WATCH: Deborah Lipstadt Gives Viral TED Talk On Holocaust Denial — And ‘Alternative Facts’

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Deborah Lipstadt, the Emory University historian, has garnered more than a 100,000 views for her TED talk on Holocaust denial and the fight she waged against notorious “revisionist” David Irving.
“There are facts, there are opinions, and there are lies,” she said at the lecture, given in the United Kingdom in April. “Truth is not relative.”
Lipstadt was sued in the ‘90’s by Irving after her landmark work on the Holocaust, “Denying The Holocaust: The Growing Assault On Truth And Memory” appeared in Britain, labeling Irving as a denier. She won the lawsuit after a six-year ordeal – which was turned into a book, “The Holocaust On Trial,” and later a film, “Denial.”
In the video – watched almost 153,000 times – Lipstadt links the phenomenon of Holocaust denial to the present moment. “We live in an age when truth is on the defensive,” she said, slamming the Trump White House and the contemporary far-right for its contempt for evidence and facts.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
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