As published by International Law Prof Blog
Professor Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University will deliver the Fred Herzog Memorial Lecture on the subject of “The Changing Face of Holocaust Denial in the 21st Century” at noon on Thursday, September 24, 2015 at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago.
Professor Lipstadt is an American historian and author of books including Denying the Holocaust (1993) and The Eichmann Trial (2011). She is currently the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She received her BA from the City College of New York and her MA and PhD from Brandeis University.
Her book History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2005) is the story of her libel trial in London against David Irving, who sued her for calling him a Holocaust denier and right wing extremist. The book has been described as a “fascinating and meritorious work of legal—and moral—history” (Kirkus, November 2004). It won the National Jewish Book Award and was a finalist for the Koret Book Award. It was ranked by the editors at Amazon.com as number four on its list of top ten history books of 2005.
The Daily Telegraph ( London) declared that Lipstadt’s trial had “done for the new century what the Nuremberg tribunals or the Eichmann trial did for earlier generations.” The Times (London) described it as “history has had its day in court and scored a crushing victory.” The judge found David Irving to be a Holocaust denier, a falsifier of history, a racist, an antisemite, and a liar. Her legal battle with Irving lasted approximately six years. According to the New York Times, the trial “put an end to the pretense that Mr. Irving is anything but a self-promoting apologist for Hitler.”
Professor Lipstadt’s story is being made into a movie, and Hillary Swank has been chosen to portray her. See the links below for more information about the movie.
Lipstadt has a blog at lipstadt.blogspot.com. The website on her trial is www.hdot.org.