The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial [Hardcover]

Robert Jan van Pelt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2002

"The Irving case has done for the new century what the Nuremberg tribunals or the Eichmann trial did for earlier generations." —The Daily Telegraph

From January to April 2000 a high-profile libel case brought by the British historian David Irving against Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt, charging that Lipstadt's book, Denying the Holocaust (1993), falsely labeled him a Holocaust denier, was tried in the British High Court. The question about the evidence for Auschwitz as a death camp played a central role in these proceedings. Irving had based his alleged denial of the Holocaust in part on a 1988 report by an American execution specialist, Fred Leuchter, which claimed that there was no evidence for homicidal gas chambers in Auschwitz. In connection with their defense, Penguin and Lipstadt engaged architectural historian Robert Jan van Pelt to prepare for the court an expert report presenting the evidence for our knowledge that Auschwitz had been an extermination camp where up to one million Jews were killed, mainly in gas chambers.

Employing painstaking historical scholarship, van Pelt submitted an exhaustive forensic report, which he successfully defended in cross-examination in court. In his verdict in favor of the defendants, Mr. Justice Charles Grey concluded that "no objective, fair-minded historian would have serious cause to doubt that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz and that they were operated on a substantial scale to kill hundreds of thousands of Jews."

The Case for Auschwitz analyzes why Auschwitz has become central to Holocaust denial and how it became a focus in the Irving-Lipstadt trial. It presents the compelling evidence contained in the original expert report and details the way this evidence played out at the trial. Unique in its comprehensive assessment of the historical evidence for Auschwitz and devastating in its demolition of the arguments of Holocaust deniers against Auschwitz, van Pelt's book is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Holocaust and for those who seek to combat Holocaust denial.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"More people died in the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car in Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz." These are the words of David Irving, who made history himself when he lost a British libel trial against Deborah Lipstadt for labeling him a Holocaust revisionist in her 1993 book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. This dense, fact-filled but always compelling volume not only details Irving's libel suit (van Pelt testified against him at the trial), but collects and documents the plethora of historical and scientific evidence that proves he was wrong. While Irving's claim astonishing for a historian who had received praise for works such as The Destruction of Dresden (1963) and Hitler's War (1977) is overtly ludicrous, the power of this book resides in van Pelt's broad analysis of Holocaust revisionism or "negationism," as van Pelt more accurately labels it and its myriad manifestations. He discusses Irving's gradual emergence from respected historian to full-fledged negationist; the career of French professor Dr. Robert Faurisson, a "hard-core negationist" who managed to elicit intellectuals Noam Chomsky and Jean-Fran‡ois Lyotard to defend his "academic freedom"; and the "scientific" testimony of Fred Leuchter (the subject of Errol Morris's 1999 film, Mr. Death). The bulk of the book is the methodical and chilling presentation of materials presented at the trial first-person accounts, photos, historical documents, diagrams, scientific evidence, testimony of former SS guards interwoven with Irving's testimony and defense. Van Pelt (Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present) has arranged an enormous amount of complex material succinctly and to great effect. Read as a whole, the book is a stunning courtroom drama and a vital document of historical evidence. This is an important addition to Holocaust literature and 20th-century history. 130 b&w illus.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"The Irving case has done for the new century what the Nuremberg tribunals or the Eichmann trial did for earlier generations." --The Daily Telegraph " ... offers an invaluable review of the information available between 1942 and 1947 about the genocide at Auschwitz-Bikenau."--Jewish Chronicle, 29 November 2002 "... the core of the book offers an invaluable review of the information available between 1942 and 1947 about the genocide at Auschwitz-Birkenau."--Jewish Chronicle, 29 November 2002

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 570 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (January 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253340160
• ISBN-13: 978-0253340160
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #707,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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18 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth the money, April 22, 2004

By A Customer

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This review is from: The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial (Hardcover)

Shermer and Grobman's _Denying History_ whetted, but did not completely satisfy, my appetite to learn more about the historical evidence for the Holocaust, so I bought and read van Pelt's book. I know that in this book van Pelt covers only a portion of the information that was in his reports for the Irving trial, but it was certainly enough to convince me that Judge Gray's verdict was the proper one. This book covers a lot of technical information that would possibly be hard to digest or be boring if it were presented by another author, but van Pelt writes very well, and I had trouble setting his book down. The author comes across as a very reasonable figure who is able to resist the urge to over-rely on either sentimentality or sarcasm. Perhaps I will need to read something else to internalize the horror that was the Holocaust, but I don't need to read anything else to see that it really did happen.

Finally, let me say that I was unprepared for what a big, handsomely bound, handsomely typeset book this would be. (I know that talking about the attractiveness of a book about the Holocaust is probably as bad as Jerry Seinfeld making out during "Schindler's List", but I figured that there might be some other bibliophiles out there who care about such things.)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A most excellent study., September 26, 2011

By 

James A. Crescitelli (Winter Park, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial (Hardcover)

One of the most comprehensive studies of the gassing and cremation operations at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In clear, non-hysterical p[rose, it presents the case based on evidence that has been meticulously considered, weighed, and analyzed. Packed with photos, diagrams, and charts, the book further solidifies the evidence FOR the fact that Birkenau and its four crematoria served as a killing center; they truly didn't function as bakeries, as one revisionist has posited. Along with forensic evidence gathered at various sites in Poland and Russia (i.e., the mass graves at Belzec), one wonders why people continue to insist that this didn't happen. Sure, it's mind-boggling... but the fact is that millions of people disappeared into these places. I don't think they could all have been shipped further east, or we'd be hearing from many of the children as adults now that the Soviet Union has fallen... Also addressed are the false credentials of many Holocaust deniers, and the lies and outright ignorance perpetrated in the drive to establishing their claims.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Reading, January 9, 2007

By 

A. W. Johnston - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial (Hardcover)

You would like to think that one of the central historical events of the 20th century would be beyond dispute, but nevertheless some manage to deny the holocaust.

In 2000, Holocaust denier David Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt and her publishers Penguin Books in the High Court for libel, and Robert Jan van Pelt was called as an expert witness for the defence. Essentially, his task was to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the court that the facts related by Lipstadt in [i]Denying the Holocaust[/i] were, to the best of current knowledge, true.

This book relates how van Pelt came to be called upon for this role, his researches and preparation for the trial, followed through with the story of how the trial itself went; from opening statements to Irving's eventual defeat.

On the way, the available evidence is thoroughly examined and assembled into a coherent narrative of the appalling events at the Auschwitz death camp. Arguments and evidence presented by Holocaust deniers is dissected, and their errors exposed in clear, logical prose.

This book is not cheap, but thorough and densely packed it is nonetheless good value.