The Spanish Jewish community is mourning the passing of a lawyer who paved the way for the country’s legislation criminalizing Holocaust denial.
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE), the Jewish Community of Madrid (CJM) and the Violeta Friedman Foundation said in a statement they were deeply saddened by the passing of lawyer Jorge Trías Sagnier.
Trías Sagnier was behind a legal ruling that led to legislation that criminalized Holocaust denial in Spain. Along with B’nai B’rith Spain, Trías Sagnier was the lawyer for Violeta Friedman, an Auschwitz survivor living in Spain, in a legal case against Belgian Nazi collaborator Leon Degrelle who in August 1985 had denied the Holocaust in Tiempo magazine.
In response, Friedman filed a civil lawsuit which she lost three times as Holocaust denial was not illegal in Spain at the time. For over six years, Trías Sagnier helped Friedman with the case until the Spanish Constitutional Court finally ruled against Degrelle.
The court ruled that the honor of Friedman and the other victims of the Holocaust had been damaged by Degrelle’s statement. Due to the ruling, Spain recognized the right to honour of an entire people who had been victims of a genocide.
Trías Sagnier was also one of the first prominent people in Spain to raise awareness of Holocaust denial and the rise of neo-Nazis in the country.
Trías Sagnier was “a good man, a first-class lawyer, a courageous friend of the Jewish people whose legal battle defending the honour of Violeta Friedman was fundamental to punishing Nazi war criminal León Degrelle in Spanish courts,” Isaac Querub, former president of the FCJE and CJM, said.