Robert Faurisson
French academic and Holocaust denier (1929–2018)
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Key Takeaways
- Robert Faurisson ( French: [foʁisɔ̃] ; born Robert Faurisson Aitken ; 25 January 1929 – 21 October 2018) was a British-born French academic who became best known for Holocaust denial.
- 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 became a high school teacher at Vichy.
- 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.
Robert Faurisson (French: [foʁisɔ̃]; born Robert Faurisson Aitken; 25 January 1929 – 21 October 2018) was a British-born French academic who became best known for Holocaust denial. Faurisson generated much controversy with several articles published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, and by letters to French newspapers, especially Le Monde, which contradicted 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.
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.
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.
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