Poland / Jewish Holocaust / Genocide Denial

Holocaust Tour Will Set Record Straight, Says Irving
By Matthew Day
The Telegraph, September 21, 2010
Photo: Reuters
"The controversial British historian David Irving was met with outrage in Poland yesterday as he claimed the country should be “grateful” that he was running a £1,500 a head 'unforgettable' tour of Holocaust sites, including the Treblinka death camp. Mr. Irving said he would 'set the record straight' on the Nazis' extermination of six million Jews, despite the fact that an Austrian court sentenced him in 2006 to three years in jail for his 1989 claims that there were no gas chambers in the Third Reich. He was released and deported to Britain after serving only one year and told the court that his claims had been a mistake.Holocaust survivors and anti-racism groups called on Polish authorities to block his nine-day visit. Mr. Irving told The Daily Telegraph: 'I am baffled by the reaction I've had in Poland because they should be very grateful that I am here. Here I am lecturing to the revisionists and setting the record straight. I am saying to those who believe that not a hair was harmed on the head of the Jewish community that you couldn't be more wrong.' He described people who branded him a Holocaust denier as 'criminal, lying lunatics.'
Enthusiasts from Britain, Germany, Australia and America have paid £1,500 each, excluding flights, to accompany Mr. Irving on a tour he has billed as an opportunity to experience 'real history.' It includes a visit to The Wolf's Lair, Hitler's Eastern Front headquarters at Ketrzyn in north-eastern Poland, and to a bunker once used by the SS commander Heinrich Himmler, as well as to the site of the Treblinka extermination camp. Dr. Rafal Pankowski, of the Never Again Association, which campaigns against racism and anti-Semitism, described Mr. Irving's presence in Poland as 'unacceptable and offensive to the memory of the victims' of the war. A Polish anti-racism group requested a Warsaw court to begin a criminal investigation against Mr. Irving in an attempt to block the tour. Dariusz Gabrel, from the group, Open Republic, described Mr. Irving as having been one of the 'foremost Holocaust deniers' and called for his prosecution under Polish laws that prohibit the denial of Nazi crimes. [...]"