Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day009.15 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But the question is, let us just put the question, that what was going on at Auschwitz in August/September had nothing whatever to do with Himmler's visit in July. It was because there was a raging typhus epidemic. That is the question, is it not? A. If that is the question, I disagree with it, and I would like to review that question by actually looking at the relationship between incineration rates in the camp as plant in 1942 about peak mortality on the typhus about -- and at a certain amount we can even talk about more capacity but we probably need to do that; but I have prepared some diagrams which I would just like to have as a reminder so I can draw it up on the board. MR RAMPTON: Can I ask where they are? A. On the board. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think they are going to be drawn now, as I understand it? A. I am happy to draw them now. MR RAMPTON: He has done some prep, I think, and he would like to do the drawings, big drawings, by reference to the prep. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I follow. A. They are there. . P-130 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, you may not be keen on this, but it is something Professor van Pelt is entitled to do. MR IRVING: My Lord, I am in your hands. This is your Lordship's court and I am capable, I am sure, of ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am afraid I am deciding that it is a proper thing for him to do if he wants to illustrate his evidence. A. OK. The first basis for this is to establish red in this drawing, red will be population. Now, in 1942, we are now talking about early summer of 1942, there is an actual population in Auschwitz, and I am going to do this by 50,000 increments, actual population in Auschwitz - --- MR IRVING: Are you referring to Auschwitz or Auschwitz and Birkenhau? A. Auschwitz and Birkenhau. I am talking about the whole camp. The whole camp for which, basically, incinerators are being drawn. At that moment there is an actual population of 25,000 people in the camp, over 25,000 people. But at that moment also there is a projected inmate population, they are working towards, they have designed and under construction, the camp to hold in total 150,000, which is 120,000 in Birkenhau and 30,000 in Stammlager. So they are designing with that in mind. That is what they are investing for. This is the actual population. Now, at that moment there is a typhus epidemic . P-131 going on and the typhus epidemic reaches in August of 1942, a mortality in one month of little over a third of the camp population. Now, people are being shipped in which makes it kind of difficult at that time to know exactly. It is an enormous mortality. In three months the typhus epidemic would have continued in the camp and nobody would have been brought in. Everyone would have died. MR IRVING: Is it right that the camp was under quarantine at this time? A. The camp was under quarantine, but people were still being brought in. So if we look by implication at, let us say, the next year, if the camp were to have an inmate population of 150,000, and if hygienic conditions would not have improved, if the German medical department in Auschwitz would have been as incompetent and so little resources, the same small resources would be brought in, it would make sense to start planning for a mortality of 50,000 people of the summer of 1943. It is a very rough calculation, but in some way this would have been -- you would have start to look at that possibility. Now, at that moment in Auschwitz one has actually an incineration capacity, and I am only talking about crematoria ---- MR IRVING: My Lord, I am unhappy about this kind of evidence because I do not think Professor van Pelt is an . P-132 epidemiologist and we had ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think we are getting into the realms of epidemiology on what he is doing so far. MR IRVING: Well, we do not know at what rate epidemics grow, whether they grow exponentially or by mathematical progression or how. It is not a simple, straightforward linear progression, my Lord, and I am sure an epidemiologist could inform us on that. Although I have no objection to Professor van Pelt continuing this line of evidence, I would wish to make it plain that ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, but he is making the very simple point, if I may say so ---- MR IRVING: It is very, very dangerous ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- that it was not an unreasonable assumption for the planners to make that they were going to continue to have one-third mortality from typhus. Is that really what it comes to? A. This is the point I make. What would be the situation if they said, "We face this disaster right now. We do not think we can deal with it next year. We have to plan for a similar disaster next year" MR IRVING: I shall ask questions about this when the time comes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course you can, but just let him develop the point. . P-133 A. So we are now going to get what is the actual cremation in an incinerator in crematorium (i)? It is the only crematorium operation at that time. It is 10,000 corpses, according to German sources, 10,000 corpses per month, 340 per day, which means that the incineration capacity in crematorium (i), and we are not even talking about arriving Jews, but simply for the mortality in the camp itself during the typhus epidemic, more people are dying from typhus, incidentally, then the crematorium working full-time can deal with. There is also at that moment a crematorium which is under design, which is crematorium No. (ii). Now, crematorium (ii) was going to replace crematorium No. (i). We have plans for that. It was going to be built on top of crematorium No. (i). It is a plan of early January 1942. This means that crematorium (ii) would not be backed up by crematorium (i). So if in the next year crematorium (ii) would be available, crematorium (ii) has an incineration rate of 1440 corpses per day, which the Moscow document says which was yesterday challenged -- -- MR IRVING: This is the document that was challenged? A. Yes, which means that when crematorium (ii) would have been built, the next year available that still the cremation, the incineration capacity of crematorium (ii), once crematorium (ii) would be built, would have been less than the worst case scenario if a typhus epidemic in 1943 . P-134 would have broken out. So it means that the SS, in terms of the typhus epidemic of 1942, was not adequately prepared to deal with some of the typhus epidemic of the same scale a year later. This is the situation before Himmler's visit. Q. Is it not true that cremation is not the only way of disposing of bodies? They can be interred. They can be sent to other places to be cremated? A. There is, but I think that you would like to point that, in fact, the incineration capacity is not going to be sufficient and, of course, people can be interred. Let us look now at the next year, where we are in 1943, and then I will go and look at what happened in between. In 1943, the early summer, we are sitting with exactly the same maximum planned inmate population of 150,000. It has changed somewhat in the make-up because Birkenhau will have less people, because what is called building BA3, building section No. 3, will not become any more a full camp, it will get a kind of Lazarett installation, but instead of that people will be accommodated in various satellite camps close, so still we deal with ---- Q. Did you say it was going to have a hospital built in there? A. Oh, yes. As I said in my book, and I think you complimented me on this section. . P-135 Q. I thought they exterminated all the sick prisoners? A. We can deal with that later, if you want to put that to me, Mr Irving. By that time, the inmate population in Auschwitz itself has risen to 75,000. Now, if we now look at what if a typhus epidemic of the same scale would have occurred (and this is a big "if") one would have been wise to have available one-third of that, which is 25,000, and, theoretically, to have available -- sorry, 50,000. So this is 25,000 available if such a typhus epidemic occurs again, and if the camp is going to be completely free, one would expect at least to have an incineration capacity of 50,000 people. Instead, the available incineration capacity in the camp at that moment -- and this is available, this is not any more planned -- is 120,000 corpses per month. Q. What is that based on? A. This is based on the calculation that the Taiber itself gives of the incineration capacity of the four crematoria -- may I finish? Q. Based on the document that we are challenging? A. That is based on the documents you are challenging, but the document which seems to be supported also by eyewitness testimony. The only point I want to make right now at this moment is that the incineration capacity in the camp on . P-136 the monthly basis in Auschwitz in 1943 far and far exceeds the absolutely worst case scenario of typhus developing, typhus developing in this camp; and I have to stress here the worst case scenario because, in fact, the SS doctors have worked very hard to limit the possibility for typhus to occur. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right. Thank you very much then. That was all an answer, Mr Irving, to your question -- actually I put it for you -- whether the increase in capacity might have been nothing to do with Himmler's visit, but solely a response to the typhus epidemic. It was a long answer but that is what it was answering. MR IRVING: We share the guilt for inviting that answer, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, if "guilt" is the right word. MR IRVING: I would only draw attention to two or three aspects of it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, of course. Ask questions. MR IRVING: Firstly, if we are to believe these figures, then the SS, or whoever, were planning to wipe out over three-quarters of the entire camp population and incinerate them which seems a rather pointless exercise as this is a slave labour camp? A. Sorry, is this a question? Q. Yes. A. The issue, of course, is that they are not intending to . P-137 wipe out the camp population; they are intending to wipe out people who do not belong to the camp population, because people are arriving in Auschwitz and who are not going to be registered in the camp. Q. So the left-hand column in that case, is it not, is irrelevant to the calculations because that left-hand column refers to a totally different body of people, to people who are living there and not the arrivals, shall we say? A. No, but the left-hand graph refers to the situation before the visit of Himmler on 19th July. The right-hand graph represents a situation after Himmler's visit, and the big change in incineration capacity is, in fact, the decision taken at that meeting which is confirmed by the document to actually not only have crematorium (ii) but also crematorium (iii) and crematorium (iv) and crematorium (v). Q. But the figures that you are relying on here with these two histograms, if I am right in saying, they rely entirely on that document which, you may remember, I was challenging the integrity of yesterday? A. I mean, if you want me to rely on, for example, Hirst's testimony, I would say that the green bar would even higher, or if I have to rely on Mr Taiber, we actually get very close to that. It is not only the document; it is a convergence of the document with eyewitness testimony, . P-138 both of sonderkommandos and of German officials. Q. Professor van Pelt, we will be hearing a little bit more about the quality of the testimony given by Taiber and Hirst later on. But the fact remains that in all the construction department records that you have read, including that August 1942 memorandum you are relying on, there are no figures that anywhere come near these. It is speculation by yourself and back of envelope calculations, projections of what might have been and a kind of rough and ready kind of scaling up and extrapolation for which we have no basis in epidemiology (because neither of us is an expert in that field); we do not know the way that epidemics grow or whether they grow exponentially or in any other manner, is that not so? A. Mr Irving ----
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