Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day001.12 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 What are the reasons for this astounding volte-face? The principal reason can be expressed in one word Leuchter. In 1988 a man of German origin, Ernst Zundel, was put on trial in Canada for publishing material which, amongst other things, denied the existence of homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. In defence of this charge Mr Zundel's lawyers recruited a man called Fred Leuchter who seems to have made his living as some kind of consultant in the design of execution facilities in the USA. Mr Leuchter was duly despatched to Auschwitz to seek evidence of the use, or otherwise, of homicidal gas chambers. He took some samples from various parts of the remains of Auschwitz which he later had analysed in America and then wrote a report describing his findings and summarizing his conclusions. These were that there . P-95 were never any homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. Unfortunately for Mr Zundel, Mr Leuchter's report was declared inadmissible by the Canadian judge on the grounds that Mr Leuchter had no relevant expertise. Now it happens that Mr Irving also gave evidence for Mr Zundel at that trial. In the course of that visit he had read the Leuchter report. Shortly thereafter he declared himself convinced that Leuchter was right and that there never any homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. So enthused was he by the Leuchter report that he published it himself in this country, with an appreciative forward written by him and introduced it to the public at a press conference in London, at which he declared that the validity of Leuchter's laboratory reports was unchallengable. So it was that the Leuchter report became the main weapon in Mr Irving's campaign to "sink the battleship Auschwitz", as he calls it. The essence of this campaign is that the Holocaust symbolized by Auschwitz is a myth legend or lie, deployed by Jews to blackmail the German people into paying vast sums in reparations to supposed victims of the Holocaust. According to Mr Irving, the Leuchter report is "the biggest calibre shell that has yet hit the battleship Auschwitz" and has "totally exploded the legend". Unfortunately for Mr Irving, the Leuchter report . P-96 is bunk and he knows it. It was comprehensively debunked in court in Canada. It has been comprehensively demolished since by people who have written to Mr Irving, and perhaps not least by Professor van Pelt in his report made for the purposes of this case. This is not the moment to describe all the many means by which the Leuchter report is demolished, but one simple example can be given because it is derived from the internal evidence of the Leuchter report itself, and must have been apparent to anyone with an open and thoughtful mind. One of the main reasons that Mr Leuchter advanced in his report for his conclusion that there were no homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz, was that it was to be expected that any residual traces of hydrogen cyanide, the killing agent in the Zyklon B pellets used by the SS, should be very much higher in those parts of the remains of Auschwitz which were identified as gas chambers for killing people than in those parts which are known to have been used for killing lice. Leucther's report recorded very small traces of hydrogen cyanide in the gas chamber remains and relatively large traces in the delicing remains. Therefore, said Mr Leuchter, the alleged gas chamber remains could obviously never have been gas chambers at all. But the report itself contained the seeds of its own destruction, for it revealed that concentration of hydrogen cyanide . P-97 required to kill humans was approximately 22 times lower than that required to kill lice, 300 parts per million as against 6,666 parts per million for lice. This was internal evidence obvious to any interested reader, which Mr Irving certainly was, that the Leuchter report was rubbish. So why did Mr Irving ignore this and all other stupidities in the Leuchter report? Why did he embrace it with such wholehearted enthusiasm? The answer must be that he wanted it to be true. After all, if the Holocaust never happened, then Hitler cannot have ordered it or known about it. Thus, as Mr Irving himself said of the second edition of Hitler's War, "You won't find the Holocaust mentioned in one line, not even in a footnote. Why should you? If something didn't happen, then you don't even dignify it with a footnote." So, finally, my Lord, why has Mr Irving resorted to these lies, distortions and misrepresentations and deceptions in pursuit of his exoneration of Adolf Hitler and his denial of the Holocaust? One can often derive a fair picture of a man's true attitudes and motives from what he says and from the kind of people he associates with and speaks to. Mr Irving has done a lot of public speaking over the years. The evidence for the Defendants in this case will show that his audiences will often consist of radical right-wing neo-facist, neo-Nazi groups . P-98 of people, groups like the National Alliance, a neo- Nazi, white supremacist organisation in the USA, the DVU, perhaps the most radical right-wing party in Germany, gatherings of so-called revisionists, in truth largely Holocaust deniers, the extreme right-wing British National Party and so on. What sorts of things has Mr Irving said on these occasions which might be thought to betray his underlying motives and attitudes? It is not possible in a relatively short statement of this kind to catalogue all the most telling instances of this kind, but it is perhaps possible to give the flavour of some of Mr Irving's thinking by reference to two short examples from the same speech. In September 1991 Mr Irving spoke to an audience in Calgary, Alberto. He complained about pressure from Jewish people and Jewish bodies designed to prevent him from speaking. He said: "And it's happening now. They're zeroing in on the university, 'Nazism not welcome here, self- professed moderate facist'". Mr Irving went on: "I strongly object to that word "moderate". That remarked provoked some laughter and it may be that it was not meant to be entirely serious. On the same occasion, however, he said something which, though somewhat facetiously worded, conveys a message about his true views and attitudes which can only . P-99 be taken seriously. It was this: "I don't see any reason to be tasteful about Auschwitz. It's baloney. It's a legend. Once we admit the fact that it was a brutal slave labour camp and large numbers of people did die, as large numbers of innocent people died elsewhere in the war, why believe the rest of the baloney? I say quite tastelessly in fact that more women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz. Oh, you think that's tasteless. How about this. There are so many Auschwitz survivors going around, in fact the number increases as the years go past which is biologically very odd to say the least, because I am going to form an Association of Auschwitz survivors, survivors of the Holocaust and other liars for the A-S-S-H-O-L- S", pronounced no doubt "asshols". This last inspiration was also greeted by laughter, but it was laughter of an altogether different kind. It was the laughter of mockery, mockery of the suffering of others, people whom on this and other occasions Mr Irving has accused of lying about their Holocaust experiences, of forging Auschwitz tattoos on their arms, of deserving both contempt and the attention of psychiatrists. My Lord, this is obviously an important case, but that is not however because it is primarily concerned . P-100 with whether or not the Holocaust took place or the degree of Hitler's responsibility for it. On the contrary, the essence of the case is Mr Irving's honesty and integrity of as a chronicler -- I shy away from the word "historian" -- of these matters, for if it be right that Mr Irving, driven by his extremist views and sympathies, has devoted his energies to the deliberate falsification of this tragic episode in history, then by exposing that dangerous fraud in this court the Defendants may properly be applauded for having performed a significant public service not just in this country, but in all those places in the world where anti-Semitism is waiting to be fed. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I would have suggested -- that is the opening statements out of the way, as it were -- I would have suggested we might viewed those two videos but we do not have the equipment. MR IRVING: We do not have the equipment unfortunately. I think we will have the equipment first thing tomorrow. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whenever. The fact is we cannot do it now. MR RAMPTON: No, we cannot, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am just wondering where we go immediately. MR RAMPTON: Perhaps the answer might be home. MR JUSTICE GRAY: If needs be, yes. It seems to me rather difficult to start on the evidence without knowing whether we are taking Auschwitz separately and first, or whether it is going to be the other way round. You have not . P-101 obviously resolved that. MR RAMPTON: Can we usefully, and I mean usefully, use a little bit of time now, perhaps your Lordship would adjourn until tomorrow. We can then try to work out something a little less jelly like than we offered your Lordship this morning so far as scheduling is concerned. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Certainly. MR RAMPTON: And give a report tomorrow morning? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I have a fairly short statement from you, Mr Irving. MR IRVING: As required under the new rules. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. We will have to discuss how far one needs to deal with all the issues in oral evidence. I hope not by any means all of them. I think I am right in saying that really I perhaps know rather less of your specific answers to some of the specific criticisms than I would like and at some stage I would like to be provided with the answers. MR IRVING: I appreciate that, my Lord, and I know that -- I intend not to offer very much answer to the name calling. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I agree with you about that. What is at the heart of the case is the manipulation allegation and that involves looking, to a degree anyway, at what the historical documents actually say and mean. MR IRVING: I am grateful, my Lord. Our documentation on both . P-102 sides is very extensive. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. If there is nothing else we need to do now, then perhaps it would be sensible to adjourn. If you could let me know through the usual channels what you have decided, that would help me, if you reach agreement. MR RAMPTON: I know it would. At the moment I do not see a problem with the existing plan which is to bring Professor van Pelt over for the beginning of the last week in January. MR IRVING: There is a problem, my Lord, and that is we have also arranged for our gentleman to come from California. We will have to iron that one out. MR JUSTICE GRAY: This cannot be done in open court. So I will leave it to you and we will resume at 10.30. MR IRVING: Thank you very much, my Lord. (The court adjourned until the following day) . P-103
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