One of the world's best-known Holocaust deniers, David Irving, is bringing his speaking tour to South Florida, one of the most heavily Jewish regions of the country where many Holocaust survivors live. He has scheduled speaking engagements in West Palm Beach on Wednesday and Miami on Thursday. Both events take place in the evening.
In a telephone interview, Irving said they're for his "friends," many of whom want him to autograph books he has written. Invitations require registration by e-mail or a phone call to Irving.
Appearances by Irving, even in heavily Jewish South Florida, aren't new, said Allen Kohlhepp, who monitors hate activities in 11 Southeastern states for the Anti-Defamation League. Operating from what Irving called his base in Key West, he spends about half of each year in the state. His presence inspires strong feelings.
"David Irving is a sham. He's an academic sham. He's an intellectual sham," said Bill Gralnick, Southeast regional director of the American Jewish Committee. The notion that some are interested in hearing what Irving has to say "says something about the virus-like quality of anti-Semitism that just doesn't go away."
Alan L. Berger, chairman of Holocaust studies at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, said, "Not only is he a shoddy historian, but he's a Nazi sympathizer.... I find it appalling and pathetic that Irving is having an audience, people that are interesting in hearing him.
"Denial of the Holocaust is continuation of the Holocaust," he said. "The victims were murdered by the Nazis and the helpers. Now that their memories are being sullied and denied, this is a second kind of spiritual genocide."
Still, Gralnick said, he would be more concerned if Irving had a stronger following. "If it turned out that 2,000 people showed up to hear David Irving, I would be concerned and agitated. I don't think that will be the case," he said.
Although Berger, Kohlhepp and Gralnick all consider him a Holocaust denier, Irving said that's not true.
"I've got no feelings at all about the Holocaust. I find the whole subject boring," he said. "Like most of the human race, when it comes on television, I turn the channel."
Irving's Web site includes answers to what he said was a series of questions from a sixth-grader, including whether the Holocaust should be taught in school.
His response was, "Schools should concentrate on real history, and not play any part in the Holocaust industry. Children's brains are too important to be polluted and fouled by racial-hatred, which is just what the Holocaust stories are doing."
Poster Comment:
Holocaust Revisionism in One Easy Lesson