DENIAL is the first non-documentary feature to film on Auschwitz grounds. In the film, the site becomes a crucial place for evidence and stands as a sobering reminder of a time in history that cannot be forgotten.
DENIAL is based on historian Deborah Lipstadt’s memoir, Denial: Holocaust History on Trial. In the film, Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) is sued by author David Irving (Timothy Spall) after she calls him a Holocaust denier. He vehemently argues this is an assault on his character and a mischaracterization of the “truth.” Soon, the libel case is tried in England, where the burden of proof falls upon the defendent. Essentially, she must prove the Holocaust happened.
The task of proving what few would deny is not as easy as one would imagine. In one scene, Lipstadt asks her students why they are sure the Holocaust happened. A student replies, “photographic evidence.” Certainly, the harrowing images taken at Auschwitz at the end of World War II prove genocide occurred. However, as Lipstadt points out, the Nazis never photographed an active camp, so even the most haunting records of atrocity can be manipulated by conspiracy theorists into inconsequential ephemera.
As the characters walk through Auschwitz, the high stakes of the case are crystallized. Though the careful destruction of evidence by the Nazis has made definitive facts and figures hard to come by, in its place stands a vast building complex whose traumatic history is palpable even onscreen.
— Diana Martinez, Film Streams Education Director
