IRVING STOPPED
The anti-fascist magazine Nigdy Wiecej (Never Again) has wrecked plans by Bellona, the state-owned publishing house of the Polish defence ministry, to publish a translation of David Irving's biography of Hitler's right-hand man Herrman Goering in the spring of 2000. For the first time in Poland, it appears, a respected publisher was heading for the revisionist arena. Previously Irving's works have been published in Poland only by small private publishers.
Both Defence Minister, Janusz Onyszkiewicz, and Prime Minister, Jerzy Buzek, were personally briefed about the scandal, which erupted after the story from Nigdy Wiecej was followed up by other journalists, most notably Urszula Prussak of Radiostacja and Jakub Rzekanowski of the daily Trybuna.
Articles protesting against Bellona's planned involvement in promoting Holocaust revisionism also appeared in the Jewish magazine Slowo Zydowskie and in the left-wing weekly Przeglad. The attack on Bellona's moves in the latter was written by the well-known Polish columnist Krzysztof T.Toeplitz. Public pressure has now forced Bellona to abandon its plans and to cancel an intended promotional trip by Irving to Poland.
The go-between Bellona and the fascist milieu was Bartlomiej Zborski, the first person to translate Irving's books into Polish and a regular antisemitic contributor to Szczerbiec, the International Third Position/National Rebirth of Poland (NOP) magazine which is still the main forum for Auschwitz liars in Poland.
Before he entered the fascist scene, Zborski used to translate very different literary works, for example George Orwell's. It remains to be seen whether the current owners of copyright for the Orwell's books are going to continue their collaboration with Polish translator-turned nazi propagandist Zborski.
Among Zborski's most recent "achievements" was the Polish edition of the infamous American handbook for nazi terrorists, "The Turner Diaries" by William Pierce. This book was published by a private publisher Rachocki who also, some years ago, used to publish very different stuff, namely Trotsky's memoirs.
Rachocki became a business partner for Bellona when it was starting a new series of popular history books. Zborski was employed by the military publishing house as the editor of the series called, very aptly, "The Brown Series". The standard layout of the books' covers included the swastika and the nazi eagle and Irving's biography of Goering was among the first titles in the pipeline.
Though publication of Irving's book by the state company has been stopped in its tracks by the joint efforts of anti-fascists and the media it unfortunately, does not follow that the development of Holocaust revisionism in Poland has been halted for good.
Author: Rafal Pankowski, the article "Irving stopped" was published in "Searchlight" (05.2000).