Monday, 16 July 2007

Outlawing Holocaust-deniers

First-off: sorry for this ridiculously long blogging absence. I've been suffering from a rather foolish choice of summer internship, and haven't found the time to write. The next weeks, I promise, will bring many more entries.

For now, I thought I'd share this thoughtful stance on holocaust denial - which is written by Deborah Lipstadt, the historian who criticized the holocaust-denier David Irving and, after he sued her for libel, had to prove that the Holocaust happened in a British court.

Lipstadt, even though she couldn't have been sued for libel had a law against holocaust-denial existed in Britain, opposes such laws. What is more, she holds a position which I have rarely heard, but agree with: that there may nevertheless be a justification for such laws in Germany and Austria, because "the swastika or denial of the Holocaust has a different resonance in Atlanta than it does in Berlin or Vienna."