Doubters of Holocaust Win a Round in Court : Litigation: Portions of an Auschwitz survivor’s suit are dismissed. Revisionist historians claim a victory.

The latest round in the decade-long legal battle between Auschwitz survivor Mel Mermelstein and revisionist historians who question the fate of Jews during World War II has gone to the revisionists, with no end to the dispute in sight.

Last week, the attorney for Mermelstein, a Huntington Beach resident, withdrew the defamation portion of an $11-million lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against the Institute for Historical Review, the Liberty Lobby and Willis Carto.

Earlier in the proceedings, Judge Stephen M. Lachs dismissed another portion of the suit that accused the defendants of malicious prosecution.

Mermelstein’s attorney, Lawrence E. Heller, said this week that he planned to appeal the judge’s dismissal.

Before last week’s decision, an Orange County law firm, which represented the defendants in the malicious-prosecution portion of the lawsuit, settled with Mermelstein for $100,000, Mermelstein and Heller said. Under state law, both attorneys and their clients can be held liable for malicious prosecution.

In 1985, the Costa Mesa-based Institute for Historic Review paid Mermelstein $90,000 to settle another $17-million lawsuit. That litigation grew out of an offer by the institute in 1979 to pay $50,000 to anyone who could prove that Jews were gassed at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.

In addition to the money, the institute apologized for any emotional upset suffered by Mermelstein and other former Auschwitz inmates as a result of the reward offer.

In 1986, a jury in Los Angeles awarded Mermelstein $5.5 million--uncollected so far--against Ditlieb Felderer, an editorial adviser to the institute.

The reward dispute became the subject of a made-for-television docudrama, “Never Forget,” starring Leonard Nimoy and Dabney Coleman, which appeared on the TNT network in April and was released this month on home video.

Following the settlement, however, a dizzying and complex series of five additional suits were filed by both sides, in state and federal courts, in Orange and Los Angeles counties. Some were dismissed and others consolidated. The suit in Los Angeles is the main litigation remaining, both sides said.

Mark Weber, a spokesman for the Institute for Historical Review, called last week’s dismissal a “victory” and a “vindication.” He said the court’s action represents “the collapse of the Mermelstein case.”

Heller said the judge was “unfair and not impartial” and predicted that the suit would be reinstated when the appeal is heard by an appellate court. “These guys are still not off the hook,” Mermelstein said. “We’ll definitely win the appeal.”