Michèle Renouf

Michele Renouf (born 1946) is an Australian-born, British-based socialite, who came to the wider attention of the public when she sat at the side of David Irving during his failed legal action against the historian Deborah Lipstadt in 2000.

Early life

Born Michele Mainwaring, she became a model, dancer and beauty contestant, winning the title of Miss Newcastle 1968. Having studied Fine Art at the National Art School, she also obtained diplomas in Art and Education and became a lecturer in Fine Art and Media Studies at Queensland University of Technology. In 1970, she took residence in London where she became Countess Griaznoff by marriage.

She and Griaznoff were divorced in 1990, and in 1991, she married Sir Francis Renouf, an international financier who had helped reconstruct Germany’s post war banking system, and assumed the title Lady Renouf. The marriage ended in divorce that same year.

Renouf continued her careers and her studies. In 1992, she gained a diploma in Landscape Design and designed an Elizabethan Knot and Maze Garden for the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre; and sponsored the building of its Wardrobe of Robes Room in 1997. From 1999 to 2001, she read for a post-graduate degree in Psychology of Religion at the University of London.

Holocaust denial

Renouf has become increasingly known in recent years for her support of prominent Holocaust deniers. In 2000 she was a daily presence at David Irving's court case and more recently she attended the trials and other court hearings across Europe involving Ernst Zündel, Robert Faurisson and Germar Rudolf. In 2003, she was expelled from London's Reform Club after using the club's name in a letter to a newspaper in support of Irving.

Renouf claims she had no interest in the issues of World War II and the Holocaust until a piece in a newspaper about Irving's 2000 libel trial caught her eye. She has stated, "I do not doubt they were victims. Or that the term as chosen by international Zionism for these victims is a Holocaust (a religious term meaning a sacrificial burnt offering in a Covenantal bargain to gain a literal Zionist state of Israel)."[1]. She has described Zionism as a "dangerous and hateful belief.". The European Jewish Congress has described her as an "anti-Semitic demagogue."

She attended the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Iran in December, 2006 attended mostly by Holocaust deniers. Her address to the Conference, extremist even by the Conference standarts, refers to Judaism as possessing a "dangerously misanthropic tendency" and "fundamentally anti-Gentile narcissism." Earlier that year she produced the DVD Jailing Opinions, where she supports again major Holocaust deniers, including David Irving, Ernst Zündel and Robert Faurisson.

External links

• Lady Renouf's website