Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day022.06
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24

Q.Yet it happened after all, did it not?  They were killed?
A.As I say, we are not quite sure how long this lasted.  If
you can trace that up as literature, you can say how long
this lasted, which groups it applied to, and so on and so
forth.  For the moment he is saying, "keine vernichtung
der Zigeuner".  It has nothing whatsoever to do with
Hitler.  He had not seen Hitler at that time.  There are
plenty of other things that he puts in this which also
appear to have nothing at all to do with the date, 20th

.  P-47



April.  "Termine", for example, visit to Greiser.  That
has nothing to do with Hitler's birthday.
Q.Would you consider it to be a significant entry in the
telephone log?
A.This?  "Keine vernichtung der Zigeuner"?  Yes, of course.
It is very interesting.
Q.Have you seen it mentioned by any other historians
whatsoever at any time?
A.I have not seen any other historian claiming that this
is
an order by Hitler.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Have I got this document, Mr Irving?
MR RAMPTON:  Your Lordship really ought to have a copy of
this
book.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I have a feeling that somewhere the
reference
----
MR RAMPTON:  I copied the relevant pages for 30th November
and
1st December.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  30th November and the 1st, certainly.
MR RAMPTON:  Those you have.  I have never looked at this
before.  There was a copy of it produced by Mr Irving
at
some stage.
MR IRVING:  This is probably in the Schlegelberger file.
MR RAMPTON:  And I pointed out at that time that this took
place before Himmler had lunch.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I knew I had seen it but, if
somebody
could give me the reference for it, I would be
grateful.

.  P-48



MR RAMPTON:  Yes I will try to find it?
A.Would you look to borrow this, briefly?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I would rather have the reference.  Is it
J2?  I have not got a J2, incidentally.
MR RAMPTON:  Nor have I.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  These points just will not really get
home
unless I have got the document.  I am sorry, Mr
Irving, to
interrupt.
MR IRVING:  I can do it in a very nice way, my Lord, by
lending
your Lordship the volume of the Himmler diary.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is very kind.  But in a way I would
rather have the actual document in a file that I am
going
to be keeping, because I am not going to keep the
book.
MR IRVING:  I can have a photocopy of that page made during
the
luncheon adjournment.  That is the actual handwritten
text.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think I am actually getting close to
it.  J
Yes, I have it.  It is J1, tab 3, for the transcript
page
23.
MR IRVING:  Would you agree, Professor Evans, that this is
an
odd way for other historians to write history,
cheerily
omitting documents which you consider to be
significant,
or which you agree to be significant?
A.Well, it is cited by, I think, by Zimmerman's standard
work on the gypsies.  I have to say that the gypsies,
until recently, were not a much studied group of
victims

.  P-49



of the Nazis.  Once again, Mr Irving, it is not a
problem
for me that you made use of this.  It is the use that
you
made, the way you use it.
Q.Have you referenced this particular item in your
report?
Can you remember what your criticism of my use of this
item is?
A.I am making my criticism now.  It is that you are
claiming
that this is an order from Hitler when it clearly is
not.
Q.And, using your common sense, of which you are
apparently
well endowed, you would not consider there is any
connection between the fact that this very unusual
order,
for which there is no precedent, occurs only on the
day of
Adolf Hitler's birthday, when Himmler is at Hitler's
headquarters?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We have had that point.
A.He was not at Hitler's headquarters, Mr Irving.
MR IRVING:  It is an exact parallel to the November 30th
episode then, is it not?  Is that right?
A.He was not at Hitler's headquarters.  He went to
Hitler's
headquarters after he made the telephone call.  It
says
here in black and white.
Q.Is this an exact parallel to the November ----
A.So you have just made a completely false claim.
Q.Is this an exact parallel to the November 30th 1941
episode where the telephone call to Heydrich appears
to
ante-date the visit to Hitler?

.  P-50



A.It is not an exact parallel but there are
similarities.
The 30th November telephone call concerns one
particular
train load of Jews.  That is quite clear.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry to interrupt.  I had better
have a
photocopy from somebody of that page because it
obviously
has more than I have at the moment.
A.We are back to 30th November.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
MR IRVING:  My Lord I will provide you with a photocopy of
the
facsimile, but also with a typescript copy.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That would be kind.
MR IRVING:  Because the handwriting is, as we have
discovered,
sometimes prone to misreading.
A.That is right, on page 278.
MR IRVING:  Page 278?
A.13.30 Jew transport from Berlin.  No liquidation.  And
then 14.30 to 1600, lunch with the Fuhrer.
Q.Yes.  Can you keep that page roughly open because we
are
now going to go on to the December 1st item.
A.Right.
Q.Professor Evans, have you misread any words in
preparing
your expert report for this case?
A.I hope not, but one can never be entirely sure.
Q.Yes.
A.As you have said yourself many times ----
Q.These things happen?

.  P-51



A.-- one always makes errors and one does one's best to
correct them.  That is why I sent you an 18 page list
of
corrections and amendments to my report on 10th
January.
Q.Would you agree that mostly misreadings are quite
innocuous and have no serious consequences?
A.I hope that is true of mine.  I do not believe that is
true of yours.
Q.Do you remember The Spectator letter where the
omission of
the one word "as" totally reversed the meaning of that
letter?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We have been through that.
A.I do not think that was my misreading.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We are more concerned with the criticisms
of
you, rather than the criticisms you make of Professor
Evans.  I understand why you make them, but let us
focus
on the point.  I know the arguments now.
MR IRVING:  It is a little bit more colour and flourish to
the
argument about to develop, my Lord.  Would you agree
that
a historian who sits in a book lined cave taking
printed
books off shelves, like the Himmler diary in front of
you,
with a nice index and photographs and beautifully
bound,
is less likely to make reading errors than somebody
who
uses the handwritten original, what I might call a
shirt
sleeves historian, who goes into the archives and
reads
the microfilm?  Is the latter, the shirt sleeved
historian, more likely, more prone to commit these
stupid

.  P-52



blunders of reading an E for an A, or something like
that?
A.Well, it is easier, obviously, to read the printed
text
than it is to read handwriting.  It goes without
saying.
I have done an enormous amount of reading of
handwritten
German myself and I know how difficult it is.
Q.Yes.
A.Or can be.  It depends a lot on the kind of
handwriting,
of course.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If I may suggest it, I think probably the
best thing to do is to show the witness the script.
MR IRVING:  We have two or three versions of it.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  There is only one manuscript version.
MR RAMPTON:  No.  There are two different forms of copy, my
Lord.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Show the better one.
MR RAMPTON:  There is one that Mr Irving produced.  I am
quite
happy for Mr Irving to use the copy that he produced.
MR IRVING:  I think that would be more fair.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think that is J1, tab 3, page 14 but I
may
be wrong.
MR RAMPTON:  That is right.
MR IRVING:  We have the actual version I used here.
A.I have the microfilm version.
MR RAMPTON:  If Mr Irving is going to use his own copy, I
would
like Professor Evans to have the same copy.  No doubt,
if
it is necessary, I can come back to the better copy,
the

.  P-53



microfilm, in due course in re-examination, if I have
to.
But, if Mr Irving is going to use his rather worse
copy,
then I think Professor Evans should have the same one.
Professor Evans will need the J file, J1, tab 3, at
page
14.
MR IRVING:  We are looking first at the November 30th entry
which is Judentransport?
A.Oh right, yes.
Q.We will start with that one.
A.Then I have not got that here, I am afraid.
Q.There is no need to look at the actual wording.  We
are
going to look at the word "transport" very briefly, my
Lord.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We all know what the point is.
A.Could you point me to exactly where it is.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  J1, tab 3, page 12.
MR IRVING:  My Lord, I have done a little research on the
word
"transport" but I am sure Mr Rampton will not begrudge
me
----
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Put your question, which I could put for
you
because I know what it is going to be.
MR IRVING:  I will give my version of the question which is
as
follows, Professor Evans.
A.Yes.
Q.Are you familiar with the fact that the Cassell's
German
Dictionary translates the word "transport" only as

.  P-54



follows: "The German word transport has only these
meanings" in the Cassell's Dictionary and I will give
the
Langenscheidt one in a moment.  The Cassell's entry
has it
in this order: "Transport, transportation, carriage,
conveyance, transfer, shipment".  So is it actually
referring to a vehicle or to a concept?
A.What date is this dictionary, Mr Irving?
Q.The Cassell's Dictionary has remained unchanged in
this
particular one since 1935.
A.Are you quoting the 1935 edition?
Q.Yes.  I spent a lot of money buying them at five year
intervals to see if it changed, and they just used a
photographic copy the whole way through.
A.Can I see a copy, please?
Q.Let us refer to the Langenscheidt edition?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think the witness is entitled to have
the
contemporary Cassell's Dictionary shown to him if he
wants
to see it.
MR IRVING:  My Lord, the point is, if you are looking at a
word
without the surrounding context, and you are looking
for a
translation, you pick the primary meaning.  If you
then
later on learn ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  We do not want to overdo this
point.
You put that the dictionary meaning of "transport"
includes as one of the meanings "transportation" and
you
say that has been the Cassell's Dictionary definition

.  P-55



since time immemorial.  The witness says he wants to
look
at the relevant one, which would be the one from the
1930s, and I think that is a fair request.
MR IRVING:  Can I just show him the typed extract I made
last
night?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If it relates to the contemporary
Cassell's
Dictionary, yes.
MR IRVING:  In that case I will just put to the witness
this
1935 dictionary.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Is it Cassell's?
MR IRVING:  No.  This is now a different one.  This is a
Butler
& Tanner.  It is a Routledge Dictionary and
unfortunately
it is more abbreviated.  It does not give the sense
that
I was looking for in such detail.  The point I was
trying
to make, my Lord, is that it refers to
"transportation"
rather than "a transport" in the sense of a train.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I know what the point is.
A.Here, of course, it does not.
MR IRVING:  It just says "transport" which is ambiguous.
A."Transport conveyance", transport or conveyance.
Q.Yes.
A.Those are the primary meanings.

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