Polish body urged to sack official who published David Irving’s books
Jewish groups call for the Institute of National Remembrance to severe ties with Arkadiusz Wingert
A Jewish rights group has urged a Polish state historical institute to sack an official who has published several books by British Holocaust denier David Irving.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre said the official, Arkadiusz Wingert, published books by Irving between 2009 and 2014.
Mr Wingert is now the deputy director of the publishing office of the Institute of National Remembrance, a state body that investigates crimes in Poland during the Second World War and the subsequent communist era.
“If the (institute) is to maintain any shred of credibility it must end its relationship with Wingert immediately and stop all efforts aimed at undermining the history of the Holocaust in Poland,” Mark Weitzman, director of government affairs for the US-based Wiesenthal centre, said in a statement.
The history institute has defended hiring Mr Wingert, arguing that none of the works that Mr Wingert published violated Polish law, which makes Holocaust denial a crime.
It also noted that the Polish editions of Irving’s works Mr Wingert had already been published elsewhere first.
Irving is a revisionist historian who has declared that the Auschwitz gas chambers were a hoax.
He has been declared guilty of Holocaust denial by courts in Britain and Austria, where he served a 13-month prison sentence.
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