Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.09 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 Q. And from that, you conclude that the evacuation of the Jews to Auschwitz is a homicidal meaning, is it? A. I think this is quite clear from the document that the people were sent to Auschwitz and ordered to kill them there. So the term evacuation then, particularly after 1941, could just mean the deportation to a point but it also could mean the deportation to this point plus the killings of the people there. So, I think these two interpretations are possible after 1941. Q. Yes. I will come to this later on, either today or tomorrow, are you familiar with the Ahnert document, the deportation from France? A. No. Q. We will come to that when the time comes. A. Yes. Q. But you are not saying that all the people deported to Auschwitz were killed. You accept that some were used for slave labour? A. I think we went through the history of the Auschwitz. It was a combination of a slave labour camp and extermination camp. MR JUSTICE GRAY: But I do not think, Mr Irving, that you are suggesting that, when guidelines are issued on the evacuation of Jews to the East (Auschwitz concentration camp), you are not suggesting, are you, that evacuation has a wholly non-homicidal connotation there? . P-75 MR IRVING: It can be either, my Lord. Here is one typical example where the context does not really help us. I am trying to establish that, from what we know, we do not know whether they were killed on arrival or whether they were put to work as slave labour as very large numbers or what. So that document does not really help us. A. May I comment on that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, of course. A. I think that we know, not from the document, but, of course, we have enough information about Auschwitz to establish that, because these are guidelines; the general picture of what happens to Jews who were deported to Auschwitz after February 1943. So I think we could establish the context if we want to do so, but the selections and about sending people to gas chambers I think we have this information, and from this, I would then take this information and say that actually this makes it, I think, almost clear that the term evacuation here could include the killing of the people. MR IRVING: In fact, it means exactly what it says that has been evacuated to Auschwitz. A. I think we could, in a way, extend our knowledge and go into this day of Auschwitz, and it is not that this is a dark area ---- Q. This is not the time or place for that. A. So, we could do research and I think that, in the end, we . P-76 could come to the conclusion that this, in general, meant the extermination of the people in the camp at Auschwitz. Q. If I refer to the previous sentence beginning: "A report of 26th December", in which the head of the police force Saliter reported in detail about his experiences accompanying and supervising the transport of 1,007 Jews from the Rheinland to Latvia, is an entire report on the of evacuation of Jews to Riga, is that right? A. Yes. Q. In December 1941, what happened to these Jews who were deported to the Riga at that time? A. At this time, the Jews were actually sent to ghettoes or to camps. Q. To the Jungfernhof camp? A. To the Jungfernhof camp or to the ---- Q. So they were not massacred on arrival, then? A. Most of them were not massacred on arrival. Q. What conclusion do you draw from the use of the word evacuation there, then? A. Here, it says that the Jews -- I am trying to be cautious -- it says here that the Jews are going to be deported to Riga, and the document does not say that the Jews are exterminated on the spot. There is actually one reference in the Saliter report, where Saliter says that the collaborators, if I may call them so, in Latvia were quite astonished to see the Jews here because they said that you . P-77 can Ausrotten them yourself in Germany. But I think they were probably a little bit ahead at this time and in this context, I could not say that the word evacuation would necessarily include the killing of the people who were sent to this place. Q. Dr Longerich, we have actually seen a number of documents over the last weeks from this December 1941 period, indicating that these trainloads from the Reich to Germany carried provisions and equipment for their first weeks in there camp on arrival there. So the evacuation here, would you accept, does actually mean evacuation then and not necessarily anything more sinister? A. This is what we call the second wave of deportations. This was about 21 trains to Riga and about, I think, seven or eight trains to Minsk which happened between November 1941 and February 1942, except the six trains where the people were shot on the spot in Kovno and in Riga, except these six trains where the majority of these people actually were not shot on the spot but they survived a couple of months, most of them, and they were provided with all kinds of things, with tools and so on, from the Jewish communities because they, some of them, maybe even the majority, I do not know, some of them may actually have thought that they were some sort of pioneers who were sent to the East. So I think this idea to provide them with tools and so on also includes a moment of an element . P-78 of deception, giving them the idea that they actually can start a new life somewhere in the East. Q. Do you have any proof for that. This is an important point, I think. Do you have any proof that this was an element of deception in inviting them it take their appliances with them? A. I think that the fact that 6,000 people were shot on the spot gives you an idea there was a kind of, you know, a kind of juxtaposition between the provision of these trains and actually what happened to those people. If I can explain this. Q. I do not want really get into the police decodes business here, my Lord, because I think we will stick to the meaning of the words. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The cross-examination is notionally to do with the translation of words. MR IRVING: It is, entirely. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The trouble is you are chasing some of the uses. I understand why, Mr Irving; it is not a criticism of you, but the result is that it is a little bit scattered this cross-examination, and it is not a criticism. MR IRVING: I have two ways of doing it. Either I can follow my own plan or I can follow his own very useful glossary which he has provided for us, and as we all have the glossary, I think it is more useful if I follow his . P-79 paragraphing rather than introduce yet further confusion. But I am taking large leaps and bounds through it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. You have been confronted with the glossary and I suppose you have to really to deal with it. MR IRVING: Well I hope that is not implied criticism of my dealing with it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not a criticism at all of you, Mr Irving, no. MR IRVING: But if the Defence does seek to rely on these meaning of these words, then I have to try to shoot them down. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I know. Well, take your own course. MR IRVING: Paragraph 3.3, the evacuation to the Lodz ghetto ---- A. Yes. Q. Which was referred to in the Gestapo report of June 9th. A. Yes. Q. In fact, the stages of the evacuation make it quite plain that were not actually being evacuated to their death, so they were initially evacuated somewhere else. A. Yes, but it is ---- Q. They were transported to the special command. A. Yes, but it is clear from, if you look at the following document, it is clear that they were deported to the extermination camp Chelmno. The Sonderkommando is the Sonderkammandolange which actually was responsible for the . P-80 Chelmno extermination camp and the gas used there. Q. Abschieben, which is No. 4, carries only the meaning of deport really, does it not, or does it ----? A. This is the original meaning, I think. Q. Yes. Goebbels, for example, in his 27th March 1942 entry, talks about the Abgeschobene Juden, of whom 60 per cent would probably be liquidated. A. Yes. Q. Which implies that the Abschiebung, the deportation, was not the killing, that was just what they used what came first. A. You might be right in this case, but it is clearly said in his document what happened, so I think one of the key documents as far as Holocaust is concerned. Q. We are now on No. 5, which is Vernichtung. A. Yes. Q. In other words, abschieben is not a very important word in this particular argument, would you agree? A. I think that, in a kind of hierarchy, I would not put it on the top. Q. Yes. Vernichtung is, however, quite important, is it not? A. Yes. Q. You have quoted in 5.1, the Langenscheidt version of the word, as destroy, annihilate or exterminate, presumably in that order. . P-81 A. Yes. Q. It is really destroying a thing, is it not, or if you can regard a group of people as a thing, then it is destroying a group of people? A. If you look at the group of people as a thing then, if you make this ---- Q. For example, Judentum is a body of Jews, a community of Jews, is it not? A. Again, I think that we have enough examples to discuss it with reference to a document. We do not have to speculate about the possible ways the terminology was used. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I quite agree. MR IRVING: You refer to Klausewitz? A. Yes. Q. As defeating the enemy, you destroy the enemy? A. Yes. He is referring to, I think, an enemy army. So he is not referring just to people; he is referring, well, to an organization, and he is making it quite clear that the term "vernichtung" could mean, well, it could mean, as he said, annihilation of the enemy forces either by death or by injury or any other ways, either completely or merely to such an extent that the enemy no longer has the will to continue the fight. So I am trying to illustrate here that if the term "vernichtung" refers to an organization, it can have the meaning, you know, following Klausewitz, to kill all of them, to kill part of them, but basically . P-82 to make sure that the organization, as such, is not able to exist any more as an organization. Q. You could bankrupt somebody and he would be destroyed, could you not? A. Yes, you can make all other kinds of connotations. Q. Take the army prisoner ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: It all depends on the context. A. Yes, you can make all kinds of combinations, but I think the most interesting, I mean if I may suggest that the most interesting case is of course when it refers to the vernichtung of people, not of an organization, of Judentum but of Jews, then I think it becomes clear what the term actually meant. MR IRVING: You have referred to Adolf Hitler's speech of January 30th 1939 ---- A. Yes. Q. --- in this context where he uses the word "vernichtung"? A. Yes, 5.6, footnote. Q. We do not have the exact quotation. A. Unfortunately not. Q. But the sense is, he said: If international finance Jewry once more succeeds in launching a new world war, then it will end not with the destruction of the European people, but with the destruction of, is it Judentum? A. Well, I have the quote in the first report. MS ROGERS: 38. . P-83 A. 38. Shall I read this again? MR IRVING: I think it is an important passage.
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