Holocaust denier David Irving is planning to provide guided tours of some of the most notorious Nazi sites, including extermination camps at Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Belzec, in what has been described as a “grotesque insult to the dead.”
Mr Irving, who lost an infamous libel suit he brought against Professor Deborah Lipstadt in 2000, after the academic accused him of being a Holocaust denier, falsifier, and bigot, is promoting the tour via his website, “Real History”.
He is offering a “week long guided tour” in September, which will include “Hitler’s headquarters and other historic SS locations” in Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.
The site offers people the opportunity to reserve a place on the tour for a refundable deposit of $600.
Nazi Holocaust Denier David Irving is planning to act as a tour guide taking visitors to sites of extermination camps at Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor & Majdanek.
— Anti-Fascism & Far Right (@FFRAFAction) March 16, 2019
This grotesque insult to the dead has to be stopped. pic.twitter.com/RtI34z4eaa
On a similar trip in September 2013, Mr Irving, who has frequently denied that the Nazis used gas chambers to murder Jews and has served time in prison in Austria, where holocaust denial is a crime, took 27 people on a tour of sites including the Wolf’s Lair - Hitler’s Headquarters in East Prussia) - and the Majdanek and Sobibor Camps.
He wrote at the time that his “guests” on the trip “voiced interest in… anomalies in the disinfestation chambers (now re-labelled as ‘gas chambers’), which have wartime blue Zyklon stains on the walls, postwar wire-reinforced glass in the windows, and carbon-dioxide cylinders still on display in the ‘poison gas’ store.”
Mr Irving has published videos online of him speaking at the sites on past tours. They appear with the message: “Viewers in some countries may find these movies inaccessible, as Jewish groups hostile to Real History have blocked them, disagreeing with your right to see the locations and make up your own mind.”
David Irving has been doing these death camp tours for some years. He's even uploaded videos of parts of some of them int he past. It's one of his revenue streams, like his private speaking/bookselling tours in the US, now that publishers & bookstores have largely abandoned him. https://t.co/mQfnpIKhTp
— Mark Pitcavage (@egavactip) March 17, 2019
Holocaust Educational Trust Chief Executive Karen Pollock said: “David Irving is a proven Holocaust denier.
“His forthcoming ‘tour’ can serve no purpose other than to insult the memory of Holocaust victims and survivors. Holocaust denial is simply antisemitism dressed up as academic debate. This cannot be allowed to happen, and we will be working with our partners across Europe to assess appropriate next steps”.
