Holocaust denier finds few fans in KC -- ADL says “don’t expect love here either”
Kansas City Jewish Chronicle/ Jewish Federation of Omaha Jewish Press

Date: July 29, 2009
By: RICK HELLMAN, Editor of the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle with contributions by Carol Katzman, Editor of the Jewish Federation of Omaha Jewish Press

Only about a dozen people showed up Friday evening, July 3, to hear Holocaust denier David Irving speak at the Embassy Suites Kansas City International Airport hotel.

Irving's website advertises a long list of appearances, including the one in Omaha on Thursday, July 30, 7 p.m. The location, as of press time, is unknown.

According to Alan Potash, director of the Plains States Region of the Anti-Defamation League, only those who log onto his website can obtain information about where Irving is making his presentation.

David Irving

 "David Irving's Holocaust denial is fundamentally anti-Semitic," added Potash. "He asserts that global Jewry crafted the Holo-caust 'legend' for financial gain, and that Jews have been successful in bilking governments of untold sums of money through Holocaust-related claims."

The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle learned that Irving, or a representative, arranged for a meeting room at the hotel just minutes before the talk was to begin on July 3 in Kansas City. The event, which kicked off Irving's month-long speaking tour of the West and Midwest, had been announced on Irving's website. Prospective attendees were instructed to show up at the hotel lobby on Friday night and to call a phone number for final directions to the meeting place. Unfriendly reporters were explicitly not welcome.

Irving, a native of Britain who has written 30 books about World War II and the Nazis, apparently brought a number of books with him to sell at his local talk. A photograph taken in Kansas City, showing Irving signing books spread out on a table, surrounded by nine people in a meeting room, was posted this week on his website. After Kansas City, he visited Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, and Phoenix last week. 

Contrary to what Kansas City author Leonard Zeskind said in "The Chronicle" earlier, which was that Irving's July 3 appearance was his first in the Kansas City area, it appears Irving has spoken here before last week. The Anti-Defamation League website lists an Aug. 30, 2008, speech here by Irving in its "extremist events calendar." And a search of Irving's own site makes reference to an even earlier visit, as well.

And while the Kansas City Star did not cover the Irving meeting in its news columns, it did allow him to post a statement in the "press release central" portion of its website on June 26. The Star instituted the "PR Central" corner of its site two years ago, and does not charge for the privilege of posting a release there. It notes, as well, that "Postings … are not edited for content and the facts are not verified."

Irving's event, however, is not listed on omaha.com, the website run by the Omaha World Herald; there was no word from WH staff as to whether or not it would be covered.

Irving's release presents him not as an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, as a British court famously found in 2000, but, rather, as a "controversial … historian."

It accurately notes that Irving has written more than two dozen books on World War II topics, many published by mainstream publishers. But that came before the devastating judgment in 2000 against Irving in his libel suit against Denying the Holocaust author Deborah Lipstadt.

Irving's release says that, "Latterly he has become the object of censorship and condemnation for the conclusions he reached in 'Hitler's War' (The Viking Press; Macmillan; Avon books, etc.), his blockbuster biography of the wartime Nazi leader. ... The campaign against Irving climaxed in November 2005 when Austrian secret state police ambushed him and imprisoned him under the 1945 Stalin-era 'prohibition law,' ludicrously accusing him of 'rehabilitating the Nazi regime' for a speech he had given legally to university students in 1989. He spent 14 months in solitary confinement in a six-foot square cell in Vienna before winning an appeal.

"Mr. Irving is currently writing about the chief of the infamous black-uniformed SS and the real architect of the Holocaust, Heinrich Himmler -- based on diaries, private letters, and documents that no other historian has seen."

Potash added, "Irving has spoken of an "international Jewish conspiracy" against him, has described Jews as 'Shylocks,' and consistently blames Jews themselves for being hated. Although in recent years, Irving has at times publicly affirmed certain details of the Holocaust, he has done so either to deflect legal threats or in order to cynically profit from appearing to 'moderate' his views but then promptly disavowing his 'reversal' and again promoting Holocaust denial positions. Irving's writings, activities, and associations with Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites demonstrate that he continues to articulate and promote hardcore Holocaust denial."

Information on where Irving is speaking in Omaha, lists a South Florida phone number on his website: 305.923.6779, and adds that "Rights of admission strictly reserved." Up to date information on Irving is also available on the ADL website: www.adl.org.