This is taken from the April Zundel-Haus Power letter, just finished and already on the way. Ernst Zundel's comments on today's important news:
Last-Minute Bulletin: The Irving-Lipstadt judgment is in!
Here is what came over the wire just minutes ago:
LONDON, April 11 (Reuters) - British Hitler historian David Irving lost a libel action on Tuesday against a U.S. professor and her publishers over claims that he was a "Holocaust denier" and "falsifier of history", British TV networks said.
Irving claims Adolf Hitler did not mastermind mass slaughter of Jews and says the Auschwitz Nazi death camp is little more than a "Disneyland for tourists" built after the war in 1948.
The historian, who conducted his own case in the eight-week trial at London's High Court, lost his action against Penguin Books, a subsidiary of media giant Pearson Plc , and professor Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
When I started this newsletter, the London verdict was not yet in. Like thousands of other Revisionists, I waited by the phone and fax machine for news from London. Deadly, ominous silence reigned - the minutes, then the hours ticked by.
There had only been one bit of intelligence gathered on the weekend: I was told that there was to be a Jewish organized extravaganza. I reflected on what that might mean, and it was no great big mystery. Normally, nobody who has lost a trial - or a football game, for that matter - organizes that kind of an event. Of course, I had always been different. I reflected on how I had organized a party for my friends and supporters at my headquarters at the end of every one of my trials, which I lost every time in the lower courts. We refused to be defeated, especially in our minds and our spirit. We celebrated the damage we had done to their Lie and rejoiced about the many truths we had been able to put before the public via the courtroom proceedings, nailed down forever in the trial transcripts. We knew that reporters, scholars, historians and students would mine those transcripts for years to come - and that is, indeed, what has happened! Revisionism has been immeasurably strengthened and given impetus through these bitter battles in the courts. The outrageous claims of the Holocaust Lobby would not be a globally discussed issue today, had it not been for our court battles almost two decades ago.
Nevertheless, even though we had all braced ourselves, knowing what we know about the courts and the legal system's role in society, the brutal verdict has come as a shock to the Revisionist community.
One of the first letters to the Zundelsite said this:
<start>
Amazing stuff. *If* (Irving) lost all the way and is made to pay the costs, this is another scandal and a clear travesty of justice. As usual Faurisson was right.
Britain is no exception and judges will be judges everywhere: creatures whose first mission is to ensure the survival of the powers that be. Justice is nothing but a word.
(Lipstadt) didn't even have to open her mouth. Regardless of where one stands relative to the "Holocaust", the case against Lipstadt contained clearly libelous parts beyond any doubt. Is it possible that all was ignored and she came out absolutely clean?"
<end>
Well, that seems to be indeed pretty well what has happened. In a very long judgment of 220 pages, including a 30 page summary, the judge agreed with the defense that Irving was a "racist", an "anti-semite" and a few other choice labels - in other words, a rather unsavory character who associated with other unsavory characters. The Lipstadt people won.
However! There is a very big However, for Judge Gray was clearly bothered by the lack of evidence for some of the defense claims, particularly as concerns "gas vans", "gassings" at Chelmno, etc. Judge Gray was astonished by Irving's overly quick concessions - which the judge highlights in his reports with relish.
I quote here from the verdict text, emphasizing what I feel is critical:
<start>
1.3 Needless to say, the context in which these issues fall to be determined is one which arouses the strongest passions. On that account, ***it is important that I stress at the outset of this judgment that I do not regard it as being any part of my function as the trial judge to make findings of fact as to what did and what did not occur during the Nazi regime in Germany.*** It will be necessary for me to rehearse, at some length, certain historical data. The need for this arises because I must evaluate the criticisms of or (as Irving would put it) the attack upon his conduct as an historian in the light of the available historical evidence. But ***it is not for me to form, still less to express, a judgement about what happened. That is a task for historians. It is important that those reading this judgment should bear well in mind the distinction between my judicial role in resolving the issues arising between these parties and the role of the historian seeking to provide an accurate narrative of past events.***
13.3 The question which I shall have to decide is whether the Defendants have discharged the burden of establishing the substantial truth of their claim that Irving has falsified the historical record. In this connection I should repeat the caveat expressed at the beginning of this judgment: ***the issue with which I am concerned is Irving's treatment of the available evidence. It is no part of my function to attempt to make findings as to what actually happened during the Nazi regime. The distinction may be a fine one but it is important to bear it in mind.***
13.71 ***I have to confess that, in common I suspect with most other people, I had supposed that the evidence of mass extermination of Jews in the gas chambers at Auschwitz was compelling. I have, however, set aside this preconception when assessing the evidence adduced by the parties in these proceedings."***
<end>
In other words, this is the very first time that a judge has said that he was a believer prior to this trial, and now he has some doubts! And he also said that he sees it as the role of the historians to ". . . provide an accurate narrative of past events."
On other occasions Judge Gray is persuaded that there were gassings at Auschwitz - no doubt by Irving's conceding that there might have been experimental gassings or gassings in gas vans. The judge was also rather scathingly surprised about Irving's abandoning the Leuchter Report in mid-trial - a document he had called "irrefutable" for years before the trial!
So that is where we are today.
Even in defeat, Irving's claims are still being repeated and will be repeated for years to come, leading some to perk up and, hopefully, to investigate on their own. We know from my own experience that because of these stressful trials we had reached millions of newspaper readers and many more millions of radio listeners and TV viewers with our viewpoint. We know that Irving, like no other man in history, has succeeded in raising serious doubts in the minds of tens of millions of people about what was, up to then, a largely unquestioned historical event in the mainstream media - just as it was an utterly unquestioned event in Canada when I first went to trial.
I want you to see this in a cosmic perspective. My personal fate, like David Irving's today, was virtually irrelevant to this larger achievement. Usually I was in jail right after being convicted. I read the media character assassination of me in a prison cell, knowing that because of the judge's gag order imposed on me as part of my sentence, I could not even reply to defend my reputation against all the lies published about me.
That was the moment when I, for the first time, comprehended the word "martyrdom." I knew I was innocent. I knew I was being victimized by some (not all!) biased or cowardly judges, jurors and prosecutors - who, like Pontius Pilate, washed their hands of me in the face of hostile pressure. I could hear the chants of the brain-washed masses repeat after the agitators: "Nazi! Nazi! Racist! Racist! Jail him! Deport him! Be rid of him - that German hate monger!"
One report this morning said that Irving was pelted with eggs as he went to hear his sentence.
I remember sitting powerless in a courtroom filled to the brim and humming like a beehive with the excited voices of my Jewish detractors who could hardly contain their satisfaction and glee as the judge berated me, called me a "bigot", a "racist", a "hate monger" and "a threat to society". I knew that these labels did not describe me. I can feel for David the man, the human being. I can truly feel his pain and humiliation as few others can, for I have been there, over and over again. I was lucky; I believed in karma; I believed with all my heart that I was right - that what I did was just and socially constructive, needed and useful. I know it sounds strange, but in all my humiliation and pain I felt blessed - blessed by an inscrutable fate to be allowed by God or whatever force directs the fate of man to have been chosen as the tool and the means, the vehicle to bring these historical truths and facts to a world wallowing in hate, deceived and blinded by propaganda.
I do not know how David Irving will cope with this setback, especially taking into account his domestic worries - and now the financial burden of having to pay these huge legal costs of the opposition. The media talk mentions anywhere from $3.2 to as high as $6 million (US). I fear for him - for his safety, his emotional stability. My heart goes out to him and his family. I wish I could be there to help him and to console him - the truth is, I cannot. However, I can speak for myself and my circle of friends.
For us, this ruling is mere words, formulated by one judge in this one particular case in a country called England. Those of us in the forefront of this Herculean struggle with Evil Incarnate must not allow a setback or temporary defeat to weaken our resolve, otherwise we bestow on our enemies an undeserved advantage. I understand from press reports that the judge even denied Irving leave to appeal his verdict, which does not sound legal to me, unless English law is radically different from Canadian law.
The press reports state that Judge Gray is quoted as saying: "Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence." And just exactly what does that mean? A writer usually forms an hypothesis or a thesis - even historians do that! - and tries to strengthen it with evidence. I have read hundreds of books and articles by Jewish writers and academics like Hilberg, Lipstadt, Goldhagen etc. and watched Jewish witnesses in court proceedings. All selectively quoted passages and texts to buttress their own viewpoints. Every prosecutor and judge - even Judge Gray in writing his own judgment in the Irving case - proceeded the same way, for there is no other way. One tries to make a point and buttresses it with evidence and quotes.
Irving said from the outset that he was no Holocaust expert. He refused the help of more solid, consistent researchers in this highly emotional trial. Maybe he shouldn't have. In his court presentation, Irving selected his facts and quotes to strengthen a politically incorrect thesis - then waffled, became unsure, made glib and quick concessions on major points, which even Judge Gray found odd or surprising. However, the Irving verdict changes very little in the struggle for truth in history - not really! It only makes it a bit harder temporarily.
Naturally the Jewish Lobbyists will seize the moment and prattle on endlessly about how ". . . the Holocaust has been proven." That is not what the verdict said. Irving had charged Lipstadt libeled him; the judge ruled that she didn't. Judge Gray found that, given some of the things Irving had written, speeches he had made, views he had espoused - she could call him names like "racist", "anti-semite" and get away with it. No doubt she'll continue to do it. And so - what else has changed?
I have long ago jettisoned my naive belief in judges being any more intelligent, ethical or just than anybody else in society. On the contrary! Judges salaries are paid by the ruling oligarchy. Their advancement - i.e., their job performance for the oligarchy, depends on their decisions and rulings. Their perks depend entirely on the oligarchy. The oligarchy pays for their place of work, pays for their clerks, pays for their court staff, even for the laptop computers they are now being issued. Their security depends on the security personnel supplied and paid for by the state. They owe their appointments to the powerful and well-connected in the state. Therefore, most are creatures of the state and espouse the prevailing ideology or the culture myths of their society. To believe otherwise would be childishly naive. When slavery was in, judges convicted and helped track down escaped or uppity slaves. When civil rights were the rage, Ku Klux Klan men were tried and convicted. In Communists' societies capitalists or "kulaks" were the enemy. In societies where the "Holocaust" has become a sacred cow, Holocaust skeptics or even "Holocaust Deniers" are the fashionable new scapegoats, the modern heretics, the new witches.
We have a job to do. We leave the kwetching to our opposition. Those who believe in their far-fetched, fanciful Holocaust story will enjoy the brief, smug satisfaction of having humiliated and beaten Irving in and out of court and caused him more suffering and pain. The verdict could possibly ruin him financially. It could also make him much more of a hero for untold millions of victims of the Lie than he has been before!
Believers will go on believing. Skeptics will continue to be skeptical. Those who know the scientific and historical facts of the issues will not be swayed by the judgments of system creatures and system defenders, however erudite they look and elegantly they are written. Facts remain facts.
Once we free ourselves of the naive notion that "justice" delivered in court means even-handed evaluation of facts and claims, or that these judgments are based on an honest, unbiased search for truth, then we can take the injustices meted out by judges and enforced by the court apparatus with their ancillaries, the police, customs and immigration officers. Then we have finally grown up. Only then have we become truly sovereign people.
Our job is and remains to change society's erroneous perception about the "Holocaust". Each and every one of us, sooner or later, has to make his own "Declaration of Independence." That is our first step to self-liberation as individuals and as a people.
I will try to continue to help David Irving, regardless of the compromises and concessions made. I hope you will, too - for this is undoubtedly his darkest hour.
The struggle for truth and liberation continues. Damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead!
Ernst Zündel