London, February 21, 1998

Sir,

I NOTICED the letter from Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Mirsky (ret.) of the First Canadian Army (February 18: “I saw Holocaust horrors in person”), recalling my troubled visits to Ottawa.

I remember him well. As he says, he attended the lecture I gave at the Congress Center on November 5, 1990. When he interrupted, I even decided, being a believer in Free Speech, that it would be proper to stand aside and hand him the microphone to address my large audience!

But his own memory is badly at fault when he says that I “admitted” I had never been to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; I went there in 1960, and was very deeply moved by ghosts haunting the windswept, desolate location.

He also adds (do I detect a gloat?) that I am banned from Canada and the United States. In fact I have visited the United States – land of free speech – four or five times a year since 1990, and I am sure that the ban on my entry to Canada will one day be lifted by a more enlightened government than Mr Mulroney’s which, under pressure, imposed it.

Yours faithfully, David Irving