Ep. 15 Denying the Holocaust

In 1996, Emory University Professor Deborah Lipstadt found
herself in a peculiar situation: she and a team of lawyers would
have to defend the truth about the Holocaust against British
historian and famed Holocaust denier David Irving.


It was a quirk of the English legal system that allowed the
battle to play out in court. In England, the burden of proof in
libel cases rests on the defendant, not the plaintiff. So, when
David Irving filed a libel lawsuit against Professor Lipstadt and
her British publisher for critical statements Professor Lipstadt
wrote about him in her 1993 book “Denying the Holocaust: The
Growing Assault on Truth and Memory,” it was up to Professor
Lipstadt to justify her criticism.


Sixteen years after Professor Lipstadt won her legal battle, the
story of her encounter with Irving is now the subject of the
recently released movie “Denial.”


Deborah Lipstadt is our guest on today’s episode of “So to
Speak.” During our conversation, Professor Lipstadt revisits the
Irving trial, explains its implications for free speech and
academic freedom, and elaborates on the unique phenomenon of
seeing one’s life acted out on the big screen.


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