The man could be right ,because everything becomes commercialized in the long run ,even Auschwitz . The poles planned to build a McDonalds there ,for example. It is human nature that even sacred sites become bastardised and commercial ,but hey......SHOOT THE MESSENGER.

Sir ,as a Jew I am not going to automatically lay in to you , nor criticize in knee -jerk fashion .I suspect ,and my instincts are usually correct ,that if you were less cynical and skeptical ,which you are sometimes prone to be ,you are (underneath it all) a rather talented and potentially first -rate historian .But you do like to shoot yourself in the foot .Stick to the facts mate and you will not go far wrong . (no need to thank me for the advice .)

Everywhere ,the Western Wall (Kotel ) ,Tower Of London ,The Vatican ,war sites ,have the potential; to become cheapened and "Touristy " .I hate to say it ,but Irving ,odious though he may sometimes be ,may have a valid point.The fact that auschwitz has become touristy does not however negate its terrible hellish past .

My brother was there as part of a special trip while in europe after matriculation from High School. He confirmed my every suspicion about Auschwitz today: The only thing missing was a T-Shirt vendor selling shirts reading "My grandparents were killed in Auschwitz and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt." - And, he added, that vendor would be making quite a pretty penny if he did open up shop there. It is the saddest truth of what we have let happen in the name of "never forgetting."

Bashes his competition for self-promotion of his thrilling visit to Hitler's secret headquarters. I viewed his amateur looking website which offers discounted travel arrangements and says nothing about being at full capacity. It's obviously not that popular if he plans to run the trip once every two years.

Your article, even the title, it totally wrong! Irving is NOT a historian! Never was! He has no academic training, no degree in history , NOTHING! Al the London trial a few years ago, the judge concluded that he used falsehoods, fabrications and faulty data in his books. Why should you give him a soap box, because nobody else does!

He would be the most ZIonist lecturer in the department!

...should clandestinely send a well-informed and blue-eyed delegation to fill up Irving's next tour, bombard him with the truth and record every second. Should make interesting viewing.

Modern era "inquisition" should leave this scollar and historian execise his Rights. You dont agree, then dont listen and thats it, full stop!! Nobody chases people like Derchowitz for his plagarism...peter czech

he means the ones outside the camp next to the railway tracks. They are probably a later addition as there are no ladders attached to them (a soldier needs to get to the top platform somehow, right?). The claim that Poles turned Auschwitz into Disneyland is grossly exaggerated. In fairness, calling Irving a Holocaust denier is not accurate. He does not deny that the Holocaust took place. He simply questions the number of its victims. Although he openly dislikes Poland and Poles, he seems to be spending a lot of time there. A couple of years ago he visited Majdanek and was shocked to discover stains of Prussian blue in gas chambers. They proved that Zycklon B was had been used there - something Irving questioned. But when he saw the stains, he adjusted his views accordingly. All in all, I do think that Irving cares about the truth. Unfortunately, critical research of the Holocaust is not possible yet.

a historian that denies history, hmm

If there was never a Holocaust where are the 6000000 people?????????? And my hole familie?????????

I went to hear him speak quite by chance years ago in Ottawa. I didn't even know who he was at the time but the crowd outside was rabid. No one amongst the protesters I spoke with had either read his books or listened to him speak. So I went in. I didn't stay for more than half the speech. The guy was self promoting to the point it was embarrassing to witness. He was continually referencing his own work and then mentioning that they were available for purchase. Never heard him say anything anti-semitic, but rather got the feeling he was happy for the publicity ( That is an assumption on my part). Walked away thinking little of him. Had he denied the holocaust, I most certainly would have charged the stage. I still haven't read him and what few quotes there are in this article lead me to believe I never will.

Irving was a proven liar, and when he sued the person who called him a liar, he lost the case. Meaning what, peter? That he lied. By contrast when Dershowitz was investigated by Harvard University for charges of plagiarism, he was cleared. In addition, others who looked into the charges found nothing. For Instance: James O. Freedman, the former president of Dartmouth, University of Iowa, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, concluded after reviewing the Finkelstein charge: "I do not understand [Finkelstein’s] charge of plagiarism against Alan Dershowitz. There is no claim that Dershowitz used the words of others without attribution. When he uses the words of others, he quotes them properly and generally cites them to the original sources (Mark Twain, Palestine Royal Commission, etc.) [Finkelstein’s] complaint is that instead he should have cited them to the secondary source, in which Dershowitz may have come upon them. But as the Chicago Manual of Style emphasizes: Importance of attribution. With all reuse of others’ materials, it is important to identify the original as the source. This not only bolsters the claims of fair use, it also helps avoid any accusation of plagiarism. This is precisely what Dershowitz did." OR HERE: Professor Charles Fried, the former Solicitor General of the U.S. and the Beneficial Professor of Law at Harvard, agrees, calling the Finkelstein accusation “stupid, unfair and ridiculous… from a biased accuser.” Get it peter!!!! Irving was guilty, Dershowitz WAS NOT.

Your post attempts to sound reasonable and levelheaded, and it is exactly that, up until your final sentence, which finally clarifies your real twisted views. The fact is, that the Holocaust was very well researched and documented. If you want to conduct a 'critical research' of it, then nobody's stopping you. I suggest you'd start with examining the thousands of testimonies in Yad Vashem, from survivors, guards, soldiers, etc. And then there are the photos. And documents. And the Final Solution protocols and memos. If that's not enough you can also visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, for more material. Feel free to research all of that ample evidence. If you doubt any of it, feel free to try and disprove and discredit it SOLIDLY. Of course this wouldn't be possible, but feel free to try anyway. You see Tomek, when doubting an historical event, critical research is always welcome, but the burden of proof is on the doubter. So far, all Irving and his antisemitic ilk have had to offer are slogans, innuendos, and disinformation. Naturally, that is all they could come up with. But then again, feeding this unintelligible crap to their supportive audience is not too hard.

Irving is no "scollar" and no historian. He's a washed out Holocaust denier whose trying to make a buck off the Holocaust.

they will do that, they think just because others helped them to win the war they can claim what ever they want.

cause if I won't, and I am not, other will, and they will take his words seriously and act appon it, you see brits r not among the good scientists all their achievments r "borowed" from others, only one brit really had scientific value and that after an apple fell on his head, lol, maybe that is the only way to make them use a thing called head.

He simply lost his case. By the same token, O.J. Simpson is not an innocent man because the jury acquitted him.

Does this mean when he looks in the mirror he sees a fake calling himself a historian? According to his books only 30,000 jews died at Auschitz and that was of natural conditions and that there were no gas chambers He says many people who claim to be Auschwitz survivors are not and they have since the war intentionally had tatoos put on their arm but they cannot prove their were there. According to the long studied history of David Irvng Hitler was the greatest friend the jews had in the Thrid Reich. To him Hitler is some kind of victim of a hate campaign. As for pictures of Auschwitchz without offering any credibility to this self declared moderate fascist. The camp itself like many labor camps & death camps it evolved during its time in use. Things added, things removed. It was a military facility. How many military sites have never changed from the day they were first built? At a modern day POW camp or military base at a later stage we might add an extra guard tower or satellite dish which were not there the day the place opened but it doesn't mean they were put up after the war for visual effect because these things were not there on day 1. Also the idea of it becoming Disneyland if your going to get people to come to see these places they have to be promoted. If people are going to visit they need to know its there but that doesn't mean its being done to make money. Certainly when I visited there was no entry fee so how Irving works out its a money making scheme I would like to know? Outside the neo Nazi circle Irving has no credibility. He is just another denier he just calls himself historian and tries to promote his hatred in a respectable way rather than getting swatika tatoos.

This man is no scholar or historian all you need to do is look at some of the garbage he comes out with. He is a self admitted fascist. He has been taken to court over the rubbish he has come out with in his books and lost. There were no gas chambers at Auschwitz the people who did die was because of lack of hygine and it was only 30,000 who died. Hitler tried to help the jews of Europe. Rudolf Hess deserved a Nobel Peace Prize. Many people who claim to be Auschwitz survivors were not there and they intentionally got their tatoos after the war. In 1990 he made a speech to the British House of Commons where he said: " Hitler is something of a hero and almost everything about an innocent and for whom Auschwitz is a jewish deception " Thats an offical statement made to the British parliament saying Hitler is an inocent victim. He accuses Churchill of being an alcoholic who sold out the Britiah Empire against its natural ally Germany. Does that sound like the claims of a legitimate historian? I think he sounds more like a neo Nazi.

Let me give you an example of why it is important to critically study the Holocaust. I come from Lublin, a city in Eastern Poland. During the war, the Majdanek concentration camp was located on the outskirts of the city. When I was a schoolboy, the official number of victims of Majdanek (not only Jews, but also Christian Poles and Soviet POWs among others) stood at 400 thousand. A few years ago, following further research, the number was lowered to ~80 thousand. Does it matter or you just think that nobody should have bothered with this kind of research? In my opinion, no topic should be off limits to historians. And truth always trumps dogma.

As we can see here in the court ruling and I quote: "Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence;" We call that lying David, that was the from the court, a direct quote. How much clearer could they have been?