26 January 2007
Only a month after his release from an Austrian jail, the British revisionist historian David Irving has claimed in an interview that the concentration camp at Auschwitz was actually a tourist attraction and denied that there was any proof that gas chambers were in use there. “At Auschwitz, they did not have gas chambers, or at least there is no proof that I am satisfied with,” he said in an interview with Italy’s "Sky TG24 News". Irving acknowledged that the Nazis killed millions of Jews, an apparent revision of his previous position, but said the killings did not take place at Auschwitz, which he labeled a World War II-era tourist attraction.
The controversial historian had to serve thirteen months in prison after being convicted of denying the Shoah in a speech he had given in Austria in 1989. Holocaust denial is considered a crime in Austria and carries a punishment of up to twenty years in prison. Irving was originally sentenced to three years, but appealed and was granted an early release. Following his release, Irving called for a boycott against German and Austrian academics until the two countries stopped arresting people on grounds of Holocaust denial.
