Denying the Holocaust

Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory

Cover of the first edition
Author	Deborah Lipstadt
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Holocaust denial
Published	1993
Media type	Print (hardcover and paperback)
ISBN

Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory is a 1993 book by Deborah Lipstadt, in which Lipstadt gives a history and analysis of the Holocaust denial movement. Lipstadt named writer David Irving as a holocaust denier, leading him to sue her unsuccessfully for libel (see Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt). She gives a detailed explanation of how people came to deny the Holocaust or claim that it was vastly exaggerated by the Jews.

Lipstadt sees Holocaust denial as "purely anti-Semitic " and a form of pseudo-history; she outlines the history of Holocaust denial, claims that it is increasing and should not be disregarded. Holocaust deniers were originally a "lunatic fringe" and could be seen as harmless cranks but are now more numerous and influential than before as some radical racist groups have adopted it, and that the trend could increase as Holocaust witnesses die of age.

Lipstadt claims that after World War II in France Maurice Bardèche and Paul Rassinier denied outright that the Holocaust ever happened, as did various Nazi sympathizers in America. According to Lipstadt, Austin App, a professor of English at La Salle College and the University of Scranton first put out several notions that later Holocaust deniers followed. App and others denied that the Nazis had any genocidal intent, that gas chambers existed, that innocent Jews were killed by the millions, and they claimed that defeated Germany was compelled to admit false crimes by the Allies. From these beginnings, she details how these charges were picked up and became "a tool of the radical right."