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| Jailed British historian Irving questions Holocaust, again
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Controversial British historian David Irving insisted Thursday there was no evidence of a mass extermination of Jews during WWII, a week after he was jailed in Austria for Holocaust denial.
"There is no evidence of an organised mass extermination," the 67-year-old Irving said in an interview from his prison with the Austria Press Agency.
He denied that "a program against Jews" existed during Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich in Germany, saying it was "not purposefully against all Jews."
"If there had been a program, how come 200,000 Jews emigrated between 1933 and 1939," he said, suggesting Hitler and SS chief Heinrich Himmler would have rather "exchanged Jews for foreign currency."
Last week Irving was jailed by a court here to three years for denying the existence of gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp but insisted at his trial that he no longer questioned those facts.
His comments, which echo similar remarks in a BBC interview, have sparked a sharp retort from the public prosecutor’s office. "We must react. One cannot ignore this," a spokesman said.
In his interview Thursday, Irving criticised the law under which he was
convicted, calling it ridiculous and absurd and comparing Austria’s behaviour to that of a Nazi state.
"I am locked up here, even though I only expressed my free opinion. You should exercise vengeance on your own people, but not on foreigners," he told APA.
Irving said last week after receiving his sentence that he had the "right to be wrong" and vowed not to be silenced.
The Austrian justice ministry has criticised interviews with the historian, saying late Wednesday that it was "not appropriate to put a podium at Irving’s disposal."
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