Denial [Movie Tie-in]: Holocaust History on Trial by Deborah E. Lipstadt

Author:Deborah E. Lipstadt [Lipstadt, Deborah E.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

Rampton noted that Irving’s comment had been met, once again, with a “jolly laugh.” Feeling as if I had abandoned the man with the number on his arm, I turned back toward the gallery. His head was lowered. Again, I turned away. It was easier to look at Irving.

Irving insisted that his criticism of Mrs. Altman, an individual Jew, was not antisemitic. He was not attacking all Jews or even all survivors. Then, seeming to forget that he was not delivering one of his after-dinner speeches, he said, “The burden of my criticism of the Mrs Altmans of this world is that the ones who have been coining the money are the ones who suffered least. . . . Survivors . . . have been turning their suffering into profit whereas people who suffered in other circumstances, like the air raid victims or the Australian soldiers building the Burmese railway have never sought to make money of their suffering.”10

Rampton next asked Irving about a description he had recorded in his diary when a group of protestors gathered outside his home. “The whole rabble, all the scum of humanity stand outside. The homosexuals, the gypsies, the lesbians, the Jews, the criminals, the communists, the left-wing extremists, the whole commune stands there and has to be held back behind steel barricades for two days.” When Rampton declared this a reflection of “Mr Irving’s true mind,” Irving angrily insisted that his words were a “literal description” of the protestors and offered to show Rampton the photographs so “we can identify who they are.”11 I wondered how one identified homosexuals or, for that matter, criminals, Jews, and Gypsies from a photograph. I regretted that Rampton did not take him up on the offer. Instead, we ended for the day.

I left the courtroom pleased by our progress but dispirited by the day’s exchange. From a forensic perspective I believed we had demonstrated for Judge Gray that Irving’s comments about Jews, people of color, and other minorities were an essential part of who this man really was. But Irving’s expressions of prejudice and the glee with which he seemed to make them dispelled any feelings of victory.

The events of the day soon faded into the background. I had managed to get tickets to Trevor Nunn’s Royal National Theatre production of The Merchant of Venice and invited James, Heather, and some friends who had come from Israel to join me. I had made reservations for supper after the play in the theater restaurant. Excited about this break from the tedium of long days in court, I rushed home to get ready. The play was stunning. Nunn remaining true to the text, was sympathetic to Shylock and attributed his vengeance to persecution by the ruling class. By the second act, however, I was finding it increasingly difficult to listen to language that reviled Jews. “Currish Jew.” I cringed when Gratiano cursed Shylock as “thou damned, inexecrable dog!” But it was during the infamous third act—“Hath not a Jew eyes .

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