We had thought it would have been an exercise in free speech to hear both of them. -- Nottingham University officials

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Friday, February 8, 2002

[Nottingham University]

Post-Irving meeting

BY BERNARD JOSEPHS

NOTTINGHAM University students have invited a Holocaust-survivor to address them, a week after cancelling a lecture by Holocaust-revisionist historian David Irving.

Rudi Oppenheimer was yesterday due to discuss his experiences at Bergen-Belsen, where his parents died, at a meeting of the student union-financed organisation, Forum.

A Forum spokesperson told the JC this week that it had always planned to invite Mr Oppenheimer to speak and that its intention had been to use both that meeting and a separate appearance by Mr Irving as part of a Holocaust-awareness week.

The student union withdrew the invitation to Mr Irving, citing the high cost of security for the event.

Forum spokesperson Stephanie Bell said this week: "We had thought it would have been an exercise in free speech to hear both of them. But even though the Irving meeting was called off, we thought it would still be good to hear Mr Oppenheimer.

"It is a rare chance to hear at first-hand what it was like to live through the Holocaust.

"We hope it will generate awareness among a generation increasingly removed from the horrors of Europe in the 1940s."

Relevant items on this website:

Jan 18: Jewish students oppose plan for Nottingham meeting | Irving's "freedom" | Students are urged not to extend Irving invitation

 

David Irving comments:

 

WE HOPE that Mr Oppenheimer was able to afford the £8,000 for policing his lecture, which the local police authority, after consultation with the university, insisted the students should put up to protect my audience from violence. This is of course one way of reaching the historical "consensus" of which "scholars" like Peter Longerich like to waffle: one voice is allowed to speak, the other is silenced by threats of violence. Note incidentally that although Mr Oppenheimer is not himself stated to have been in a concentration camp -- his parents were, dying in the epidemic conditions raging through Bergen-Belsen in the chaos at the end of WW2 -- he is dignified with the title "Holocaust survivor".