London – Germany is considering issuing an arrest warrant for Bishop Richard Williamson over his controversial claim that no Jews died in the gas chambers during the Second World War.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The 69-year-old British-born bishop made the comments during an interview with Swedish television last year at a seminary for the ultra-orthodox Society of Saint Pius X in the Bavarian village of Zaitzkoven, near Munich.
Under German law denial of the Holocaust is illegal and an investigation was launched by prosecutors after the interview was broadcast last month.
Germany’s Justice Minister, Brigitte Zypries, confirmed yesterday that officials were considering issuing a European Union-wide arrest warrant for Dr Williamson, who flew into Britain earlier this week after being expelled from the Argentine seminary where he had been living for much of the past five years.
Mrs Zypries said that if an arrest warrant is issued, Britain would be obligated to arrest the renegade cleric and extradite him to Germany under a European set of guidelines introduced last year to toughen up anti-racism and hate crime laws. Although Britain has no specific laws against denying genocides, in Germany Holocaust denial is punishable with up to three years in prison and because the comments were made in Germany, Dr Williamson may be liable for prosecution.
The news of the arrest warrant came as the controversial bishop’s attempted rehabilitation into the Catholic Church took a tumble when the Vatican rejected an apology he made earlier this week. After weeks of refusing an order from Rome to repent his Holocaust denial views “in an absolutely unequivocal and public way”, he made a carefully worded apology on Thursday evening on the SSPX website.
In the statement, the bishop said his views on the Holocaust were that of a “non-historian … formed 20 years ago on the basis of evidence then available, and rarely expressed in public since”.
He added: “To all souls that took honest scandal from what I said, before God I apologise.”
The Vatican’s chief spokesperson, Father Frederico Lombardi, said Dr Williamson’s apology “does not seem to respect the conditions” for his re-admission to the church.
Jewish and Holocaust-remembrance groups also rejected the apology saying Dr Williamson had failed to fully renounce his belief that the Holocaust has been exaggerated by historians. Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said: “The one thing he doesn’t say, and the main thing, is that the Holocaust occurred … You want to make an apology, you have to affirm the Holocaust.”
Karen Pollack, the chief executive of The Holocaust Educational Trust, also criticised the apology: “You don’t need to be a historian to recognise one of the most defining episodes of the 20th century, where millions of Jews and others were brutally murdered by the Nazis. Williamson may have acknowledged the offence he has caused but the fact remains that he denied the Holocaust – even questioning the existence of gas chambers only a month ago. Holocaust denial is anti-Semitism under whatever guise.”
Although the bishop belongs to a breakway Catholic sect that is not in full communion with the Catholic Church, the Vatican has been deeply embarrassed by Williamson’s views because it lifted an excommunication order on the SSPX just days after his Holocaust denial interview was broadcast.
It’s amazing as to what lengths the Germans will go to show the world their deep regret and utmost sympathy for holocaust survivors, yet any jew traveling to or living in Germany can feel the hatred and disgust oozing from the fine upstanding citizens, disguised of course by their impeccable manners and polite robotic smiles, the same manners which during the holocaust had them say “please” when telling the jews to enter the gas chambers for their final “shower”. hy”d. As for the esteemed bishop Yemach Shemo, the fact that a man of his stature has the audacity to utter such a statement barely 60 years after these unimaginable, horrifying atrocities took place, with many survivors still alive to tell the story firsthand, just illustrates the short term memory policy the world has when it comes to jewish persecution. This makes me sick to my stomach and at the same time fills me with a cold fear. We need to put our trust in Hashem, as only he will help us.
Its ironic that Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany but the other evening, one of the VIN regulars who posts under the name of Milhaus was defending his legal rights to deny the holocuast in the U.S. as a form of “protected free speech”. Its a crime in Germany but yidden saying its Ok to deny the holocaust here.
They can’t arrest him because he is not in Germany. All they can do is issue an international arrest warrant but the British courts do not recognize such warrants. In any case we are in an age that Stalin and Mao would be proud of. If you think politically incorrect opinions you are liable to be sent to the Gulag, to Siberia or to Mao’s re-education camps. All courtesy of the new Holy Office of the Inquisition. Who could imagine this in 2009?!
Remember the guy from Australia Toben was arrested, and the British court threw it out? I thought that according to Catholicism a Catholic was someone who believed in the doctrines about the Christian messiah. I didn’t know it had anything to do with specific doctrines about what happened in World War II. I guess it’s a new church doctrine.
I believe that denying the Holocaust is disgusting and is truly pxxxxng on the graves as stated above. BUT, that does not mean that I would deny a person’s right to say what he/she wishes.
I support a person’s right to free speech, as long as it does not limit my or other person’s freedoms.
Denying the Holocaust hurts memories, and is truly painful to hear, but it does not factually damages us or limit anyone’s freedoms.
All it accomplishes if making the denier look like a fool. Just as AchmeniJihad looks like a fool even to his own fellow countrymen and to the world.
A person should have the right to make a fool out of himself…. even if what he/she says does not please me.
It does not please me to hear someone insult our kedoshim by denying the Holocaust, but you have a right to do so.
To #5 . I think you are mixing up your personal feelings with what is supposed to operate under the laws of freedom of speech in a democracy, as opposed to a Stalinist dictatorship. Indeed, there was alot more censorship under Stalin than there was under Hitler. Just ask Alexander Solzhenytsin, and please explain yourself better. Thank you.
To #6 . Under laws relating to freedom of speech your are making a falacious argument. By definition freedom means that a person has a right to say anything EVEN if it offends someone else. If that weren’t the case, posters would never be able to say some of the things they do about Arabs, Palestinians, Hillary Clinton, Obama, whatever.
To #9 – If Holocaust denial leads to anti-semitism, ipso facto you are saying that having an inquisition against freedom of speech about the Holocaust leads to love of Jews – philo-semitism. This is of course not true. I challenge you to refute this statement.
GOOD, could not happen to a better person. I hope they are able to make it happen
The Brittish have an open door to everyone! oh, except if you criticize Radical islam and sharia law! then you can’t come in, as has happen to the great Geert Wilders.