Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day008.41 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. I beg your pardon, April 1988. When did you first make an attempt to look at any of the archive documents, whether in Auschwitz or in Moscow? . P-182 A. I cannot tell you off the top of my head, but certainly, when I went to the national archives in Washington, I would have read more intensively in the papers of Heinrich Himmler or the SS and, when I went to any other places, for example the Public Record Office, I started also paying more attention to Auschwitz at that time. Q. When was that? A. Well, again I cannot, I have been to the Public Record Office in London probably 50 or 100 times. Q. You were going in August '89 I think, '88, and you said, I do not know what this is from, this is a speech in Toronto: "I am going to visit in this four-month swing around the entire United States, East Coast and West Coast, probably about 40 different Government and private archives on various projects, and everywhere I go I am looking into the archives to see what they have got on Auschwitz." A. Yes. Q. Yes. Now what was to prevent you making a similar trip to Poland at that time? A. 1988? Q. In 1988. A. It was behind the Iron Curtain. Q. So what? A. The Iron Curtain had not come down. . P-183 Q. Humble Mr Pressac got there in '82, '83. Professor van van Pelt was there in 1990. A. Yes, but you seem to forget I am not a Holocaust historian. I have to keep on reminding you of this. I am an historian of the top Nazis. I write about Goring and Hitler and Rommel and Hess. To do that you do not have to go to Auschwitz. I read Professor van Pelt's book with enormous interest as a book. One of the first books I read from cover to cover. Q. That is where I thought we were going to get to. So the fact that in due course you would have been unable to go to Auschwitz because of a ban, is quite beside the point. You never had any intention of doing so, did you? A. I never had any need to go there. I am not a Holocaust historian for the hundredth time. Q. Then, may I suggest, that it was wholly improper of you to give Leuchter such a high profile, given your supposed position as an historian of repute? A. I do not think so. You say "high profile", how many lines of each speech did I deliver? Shall I do a calculation tonight of how many per cent, what fraction of 1 per cent of my speeches concern Mr Leuchter over the last ten years? I would suggest it is less than 1 per cent. You have read out just the lines dealing with him. Q. No, Mr Irving. A. His Lordship has in front of him the entire bundle and he . P-184 can see how very low he barked on my horizon. Q. No, Mr Irving, it will not do. You actually went to the trouble of publishing your own glossy version of the Leuchter report nine months, no more, over a year after the Zundel trial, and of announcing its birth to the world with a press conference? A. Yes. Q. Well, what is the point of that? A. I think it produced an extremely valuable stimulus to the entire research community. Without the Leuchter report there would have been none of these in depth investigations in archeological tests and searches and so on. It has been an extremely useful report in that respect. That is why I said in the introduction, I said the ball is now in their court. It is very much intended as stimulus to further research. Q. Without your having taken the least trouble to investigate the question yourself? A. I am a publisher in this respect. Q. Oh, in this guise you are a publisher. You are only an historian when it comes to Adolf Hitler and that sort of thing, is that right? A. I do not think I actually said that. Certainly you asked me about the Leuchter report and I acted as the publisher. I was not the author. You have seen the letters in which I say I did not write a single line of . P-185 it, except the introduction. I merely provided the publishing facilities. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, I do not think I can usefully ask any more questions in relation to Auschwitz at all, unless I am told that I must. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I think that is right. MR RAMPTON: I really do. I will come back now finally to where I started I think last week. MR JUSTICE GRAY: My only hesitation is, and it is a problem because Mr Irving is in person, that he plainly is wanting, as I understand it, to say there are various later developments post Leuchter which confirmed in his original conclusion that Leuchter was really a dramatic new piece of evidence which really did clinch the argument against the Holocaust affirmers, as it were. Do you want to leave that hanging in the air until re-examination? You do not have to ask any questions, but there is something to be said for seeing ---- MR RAMPTON: About the new evidence? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: I have a question about the new evidence, because he mentioned, I think, really only one specifically which was a report by somebody called I think Germer Rudolf? A. The Rudolf report. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It was not only that, but certainly that was one of the things. . P-186 MR RAMPTON: What else is there, Mr Irving? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Something in 1945, Auschwitz. MR RAMPTON: 45 was the Polish report we looked at. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure it was. A. There was no another Polish after the Leuchter report. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, in 1945. A. No, in 1989. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Was there not another one in 1945 that you are relying on. MR RAMPTON: No, the only 1945 report is the report your Lordship has seen. There was a preliminary report by the forensic people in about 1991 in response to Leuchter. It was unsatisfactory. They redid it under Professor Markovic's aegis and that produced positive results. A. The first one was politically incorrect, so they put it away in the safe and they produced a new version. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You say that. When are you proposing to deal with that? A. My Lord I am going to have to ask for instructions from your Lordship as to how I can put this material. I was proposing to do this kind of thing in the -- I was going to put these documents to the experts and I thought that would be an appropriate way of doing it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not disagreeing about that, but you obviously want to say something on these topics. A. I certainly do not like leaving it. . P-187 Q. I am content to deal with it that way. MR RAMPTON: I am too. The only thing I am not content about, since I have finished maybe I can say this now, I am not content about is (A) I have not had time and nor, I dare say, has Professor van Pelt who has been sitting in court, to review the new material we were given this morning; and (B) I have never seen the Rudolf report because it is not in Mr Irving discovery. A. Yes, it is. Q. I am told it is not. A. If it is not then I humbly apologise. It certainly should have been, and I will provide copies immediately. MR RAMPTON: Miss Rogers is the most reliable person in the world when it comes to these matters and she says it is not. So I am going to rely on her for the moment. A. I will eat humble pie today provided ---- MR RAMPTON: If reliance is to be placed on it then we need time to look at it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor van Pelt needs time particularly because he will be the one who has to deal with it. How easy would it be for you to dig it out? A. I can have it couriered around this afternoon. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That would be helpful. I think he ought to have it. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, that leads to my final enquiry of your Lordship. Other things being equal I would want Professor . P-188 van Pelt to go into the witness box sometime tomorrow, but plainly if he does Mr Irving must keep off the new material until Professor van Pelt has had a chance --- - MR JUSTICE GRAY: He may have time because Mr Irving has just said he is going to be able to get it round this afternoon. A. My Lord, there are two things. The Rudolf report is one and also on your Lordship's instructions I have allowed the Defence sight of an expert critique I received from an architect on his report. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that what you gave me this morning? A. It is what I gave your Lordship this morning, yes. MR RAMPTON: It has no name on it. A. You are not entitled to this man's name, with respect. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am afraid that is a matter for me and I do not at the moment understand why you say that. A. This man is obviously in a leading position in the world of architecture and he is, frankly, frightened because he knows what the people backing the Defendants in this action are capable of doing to people of stature. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Hang on, are you proposing to call him to give evidence? A. No, I am not. He is purely a person who has advised me in private on some of the technical matters, the architectural matters, which are involved in this case, as the nature of correspondence. . P-189 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then, subject to Mr Rampton, I think you can put the propositions contained in whichever document you are talking about, because I do not think I have seen it, and I do not think there is any reason why I should compel his identity to be disclosed. MR RAMPTON: Absolutely not. As I now understand it, all I think has happened is that we have been given a brief for cross-examination. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, which is what you asked for and you have now got it. MR RAMPTON: Yes. I do not think Mr Irving is asking your Lordship to receive it as evidence, because you cannot do that. A. No, it is not, but your Lordship did say that this kind of thing was disclosable to the Defendants. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am bound to say I was under a slight misapprehension. I thought you were talking about material that was going to be led by you through the mouth of an expert witness. If I had known it was simply -- -- A. It is more of the nature of correspondence between ourselves. Q. --- simply material for you to cross-examine on, I think I would not have had said you had to hand it over. A. We have no reason not to show it to them. It is just that unfortunately he have now been obliged to disclose some of our cards. . P-190 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think there may have been a misunderstanding. MR RAMPTON: I misunderstood. I thought what we were being given was some sort of expert's report. As it is not so, may I in front of Mr Irving endorse what your Lordship said. I do not want to see anything which has not been tendered in evidence or otherwise relied on. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You hear that, Mr Irving? A. Yes. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, with luck Professor van Pelt can give evidence tomorrow. He is here. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I follow that. Then you are going to resume again afterwards. MR RAMPTON: Yes, I am then going back to Irving stuff. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall we have the discussion tomorrow about the future programme? I suspect you would rather do that then than now. Mr Irving has had a long day just as you have. MR RAMPTON: I need to take instructions. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is what I thought, yes. So I think we will adjourn a little earlier, unless there is anything else that can usefully be covered. (The witness stood down) (The Court adjourned until the following day) . P-191
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