June 2000 Victory For Truth By Rabbi Alvin Kass Ever since the end of World War II, the horrors of the Holocaust have haunted mankind. How did it happen? Who was responsible? Can it happen again? In order to answer these questions, it was essential that the Jewish people and, indeed, all mankind fulfill the number one responsibility of Holocaust observance: Zachor! Remember! That duty was rendered far more difficult by the emergence of a far-flung and well-financed industry devoted to "Holocaust denial." Scores of writers and propagandists have attempted to rob the Jews even of their suffering, claiming that the slaughter of the Six Million was a myth. One of the most notorious of the Holocaust deniers is David Irving, the controversial author of over 30 books about World War II, who regards himself as a historian. Deborah Lipstadt, the American author of Denying the Holocaust, vigorously condemned Irving's distortion and perversion of history as ominous and dangerous. The recent loss by Irving of a libel suit he instituted against Lipstadt in England constitutes an extraordinarily important victory for truth. The court's decision removes the veil of respectability from Holocaust denial as merely a species of revisionist history. History is not a science, and it is possible to examine the identical facts and come up with sharply divergent interpretations. But there is a limit to the kind of interpretations that the facts will yield. That is the emphatic message of the court, which accused Irving of having "persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence" for his own ideological reasons. As a result, the court concluded, "he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favorable light, particularly in relation to his attitude toward and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews." The trial, which Irving hoped would clear his name, has had the opposite effect of tearing his reputation to shreds. At the court's request, the eminent academician Richard Evans, who teaches modern history at Cambridge, undertook a lengthy and penetrating analysis of Irving's historical methods. He contends that Irving's denial that six million Jews were systematically destroyed in death camps, some of them equipped with purpose-built gas chambers under the orders of Adolf Hitler, is not an interpretation of history but an intentional and vicious suppression of facts. Irving argues that the court's decision deprives him of the right of free speech; how-ever, the opposite is the case. No one is attempting to censor Irving or force a particular interpretation of history upon him or anyone else. At the same time, serious historians such as Deborah Lipstadt have the right to expose his malevolent nonsense without being sued for libel. To do less would risk the disappearance of legitimate research methods and the reduction of history to meaningless gibberish. Many Holocaust deniers travel around college campuses and obtain the right to pedal their lies under the guise of the university's duty to foster the expression of dissenting ideas. It's futile, however, to engage these people in an intellectual discussion or debate. They are impervious to reason. Furthermore, as Lipstadt has made clear, Holocaust denial is not within the realm of history. It is nothing short of anti-Semitism, a desecration of the memory of those who were tortured and murdered in the Shoah. From time to time, I have heard Jewish leaders argue that Holocaust denial should be made a crime because it is an effort to cover up the monstrous crimes of the Third Reich. But such treatment would only turn the perpetrators into martyrs and give them a spot-light they don't deserve. The judicial repudiation of Irving will not end the appeal of Holocaust denial to neo-Nazis and to other assorted anti-Semites. It should, however, establish beyond the shadow of a doubt to all reasonable people that Holocaust denial is not legitimate revi-sionist history. It is naught but a pack of damnable calumnies that deserve the contempt of honest and decent people. Even on those rare occasions when Danny got into trouble, the experience became transformative in nature. Take that time, for example, when he was in the eighth grade of the Rabbi Harry Halpern Day School and was punished along with some of his fellow students for getting into a food fight in the school lunchroom. The penalty was to scatter the chastised students by having them sit with other classes at mealtime. Danny had to sit with first-graders. Instead of nursing his wounds, he developed a remarkable empathy with them, tested them in math and perceptively arrived at meaningful insights about the process of maturation. As a young physician, it is evident that he possesses a real love for medicine and an authentic commitment to healing. His teachers, his peers, and his patients speak of him in the most glowing terms; because he is a 100% mensch. For the moment, the universe will have to take second place to my nachat and joy. Miryom and I just want to focus on what is near and dear to us at this very moment in our own family and in the Gillman family with which we are delighted and privileged to be a part. Stephen Sondheim is right when in "Pacific Overtures," his characters intuitively recognize that the microcosm is far more real and relevant than the macrocosm. "It's the fragment, not the day. It's the pebble, not the stream. It's the ripple, not the sea that is happening." Danny and Debby's engagement may be but a fragment, a pebble, and a ripple in this vast cosmos of ours. Nevertheless, for Miryom and me, it's all that is really happening.