International Campaign for Real History
Wednesday, October 25, 2000
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Richard Rampton’s Flying Circus tours North America, speaking on Lipstadt trial
AR, Sherman Oaks — REVISIONISTS, historians, and lawyers will be bearing down on the Philadelphia Bar Association in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 30, 2000 for a conference being held to celebrate the unprecedented triumph in April 2000 of dragon-slayer Deborah Lipstadt over British historian David Irving in the London High Court. Mr Irving had sued her for libel. The Judge, Sir Charles Gray QC, found that much of what she had written in her book Denying the Holocaust was a pack of lies, but that other items were true. The judgment is coming up for appeal. Lipstadt’s brilliant British defence team, whom she personally selected and single-handed guided to victory using her acute knowledge of the British legal system and its ancient laws, has been invited over to the United States. The Richard Rampton Flying Circus, as cynics are dubbing it, will go on display to cheering audiences of lawyers, law students, and Holocaust industry experts. In the days of ancient Rome, such victorious armies would drag their prisoners, wrapped in netting, behind their chariots. No doubt if they had taken any prisoners on this occasion these sparkling intellectuals would chain them to the back of pick-ups and drag them through the dusty streets of Philadelphia. The are two blemishes on their celebrations, not mentioned in the any of the invitations so far received by Action Report:
His counsel have now lodged with the British Court of Appeal, within time, a formal application for permission to appeal. Judge Gray attempted to prevent it, by denying Mr Irving leave to appeal, in the crowded courtroom on April 12.
If the memorandum is not fake (and clearly it is not) it shows that Adolf Hitler wanted the final solution postponed until after WW2. There is no other possible reading, because that is what the document says. “Judge Gray chose to ignore it,” says Irving, “and that is what the appeal courts are for.”
David Irving says he will approach his worldwide circle of supporters as soon as the Court of Appeal formally grants permission for the appeal, to build up for him a safe £100,000 ($160,000) fighting fund to see the battle through to final victory, a battle which has gripped the attention of the world’s media.
Their raison d’etre in Philadelphia is: “The defense team consider that the legal, political, and moral issues raised by the case are so important that they have come to the United States to discuss these matters.” The public spiritedness of these British lawyers, who are coming — no doubt at their own expense — on this selfless task of educating their former colonials on the intricacies of British libel law, is commendable.
The title of their first “dog and pony” act, which they have announced they will bring to “various parts of the country,” is: “How British Holocaust revisionist David Irving Lost his Libel Action.” The venue is a Chancellor’s Forum in downtown Philadelphia on October 30. “Sweet phrase,” says Mr. Irving, “Chancellor — a bit redolent of Hitler’s Reich; forum — ancient Rome. Evidently there is to be a bit of Nazi pomp, and a bit of feeding to the lions.”
Rampton and Roegrs can well afford the air fares. Humble Emory university scholar Lipstadt has dipped into her annual salary deeply, paying them fees totalling £509,989.36, around a million dollars, for their work done at her dictate by April 11, 2000. The Hon. Norma L Shapiro, a local District Court judge, will moderate the ninety-minute Philadelphia forum, and there are rumours that Mr Irving himself has already obtained an invitaion and is to fly over from the west coast. He will ask Professor Robert Van Pelt — a professor of architecture at the university of Waterloo, Ontario, who was paid a quarter of a million dollars for his neutral testimony — once again if he has yet found the manholes in the roof of Crematorium II at Auschwitz, which his eye-witnesses all described as having been used to tip the Zyklon B into the “gas chamber” beneath.
Absent from Philadelphia: the only historian of merit in the entire defence team, Professor Christopher Browning, who was turned down for the chair of Holocaust history at Harvard on the grounds that he was not Jewish. Browning was paid a tenth as much as the other “experts,” but he was the only one who in Mr Irving’s opinion responded well under cross examination, as he was clearly a real master of the subject.
[On which point: several website readers have just pointed out that the “smoke” in the enlarged version of the faked Auschwitz photo on the Simon Wiesenthal website has now vanished — but it still remains in the thumbnail photo!]
Upcoming lectures The end of the first stage of the Lipstadt trial has generated a lecture industry of its own. AT the Hannah-Arendt-Institute in Dresden, Prof. Dr. Peter Longerich, a German-born historian of the Royal Holloway College at the University of London and “Director of the Research Centre for the Holocaust and Twentieth-Century History,” will lecture at 7 p.m. in an Auschwitz series, in the Kulturrathaus in Dresden’s Königstrasse 15: his topic is stated as “Auschwitz-Leugner. Erfahrungen aus dem Londoner Gerichtsverfahren David Irving gegen Deborah Lipstadt ” [details] Again we suggest that serious historians, while mindful of Germany’s laws for the suppression of free speech, go along and take Longerich to task, for example on the Schlegelberger document. (He does not like that document, and pretends that it does not exist). In the trial he relied frequently on a mythical “consensus” as the source of his knowledge, i.e. what historians agree on. Under cross examination, Longerich was unable to tell the court whether the fact that historians with different opinions are thrown into jail in Germany may have skewed the consensus in any way. Lipstadt abandons Trappist Silence Emory University, Atlanta, is particularly involved. The student newspaper The Emory Wheel stated on October 6, 2000 that nearly 40 percent of Emory is Jewish. On September 11, the Emory Report, gave advance notice in Volume 53, No. 3, that Lipstadt, “who returns to the Emory College classroom this fall after winning a highly publicized libel suit” would be the featured speaker along with Rabbi Norman Lamm, president of Yeshiva University, on: “Holocaust Denial: Theological Reflections.” The programme stated: “The discussion will include Lipstadt’s thoughts on religious history and truth.” [see full subsequent report on the event] On October 16, she spoke in Houston’s Temple Emanu El, in the Ruth Lack Lecture Series, sponsored by the local Holocaust Museum:
A book signing was included. On October 23 she participated in a Panel Discussion at which she lectured on her “Triumph Over Holocaust Denial” at the Borders bookstore at 3025 Kirby Drove, in Houston. The programme announced “a follow up discussion centering on Deborah Lipstadt’s trial, verdict, and fallout.” Panelists included a lawyer, a theologian, a psychologists, and a personal friend of Dr. Lipstadt,” so the audience is known to have amounted to at least four. Once again, signed copies of her book were on sale. On October 5, Michael Berger, of the department of religion at Emory (a department which, records show, closely monitored Mr Irving’s website during the tragic days of the days of his daughter: one wonders why), and Michael Broyde, of the school of law, sent out invitations to a new Lipstadt spectacular which is to be held at Emory on November 1-2, a discussion on Holocaust denial law and historical truth, as part of their Reconciliation Symposium [details]. The local millionaire Tenenbaum family and the School of Law are sponsoring this function, which is to address issues raised by the trial: libel law, academic freedom and Jewish identity. On November 1, 2000 Lipstadt’s chief ringmaster Richard Rampton (“Lipstadt’s successful English barrister”) is slated to open the conference — jumping through the hoops on the law behind the trial. He is in good company. On November 2 Anita Bernstein and David Biedermann will address the situation in various countries around the world — thanks to the Internet, the debate is now out of control. Stanley Fish will address, perhaps appropriately, the lunch colloquium on November 2, discussing “Holocaust denial” in the context of academic freedom on university campuses — in other words how to prevent free speech on this one vital issue without actually seeming to. On the impact of the Holocaust on Jewish identity, what might be called the Norman Finkeelstein memorial lecture will be delivered by Joel Levy, of the Estee Lauder foundation in Germany, the body in charge of the cosmetic repairs to the Auschwitz site, and “our own Deborah Lipstadt” will inevitably speak too. [For information contact Eliza Ellison at 404 727 0699.] Finally, on Sunday November 5, this industrious scholar, Lipstadt, is to speak at Emory University’s Family Events weekend: her talk, which will be from 11:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m., will be “Perspectives from a British Courtroom: Confronting Lies, Deception, and David Irving,” in the Institute for Jewish Studies Winship Ballroom. We urge all our friends to attend, and don’t forget to take a packed lunch. [access the schedule]
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