Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day018.02 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 MR RAMPTON: -- during the course of -- I am going to hand it up. MR IRVING: I am not going to deal with the contents of the document. I understand I will be cross-examined on it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, but if you are saying about it, I want to look at it so I know what you are talking about. MR RAMPTON: There was a translation at some time. I do not know where that has got to. It is a report from a place called Zanosk which is in Poland of 16th December 1942 about the transport of some 644 Poles to Auschwitz. It has a real significance so far as, indeed, not just Auschwitz, but the Holocaust as a whole, in its second paragraph on page 2, which somebody, might be the source, has put a line beside, and the question was really this for the moment, what authenticity does it have? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I remember. MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving was worried about that. We now know that it was reprinted as a facsimile in a Polish book in 1960, which is produced by the Warsaw archive which is, no doubt, where it is, also again in 1979 and then the last document where it was translated from German into Polish, and in the last document is the testimony man Kinna . P-10 himself which I think he gave on 2nd July 1964. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is Kinna the signatory of the document? MR RAMPTON: He is the man who wrote the report, yes. Although I cannot possibly read it, I am your Lordship cannot either, maybe Mr Irving can, these are the handwritten notes of the hearing. What, in effect, we are told they do is to show that Kinna himself verified the contents of his report. MR JUSTICE GRAY: In what context? MR RAMPTON: He was a witness at a trial. MR JUSTICE GRAY: He was a witness as a prosecution of a -- -- MR RAMPTON: Yes, so I understood, at Frankfurt. The last document in this little clip is, I think, not connected. It is a letter, I think, from Hans Frank to Heinrich Himmler dated 23rd June 1942. MR IRVING: It is from Viktor Brach. MR RAMPTON: You are quite right. It is in the top lefthand corner, but I do not know what it says because I have not read it yet. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right. MR IRVING: My Lord, can I revert to the submission I was making about the Kinna document? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, absolutely. That is what we are on now. MR IRVING: I am not going to challenge the integrity of the document because I am not in a position to do so, but I am going to deal with that handwritten document which your . P-11 Lordship was just looking at which was the 1963 trial where Kinna was asked about the document. I have deciphered the handwriting at the end I will translate it very rapidly: "Says the witness Kinna" ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Pause. I have not got there yet. MR IRVING: It has a number of numbers on it, and it has an upside down page 11 at the top left-hand side corner. The final paragraph, the final two paragraphs, translate as follows: "The witness Kinna confirmed the accuracy of the report. He answered the questions put to him by the lawyer Professor Dr Kaul". K-A-U-L. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am so sorry. MR RAMPTON: My Lord I am sorry, the clip has not been paginated which is annoying. It is the second of two ---- MR IRVING: Two handwritten pages. MR RAMPTON: --- handwritten page. It has a fax page 10 in the top righthand corner. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have it. I cannot see the upside-down 11. MR RAMPTON: You do not have to struggle with that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, sorry, Mr Irving? MR IRVING: I will repeat it. "The witness Kinna confirmed the accuracy of the report". This is two paragraphs from the bottom, "The witness Kinna" ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see. MR IRVING: --- "confirmed the accuracy of the report. He answered the questions put to him, the expanding . P-12 questions, the amplifying questions, put to him by the lawyer Professor Dr Kaul. To the correction of the witness, no further motions were put", or it could be either "correction" or on the swearing of the witness, but that is unimportant. What concerns me is the final paragraph: "The witness was sworn in, and in agreement with both parties he was released". I shall draw attention to that. I do not think this is a proper time to draw attention. The significance is the fact that this witness, to what is obviously a criminal document, is questioned only as to the accuracy of the document and is then released by all the parties, including the public prosecutor. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I am not saying you are wrong about that. My reaction to it would be that that is simply what happens when a witness is finished giving his evidence. MR IRVING: Yes, except that, since your Lordship has put it that way, I would comment on the remarkable fact that here is a man who has obviously been engaged in a criminal undertaking who could possibly have struck a bargain, shall I put it like that, that if he will testify to the accuracy of the document, then no further charges will be laid against him. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So your position on what we are calling the Kinna report is that, yes, it is an authentic document. MR IRVING: For the purposes of this trial, my Lord. . P-13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But you query whether it was not the product of a plea bargain. MR IRVING: My Lord, I am not challenging the integrity of the document. I cannot because I do not have sufficient apparatus to challenge it. Having read the document, I do not think it seriously damages my position in this case. So, for the purpose of the case, I am going to ask questions on its contents as though it were genuine. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Again I ask where shall we put this? MR RAMPTON: This is an Auschwitz document. I suggest it goes in tab 4 of K2. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much. MR RAMPTON: Chronologically, we will have declip it and sort it out. I suggest it goes as a lump in wherever the date is, 16.12.42. I cannot help on that because I have not got my K2 here. MR IRVING: The final problem, my Lord ---- MR RAMPTON: Can I just finish? I am sorry, I am not trying to be discourteous. I do have a translation as well of the Kinna document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much. MR RAMPTON: There is one for the judge and one for Mr Irving. He ought to see that in case he does not agree with it. (Same handed). MR IRVING: My Lord the fourth matter concerns the document which you are familiar with, which is August 1st 1941 from . P-14 Muller to the Einsatzgruppen chiefs about which we spent some discussion. MR JUSTICE GRAY: And about the authenticity of it. MR IRVING: A serious problem has arisen because I contacted the West German archives, your Lordship will see that the second page of that little bundle I gave you, the bundle beginning with the words "from Monday", the second page of that is headed "translation", does your Lordship have the page? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: A letter from me on February 7th this year to the German Federal Archives saying, this is a translation: There is a big trial in London. I need an original copy of the following document. I give the reference number which is given by our witnesses in their bundles. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: I need it immediately. Crystal Brown is going to be for the next three days only in the witness box. Could you please fax the documents, we need them in facsimile. I attach importance if possible to seeing the original documents rather than printed versions, as your Lordship appreciates. They replied to me yesterday, saying that document is not in the file. And to clarify any ambiguities as to what that letter meant, I spoke with Dr Lens yesterday of the German Federal Archives in Berlin and he said, yes, that means this document is not in the . P-15 file at all, it is full of completely different documents, which he then describes. There may be an innocent explanation for this but I would ask, before being questioned about this document as I understand the defence wish to, that I should be apprised as to where the original is and, if possible, shown a facsimile. MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have had evidence about that, but I am afraid it is not in my mind at the moment. I think it is been around for a long time, the Muller document, has it not? MR RAMPTON: Yes. It is mentioned in a book, at least this I know, by Professor Gerald Fleming, called Hitler und die Entlosung. It is a German book which has also been translated. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that is right. MR RAMPTON: It was published in 1982. I have Mr Irving's copy which he kindly gave me. MR IRVING: Loaned you. MR RAMPTON: Yes, of course. I have no intention permanently to deprive Mr Irving. The point is this, not what the authenticity of the document might be, but that it is in a book which Mr Irving has, and that is what I shall be cross-examining him about. I am not going back to history. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, but he can rely on this letter. MR RAMPTON: It does not seem that it is now in a particular . P-16 archive. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, the file where you would expect to find it does not contain it. MR RAMPTON: The reference may be wrong, I do not know. I will try and track it down. It is a different point. I am not going to cross-examine him about that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is all of this little clip connected with Muller? MR IRVING: No, my Lord. The final document in that little clip is actually a press report of 1983 in which Fleming refers to that very document. I include it purely because I found it by accident last night in my files. I would certainly rely on this little episode as being further proof of the negligence of the historians adduced as expert witnesses by the Defence in this case. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do we know where Fleming got the document from? MR IRVING: No. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is he still ---- MR IRVING: He is still extant. MR JUSTICE GRAY: -- alive and well? MR IRVING: Yes. I spoke to him a few days ago. He never wrote about it in a letter to me in his considerable correspondence which I searched. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will leave this clip on one side. MR IRVING: We will be coming back to it in the course of the . P-17 cross-examination of Professor Evans, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I have some photographs of Winnona Brown. MR IRVING: We do not need them until halfway down the cross-examination of Professor Evans when we get the little ditty. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Any more? MR IRVING: That is my only submission. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much. MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship again has probably got something I have not. I knew what the first part of this exchange was about, because I know what the document is. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have not got any photographs? MR RAMPTON: I have no photographs. MR IRVING: Miss Rogers is sitting on everything. MR RAMPTON: May I enquire through your Lordship where the correspondence is with the Bundesarchives, or whatever it is? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have a clip which I think you have headed "from Monday August 23rd". MR RAMPTON: We will sort it out later. I do not want to waste time. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Good. Now shall we have Professor Evans? MR RAMPTON: Yes. (Professor Evans, sworn. Examined by Mr Rampton QC.) . P-18 Q. Professor Evans, first of all, your full names please? A. Richard John Evans. Q. Have you made a report, a long report, for these proceedings? A. I have. Q. Have you made some corrections to it? A. Yes, I have. Q. More recently, have you answered some questions in writing from Mr Irving? A. I have, yes. Q. So far as those documents contain statements of fact, are you as satisfied as you can be that they are accurate? A. I am, yes.
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