No, you can't distort history

A German court has sentenced an 87-year-old grandmother to 10 months in jail for Holocaust denial after a trial in which she insisted that Auschwitz was "not historically proven" to be a death camp.

Haverbeck is a notorious extremist who was once chairwoman of a far-right training centre shut down in 2008 for spreading Nazi propaganda.

Haverbeck was dragged back into court after she went on television in April to declare that "the Holocaust is the biggest and most sustainable lie in history".

Unapologetic for her comment, she had told the court cheerfully, "yes I said that indeed", according to media reports.

Haverbeck went as far as to challenge the court to prove that Auschwitz was a death camp, prompting ruling magistrate Bjoern Joensson to say "it is pointless holding a debate with someone who can't accept any facts".

"She is a lost cause," he added.

Some 1.1 million people, most of them European Jews, perished between 1940 and 1945 in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp before it was liberated by Soviet forces.