An 87-year-old German woman has been sentenced to ten months in prison—for doubting the Holocaust.
Ursula Haverbeck was sentenced to jail on November 11.
The controversy arose when Haverbeck, who was the chairwoman of the now-banned free speech association, “Collegium Humanum,” gave an interview to Panorama magazine.
She claimed that Auschwitz, the famous Nazi concentration camp, wasn’t used for extermination—but, rather, forced labor.
She also claimed that the mass execution of Germany’s Jewish population actually never happened.
Unfortunately for her, Germany takes its war history very seriously—and it’s actually illegal to deny the Holocaust.
According to German law, anyone who “denies or downplays an act committed under the rule of National Socialism [Nazi]… in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding five years or a fine.”
This isn’t Haverbeck’s first run in with the law. She was fined thousands of dollars for her controversial views in 2009.