"More people died in the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car in Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz." These are the words of David Irving, who made history himself when he lost a British libel trial against Deborah Lipstadt for labeling him a Holocaust revisionist in her 1993 book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory.
This dense, fact-filled but always compelling volume not only details Irving's libel suit (van Pelt testified against him at the trial), but collects and documents the plethora of historical and scientific evidence that proves he was wrong. While Irving's claim—astonishing for a historian who had received praise for works such as The Destruction of Dresden
(1963) and Hitler's War
(1977)—is overtly ludicrous, the power of this book resides in van Pelt's broad analysis of Holocaust revisionism—or "negationism," as van Pelt more accurately labels it—and its myriad manifestations. He discusses Irving's gradual emergence from respected historian to full-fledged negationist; the career of French professor Dr. Robert Faurisson, a "hard-core negationist" who managed to elicit intellectuals Noam Chomsky and Jean-François Lyotard to defend his "academic freedom"; and the "scientific" testimony of Fred Leuchter (the subject of Errol Morris's 1999 film, Mr. Death). The bulk of the book is the methodical and chilling presentation of materials presented at the trial—first-person accounts, photos, historical documents, diagrams, scientific evidence, testimony of former SS guards—interwoven with Irving's testimony and defense. Van Pelt (Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present) has arranged an enormous amount of complex material succinctly and to great effect. Read as a whole, the book is a stunning courtroom drama and a vital document of historical evidence. This is an important addition to Holocaust literature and 20th-century history. 130 b&w illus. (Jan.)
