Think of all the people you see or pass by during the day? In a car? While taking a walk on a public street? Lots of people right? You don’t know who they are, what their life story is, or even their ancestral background. Now imagine,  after going through your whole life believeing that your ancestors and relatives died as a result of mass genocide, someone comes up tells you it is all a lie, or not fully true. David Irving is doing exactly that with his beliefs of the Holocaust and saying that the gas chambers were made up simply because he does not believe there is enough proof. Irving, and his very small group of believers, claim to believe that there is no proof and that it is simply being made up. In this interview Tim Sebastian asks Irving a multitude of questions regarding how he simply believes what he does. Today, I will be disproving his beliefs that the Holocaust is fake and the gas chambers were not real.

Expert 1: David Irving (historian): active Holocaust denier, anti-semitic and racist

Wait a second, who is this David Irving guy anyway? 

Since the 1980’s he has earned a label for being an extreme holocaust denier. At one point he had been “treated with great respect for his historical tomes on WWII and Nazi Germany”. However, in the developing years, that view of him has changed greatly. He was once looked up to and respected as a historian. However, his fall from respectable historian to Holocaust denier began when he sued Deborah Lipstadt for her comments stating he was a “pro Nazi ideologue and denier”. He has had many claims stating that the gas chambers in Auschwitz were simply not real, and any other historians that chose to believe it simply have “no economically viable alternative”. He has written many books on his views and has expressed them at many rallies and conferences that he has attended. Not to mention he has a criminal record from Austrian authorities after they became aware of his deniance of gas chambers in Auschwitz at two different speeches to radical groups. Is he reliable? No, there are numerous accounts from survivors and a multitude of evidence and documents that provides living proof that the Holocaust did in fact occur, and how it remains historically one of the most tragic events to take place due to the mass genocide of Jews.  

Claim 1: “He doesn’t want you to see the hundreds upon hundreds of documents proving the establishment of gas chambers” (4:00)

At this point in the interview between David Irving and Tim Sebastian, Irving had stated that he had seen no documentation “for the gas game” referring to the gas chambers. He stated that he wanted raw, real documents of proof of the chambers, not just eyewitness accounts. Insider author, Natalie Colarossi wrote about photos that showed the horror of Auschwitz, 75 years after the genocide. This article shows not only the proof by providing photos, but also goes into detail of the horror of the camps. Before even starting her article, she provided the reader with some crucial bullet points of information. One of them stated, “First established in 1940 […] Auschwitz had a concentration camp, a labor camp and large gas chambers”. She then goes into further depth explaining how more than “15 square miles were cleared for camps to be established in Auschwitz”. None the less, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum provides even more truth of the gas chambers and how to possibly get rid of them: “[the] War Refugee Board received dozens of recommendations on how to save Jews”. It went on to say that bombing the rail lines that transported Jews to the killing center in Auschwitz, or the camp as a whole, was the only way to properly save the Jews and stop the gassings at Auschwitz which had the biggest gas chamber area out of all the camps. 

Claim 2: “No mass gassing of Jews in Auschwitz” (4:12)

Another claim made within this interview was Irving’s belief that there was no mass gassing of Jews, whatsoever. Robert Van Pelt, a professor of architecture at the University of Waterloo in Canada, who Irving mentions in the video, said there is “massive proof for gas chambers”. This includes testimony from escaped inmates from the gas chambers themselves and additional evidence that “had become slowly available during the Second World War”. This was confirmed when Polish forensic investigations began in 1945 through 1946. Pelt further explains how it is nearly impossible that the idea and existence of gas chambers was merely brought up for “atrocity propaganda” that had been fabricated by some of the British, including Irving. The Holocaust Encyclopedia details similar views to Pelt, agreeing that there is mass proof for the gassings. At the 5 killing centers that were established by Nazi Germany, the idea of Euphanism was a word in high popularity throughout all Nazis. This was the systematic killing of Jews who were “unworthy of life”. In 1933 and 1934 “6,000 Jews were gassed each day in different gas chambers including the chamber in Auschwitz”. 

Claim 3: “There had been lab tests conducted on the fabric of  the so-called gas chambers at Auschwitz which found no significant traces of cyanide” (5:20-5:30)

This claim that Irving made within the interview was that the lab tests were flawed and falsified. 

However, within my research I have found claims from other sources that say the complete opposite. Again, the Holocaust Encyclopedia provides a plethora of statistics and numbers that showcase the extremes of the toxins that were involved in the Holocaust. Gas chambers being established in many different camps has already been covered, however now we are going to go into the depth of the chemicals that were used. Killing centers used “pure, chemically manufactured carbon monoxide gas”. Also, within the chambers a pesticide called Zyklon B was used which is a cyanide based pesticide. This disproves Irving’s claim as Zyklon B is based of a mixture of cyanide with another chemical. With this being said, it further proves that, yet again, Irving is creating his own bias within his claims without studying both sides of this historic event. 

Claim 4: “There is a letter requesting no liquidation of Jews, no more transportation” (10:00)

By far one of the most radical statements stated by Irving is this letter saying that there was to be no more transportation of Jews to concentration camps. When Tim Sebastian had asked him about this letter, Irving denied every claim. The odd thing is, I came across the findings of statements from the letter contradicting what Irving says. The Goebbal’s Diaries contain the letters that Irving is referring to. However, I am unsure as to why Irving misused information because it contradicted what he believed to be true, which he should never do as a historian. In a section of writing in the diary about Jews it states, “[the] greater  the number of Jews liquidated, the more consolidated will the situation in Europe be after this war”. Goebbal writes even further “[that] about 60 percent of them will have to be liquidated”. Now, as I said before Irving had explicitly stated during this interview that there had been “no liquidation of Jews”. When asked about the diaries, Irving said that he was “[very] familiar with the Goebbels Diaries […] There is no explicit reference […] to liquidation of Jews”. Even in the face of this evidence in court, he stood firm on his statement that there was no liquidation of the Jews which significantly affected his reliability and credibility as a historian.

Conclusion: 

All in all, despite Irving’s efforts, he lost the support and belief of his followers once he was labeled a Holocaust denier and racist. The facts are as follows: The gas chambers are real, they killed millions and millions of Jews and other people simply for who they were, and there is a multitude of evidence to prove that. Those are the facts of this historical nightmare. They cannot be denied or disproved, despite any claims made by Irving to the contrary. However, the sad truth is that those who share the beliefs of Irving indeed perpetuate the horror and atrocities inflicted upon the Jews during WWII. Their outspoken views compound the pain and continue the poisonous anti-semitic feelings that were the underpinning of the Holocaust to begin with.

Photo is a screenshot from the video “Hardtalk – David Irving”.

Featured image is from Pexels.