WARSAW (AFP)---Polish and British anti-racism groups on Wednesday urged their governments to ban a tour of a Nazi death camp and other Holocaust sites in Poland by controversial British historian David Irving.
Marcin Kornak, head of the Warsaw-based Never Again Association, made the call in a joint statement with Britain's Searchlight anti-fascist group posted on his organisation's website.
"We urge Polish and British authorities to have a firm reaction to and to not allow this shameful visit which offends the memory of the victims of the war and the Holocaust," he said.
Irving, who was jailed in Austria in 2006 for denying the Holocaust, plans a September 21-29 guided tour of sites in Poland dating back to the World War II Nazi German occupation.
It includes a visit to the former Treblinka death camp, where more than 800,000 people, mostly Jews, were murdered.
A trip to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's "Wolf's Lair" headquarters at Ketrzyn in northeastern Poland and to the base of SS commander Heinrich Himmler were also on the itinerary.
In a brochure published on his Focal Point Publications website, Irving calls the tour an "unforgettable journey" and a chance to see "real history".
Irving recently told Britain's Daily Mail newspaper that the trip -- which costs 2,650 dollars (2,000 euros) excluding flights -- was so popular he had to turn people away, and he was planning to repeat the journey every two years.
Irving, the author of "Hitler's War", a book which attempts to minimize both Nazi atrocities and Hitler's responsibility for them, has rejected the label of "Holocaust denier".
"There is no question that the Nazis killed millions of people in these camps. When people call me a Holocaust denier I get quite hot under the collar," he told the Daily Mail.
But the historian was sentenced in 2006 by an Austrian court to three years in jail for denying the Holocaust and later released and deported to Britain after serving only one year.
At the epicentre of Hitler's plan of genocide against European Jews during World War II, Poland has enacted strict laws against both Holocaust denial and the public propagation of anti-Semitism or fascism.
In Poland, anyone found guilty of denying the Holocaust or publicly propagating anti-Semitism, fascism or other totalitarian ideologies faces a penalty of up to three years behind bars.