Before even standing up to give her speech, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies Deborah Lipstadt received several standing ovations from the audience.
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| Lillian Lee/Contributing Photographer |
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Dorot Professor of Jewish Studies Deborah Lipstadt said she was surprised when she first learned she was being sued for libel.
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Speaking to an overflowing crowd Wednesday in Tull Auditorium, Lipstadt discussed her recent victory fighting libel accusations in a British court against author David Irving.
Irving claimed Lipstadt’s book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, damaged his reputation as a historian by calling him “one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial.”
Lipstadt said her initial reaction to being sued was disbelief.
“I laughed,” she said. “If I had to do it all over again, I would do the same thing except now I would be more harsh with him.”
After a lengthy legal battle, Lipstadt won her case against Irving last April.
Looking back on her experience Lipstadt said she drew strength from Jewish tradition. She said one of the most spiritual parts of her experience was meeting some Holocaust survivors.
“You are fighting for us,” Lipstadt said one woman told her as she revealed the numbers tattooed on her forearm by the Nazis.
Lipstadt said she was the survivors’ representative and could not bear for the victims of the Holocaust to once again fall victim to denial and ignorance.
“With evil there is no compromise,” she said. “When someone wants to spread the violence there is no compromise. You must fight.”
Rabbi Norman Lamm, president of Yeshiva University (N.Y.), who also spoke at the lecture, gave a theological view of Holocaust denial and called Lipstadt a hero.
“She has the rare distinction of being not only a historian but also a maker of it,” he said. “Dr. Lipstadt has risen to the challenge of the deniers and she has prevailed.”
Campus Rabbi Ed Rosenthal viewed Lipstadt’s triumph as a victory for the Jewish people and for Emory.
“Most people go through life and watch history from afar,” he said. “But Dr. Lipstadt has included us, the Emory family, in making history.
Many people at the event said they were not only impressed by her accomplishments in England but also by Lipstadt herself. University President William M. Chace called her a “truly extraordinary person.”
Students seemed to agree.
College sophomore Arielle Green said Lipstadt was an excellent speaker. “She’s done a lot and made an impression on the world,” she said. “She’s also an amazing professor.”
College freshman Megan Flannery agreed. “Her class is making my experience at Emory worthwhile,” she said.
