I’m trying to imagine a particular reaction. The reaction of those most brutally afflicted by the Final Solution. Their reaction to two arguments. The first admits that the Holocaust occurred but then justifies it. The second denies that the Holocaust had ever happened at all.
Which would likely be more infuriating?
In this film [based on the true story] the argument revolves around denial. And denial is a psychological defense mechanism. And they work to prop up a sense of reality that for whatever reason becomes vital for any particular one of us. We latch on to a way of understanding the world around us and nothing is allowed to change that. Then it becomes a matter of whether or not others are able to provide the evidence necessary to establish that in fact something did happen. Even if you do deny it.
But then the path must inevitably shift to exploring what is buried in the past – the part about dasein – that caused someone to embrace a frame of mind that is not in sync with reality. A frame of mind entirely wedded to, for example, a particular set of political prejudices instead.
Of course in the end it all revolves around establishing an outcome that can be described as “just”. But, in doing that here, it explores in turn the difference between American and English jurisprudence. Which then is the “better way” to establish the truth?
Still, in a “court of law”, however you might construe an issue morally, politically or philosophically what counts [at least in the text books] is that which you are able to establish as in fact true. Did the Holocaust actually happen? In fact it did.
IMDb
[b]All the dialogue in the courtroom scenes is taken verbatim from the trial records.
Rachel Weisz and a small film crew were given permission to film at Auschwitz Birkenau, the Nazi death camp in Poland where almost one million Jews died. [/b]
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/yH7ktvUWaYo
Denial [2016]
Directed by Mick Jackson
[b]Deborah [to her class]: Holocaust denial rests on four basic assertions. Number one. That there was never any systematic or organized attempt by the Nazis to kill all of Europe’s Jews. Number two. That the numbers are far fewer than five or six million. Number three. That there were no gas chambers or specially built extermination facilities. Number four. That the Holocaust is therefore a myth invented by Jews to get themselves financial compensation and to further the fortunes of the State of Israel.
…
Deborah: How do we know the Holocaust happened? Seriously. I’m asking. How do we prove it?
Student: Photographic evidence?
Deborah: Not one person in this room or outside it has ever seen a photograph of a Jew inside a gas chamber. You know why? Because the Germans made sure that none were ever taken. So how do we know? How do we know that so many were murdered? So what’s the proof? Where’s the proof? How strong is it?
…
Deborah [to the audience]: Whatever the reasons that people become deniers, when you look closely, they often have an agenda which they won’t admit to. So denial is a pick to undo the lock to open the door to something else.
…
Audience member: Somebody told me you don’t debate with people who say the Holocaust didn’t happen.
Deborah: Uh, that is correct. Like I don’t debate with people who say Elvis is alive.
[audience laughs]
Audience member: Talking to people you don’t agree with, that’s democracy, isn’t it? It’s cowardly not to talk to them.
Deborah: Are you calling me a coward?
Audience member: Well…
Deborah: No, no, listen. I… I don’t see it that way. You can have opinions about the Holocaust. You can argue about why it happened and how it happened. But what I won’t do is meet with anyone, anyone, who says it didn’t happen. Because the Holocaust happened. It happened. And that isn’t opinion. That’s fact. And I won’t debate fact.
…
Irving [on TV]: According to the evidence I’ve seen, there were no gas chambers anywhere at Auschwitz. I’m dealing with Auschwitz because it’s the capital ship of the whole Holocaust campaign. Now if Auschwitz sinks, and it is, believe me, a very leaky vessel indeed, then the whole Holocaust campaign is in doubt.
…
Anthony: Deborah, I have to warn you that there’s a reason why he’s bringing the case in London.
Deborah: I wondered about that.
Anthony: It’s to his advantage. Over here in America, uh, if you’re accused of defaming someone, then it’s up to them to prove that what you said is untrue. In the UK, the reverse is true.
Deborah: Wait. I have to prove what I said was true?
Anthony: Mmm. Correct.
Deborah: Yes, but I’m the innocent party. A man accuses you of something and it’s your job to prove he’s wrong? It’s against natural justice. In the US there’s a presumption of innocence.
Anthony: Yeah, not in the UK.
…
Anthony: Irving wants to be the brilliant maverick, the provocateur who comes along and reinvents the Second World War. But he also wants respect, the respect of his colleagues in the club. England’s a club, Deborah, and he wants to join.
Deborah: But he’s an anti-Semite.
Anthony: You’d be amazed how many military historians see that as just a detail. They see him as a serious historian who happens to see things from Hitler’s point of view.
…
Deborah: Wait a minute. What do you mean, that the survivors won’t appear?
Anthony: No, no, no. No, we don’t want them to.
Deborah: You don’t want their testimony?
Anthony: No. Under no circumstances.
Deborah: Why not? Why the hell not?
Anthony: Because even to let survivors appear would be to legitimize his right to question them.
…
Deborah: Can I say something before you go any further with this strategy?
Anthony: Yes, please do.
Deborah: You once said to me that this trial might have implications for the whole of the Jewish people. Now you’re saying you won’t allow the Jews to speak?
James: Right, I’ll explain the thinking just so you understand the thinking.
Deborah: Yes, please, I would love to understand the thinking.
Anthony: We believe that Irving is planning on being what we call a litigant in person. He plans to conduct his own case.
Deborah: What do you mean? He’s not hiring lawyers?
James: No. No, it’ll be just him.
Anthony: Imagine that. David Irving, international Holocaust denier, finally getting his hands on a survivor. Imagine it. The hurt. The damage. The insult. It’s unthinkable. He’s not gonna have that. I won’t allow it. I won’t allow that to happen.
…
Anthony: Richard will be your leading counsel. I’ve explained to Deborah the difference between barrister and solicitor.
Richard: Our legal system seems forbidding but it works, I think.
Deborah: If your legal system worked, I wouldn’t be in this mess. I don’t mind Dickensian, it’s Kafkaesque I’m worried about.
…
Deborah: Why are we talking about Leuchter? I mean, he’s really not worth the paper he’s written on.
Richard: Well, so you say. Now say why.
Deborah: I’ll tell you why. Because of course there was a higher concentration in here. It takes 20 times more cyanide to kill lice than it does human beings. Twenty times! Leuchter just didn’t know that.
Richard: Oh, this whole thing is infuriating. Why has there not been a proper scientific study of this whole site? By reputable scientists? Fifty years since the fact? I mean, it’s ridiculous. Where’s the proof? Where’s the evidence?
…
Richard: Deborah, you mustn’t characterize me as being without feelings. I have feelings.
Deborah: What did you feel today?
Richard: Oh. Shame. I have this terrible fear that if I’d have been ordered to do some of the things we saw today that…That I would have agreed. Out of weakness.
Deborah: Well, that is honest of you to say so.
Richard: Well, that’s how it is. The world is full of cowards and I’ve always hadthis nervous feeling that…That I was one of them. There’s this line from Goethe, “Der Fiege droht nur, wo er sicher ist.” It means, “The coward only threatens when he feels secure.”
…
Deborah: It was confusing. It was like he already knew all of our questions.
Anthony: Well, yes, of course he does. We sent them to him.
Deborah: What? You sent him our questions in advance? What… Why would you give away our strategy?
Anthny: Deborah, there is no strategy. We’re gonna box him in with the truth.
…
Woman [Holocaust survivor]: Excuse me. Miss Lipstadt?
Deborah: Yes, that’s me.
Woman: May I speak to you? I would like you to come and meet some of my friends. Friends with something in common.
[she reveals the tattoo on her arm]
Deborah: Would you like to sit?
Woman: We want to know, how can you let this happen? None of us have been called. We have to be heard. A trial of the Holocaust and no witnesses? How can that be right? There is a whole group of us. Deborah, we have to testify. We have to. On behalf of the others. For the dead.
Deborah: I make you a promise. The voice of suffering will be heard. I promise you that.
…
Anthony: Whatever you say, the survivors are not on trial. That’s the end of it. They confuse the issue.
Deborah: Oh, so you can look a survivor in the face and you can tell her she’s not allowed to speak? You can do that? Because I can’t. I can’t do it.
Anthony: Deborah, these people have been through hell. I understand that. After all these years, they haven’t been able to process the experience. I understand that, too. But a trial, I’m afraid, is not therapy. It’s not my job to give emotional satisfaction to a whole group of people who can never forget what happened to them.
Deborah: You think they wanna testify for themselves? It’s not for themselves they wanna testify. They wanna give voice to the ones that didn’t make it. To their families, their friends. Anthony, I… I promised that their voice would be heard. I promised.
Anthony: Well, then you’d better go back out there and break your promise.
…
Deborah: So Irving got what he came for. You know, he wanted headlines, he got 'em. “No holes, no Holocaust!” He wanted a catchy phrase, he’s got it. It’s gonna… It’s gonna spread like a virus. Don’t you see what he’s doing? He’s making it respectable to say
that there are two points of view. People are gonna see the news now and they’re gonna think, "Oh, okay. Some people think there were gas chambers at Auschwitz, and, oh, this is interesting, some people don’t.
Anthony: Yes, but Deborah, you know why he chose Auschwitz in the first place.
Deborah: Why he chose Auschwitz? Because everybody heard of it. Because of its emotional impact.
Anthony: No.
Deborah: Because. I don’t know. What are you getting at?
Anthony: Because it wasn’t built as an extermination camp. It was built as a labor camp.
Deborah: I know that.
James: Then it was modified.
Deborah: Yes, I know that.
Anthony: That’s why he’s going after it. It’s a battering ram into a much bigger subject. Auschwitz is at the very center of Holocaust belief, so Auschwitz is at the very center of Holocaust denial. Think about it logically. It doesn’t make any sense at all what he says. “No holes, no Holocaust.” He seizes one tiny fact and because that can’t be physically proved, he says, “Oh, well, then that throws everything into doubt. The Nazis didn’t do any murdering. They didn’t do any murdering at all.”
Deborah: I know that. I wrote a whole book about it.
…
Deborah: What you’re not getting, what you’re ignoring, is that we know what happened at Auschwitz because there were people there who actually saw it.
Anthony: Oh, Deborah, Deborah.
Deborah: Yes, yes! With their own eyes. They’re called survivors.
Anthony: Yes. And put survivors on the stand and Irving will humiliate them. Remember the Zundel trial. Remember the Exodus trial. They were torn apart. Because survivors don’t remember. Not every detail. They forget something. They say a door was on the left,
when actually it was on the right, and then, wham! Irving’s in. “You see? They’re liars, you can’t trust anything they say.”
…
Richard: Now, if the corpses were also gassed there, then, as I understand it, they were then sent to be incinerated?
Irving: Yes.
Richard: What is the point in gassing a corpse that is about to be burnt?
Irving: I’m not sure, saying this off the top of my head, Mr. Rampton. I’m not a Holocaust historian, I’m a Hitler historian.
Richard: Then why don’t you keep your mouth shut about the Holocaust? The truth is, as usual, Mr. Irving, you jump in off the board spouting whatever rubbish comes into your head in order to avoid the obvious conclusion. This is not because you’re a rotten historian. It’s because you’re a bent one, as well.
…
Deborah: I have never trusted anyone to do anything on my behalf since I was a child. And all I have is my voice and my conscience and I have to listen to it.
Richard: Your conscience?
Deborah: Yes!
Richard: Yes, they’re a strange thing consciences. Trouble is, what feels best isn’t necessarily what works best.
Deborah: Do you have any idea how hard it is to hand over your conscience to somebody else? This is everything I thought I would never do.
…
Richard: You sued because you said that we had called you a racist and an extremist.
Irving: Yes, but I’m not a racist.
Richard: Mr. Irving, look at the words on the page.
…
Judge Gray: My question is this, if somebody is anti-Semitic, anti-Semitic and extremist, he is perfectly capable of being honestly anti-Semitic, yes? He’s holding those views and expressing those views because they are indeed his views?
Richard: Well, yes.
Judge Gray: And so it seems to me, if it comes down to it, that the anti-Semitism is a completely separate allegation and has precious little bearing on your broader charge that he has manipulated the data?
Richard: No, no, my Lord. No. The whole endeavor of the defense has been to prove that the two are connected.
Judge Gray: But he might believe what he is saying. That is the point. That is why it is so important.
Richard: My Lord, if we know that Mr. Irving is an anti-Semite, and if we know there is no historical justification for Holocaust denial, then surely it is no great stretch to see that the two are connected.
Judge Gray [after thinking about it]: Yes. Thank you. Carry on.
Deborah: What the fuck just happened? Anthony, what just happened?
…
Libby: Well? How was it?
Deborah: I’ll tell you what happened at the end. We summed up. Irving summed up.
Libby: And?
Deborah: And everyone kept saying, this is all great, everything’s gonna be fine. And then suddenly this judge, this unbelievable character from Masterpiece Theatre…Anyway, at the last minute, he looked up and he said, “Well, you know, maybe Irving actually believes it. He’s an anti-Semite and he believes it. You can’t accuse someone of lying if they genuinely believe what they’re saying.”
Libby: That’s crazy. That’s insane.
Deborah: And that’s when I thought, “I’ve been suckered.” I stared at this judge for eight weeks and I thought I was looking at wisdom, but maybe I was just looking at prejudice.
…
Deborah [to her class]: When people glibly say, “Oh, if I’d have been in Germany, I would never have collaborated, I’d have resisted,” I just wanna laugh. Do you have any idea how dangerous and difficult it was? Standing up to the enemy was arduous and uncertain and exhausting. But they had to do it. Only in hindsight do things get called heroic. At the time you’re just afraid. Afraid of how things will turn out.
…
Judge Gray: It appears to me that the correct and inevitable inference must be that the falsification of the historical record was deliberate and that Irving was motivated by a desire to present events in a manner consistent with his own ideological beliefs, even if that involved distortion and manipulation of historical evidence. In the result, therefore, the defense of justification, succeeds. The court finds for the defendants.
…
Deborah: Now, some people are saying that the result of this trial will threaten free speech. I don’t accept that. I’m not attacking free speech. On the contrary, I’ve been defending it against someone who wanted to abuse it. Freedom of speech means you can say whatever you want. What you can’t do is lie and expect not to be held accountable for it. Not all opinions are equal. And some things happened, just like we say they do. Slavery happened, the Black Death happened. The Earth is round, the ice caps are melting, and Elvis is not alive. [/b]