The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit//transcripts//day028.20


Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day028.20
Last-Modified: 2000/07/25

   Q.   Thank you.  There is one other document and it is my last
        topic in re-examination, Professor Funke, that I want you
        to look at.  You remember that there was quite a lot of
        cross-examination about the meeting in what I call Hagenau
        because it is a French town but what Mr Irving calls
        Hagenau, I would like to show you, if I may, a part
        transcript and part translation, I say "part transcript
        and part translation" because that is all there is we can

.          P-185



        intelligently transcribe.  The date of this I think is
        sometime in November 1989 or something like that, 12th
        November 1989, that is right.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where is it going to go?
   MR RAMPTON:  It had better go in tab 15 of the second volume,
        my Lord, 18A.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, these heavily redacted excerpts of dubious
        provenance.
   MR RAMPTON:  They not dubious.  They were done by the lady who
        is the interpreter over there.  There is nothing the least
        bit dubious about it.
   MR IRVING:  It is the redaction that I am worried about and the
        editing of the cuts.
   MR RAMPTON:  We can take that up later.
   MR IRVING:  I think this is the time it should be taken up.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I think that is right.
   MR IRVING:  We do not know what use Mr Rampton is going to make
        of them.
   MR RAMPTON:  If I may ask the Interpreter, this will clear this
        up.  Is there anything on the tape which is not in this paper?
   THE INTERPRETER:  This is a full transcript and translation of
        anything that was on the tape and that was audible and
        identifiable.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I see.  At the end we have the whole of the
        tape in German, is that right?

.          P-186



   THE INTERPRETER:  The parts in italics are transcription and
        the non-italic text is the translation of those passages.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, this is the transcript of the thrice
        redacted tape about which your Lordship was already raised eyebrows.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think what I am going to do is let
        Mr Rampton carry on, because I suspect it would be
        desirable that Professor Funke's evidence is concludeed
        this evening.
   MR RAMPTON:  Exactly.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If you think you have been taken out of
        context, you can revert to this without the need for a
        witness.  All right.
   MR IRVING:  With your Lordship's leave I shall remain standing
        in case I wish to object.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not think you need to take that course.
   MR RAMPTON:  I will carry on.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Carry on, on that footing that Mr Irving can
        come back.
   MR RAMPTON:  If there is anything he thinks is fishy about this
        or there is more he wants by all means.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is not fish.  It is just we have not got
        the whole of it.
   MR RAMPTON:  I know.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, because you rightly objected to the
        introduction of this heavily edited tape yesterday in that

.          P-187



        form, and we agreed to use it on the basis of a rogues
        gallery, and now through the back door they are trying to
        slide this transcript under the door to us ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am actually giving you give a bit of an
        indulgence, because I am saying you can come back to this
        if you need to, not this evening, I mean whenever it is
        convenient to you, with the rest that is missing that has
        been redacted.
   MR RAMPTON:  Anything he likes.  If I had the whole recording
        of that meeting, nobody would be more delighted than
        I, but I have not.  There is no doubt that these people
        are who they are, and there is no doubt that this, amongst
        other things, is what they say either, so far as I know.
   MR IRVING:  The implication is given of course that I am
        present while all these things are being said and putting
        up with it.
   MR RAMPTON:  Most of what is said here is said by Mr Irving and
        it is upon what Mr Irving says ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Lets press on.  Mr Irving ----
   MR RAMPTON:  --- that I chiefly rely.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  --- if you would just bear with Mr Rampton.
        He is going to go through it.  You can come back to this
        later if you think it is appropriate.  Yes, Mr Rampton.
   MR RAMPTON:  Then there is something about Zundel on the top
        part of the page:  "Surprised to encounter my very special
        friend Ernest Zundel", I do know who that was, something

.          P-188



        in French.  Translator: "If I had known I was going to
        find Zundel here I would have brought him a present".
        Cut.  Then we get speaker and I can tell your Lordship
        this is Zundel.  Then the German is transcribed and it is
        then translated as follows.  Please, Professor, follow the
        translation by looking at the German, if you will.
                   "We decent Germans, wallowing in this dirt", yes?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   "Pigsty"?
   A.   Yes, right.
   Q.   Sow stall.  "Und fullen" is wallowing, is it?
   A.   Right.
   Q.   "This base lie against our people", yes?
   A.   Folk, people, yes.
   Q.   "Which this Jewish rabble", Judenpack "has been spreading,
        I have had it up to here"?
   A.   Right.
   Q.   Is that a good translation, in your view?
   A.   Yes, definitely.
   Q.   Thank you.  Then we get Mr Irving speaking in German, and
        translated on the next page.
   MR IRVING:  We have had all this put to us in the video
        yesterday, my Lord.  Why is he having a second bite of the cherry?
   MR RAMPTON:  Because I am going to ask ----

.          P-189



   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We have not got the question yet.
   MR RAMPTON:  We had not had the transcript yesterday.  We had
        the tape and now I want to look at the words.  Then I will
        ask a question.  "And it was once again a one-man gas
        chamber, a one-man gas chamber carried around through the
        Polish countryside by two soldiers looking for the odd
        Jew, literally for individual Jews.  This one-man gas
        chamber looked somewhat like sadan chair, I believe, but
        it was camouflaged as a telephone box, and one asks
        oneself:  How did they get the poor soul of a victim to
        enter this one-man gas chamber voluntarily?  Answer: There
        was probably a telephone bell inside it and it rang and
        the soldiers told him: "I think that's for you".  Cut to
        laughing audience.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, cut to laughing audience implies that the
        audience was laughing at that, and it was just a piece of
        laughing audience sliced in there.  So I object to the
        phrase "cut to".
   MR RAMPTON:  Professor Funke, we know that at this meeting,
        because we saw them on the screen were Mr Faurisson, nice
        Mr Zundel, Christian Worch, Judge Staglich, Mr Irving of
        course, and we were not sure but we thought maybe Arthur
        Butz and Karl Philipp, do you remember?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   If remarks of that kind, one might call it a joke in the
        very worst possible taste, I do not know, if a joke of

.          P-190



        that kind were made in that company and others of like
        mind, would you expect laughter from people like that or not?
   A.   Yes, a special laughter, identifying ----
   MR IRVING:  Why did Mr Rampton describe this as a joke?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, it is not helpful really for you
        to keep interrupting.  You might even give me the wrong
        impression by your continued interruptions.  Those words
        were spoken by you.
   MR IRVING:  As a quotation from a document, yes, and for
        Mr Rampton to describe it as being a joke by me is offensive.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  When you say there was probably a telephone
        bell inside and it rang and the soldiers told him,
        "I think that's for you", what was ----
   MR RAMPTON:  What is the document?  May we have it, my Lord?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am sorry?
   MR RAMPTON:  I was wondering whether this document should be
        disclosed.  I have never seen it, a quotation from a
        document.  It may be the draft of Mr Irving's speech.
        I do not know.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We have this now.  Do not let us chase that.
        I am conscious of slight constraints of time.
   MR IRVING:  I will not interrupt again but I find it repugnant
        that he should have two bites of the cherry like this.
   MR RAMPTON:  It may be, my Lord, that others in this room,

.          P-191



        including your Lordship, most particularly your Lordship,
        find if repugnant that Mr Irving should have said anything
        of this kind at all ever in his whole life.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That as maybe.  I am not, Mr Irving, giving
        Mr Rampton two bites of the cherry. If you remember what
        happened yesterday, I decided that it was wrong to have
        the German translated by Professor Funke as we went along,
        and I therefore said that the video should be relied only
        for who they showed you in company with.  I invited, this
        is my recollection, Mr Rampton if he wanted to rely on
        what you had said to prepare a translation and then we
        could do it properly.  I think that is exactly what
        Mr Rampton is doing.
   MR IRVING:  These are heavily edited excerpts which are
        produced for a rogues' gallery purpose which are now being
        used for their excerpt value which is unfair to me.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I have given you permission, Mr Irving, later
        on to tell me in what way the context can affect what you
        said about one man gas chambers being taken around the
        Polish countryside by two soldiers.
   MR IRVING:  Your Lordship is familiar with the ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If you are able to produce anything that
        affects the meaning, then please do so, but not now.
   MR IRVING:  Your Lordship is familiar with the context,
        I think.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, Mr Rampton, would you like to ----

.          P-192



   MR RAMPTON:  Mr Irving has the advantage of me, I have to say.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  --- press on?
   MR RAMPTON:  I will.  Then we cut to Irving again and then we
        have some more German.  Lots of question marks because the
        poor old translator, I dare say, could not pick up what
        the Hitler pick up what the words were.  Anyhow, let us
        read the fragment that we have got, may we?  "Now, to
        solve the enigma of the Auschwitz gas chambers, last
        October the Vatigan established that, according to carbon
        dating, the something or other probably without
        doubt", literally in German without objection, "dates from
        the years between 12.60 and 13.90, but some scientists
        argue that the wholly energy [blank] a body [blank] during
        resurrection the [blank] would have lifted up [blank]".
        Do you follow that?  If you would like to look at the
        German, do you follow the drift of that thought, Professor Funke?
   A.   It seems, but help me, that it is referring to.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  The Turin Shroud I should think, is it, or not?
   A.   To the shrine, right.
   MR RAMPTON:  That is right, but transferring if I could --- -
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am not sure that it is really a matter of
        evidence, this, I think it is a matter of ----

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.