The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants sent an e-mail to the Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. last night asking him to bar Holocaust refuter David Irving from speaking at City Hall on Oct. 21.
"It's not so much that Irving should be denied his right to speak, but we feel that perhaps a government building should not be hosting his engagement," said Elan Steinberg, vice president of the Jewish organization.
"We are shocked and dismayed that a convicted purveyor of hatred could be given such a public platform," Steinberg wrote in the letter.
City spokesman Chris Mims said he had yet to see the letter and had no response at this time.
Mississippi ACLU Executive Director Nsombi Lambright said the ACLU could have no opinion on the Jewish organization's request until the city had responded with either a confirmation or denial. The ACLU historically supports the right of controversial figures to appear in public spaces, including the famous case of Nazis marching in the Jewish community of Skokie, Ill.
Critics attack Irving, a British historian and the author of numerous books on World War II, for attempting to disconnect the German Nazi Party from the well-documented extermination of 6 million Jews. He has written that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had no real knowledge of the institutionalized elimination of Jews, a revisionist account disputed by historic record. He has also argued that pictures of starved Jewish cadavers taken at Nazi internment camps were victims of poor sanitation resulting from Allied bombing of German infrastructure. Austria imprisoned Irving for 11 months in 2006, after convicting him of "glorifying and identifying with the German Nazi Party," a crime under Austrian law.
A spokeswoman for conservative talk-show host Paul Gallo confirmed Irving's appearance on his SuperTalk 97.3 FM radio show on Oct. 21. Richard Barrett, from Learned, Miss., had also announced Irving's appearance on the Charles Evers Show, but Evers said Monday that he will be out of town and has canceled Irving's appearance on his WMPR Radio 90.1 FM program.
Radio host Kim Wade said he has scheduled Irving to appear on his show Oct. 21, at 5 p.m, arguing that Irving had a right to speak his opinion, no matter how narrowly accepted the opinion might be.
"Show (Holocaust deniers) pictures of the Holocaust, and they treat it like some conspiracy people treat the moon shot; they say it was staged, ... but it makes for good radio," Wade said.
Steinberg said the psychology behind Irving is not about cultural self-protection: "He's not out to change history so he can say to the world, 'Look, Germans weren't so bad after all.' This is all about hate. Denying the Holocaust is the work of someone who wants to spread hate against another culture."
The best way to handle people who deny the weight of historic evidence is to ignore them, Steinberg said. "You don't argue with that kind of mind," he said.
Beth Israel Rabbi Valerie Cohen was more than willing to ignore Irving. She downplayed Irving's Jackson appearance and categorized Irving as powerless.
"It is fascinating to me that Holocaust deniers even exist, because Nazis themselves did such an amazing job of documenting the extermination they were doing," Cohen said. "If you go to Holocaust museums, how do you explain the piles of hair, and the piles of shoes and the piles of clothes? It's beyond my comprehension."
"I don't like to give these people any credence, because it's not worth my time or effort," Cohen said. "... He's not going to hurt the Jewish community. He has no real power against us."
Barrett, who is promoting Irving's visit, frequently rails against the desegregationist work of "communists" during the Civil Rights Era and seeks publicity by glorifying controversial figures. He has called Mississippi "the most anti-communist state." In the past, he drew ire by trying to bring former Klansman Edgar Ray Killen to the State Fair to collect signatures supporting him. Killen was convicted for his role in the murders of Ben Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in Neshoba County in 1964, and will likely die in prison.
Updated to correctly identify Richard Barrett, Oct. 14.
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