Holocaust On Trial [Hardcover]

It is important to acknowledge what this book is not. I suspect the book has been deliberately called " The Holocaust on Trial" rather than " The David Irving Trial". Whilst much of the book provides an entertaining description about the David Irving trial the book does not investigate the primary source material of the trial itself. American readers may not be familiar with a tradition of English trial reporting as in such series as Notable British Trials . In those books extracts from the transcripts, speeches by Counsel and final judgment are reproduced. You will not find that type of detailed treatment here. What you will find, however, is sufficient information for the lay reader to understand the issues that were involved with the trial.

What the book does provide, however, are thought provoking questions about the Holocaust, about the study of history and the application of the law to resolve complex historical disputes. These questions, which must have been formulated by the author after much thought and research, are in my view the great strengths of the work.

One of the earlier reviewers suggested that the David Irving trial will not be relevant in 10 years time. That might be so but I suspect that the questions asked by Mr Guttenplan will remain relevant a century from now.

Another reviewer was critical that Mr Guttenplan did not deal more extensively with the questions raised. The author has been careful to identify the origins of his questions. If the reader so desires the reader can investigate further using the information the author has provided.

The other members of my household who have also read "Lying about Hitler" by Richard Evans and "The case for Auschwitz" by van Pelt have nominated this book to be the best of the three. This book therefore appears to be a good entree for the novice to understand the issues involved with the Holocaust debate and the David Irving trial.

What I admire most about the author is his courage in acknowledging that some sections of the Jewish community have exploited for their own purposes the memory of the Holocaust. One rarely sees comments like this committed to print.

A test I sometimes use to rate a book is to ask myself: 'would I ask the author to a dinner party - is the author that interesting ?' In this case the answer would be a resounding yes!

However this is not the issue of this case. What got David Irving into trouble is Holocaust revisionism? And in particular here his attempts to use the British legal system to provide money and get legal system with the respect that comes with it to justify his writings. In this book you will find a good coverage of the trial day by day as most of the reviewers have pointed out. As such I will not add to these points already mentioned.

And the main problem that I found with the book is that the writer tries to put his attitude about Jews and what is his own preduce and half truths into the case. So the reader is subjected to a rather weird idea! That the memory of the holocaust is used by Jews for political purposes mainly to prop up Israel. That somehow it was only after 1967 in the US that Jews cared about it as such.

Let me tell Guttenplan something that in my parents house, my grandfather lived and in a little room he filled up the walls with pictures of his dead brothers, father, cousins, mother and many school mates and friends all gone. After the war he went back to his town and collected all the pictures. The only thing left of this community is my grandfathers pictures. When I was a little boy I used to hear from him about the war. I knew about the Nazi, the labor camps and the death camps before I knew about politics.

Guttenplan however attacks several works with a vehemence such as Hitler's Willing Executioner by Daniel Gold. I would say that if ever a book was ruined by overstating a case it would be that one but it is certainly a first class book and his arguments overall are probably correct. Another book From Time Immemorial : The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine by Joan Peters which the writer devotes a large footnote in the book not where most of the footnotes are at the end to discuss Norman Finkelstein who is not a respected scholar and considered to being basically a crackpot arguments about it. Certainly Joan Peters arguments are now almost accepted by all. One suspects that Guttenplan reason in rejecting these books has less to do with logic then with his politics.

Which would explain his rather weird attitudes that he tries to wrap around this case.