Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day020.08 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 Q. I do not really want to get bogged down in this kind of maze. Can I just put it to you like this? Will you accept that, on the balance of probabilities, the Bundescriminalamt did carry out tests on the ink and came up with the surprising conclusion that portions were in fact ball point ink? A. It depends what you mean by "portions". I think that is the crucial point. My understanding, having read the summary of the forensic scientific investigations carried out on the diaries, in the introduction to the kind of official standard edition, scholarly edition, is that there were some small stylistic emendations in ball point pen, but that paper and ink and so on were all of the . P-66 diaries themselves were derived from the 1940s, i.e. before the end of the war. Q. How long has this been your understanding? Did you have this understanding at the time you wrote your expert report? A. Let me just see. Q. In other words, is this knowledge about portions of the diary being rewritten in ball point ink or whatever recent or some years ago? A. Well, I have looked -- my knowledge or whose knowledge? MR IRVING: Your knowledge we are talking about. A. My knowledge. Q. At the time you wrote this report. MR RAMPTON: Footnote 118. A. Thank you. Yes, The Critical Edition, 1989. MR IRVING: My question is, of course, if you were aware of the fact that these tests had been carried out and that there was this, shall we say, ambiguous finding? A. I do not think it is ambiguous at all, Mr Irving. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I wanted to ask about that. A. It is quite clear. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Evans, may I put this question to you because then we can get on? Would it be an unfair reading of the report that you have just been shown by Mr Irving that it, in fact, far from confirming that it is a forgery, confirms that it is authentic because it says . P-67 that there are some sections which were added subsequently, but by necessary inference is saying that most of it was genuine and already there and not in ball point? Not very articulately expressed, but do you agree with that proposition? A. Well, yes, and that is my understanding of the forensic investigations which were carried out both by the Federal German Criminal Office and by the Dutch Centre for War Documentation, that the diaries were genuine, but that there were some small stylistic emendations, certainly not whole pages or whole sections, let alone the whole thing being fake or a novel. MR IRVING: Have I ever said that the whole thing was written in ball point pen? A. You said whole pages are written in ball point pen. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You said it was a novel, Mr Irving, did you not? MR IRVING: The third version is a novel, my Lord. The third version is a novel with the names changed. A. You did say in the Daily Mirror on 27th November 1979: "Many forgeries are among records, including the diary of Anne Frank". "The Anne Frank" -- another occasion in 1986: "The Anne Frank diary of which you have all heard is partly written in ball point ink, parts of the Anne Frank diaries are written in ball point ink". Q. Are you aware of the fact that the father of Anne Frank in . P-68 one of the libel actions obtained an affidavit from a handwriting expert who testified that the entire diaries were written in the same handwriting of the same person, including, therefore, the ball point passages? A. No, I am not aware of that. Q. Whether that is true or not, in other words, this allegation that the entire diaries, or this finding by the expert that the entire diaries were written in one handwriting, was it not reasonable for somebody to say in 1979, as I said in the passage you just quoted, that the diaries were suspect? A. That is not quite what you said, Mr Irving. You did not say they were suspect. You said they were fake. Q. Let us take it stage by stage. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let the witness answer first. You suggested that you were only saying that they were suspect. Professor Evans, do you think that Mr Irving went further? A. I do, my Lord. He is saying they are a forgery. MR IRVING: Is that not a reasonable conclusion, if the father himself has produced evidence to the courts that the handwriting is the same the whole way through, graphological evidence by affidavit in one of these libel actions that the handwriting is the same and that the handwriting turns out to be partly in ball point ink? A. Mr Irving, you said in 1993 that the diaries were a novel, the handwriting was not hers, whole pages were written in . P-69 ball point pen, a 13 year old girl would not have the nouse to write a document of that sort at all ---- Q. Professor Evans, can you stick with chronology ---- A. This is a long time after the ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let the witness answer. A. This is well after the official edition had been published in 1989. This is talking, what, four years after that. MR IRVING: Can we stick to the chronology, please? We are at present back in 1979 and 1980, right? A. Yes, and in my report, Mr Irving, I cite what you say in 1989, in 1993. Q. And it is very convenient to confuse the chronology, but if we sort things out ---- A. There is not confusing about that chronology at all, Mr Irving. It is quite clear what you say in 1993; you assert that it is, that it is a fake. It is a forgery. Q. Let us take this in stages. First of all, will you accept that the third edition written by the daughter of Otto Frank, Anne Frank, is written by her as a novel in which she has changed the names in her own diary into novel form? A. No, the official edition published by the Dutch Centre for War Documentation is a diary. Q. Will you accept that the third eversion she has written is written as a novel with the names changed in novel form? A. I have to at this point confess I am not expertise -- I do . P-70 not have the expertise to go into that amount of detail. I have looked at the official edition and it is quite clear to me that that is a diary. Q. So if it is a diary, why are the names changed then? A. The official edition. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I can think of all sorts of reasons. At the moment I do not understand the significance of Anne Frank ---- MR IRVING: Well, because he is emphasising there ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Please let me finish. I do not understand the significance of it having been converted into a diary if it be the case that the original was a diary -- sorry, into a novel if it be the case that the original was a diary. MR IRVING: If your Lordship attaches no significance to the word "novel", then I will abandon that particular line. MR JUSTICE GRAY: My impression of the evidence so far is that you have dismissed Anne frank's alleged diary as being in its totality no more than a novel, i.e. a work of fiction. If I am wrong about that, no doubt you will disabuse me. MR IRVING: If your Lordship is going to attach importance to the word "novel", then perhaps we should look at precisely what the allegations are and the passages that are quoted. Can I just get the chronology straightened out because this is what the expert witness is, I think, . P-71 seeking to confuse. There are two important thresholds to be crossed here. The first threshold that we cross is the investigation by the German Government laboratory in 1980, and the second threshold is the authoritative investigation by the Dutch authorities which was a few years ago. Now, the question is whether I heeded each of these authoritative enquiries or whether I disregarded them. A. And the answer is that you disregarded them. Q. Well, let us take it stage by stage. Before 1980, was I entitled to say that because the handwriting expertise said that the handwriting was the same the whole way through this opus and parts of it were in ball point ink, therefore, the whole opus was suspect. Was that a reasonable conclusion? A. No, I do not think it was because the parts that were in ball point ink were only stylistic emendations. Q. But if they were said by the father to be in the same handwriting the whole way through -- this is the point I am trying to make -- if he produced expert evidence that the handwriting was unchanged? A. Well, you would have to -- you would have to present me with the written evidence for the claims you are making. I find it very difficult to deal with it in the way that you are ---- . P-72 Q. Well, you have set yourself up here as an expert on this particular matter and now each time we come up with an important ---- A. Let me try to give the context of this again, I am trying to ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 156, the criticism you are making, Professor Evans, is of what Mr Irving said in 1993. A. Yes. Q. That is the criticism. A. Exactly. Q. There is no point, Mr Irving, in going back to 1980 because it was in the late 80s, as I understand it, that the scientific evidence, so the Defendants say, emerged which established that these were authentic diaries. You went on after that to say that they were novels and that a 13 year old could not have written such a document. MR IRVING: My Lord ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is the point that is made against you. MR IRVING: What exactly is said in this 1993 passage? Your Lordship has it in front of you. It is the indented passage here: "Are you aware that they have made a full report? I say: "Doesn't surprise me". This is a very selective excerpt. If there was any specific reference by me in 1993 for saying that the diaries in their totality are a fake, believe me, this expert witness would, surely, have quoted it? . P-73 A. Well, let me quote 9th November 1993 broadcast. This is video tape 207, and it is in English in tape 213. Q. Is this in your report? A. No. This is in my response to your written questions, so it is available. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall we try to find this? I would quite like to find it if we can. A. My Lord. It is in my written response to Mr Irving's written questions. Q. No, I meant the original. Is it in one of the bundles? 1993? Where was the speech? Do you know? Was it in Australia? A. It is rather complicated, my Lord. It is a -- yes, it was in Australia. It is not clear whether it is Australian or American. It is a version of a Danish television programme which is also broadcast in German on German Television, but there should be a transcript of tape 213. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, if your Lordship has got, I do not know what it is called, Evans 2, is it, the file Evans 2? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: Behind tab 1 there are Professor Evans' responses to Mr Irving's written questions. On page 5 -- sorry, somebody has restamped it. Page 5 is the internal numbering of that document. At paragraph 9 your Lordship will see set out the history, as it were, for the genealogy of this extract in the report. There is a "7" . P-74 stamped at the bottom of the page. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not know what you are looking at, but I am looking at, I think, something different. MR RAMPTON: Well, the document is dated 7th February 2000 and it should be in the front of Evans 2. A. This is the second set of replies to Mr Irving's written questions. MR RAMPTON: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have I got it? MR RAMPTON: You should have. It should look like that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry. Yes, I have. I beg your pardon. MR RAMPTON: In tab 1. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 5? MR RAMPTON: Page 5, paragraph 9. Page 5 at the top, paragraph 9, it runs over to page 6 is the history of this particular extract. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you got this, Mr Irving?
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