.

Without revisionism there would never have been any progress in any science at all...yes also in history!

So even labeling Irving as a revisionist means zilch...especially not as a derogatory comment.
His theories are another matter alltogether and up to criticism or ignorance (as with me) for everybody!

Cripes. They may as well hire Ahmadinejad to give the tours... :s


I think it is now safe to conclude just what his motives are here.

Good work, S.

And in context, either you are talking about this guy David Irving Or you are not on topic:
Should David Irving, Holocaust denier, be allowed to run tours to Poland?

To say that revisionism is good when faced with such a liar, is in context, silly.


Well I can only imagine the "historical tour" he will make up.