Nationality French Name Robert Faurisson | Role Academic | |
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Born 25 January 1929 (age 95) ( 1929-01-25 ) Shepperton, Surrey, England, UK Occupation Professor of literature and revisionist historian, known for Holocaust-denial Books Is the Diary of Anne Frank Genuine? Similar People Paul‑Eric Blanrue, Dieudonne, Vincent Reynouard, Alain Soral, Paul Rassinier | ||
Education Paris-Sorbonne University | ||
Robert Faurisson (born Robert Faurisson Aitken; 25 January 1929) is a Franco-British Holocaust denier and former academic. Faurisson has generated much controversy with a number of articles published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, and by letters to French newspapers, especially Le Monde, which contradict the history of the Holocaust by denying the existence of gas chambers in Nazi death camps, the systematic killing of European Jews using gas during the Second World War, and the authenticity of The Diary of Anne Frank, After the passing of the Gayssot Act against Holocaust denial in 1990, Faurisson was prosecuted and fined, and in 1991 he was dismissed from his academic post.
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Early life and education
Faurisson is believed to be one of seven children born in Shepperton, Middlesex, England to a French father and a Scottish mother.
He studied French, Latin and Greek literature (Lettres classiques), and passed the agrégation (the highest competitive examination to qualify to be a secondary school teacher) in 1956. He became a high school teacher at Vichy, while working on a PhD thesis about the poet Lautréamont. He obtained his doctorate in 1972. He hen became a lecturer, and then professor of French literature at the University of Lyon between 1973 and 1990.
In Vichy, as a young teacher, he gained attention when he published an interpretation of Rimbaud's Sonnet des voyelles as an erotic text. Around 1960, he developed political sympathies for the colonialist cause in Algeria (the Algérie française movement), and was arrested in the belief he was a member of the "OAS", a terrorist organisation.
Holocaust denial
Faurisson's activism as a Holocaust denier first surfaced in 1974, when he contacted Yad Vashem with a lengthy letter detailing a variety of arguments which he claimed demonstrated that there had been no genocide of Jews during World War II. These assertions were based on his own interpretation of archival records and his skepticism about the assertions and testimony of various historical figures, including Nazi officials such as Rudolf Höss.
He became involved with the Institute for Historical Review during the 1970s, lecturing and publishing prolifically. He twice testified in defense of Canadian-German Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, and his testimony has been associated with laying the groundwork for the "Leuchter Report", an influential Holocaust-denial publication. Faurisson's activism garnered him several dedicated critics, including the Jewish French historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet.
In 1978, Faurisson authored a French-language text, "The Diary of Anne Frank – Is It Authentic?". It appeared in Dutch-language translation in 1985, with the modified title, "The Diary of Anne Frank – A Forgery". The text questioned various elements of the Diary of Anne Frank, including the use of a vacuum cleaner by the family while in hiding. Faurisson continued,
"Vacuum cleaners at that time were exceptionally noisy. I must ask: 'Is this credible?' My question is not just a formality. It is not rhetorical. Its purpose is not to astonish. My question is simply a question. An answer will have to be found."
Faurisson interviewed Otto Frank in researching the article, though much of what Faurisson asserted Frank had said was later contradicted by Frank himself. Faurisson's writing on the subject first came into the spotlight during a court case between Otto Frank and Heinz Roth, a publishing-house owner responsible for the circulation of various neo-Nazi writings, including several publications impugning the authenticity of Anne Frank's diary; Faurisson's writing on the subject was entered into the court record as an expert opinion in defense of Roth. The 1978 finding of the court was that Roth must refrain from publishing any further reading material claiming the diary was a fraud.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad granted Faurisson an award for "courage" in Tehran, Iran on 2 February 2012.
Controversies
Faurisson was fined by a French court in 1983, for having declared that "Hitler never ordered nor permitted that anyone be killed by reason of his race or religion."
One of Faurisson's works was published with an introduction by Noam Chomsky. It turned out that the Chomsky introduction had not been written for this purpose but Chomsky authorized its use to defend Faurisson in a different context. Chomsky's piece was a general defense of freedom of speech, including that of Faurisson. Chomsky stated that "I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of the Holocaust...I see no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson's work," and considered Faurisson as a "relatively apolitical liberal of some sort". Chomsky was accused of supporting Faurisson, rather than defending his right to speech, the first of which accusations Chomsky denied. Noting he had described the Holocaust as "the most fantastic outburst of collective insanity in human history", Chomsky argued that his views were "diametrically opposed" to those of Faurisson on the subject.
In September 1989, Faurisson was beaten by unknown assailants claiming to be "The Sons of the Memory of the Jews", an organization about which nothing is known, either before or since the incident. Faurisson had been walking his dog in a park in Vichy and was kicked and punched by three young men, breaking his jaw.
Shortly after the Gayssot Act was enacted in 1990, Faurisson was convicted of Holocaust denial in a French court. Faurisson filed a complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1993; in 1996, the Committee rejected Faurisson's claim that France's prosecution of him was a violation of the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In 1991, Faurisson was removed from his university chair on the basis of his views under the Gayssot Act, a French statute passed in 1990 that prohibited Holocaust denial. He challenged the statute as a violation of international law at the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Human Rights Committee. The Human Rights Committee upheld the Gayssot Act as necessary to counter possible antisemitism. Further trials followed; among them, one in connection with a publication on the website of the Association des anciens amateurs de récits de guerre et d'Holocauste (AAARGH) in 1998, of which he was absolved due to lack of evidence of his authorship.
Faurisson was charged again in a trial on 11 July 2006. He was accused of denying the Holocaust in an interview with the Iranian television station "Sahar 1" in February 2005. On 3 October 2006, he was given a three-month probationary sentence and fined €7,500 for this offence. In December 2006, Faurisson gave a speech at the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust, which was sponsored by the government of Iran.
Since late 2008, Faurisson has become close to the comedian and political activist Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, appearing with him publicly on stage and in video, and celebrating his (Faurisson's) 80th birthday in his theater. Dieudonné awarded Robert Faurisson an "insolent outcast" prize. The award was presented by one of Dieudonné's assistants, Jacky, dressed in a concentration camp uniform with a yellow badge. This earned Dieudonné a court conviction.