J. Salmeron, visiting Edinburgh from Chile, finds that the city’s bookstores now refuse to stock David Irving’s books (Tuesday, March 2, 2004):

Look who’s back in your local bookstore 

I’M a German-Spanish who lives in Chile. Currently I’m on a trip through Europe, which brought me to Edinburgh.

In this city, I’ve visited several bookstores asking for your books, but the answer I receive is that such “anti-Semitic” material is not sold there (my attempts to explain that your books are not anti-Semitic were rather futile), or that such “contentious books” are not to be found there.

It’s rather ironic, however, to see that Mein Kampf can be easily found anywhere!

J. Salmeron

David Irving comments:

IN fact Mr Justice Gray, in his judgment at the end of the Lipstadt Trial, could not really decide whether I was anti-Semitic or not. Even the Board of Deputies of British Jews decided, indeed lamented, back in the 1970s that I could not be described as anti-Semitic — but that was before they began their vicious campaign against me. Gray stated in his judgment [see extracts]:

 I have more sympathy for Irving’s argument that Jews are not immune from his criticism. He said that he was simply expressing legitimate criticisms of them. Irving gave as an example what he claimed was his justified criticism of the Jews for suppressing his freedom of expression. Another legitimate ground of criticism might be the manner in which Jews in certain parts of the world appear to exploit the Holocaust. I agree that Jews are as open to criticism as anyone else.

I guess that, although they were glad to sell the Penguin edition of it, these bookshop bigots in Edinburgh have not bothered to read the judgment — just what the Press said about it. Incidentally, for those inclined to take it up with them, letters might be written to the main History buyers in the city. [List of addresses]