Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day008.33 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. According to you, Mr Irving, this is a key document, which proves your case that these were never homicidal gas chambers, merely licicidal. A. You have asked for one document which supports this "bizarre hypothesis". I have given you one document. Q. Mr Irving, I do not ask for the document. You offer the document in proof of your "bizarre hypothesis." Why have I not seen it before? A. His Lordship said before lunch, Mr Rampton, that he would . P-107 ask me to support or justify, rather than asking you to justify the homicidal version, his Lordship asked me to justify the fumigation version and the air raid shelter version. Q. May we have a copy? I am not going to make any comment about it until I have seen it and until Professor van Pelt has seen it. A. I will fax to you this afternoon and I will bring it tomorrow morning. Q. Can you just tell me its date? A. It was early 1943. Q. Early 1943, thank you very much. I have one final question, to which I am sure I know the answer. In January 1942 an SS doctor at Auschwitz wrote an internal memo to the Kommandatur at Auschwitz, on the one hand making requests for the detailed provision for the dissection room in the new crematoria, and on the other hand requesting that there should be in the keller rooms, cellar rooms, of that edifice an undressing room. Why would the SS doctor want an undressing room next to the dissection room? A. I have to admit that I am not very well versed in practice of morticians and pathologists, but I can well imagine that corpses which are infected would be undressed in one room, which would be regarded as a dirty room, and then cleaned, and then taken into the dissection room for . P-108 dissection. This again is purely commonsense operating and not specific knowledge. Q. It is in this bundle but I am not asking you to look at it now unless you actually want to. Your thesis is that the reference to an auskleideraum in this document is to the undressing of people who are already dead. Is that right? A. I am not sure if you have read Neufurt, which is the standard architects handbook in Germany over the last seven or eight decades? Both Professor Jan van Pelt and I have obtained a wartime copy of Neufurt, one each, and the layout of mortuaries and crematoria is described in some detail in this architects handbook, and it does include an undressing room. So, in other words, this is nothing unusual in a properly designed mortuary. Q. We will, if we may, Mr Irving, go back to the Leuchter. I hope we can take it quickly. I would like you to turn to page 13, my Lord, to tab 1 of the first and largest of the new files. In the right hand column on page 13, do you have it under "Design and procedures at the alleged execution gas chambers" and does your Lordship have it? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: I will jumped to the bold paragraph: "The on site inspection of these structures indicated extremely poor and dangerous design of these facilities if they were to have served as execution gas chambers." The first point: There is no provision for gas . P-109 fitted doors windows or vents. That as a matter of history is just wrong, is it not, Mr Irving? A. I do not know. I have never been to Auschwitz. Q. As I said, as a matter of history, not archaeology. A. You have read the documents, I expect, have you? A. Which document are you referring to? Q. No, the documents, there are repeated references, for example as we discussed this morning, to the need for a gas tight door with a peep hole? A. Yes. In the Auschwitz documents there are repeated references to this, yes. Q. I am sorry, I meant Auschwitz documents? A. Yes. Q. So that is a piece of Leuchter which has no foundation in history? A. I think what he is saying is that nothing was to be seen when they inspected on site. Q. That may be. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is a gas fitted door. MR RAMPTON: It is a door which has seals so that air cannot come in and gas cannot come out, if you see what I mean. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Round the jamb? MR RAMPTON: Yes, round the jamb. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Gas proof really? MR RAMPTON: Gas proof. It might be rubber, it might be felt. "The structures are not coated with tar or other . P-110 sealant to prevent leakage or absorption of the gas." Do you accept or not, Mr Irving, that he missed, if it is there, the traces, not traces, actually they are quite large patches of cement or plaster that is to be found on the walls? A. Of the Leichenkeller. Q. Yes. A. Yes. There is plaster on ordinary mortar plaster on the walls, but there is no treatment on top of the plaster. It is just bare plaster and this is in fact what is recommended for mortuaries, to be just bare plaster with some kind of whitewash. Q. "The adjacent crematoria are a potential danger of explosion". That is complete nonsense, is it not? MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is nonsense on a certain assumption about the level of concentration. MR RAMPTON: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that not a more accurate way of putting it? MR RAMPTON: It is a nonsense unless the concentration used was something in the order of 60,000 parts per million, is it not? A. I believe I am right in saying, and I am sure Professor Jan van Pelt will correct me if I am wrong, that on many of the architectural drawings of crematoria 4 and 5, there are provisions for explosionsgelichte, in other words . P-111 explosion proof light switches to be installed in some of these chambers, or am I referring to the fumigation chambers? Q. I do not know, Mr Irving. You will have to explain that to Professor van Pelt. A. Yes. Q. But, from the level of concentration used, even for gassing lice, at a concentration of 6,666 parts per million, there was no danger of explosion? A. They certainly installed explosion proof switches in the fumigation buildings because they are specified on the architects drawings. Q. And then, writes the good Mr Leuchter, "The exposed porous brick and mortar would accumulate the H C N and make these facilities dangerous to humans for several years". That is nonsense too, is it not? If it is Prussian blue, you tell me it is stable? A. It becomes stable, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well it was not porous, in any event, if it was plastered. Is that right? A. A lot of it is brickwork, too, my Lord, you can see some of it. MR RAMPTON: No. That is postwar deterioration, Mr Irving. Assume that the inside of the gas chamber is covered or whatever it was, at least covered with plaster or cement, then the brickwork is not exposed at all, is it? . P-112 A. It is not cement, it is a lime plaster. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Lime plaster would not be porous, would it? It would not be porous brick and mortar anyway. MR RAMPTON: Mr Leuchter writes: "The exposed porous brick and mortar" -- he is talking, rather as Mr Roth did in his rather graphic way, about analysing the surface of the wall by looking at the timber behind it? A. Yes. Q. It is logical and it is not even scientific. It is just logical rubbish, is it not? A. It does strike me as being unscientific, that particular sentence, yes. Q. Krammer 1 is adjacent to the SS hospital in Auschwitz and has floor drains connected to the main sewer of the camp, which would allow gas into every building in the facility. That is nonsense, too, is it not? A. I think the use of word "gas" is wrong. I would say it would allow hydrogen cyanide into the sewer. Q. Do you know whether Mr Leuchter actually verified the existence of a mains sewer at Auschwitz? A. One thing I have asked Professor van Pelt to produce from the Auschwitz records is the sewage plans. Q. And, Mr Irving, the answer is, perhaps, I do not know ---- A. I do not know. I do not know what Mr Leuchter had, no. Q. No. He has just made it up. He has made yet another of his wonderful assumptions, has he not? . P-113 A. It maybe that it was a logical assumption, I do not know. Q. The answer is, I think, that Professor van Pelt, who is perhaps the most knowledgable person in the whole world upon this topic, will say that it is not known whether there was a main sewer. A. There should be, because the construction office will certainly have had sewer plans, and our suspicion would be that the water outflow from these buildings would have gone eventually to the water treatment plant, which is visible on all the air photographs. Q. "And safely dissolved in low concentrations into a harmless solution." Yes? A. Well, I am not going to talk about the percentages because I do not know what percentages we are talking about. Q. OK. "There were no exhaust systems to prevent the gas after usage". Complete nonsense, is it not? A. Which building are we talking about, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5? Q. He has listed them all, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. A. There was certainly a ventilation system in the building I am interested in, which is crematorium 2, yes. Q. And numbers 4 and 5 each had seven little windows 30 centimetres by 40 in the outside, and each of the two outer rooms had big doors opening into the open air, did they not? A. Numbers 3 and 4? Q. No, 4 and 5. No, 2 and 3 were sealed. They had but one . P-114 door and therefore needed a ventilation system. So this is another piece of assertion by Mr Leuchter which is just plain wrong, is it not? A. Yes. Q. I will skip the next one because it is controversial. "The facilities are always damp and not heated". You have seen the letter, have you not, concerning the provision of preheating mechanisms for Leichenkeller 1? A. Yes. Q. Wrong again? A. Yes. Q. "The chambers are too small to physically contain the occupants claimed". Wrong again? A. I disagree on that. Q. He assumed 9 foot per person, did he not? A. Yes, but even on lower figures you still cannot put 2,000 into those. Q. As a matter of fact you can, but we will not argue about that. He assumed 9 square feet per person, did he not? A. He did, yes. If you say so, that is. I mean, without being told where he says it, I do not know. Q. Well, it is somewhere in here? A. I think the nine -- yes. Q. That is the figure which is used for judicial execution -- I do not like that -- legal execution in the United States. "The doors all opened inwards" -- that . P-115 is wrong too, is it not? A. On all five of them? I do not know. Q. All doors opened outwards, which is why they are not air raid shelters. A. Air raid shelters doors always open outwards. Q. Why? What if the rest of the building tumbles down outside and you cannot get out? A. The reason is because the blast from a bomber exploding outwards will blow the door in if it opens inwards. Air raid doors always open outwards. Q. They do not all open inwards, they all open outwards. A. Air raid shelter doors, yes. Q. No, the doors of these rooms. A. I take your word for it. Q. We can look at the plans Mr Irving, but do take my word for it. It is what Professor van Pelt has already told us and will say again if you challenge him. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, can you go back to the bottom of page 13, "With the chambers fully packed with occupants there would be no circulation of HCN within the room." MR RAMPTON: I have not got to that yet, but by all means, your Lordship, ask Mr Irving about that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I would like to understand the point that Leuchter thinks he is making there at the bottom of page 13. A. There is actually a more valid point than that. That is, . P-116 if you pack 2,000 people into a chamber the size of this room as Bruno Tesh, who was later hanged, the man who produced the Zyklon B, said you would not need cyanide to kill them, they would suffocate in a very short space of time anyway.
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