So to Speak Transcript: Deborah Lipstadt

Note: This is a unedited rush transcript. Please check any quotations against the audio recording.

Nico Perrino: Well, Professor Lipstadt, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Professor Deborah Lipstadt: Thank you for having me.

Nico: It’s actually a pleasure to have you in particular today because without my even knowing it; most of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education’s staff went to go see the movie Denial last night. So –

[Crosstalk]

Professor Lipstadt: – good taste.

Nico: I actually work out of New York City, and I’m in our offices in Philadelphia today. And I walk in, and I hear from a number of people on staff that they saw the movie last night. And I said, “Did you know I’m actually interviewing Professor Lipstadt for the So To Speak podcast today? And they were taken aback. I said, “We have the Deborah Lipstadt here with us today.”

Professor Lipstadt: The real one. Not Rachel Weisz as Deborah Lipstadt, but the real Deborah Lipstadt.

Nico: The real life Deborah Lipstadt. So we’re –

Professor Lipstadt: Dare I ask if they liked it?

Nico: They loved it. This is an office full of free speech advocates, free speech lawyers. I’m sure legal thrillers are their taste to begin with. But throw in the free speech angle and the academic freedom angle, which I hope we talk about later, and you’ve got making for a FIRE classic.

Professor Lipstadt: That’s perfect. I’m delighted. I’m just delighted.

Nico: So by way of starting, can you briefly relay to us who David Irving is and what happened between you and him in the ‘90s?

Professor Lipstadt: Sure. David Irving is a man who has written many books on different aspects of World War II. He’s a Brit. And many of the books had what I would describe as a sort of right wing perspective. And by that I don’t mean conservative. But many of them seem to always want to point out where the Allies had done wrong and the Nazis had done right, where the Allies had been guilty of war crimes and the Nazis were the victims. And it always had that kind of tone. Many of them had that kind of tone to it.

And then later on, I would say in the late ‘70s, in big splash with a book called “Hitler’s War”, and in that, he argued that Hitler didn’t know about the Holocaust, that when found out about he tried to stop it, that he was indeed the best friend the Jews had in Germany. So, some of the stuff was way over the top. And, justly, people’s reaction to it was, “Well, that’s ridiculous [inaudible] [00:02:32] who didn’t know about the Holocaust. We’ll ignore that, but we’ll pay attention to the rest of what he says. Because he seems to find new documents. He seems to know a lot.

Now, in the ‘80s he began to make closer and closer contact with Holocaust deniers in part because many academics were becoming more wary of his work. And in the late ‘80s he actually, I use the term loosely, came out as a Holocaust denier full-fledged. In a trial in Canada he said, “I don’t believe there were gas chambers. I’m now convinced that the whole thing is a myth,” etc., etc. That was just when I was writing my book on Holocaust denial.

Nico: What was the name of that book?

Professor Lipstadt: “Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory”. And in it I included a couple of paragraphs, not extensive, that David Irving was a Holocaust denier, and that unlike many deniers who simply repeat what they’ve been told, he knew the facts and he twisted the facts to fit his pre-existing political outlook. And then I also said that he was the most dangerous of Holocaust deniers.

And the reason I called him the most dangerous of Holocaust deniers, because most of the deniers were known only for being deniers or for being deniers and right wing racists like David Duke in this country. But Irving had a separate reputation as someone who knew World War II history. So what he had to say was taken somewhat seriously.

And then I published the book. And I didn’t think I was doing anything that might cause a confrontation because I knew that others had written far worse about him before; more extensively and far more – almost, I don’t know, harsher than I. What I said was harsh, but others had written even, I think, more harshly. So the book came out in the United States in ’93. And then the rights were bought by Penguin UK, the British publisher. And it came out in the United Kingdom in ’94-’95, something like that. ’95 I think it was.

And within a short time after it’s coming out, he told Penguin that he was considering suing me for liable for calling him a Holocaust denier. Now when I first heard this I thought it was just ludicrous because here was a man who had testified at Canadian court that he didn’t believe there were gas chambers, he thought this was all a myth, etc., etc. So I just thought this is ridiculous. This is a nuisance letter to scare me. But contrary to what I expected it wasn’t and he pushed forward with the suit. And eventually I ended up in a trial in England.

Nico: In the movie there’s a very tense moment. Presumably you’re in the United States, you’re giving a lecture about your book, and the David Irving character stands up to confront you about your accusation that he is a Holocaust denier, which you, as you just said, said he himself has admitted in the past. Did that actually happen in real life?

Professor Lipstadt: Absolutely happened. The many things that I think are interesting about this. And I don’t think that just because I’m the main character. But I think there are many interesting aspects. But one of the interesting aspects, both from possibly a free speech perspective or a truthfulness perspective maybe is a better way of putting it, and a movie making perspective, is that David Hare, the great screenwriter and playwright, who wrote the script, who wrote the screenplay –

Nico: It’s an excellent screenplay. And I was actually talking with one of my colleagues, and he said David Hare is probably the greatest living playwright around. So it’s great that he gets to tell your story.

Professor Lipstadt: Yes, I was thrilled when they chose him and he agreed. Everything that is said in the courtroom comes from transcripts. We have little clips, videos in which David Irving, or the actor Timothy Spall, the wonderful actor Timothy Spall who depicts Irving and plays Irving says certain things. Those are all exactly what Irving said. And Irving did show up when I was giving a public lecture in Georgia, interrupt the lecture, begin to wave around cash, American cash, and say, “I have $1000.00 here, and I’ll give it to anyone who can prove there were really gas chambers, who can prove that Hitler ordered the Holocaust,” etc., etc. He disrupted the lecture. It was a real showman kind of thing. And it was a stunt. It was a real stunt.

Nico: And did he actually film it?

Professor Lipstadt: Yes, yes, they did film it, they did film it.

Nico: And they say at the movie that this is based on a true story. And I had done some research, and it sounds like David Hare did read all the transcripts from the court trial.

Professor Lipstadt: Every single line of 32 sessions of transcripts. We went over eight, ten weeks depending on how you count the weeks. But, yes, he read every single one. And David Hare’s one gripe with the movie is that it says based on a true story and not a true story. But for legal reasons they have to say either inspired by a true story or based on a true story. You’ll have to ask your movie friends what the exact situation is that. But because there’s certain scenes where maybe I’m jogging when I get a phone call and I actually got that phone call sitting in my office, you say based on as opposed to a true story.

Nico: The lawyers got ahold of it.

Professor Lipstadt: Yes.

Nico: And so I did some research before we hopped on this phone call. And it looks like the trial lasted 32 days and –

Professor Lipstadt: 32 days, right.

Nico: – and six hours a day. So that’s –

Professor Lipstadt: Right, we started at 10:00. We ended at 5:00. I guess it was with an hour off for lunch, something like that. And it was very intense. But even more intense were the years of research that went into preparing for the trial. What we did essentially was follow the footnotes. Let me figure out how to say this best because I’ve been so immersed in it. I guess the best way to say it is we weren’t really proving that the Holocaust happened. What we were proving was what David Irving says happened isn’t correct.

So in other words, we weren’t proving what happened or how many people were murdered at Auschwitz. But when he says, I don’t know, 64 – only, he says, 64,000 died, not murdered, at Auschwitz, that he doesn’t have the documentation to prove it. So, in order to do that we followed his footnotes back to the sources.

And we showed that in every place when he cited a certain document and said, “This document proves x, y, z, when you looked at the document itself, what it really proved was a, b, c, and that there was always some change of a date, or some change of a person, or change of a sequence, or addition of a phrase, or mistranslation of something that changed the meaning of what was said, so that the proof he offered didn’t prove what he was saying happened.

Nico: Yeah. You’re speaking a little bit here to the differences between the protections A.) For free speech in England, but also for due process. Can you describe for our listeners the particular legal quirk in England that made this trial possible? Because it wouldn’t have been possible in the United States. He could have filed a liable claim here in the United States but it would have been dismissed almost immediately.

Professor Lipstadt: Right. It would have been dismissed on two grounds: 1.) That he was a public figure. Or 1.) The freedom of speech, that pesky thing called the First Amendment, which may be hanging on by its fingernails, but it’s still hanging on. And B.) As you well know even better than I coming from the legal perspective, the public figure defense; that what is it? New York Times v. Sullivan, that a public figure can’t sue for liable unless they can prove malicious intent, that the author knew the words that she was writing were either untrue or should have known that they were untrue.

So it would have been impossible, which is why exactly the film came out in England. And so that’s why this case could never have happened in the United States but could happen in England. And the reason, of course, it could proceed in England is that once Penguin UK bought the book and sold copies of the book, in England I was considered to have done business in England and, therefore, I was under the responsible to, under the authority of British [inaudible] [00:11:29].

But the other fundamental difference is that in the United States if I say you liabled me, I as the aggrieved party, plaintiff, have to prove that you indeed did liable me. In England the case law reads, I believe, I may be paraphrasing here; words written are considered untrue until proven true. So the burden of proof was on me as the defendant, the author, to prove the truth of what I said, unlike in the United States where it would have been on him to prove the falsehood.

And the reason this is so important is that it immediately limited my freedom of movement, so to speak, or options in how to respond. Because if I hadn’t responded he would have won by default. Had he won by default, it would have meant that he could claim, he could say legally and truthfully the court found that Deborah Lipstadt indeed liabled me when she called me a Holocaust denier.

In so fact, though, I am not a Holocaust denier and my, David Irving, version of the Holocaust is a genuine version. So that made it impossible for me to ignore it. On top of which he possibly could have gotten damages against me, attacked my property. But that I worry about far less. I worried about that far less. I worried about the bigger implications to history.

Nico: Yeah, and speaking of the bigger implications, so this movie is most notably, or at least on the surface, about Holocaust denial as in your fight with David Irving. But as I hope it’s clear to our listeners who see the movie or have seen the movie, it’s also about much, much more than the Holocaust. And we’ve touched on a couple of those themes already. It’s also about the law. It’s about how different societies mediate truth. It’s about some of the biggest challenges that the liberal values of free speech, free inquiry, and, I think most importantly in this case, academic freedom have faced in the past 20 years. Were these some of the themes that you had hoped the film would capture when it came out?

Professor Lipstadt: Yes. But sometimes when you try to grab too much you grab nothing at all. You pick up that laundry, and you go back for that last sock, and everything else falls down. Or you pick up a ball of papers, and you go for that last paper, and they all fall. I wanted this paper – this paper. I wanted this movie to tell the story of what happened. And in the course of so doing I was hoping there would be certain takeaways from the movie.

And I’m not saying messages because I don’t believe movies should have messages. A movie with a message is either a documentary or a bad feature film if it’s hitting you over the head with a message. But I do believe there’s certain takeaways.

And I think the primary takeaway, and I would guess pretty securely, that David Hare who wrote the script and Mick Jackson who directed agree with me 100 percent, that there’s certain facts that aren’t debatable. Sometimes in liberal [inaudible] [00:14:53] we grow up thinking, oh, everything should be open to debate, and everything should be open to question, and there are always two sides to every story, and the enlightened view is to keep your mind open to two sides to every story. Well, there aren’t two sides to every story. The Holocaust happened. Slavery happened. Elvis is dead.

Nico: And this is something you say during – or at least Rachel Weisz.

Professor Lipstadt: Exactly, and Rachel repeats it. That there are not two sides to every story. Even taking it further, the ice, they’re melting. Now you might debate why they’re melting. I think there’s a general consensus, but let’s not get into that now. Or some people may say, “Slavery happened but it actually was indentured servitude. It wasn’t so bad. Everybody worked hard. Slaves got three square meals a day. Maybe two square meals. They had all their needs taken care of. So it really wasn’t so bad.” Well, excuse me, they were slaves.

And so I think there’s certain things that can’t be debated. Maybe you could say how slavery could have been ended. Could it have been ended without a war with such tragic consequences or was the war absolutely necessary? You might debate could the Holocaust have been prevented if certain actions had been taken in the ‘30s. Was it possible only in Germany? All those kind of questions.

And questions; the same thing with the Armenian genocide, with the terrible wars in the former Yugoslavia and the genocides, the Muslim men and boys there. But not that they happened. They happened and they’re fact. And there’s a difference between fact, opinion, and lie. They’re three different categories.

And what you have with Holocaust deniers are outright lies. And that’s what we were showing the court, which people such as David Irving, deniers such as David Irving try to mask as opinions based on documents and then to encroach the facts and to change the facts. So in other words, they take a lie, they mask it as opinion, and then they use it to try to restate the truth.

Nico: Do you think there’s a hidden or lower level value at least in liberal Western, mostly Western societies that have very open allowances for freedom of speech in allowing those sorts of, as you say, outright lies to be spoken?

Professor Lipstadt: Oh, yes, of course, of course. I gave a talk in January during the film, during the making of the movie. I went from the set to the Oxford Union at the University of Oxford or Oxford University. I always forget which. And I spoke to the Oxford Union, which is probably one of the world’s oldest debating societies. And I spoke against laws outlining Holocaust denial. I’m not for laws outlawing Holocaust denial.

First of all, in this country it would be impossible because we, again, have that, as I like to describe it, pesky thing called the First Amendment. But second of all, I don’t want to cede to the politicians power over deciding what’s allowed and what’s not allowed. I tremble at that; that politicians should decide this is okay and this is not okay.

I was recently in Germany, and I was having a discussion with a young man, very bright, very open-minded, intelligent guy. And we were talking about some of the issues facing Europe today with massive immigration, the Muslim immigrants, some of the tensions that are arising, etc. And it was a very calm and cool. It wasn’t a debate or anything. It was just sort of talking about all the different aspects of the issue.

And we were in Germany, which has taken in many, many, many refugees. And he said, and this is a young guy, he said he thinks that the government should – that there should be rules; those allow for the defamation of [inaudible] [00:19:18]. We had been talking about those cartoons, the Mohamed cartoons, etc. And he said there should be laws which don’t allow for the defamation of religion. So I said, “Well, what do you mean?” He said, “Well, that you can’t draw Mohamed and things like that.

I said, “So how do you differentiate between a medieval portrait, a mosaic of Mohamed or a drawing of Mohamed that was done in the Middle Ages by a Muslim, for a Muslim audience, and what’s done today? And how do you decide what’s allowed and what’s not allowed? And how do you decide what’s gone too far and what’s not gone too far?” I said, “You want to leave that up to the politicians?” He said, “No, no. There must be a law because that’s the only way you’ll deal with religious tensions.”

Well, I think part of the cost of living in a free society is that you have this messiness of freedom of speech. And the way to counter freedom of speech is with facts. And that’s [inaudible] [00:20:13].

Nico: Yeah. I don’t know if this is in the movie or in the press conference that you did, or both, because it very, very closely tracks what happens. But you say freedom of speech gives you the freedom to say whatever you want. But what it doesn’t do is give you the freedom to say whatever you want and not be held accountable for it. That is by society.

Professor Lipstadt: Precisely.

Nico: We always say here at FIRE the best way to fight bad wrong-headed ideas is with more speech. And that’s what you did.

Professor Lipstadt: Didn’t Justice Brandeis say that? That the anecdotes –

Nico: Yes.

Professor Lipstadt: I think it was Brandeis; the anecdote to bad speech is more speech.

Nico: Mm-hmm. And that’s exactly what you tried to do with David Irving. You saw the argument he was making as a scholar and an academic and someone who just cares about these issues deeply. You countered that.

Professor Lipstadt: That’s right.

Nico: And he tried to use the English legal system to silence you.

Professor Lipstadt: Right. Well, one of the problems was David Irving for years had gotten away with making these statements because he mainly was speaking to his followers, his acolytes, those who believed, they’re already in the cause, etc. He made a mistake when he chose to sue me.

Because when we fought back and we went into a court, suddenly there was a voice of authority, the judge, to look at something and say, “Mr. Irving, you say the document says that. But it doesn’t say that.” And he’d look at the document. He said, “Yes, You’re Lordship.” And then he’d repeat the same argument. And the judge would say again, “Mr. Irving, the document doesn’t say that.” And they he’d look, he’d say, “Yes, You’re Lordship.” And then the third time, I remember this one session, the judge just said, “Mr. Irving, move on. The document does not say what you’re saying it says.”

And he sort of looked at the judge a little bit bewildered because he had never been in a situation where anybody had what we might call fact checked him. And suddenly it was a whole new world to which he was not used to.

Nico: Yeah, I think it’s John Stuart Mill in his book “On Liberty” who said – or maybe it was John Milton, another great English thinker, who has known truths to be put worse to the wear in a free and open encounter with the wrong or something along those lines. You said in response to an earlier question that you opposed Holocaust denial laws. Holocaust denial, as many of us in the free speech world know, is often put up as among the worst of ideas that anyone could hold.

[Crosstalk]

Professor Lipstadt: I wouldn’t call it an idea.

Nico: Yeah, but it’s for us the benchmark example of wrongheaded speech.

Professor Lipstadt: Right, exactly. And, look, the denial of the Armenian genocide is also an outrage.

Nico: Yeah, and many of the things that the Nazis did are held up as benchmarks for wrongness or evil. But as a result of this, many countries have these Holocaust denial laws. The United States does not. And the Holocaust denial laws in Austria actually landed David Irving in jail in 2005 for a three year prison sentence. He only served one year, I believe.

Professor Lipstadt: That’s right.

Nico: And at the time you said that you believed it was wrong that he was thrown in jail because you believe it turned him into a martyr.

Professor Lipstadt: Mm-hmm. Well, I believe it was wrong that he was thrown in jail A.) Because I believe in free speech. And what he claimed, and what a couple of historians claimed, and they’re sort of depicted in the trial afterwards was, oh, this is an attack on freedom of speech. And that would make me crazy because that’s exactly what it wasn’t.

Yes, it was an attack on freedom of speech. He was attacking my freedom of speech. But they were painting him as the victim because he looked more like them than I did. He looked more like them. And the British academic force, less so now, but for many years was a very closed club; men, Christian upper crust club.

But in any case, yeah, I was against it when he was put in jail. Though some of his followers immediately wrote to me after I had published an article about that saying, “Well, aren’t you going to fight for his freedom?” And I said, “There are a lot of things I really care about,” which is true. I care about the ecology. I care about the other societies, etc. I care about many, many, many causes, a number of causes which are very dear to me. I said, “I’m gonna work on those. When I’m done with those I’ll worry about David Irving’s freedom.” So I did not do anything. But I did speak out publicly. I did speak out publicly.

Nico: Yeah. And we should note because I don’t think we’ve actually even mentioned this yet, but those of you who have seen the movie will know, you won the trial, you won the liability trial.

Professor Lipstadt: Yes, yes. Spoiler alert, spoiler alert.

Nico: Yeah, spoiler alert. Has David Irving said anything about the film to your knowledge?

Professor Lipstadt: No, I don’t think he’s seen it. It hasn’t opened in the UK. It opens in the UK at the end of January. I am sure we will hear from him. And I can assure you that I won’t pay any attention to what he has to say. He took six, seven years of my life with the preparation for the trial, with the trial itself, with the appeals. And when the day the appeal was over and the day I decided not to go after him for the funds, which I could have legitimately asked for, to replenish my defense fund so I could repay the lawyers, etc., but I decided not to do that.

I said, “You know what? He has stolen enough of my time and energy and concerns. I don’t care what he says from here on in.” And I’ve never looked at his site. I’ve paid attention to what he has to say. So I can assure you when he writes his review, that’s one of the reviews I won’t be reading.

Nico: What surprised you most when making this movie? Is this the first movie you’ve ever been involved in?

Professor Lipstadt: Oh, yeah. The first and probably the last.

Nico: Before you answer that question, how did you hear about that they were making a movie about this?

Professor Lipstadt: Well, they optioned my book. So they came and asked to option my memoir on the trial. So I knew it was in the works. But you know how many books get optioned and movies never get made?

Nico: Oh, a lot.

Professor Lipstadt: I think there are hundreds of books that get optioned. Because you option a book for not much money, especially if it’s a professor. It’s not some famous, famous person. And most of them never get made. So I knew it was optioned. And sometimes at dinner parties or when I had friends over we would sit around laughing, saying, “Who should play whom?” And we’d cast the movie never thinking that anything would come of it. But I watched this slowly but slowly and slowly again. Eventually something did come of it. And once they started to move forward, it was about last summer I would guess, they were pretty quick.

They made the final decisions in, I guess, the spring of 2015. And the casting was set by the end of summer 2015. In the fall the producers and I went to Auschwitz to get permission to film there and to figure out what we were allowed to do and not allowed to do because Auschwitz has very strict rules about that. And the filming started in December and was over by February. So once they got moving, they moved like nobody’s business.

Nico: Yeah. What surprised you most about the process? The quickness of it?

Professor Lipstadt: No, it was A.) How complicated it is and how much has to go into every scene. I would stand there and I would watch them. When Mick Jackson, the director, would say cut everybody had a job. Everybody ran. People knew. And this one had to check the hair. Was the hair the same? And was the scarf the same as it was in the previous take? And had some books been moved which had to be put back because it was gonna be another take of that scene? And I just stood there and watched. And it was like this very choreographed dance. And so that was interesting.

And I was also deeply, deeply touched by the concern and the care of everyone involved, especially Rachel Weisz of course, because she was playing me. She so, so strongly wanted to get this right. She would call me and she’s say, “Tell me how you were feeling,” before she’d go rehearse a certain scene. “What was it like for you? Tell me how you felt.” Like that scene that you described where he interrupts the lecture at the very beginning of the film. I said, “I felt like a deer in headlights. I felt completely inept because I didn’t’ want to debate him, but I knew the students sitting there were looking for answers to his claims. And I felt completely defeated.”

And if you look at her face and her body language, she gets it exactly right. So I was so pleasuredly, pleasantly surprised by the degree, not just that she wanted to get it right, but the degree to which she was willing to bring me into the process. Until at some point in the process she knew she had it. She knew she had me. And she’d look up and there I’d be standing there. And she’s say, “Who’s that woman over there? I’m Deborah Lipstadt.” But it was very gratifying to see. She’s a professional's professional. There’s a reason why she’s considered one of the great actors of our time.

Nico: Yeah, Hollywood A-lister.

Professor Lipstadt: Yeah, with good reason. Not just because she gets good stories, or does things, or has reality shows about her. But she’s an A, A+ lister I guess I would put her.

Nico: Yeah. Last question for you. What’s the response been like from your friends, family, and colleagues who were around when this all went down?

Professor Lipstadt: Well, yeah, a lot of people were at the trial. They say, “Well, how come the day I was there,” – this came up. The film they would have made would have been three hours long. The film I would have made would have been four hours long. There are parts that aren’t in it.

One of the very gratifying parts, which I understand couldn’t be in it, but it’s a part of the story that I think is so important, especially since we talk about universities, and liberal arts, and liberal education, and freedom of speech, and that was the support I received from Emory University. Emory University came forward right at the beginning, when [inaudible] [00:30:34] be an international case about, which movies would be made.

We thought it was a sort of mosquito bite that would have to be – or mosquito nest that would have to be eradicated, stamped out. Then we’d all move forward. The story would be over. But the mosquitoes kept biting. But at the very beginning, Emory set up a travel fund for me. They said, “We don’t know your financial situation. We’re not interested in it. We just want you to know we know you’ll have to go back and forth. We ask of our faculty to be great researchers, great teachers, and to be morally engaged. So we can think of nothing better that exemplifies that.”

So they did that to make my life easier. Then they reduced my teaching load so I could go back and forth to London more easily. And then when the trial came and I said I would take a sabbatical so I could be in London for four months, the provost said to me, “That’s ridiculous. Don’t do that.” I said, “Well, I’ll take a leave of absence,” which is a leave without pay. And she said, “No, no, don’t do that.” And I said to her, “But I have to be in London.” She said, “No, no, you’ll be in London. It will be as if you’re teaching, but the courtroom will be your classroom and we all learn from you from afar.”

And then they didn’t talk about it. They didn’t brag about it. They didn’t talk about it. I’m the one talking about it. I’m very grateful and very proud of Emory University. So I’ll brag a little bit on them.

Nico: Yeah, well, actually, Emory had a free speech controversy on campus earlier this year in response to the Trump chalkings of course. And the president eventually issued a very strong statement in defense of free speech. He set up a committee, as only universities do, put forth a good set of principles on free speech and academic freedom at the university. There’s big free speech defenders there such as Sasha Volokh, who I’m not sure if you’re familiar with.

Professor Lipstadt: Mm-hmm, I do. I am. I am.

Nico: And yourself.

Professor Lipstadt: I can understand why there was certain students who were particularly disturbed by the chalking Trump for President and Trump, Get Over it, or whatever it. And it turns out the people who did the chalking – you’re supposed to have permission to do the chalking on the sidewalk so we don’t get racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or anti-Semitic statements being chalked. Didn’t have the permission. But the idea that you could silence. You just can’t. There’s a much better way of doing it.

Nico: Yeah, and it started a dialogue on campus.

Professor Lipstadt: Yeah, it did start a dialogue on campus. But hopefully all those students who protested are registered to vote.

Nico: Hopefully. So the movie’s in theaters now. It’s playing throughout the remainder of October and into November. It will, as you said, come out in the UK later this year, correct?

Professor Lipstadt: Yes, yes. And I hope people do go see it, and learn from it, and learn that A.) There are not two sides to every opinion. And B.) While you can’t fight every fight, there’s certain fights you can’t turn away from.

Nico: Professor Deborah Lipstadt, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Professor Lipstadt: You’re welcome. Thank you, Nico, it’s been a pleasure. Bye, bye.

Nico: Bye.