Denying the Holocaust: Deborah Lipstadt, Revisited

Written 30 years ago, the modern Democrat party is making the information as relevant as ever.

Arthur Schaper | July 29, 2026

Over 30 years ago, historian and social critic Deborah Lipstadt wrote a powerful book, Denying the Holocaust, warning the public about the dangers of this pernicious ideology. This year, I was drawn to this book because debates are raging again, this time amplifying across social media, about the truth of World War II, what happened in the death camps, and how we sift out the truth from the lies.

I wasn’t expecting to agree with her on everything. She’s an unabashed liberal, progressive, even. Her ideological bent was crystal clear when President Joe Biden nominated her as U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism in 2022, for which she received unanimous confirmation. During her confirmation hearing, Republican members confronted her over a number of incendiary, inflammatory, even libelous statements that she had published about them as well as then former president Donald Trump. One of her targets, Wisconsin U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, confronted her about her nasty remarks directed at him over the January 6th incident. She didn’t look very good trying to defend the indefensible, and she eventually apologized.  She ultimately got the job because Democrats controlled the Senate at the time, and no one wanted to appear opposing the fight against antisemitism, no matter the appointment.

Despite her current left-wing bent, Lipstadt is a fierce defender of freedom of speech. During an Oxford Union speech in 2016, she declared that Holocaust deniers should have the freedom of speech, including the right to lie about history. However, historians must have the right to call them out for their dishonesty, too.

Even though Lipstadt wrote the book three decades ago, her research into the Denialist industry and the tactics used by the Deniers come off as very current. Indeed, underneath the surface of seeming scholarship........

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