Anyone who doubted
the wisdom of releasing British anti-Semite
David Irving from an Austrian jail and converting
the remaining two years of his original
sentence for Holocaust denial to probation
did not have to wait very long for proof
that last week's decision by a judge in
Vienna, coming in the immediate aftermath
of the "denial festival" in Teheran, was at best hopelessly na ve, and at worst outrageous.
For within hours of his arrival in Britain after being expelled from Austria,
Irving was up to his old tricks. For starters, he made it
unequivocally clear that he had absolutely no remorse for
the views he expressed in the past, which were the basis
for his arrest in Austria in November 2005.
This is particularly interesting,
because at the time, while he was awaiting trial for denying
the Holocaust, he specifically told the court that he had
changed his original views and, in fact, the chairman of
the Austrian Supreme Court panel which released him last
week cited the "impeccable conversion" Irving had undergone to accept the reality of the Holocaust as one of the main
reasons for his decision.
According to Judge Ernest Maurer,
there was no danger that Irving would commit the same offense
again. Perhaps the eminent jurist meant that he would not
be doing so in Austria (since he was to be expelled from
the country). But Irving, being the "true believer" he is, could not pass up the golden opportunity to express his hateful views
for a world audience anxious to assess the impact of his
jail sentence.
And thus he repeated his denial mantra
to the effect that Hitler had nothing to do with the genocide
of the Jews and that the number of Holocaust victims was
exaggerated - the very claims which led to his conviction
last year in Austria and clearly constitute Holocaust denial.
To be on the safe side, Irving combined
these revisionist notions with the assertion that "the Holocaust" had taken place, although he was clearly referring to his version of the events,
which unlike those described by "conformist" historians, had not been distorted as a result of Jewish pressure.
IF ANYTHING, Irving's other comments
at his press conference clearly show the inseparable link
between Holocaust denial and contemporary anti-Semitism,
and demonstrate why the decision to release him was so unfortunate.
Although he claimed that he likes
to think that he is not anti-Semitic, he immediately followed
this denial by proving the exact opposite, asserting that "Mel Gibson was right" - a reference to the actor's anti-Semitic drunken rantings to the effect that
Jews were responsible for all the wars in the world. "Why have [the Jews] been so hated for the last 3,000 years, that there has been
pogrom after pogrom in country after country. It's the one
question they have been shy of," Irving added.
Under these circumstances, one can
only wonder why he was released. The answer to that question
lies in the identity of the judge, whose benevolence toward
Irving seems ostensibly inexplicable. Yet Judge Ernest Maurer's
sympathies for Joerg Haider's extreme right-wing political
party were common knowledge in Austria. In fact, although
not officially a member of the party, Maurer was chosen to
represent the Freedom Party on the board of governors of
the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation.
His appointment, therefore, ensured
a positive result for the British Holocaust denier.
IN FACT, anyone acquainted with the
abysmal record of the Austrian judiciary in dealing with
Holocaust perpetrators will not be surprised by these developments.
Thus on the very next day after Irving's release, I was informed
by the Austrian Embassy in Tel Aviv that Austria has officially
refused a Croatian request for the extradition of an Ustasha
Nazi war criminal named Milivoj Asner, who served as police
chief of the city of Pozega and orchestrated the persecution
and deportation to concentration camps, where they were murdered,
of hundreds of Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies. Asner escaped to
Klagenfurt, where he currently resides at Paulitschgasse
8 following his exposure in Croatia in the framework of the
Wiesenthal Center's "Operation: Last Chance" project in late June 2004.
As hard as this may be to believe
given the prominent role played by Austrians in the implementation
of the Final Solution, there has not been a successful prosecution
of an Austrian Holocaust perpetrator in more than three decades.
In the Irving case as well, the onus
for last week's debacle lies squarely on the Austrians, who
have again demonstrated their almost total inability to deal
effectively with either Nazi war criminals or prominent Holocaust
deniers.
One would have hoped for a far better
result in the wake of the recent conference in Teheran and
the widespread condemnations, but what is obvious to practically
the entire civilized world will not necessarily be taken
for granted, it seems, in Vienna.
jpost.com
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