International Campaign for Real History
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October 13, 1994P DURING the mid-1990s DAVID IRVING was invited several times to address functions at the University of California, at Berkeley, birthplace of the Free Speech movement of the 1960s.The local Jewish and communist organisations staged violent protests to prevent audiences from hearing him. From: resist@burn.UCSD.EDUSubject: Berkeley Boots Holocaust Denier Date: Sat, 15 Oct 1994 02:06:03 -40962758 (PDT) |
Berkeley Anti-Fascists give Holocaust-denier the Boot TWO HUNDRED anti-fascists gathered in Berkeley this evening, disrupting a speech by Holocaust denier David Irving. This infamous British revisionist “historian” has been waging a campaign for what he calls “real history” but what is in fact an insidious pack of lies. He has written a series of sympathetic biographies of Hitler, Goering, and Rommel and travels around the world lecturing at events sponsored by various pro-Nazi groups including the British Nationalist Party, the German People’s Union, and the Nationale Offensive (Germany). He has been accompanied by Nazi skins and Toronto-based fascist Ernst Zundel, author of The Hitler We Loved and Did Six Million Really Die? In his home country of Britain, Irving is prevented from speaking publicly by anti-fascists, while in Germany, Canada, and other countries he is banned from entering altogether. |
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| Cops from the Berkeley and UC campus police departments eventually arrived, driving the anti-fascists from the building. By this time, most of the people who had come to hear Irving speak had gotten cold feet and left. After several more disruptions, Irving was able to give his speech to a greatly diminished audience and only under the armed protection of dozens of police. About 75 anti-fascists waited out the lecture and Irving, donning a disguise, tried desperately for half an hour to leave without notice. Finally, as the cops were helping him carry out his hate literature, he was whisked off in a cop car. We see tonight’s action as a partial but important success. Although we were not able to prevent the lecture from taking place, we did seriously disrupt it, chasing away many would-be supporters and destroying a lot of his racist propaganda. Hopefully the Alumni House and the YWCA have learned that people in Berkeley won’t tolerate racist scumbags like Irving. Many of us were pleasantly surprised by the level of militancy displayed by protesters against the hatemongers and the breadth of participation. Many passers-by joined the protest or were otherwise supportive, adding to the collective spirit of anti-fascist solidarity. Some onlookers voiced concern over the issue of “free speech,” engaging anti-fascists in heated discussions on the street. Our response was that David Irving did not come to speak dispassionately about the finer points of academia, but instead to network with Nazis and other Holocaust deniers.  To have let this event occur unhindered would imply our complicity in allowing the worldwide neo-Nazi movement to grow.
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