historical context

In The Nation online edition an article by Robert Scheer and about David Irving's conviction for denying the Holocaust caught my attention. I do not think incarcerating people will lead us closer to the truth, nor will it help eliminate hatred, although one has to account for the context the laws were implemented in. To deny the Holocaust is to deny a whole historical reality of anti semitism, that can be easily verified by the many documents in existence. And so although it would seem easy to defend absolute free speech as an absolute right, my God! 6 million people were victims o a horrifying extermination because of their collective identity. The association draw to the cartoon controversy seems at first basic and clear, but when further analysed becomes much more complex.