From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Robert Jan van Pelt (born August 15, 1955 in Haarlem, Netherlands) is an author, architectural historian, professor at the University of Waterloo and University of Toronto in Ontario and a Holocaust scholar. One of the world's leading experts on Auschwitz, he regularly speaks on Holocaust related topics, through which he has come to address Holocaust denial. He successfully helped defend Deborah Lipstadt in the civil libel suit brought against her by David Irving. Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Jan van Pelt, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.