David Cohen / Wellington

Excerpt: (June 5, 2000) — The University of Canterbury, in Christchurch, New Zealand, has refused to revoke a master’s degree it awarded to a student for a thesis that questions the existence of the Holocaust.

Citing academic traditions of open scholarship, the institution has told Jewish community leaders it cannot rescind the degree earned six years ago by Joel Hayward, who argued that the notion of gas chambers being used to kill Jews during World War II was propaganda invented by the US and Britain.

In his work, Hayward also claimed that far fewer than 6 million Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, and that, to the extent any collective suffering was experienced by European Jewry, Hitler had not been aware of its nature and could not be held personally responsible for it.

 Related stories: Varsity leader defends historian | Joel Hayward web page (mirror) | Making History