Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day008.27 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 MR RAMPTON: It is not a mortuary. If it is a gas chamber, Mr Irving, and the concentration used is contrary to what Mr Fred Leuchter unjustifiably assumed, contrary to its being 3,200 parts per million, it is something around 300 parts per million or, as Mr Beer suggests, 100 parts per million, then any need to pay serious attention to ventilation is much reduced, is it not? A. That would be a logical conclusion, yes. Q. It will be a logical conclusion, would it not, that the risk of contamination of water in the sewers is much reduced, perhaps to complete insignificance? A. That would be another logical conclusion. Q. It would be a logical conclusion that the need for the people administering the poison gas to take what I might . P-51 call strong security precautions, safety precautions, is much reduced, is it not? A. That would be a logical conclusion to your hypothesis, yes. Q. It means, does it not, Mr Irving, that the time which has to be waited before the sonder commander can go in and get the bodies out, whether or not they are wearing gas masks, is much reduced, is it not? A. This would be the logical conclusion of your hypothesis, yes. Q. Above all, it means this, does it not, that the discovery by Mr Leuchter of the small traces of cyanide compounds in material taken from the walls of the alleged gas chambers at crematorium (iii) in Birkenhau is entirely consistent with a low concentration having been used in the first place? A. No. Q. Why? A. You have to take various other factors into consideration. It is a totally false logic. We know from the other documentation that your witness is going to present that these buildings had been freshly constructed, they were made of concrete. You are shaking your head. Q. Because only one building has been reconstructed. A. Freshly constructed at the time they were put in ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Freshly" not "re". . P-52 MR RAMPTON: I see. A. They were made -- they were raw, they were green concrete. The concrete was still sweating. You are shaking your head. Q. I am shaking my head, Mr Irving, simply because you are plain wrong. If you had taken the trouble to go to Birkenhau, you would have seen on the walls of the Leichenkellers in (ii) and (iii) remains, quite substantial remains, of a coating on the walls, plaster or cement. A. We shall be producing photographs of the interior of Liechenkeller (1) and the other buildings which show quite clearly there is no coating on the walls. Q. Mr Irving, look at it this way. Suppose that -- some of the coating has fallen off, I quite agree. A. No. This is the original interior. Q. Mr Irving, I have seen it. Do not argue with me. Argue with Professor van Pelt. If you are going to produce ---- A. I am providing an answer to your points. You may not like the answers, but these are the answers you get from me. Q. Mr Irving, if you are going to produce evidence that there is no coating to be found on any of the remains of LiechenKellar (1) in crematoria (ii) and (iii) at Birkenhau, I am happy to see it. I shall admit fault if you are right. Mr Irving ----- A. Can I continue with the point I was making? . P-53 Q. Yes. A. This is fresh concrete. Fresh concrete sweats, I know. I have worked in a concrete gang myself for three years with John Lang. Concrete is very alkaline. You have to wear gloves when you are working with it unless you want your fingers to end up rotting away. Hydrogen cyanide is an acid. They react fiercely, even in small quantities. You would expect to see precisely the kind of chemical compounds and changes which would have produced permanent lasting results ---- Q. Mr Irving ---- A. --- even in small quantity, even in small dosages. Q. (A) not if the walls are coated, and (B) not probably if the concentration is as low as 300 parts per million. A. There are we are in terra incognita ---- Q. Well, you are. A. --- Mr Rampton, because we do not know what the scientific qualifications of this particular author are. We know all about the scientific qualifications of Professor van Pelt. We know about the scientific qualifications of other experts in this case. It would be very dangerous indeed to attach as much weight as you are seeking to do to this critique of forensic examinations by an anonymous correspondent who does not give us any details of his chemical or scientific qualifications purely because he, hostile to the Leuchter report, puts in the paragraph at . P-54 the end saying deeply flawed. You cannot do that kind of weighing up. You have to -- yes, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: In a way, you are slightly perverting the argument. I do not mean that in a critical sense. The point that is really being made by the South African engineer, Crabtree, is really that the fundamental premise of Leuchter's argument can be, as it were, turned on its head so that really Leuchter's conclusions are diametrically wrong. Is that not what Crabtree is saying? A. This is what he says, my Lord. And let me just, if I can just turn the wheel back very slightly and remind you of the last words of my introduction to the Leuchter report? The ball is now in their court. This report is very much intended to provoke precisely the kind of discussion which is now arising. Q. No, but my trouble with your evidence -- let me make it clear -- is that you are, as it were, criticising Crabtree's conclusion that the level would have been 100 ppm or 300 ppm? MR RAMPTON: My Lord, this is Beer, not Crabtree, this one. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry. MR RAMPTON: Crabtree is an earlier one. I may go back to him. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but are you criticising Beer's conclusion that it would have been 100 to 300 ppm, when really what we should be addressing is whether Leuchter's assumption of 3,200 ppm was a legitimate and sensible . P-55 assumption to be making; is that not right? A. I completely agree with you. Q. Do you follow the point I am putting to you? A. I completely agree and you are absolutely right. There are probably concessions have to be made at both ends of this scale. Q. That may well be right, but let us focus on Leuchter's assumption of the very high concentrate? A. My Lord, you will see that in the bundle of correspondence which your Lordship has read only one item under No. 8, I wrote to all parties concerned saying: "Clearly, these criticisms I am now receiving have to be taken on board and we have to do something about it". Back came the objection from Mr Zundel: "This is a court affidavit which we cannot publish it in an altered form. We can only continue to publish it in the form as originally submitted". So we are at a slight -- over a bit of a barrel there. It is not as easy as your Lordship thinks. The other point that I thought I had made is that the Leuchter report was intended to provoke precisely the discussion which we have succeeded in provoking at every level, including the scientific discussion. MR RAMPTON: But, Mr Irving, I am diverting slightly. I am coming back to Leichenkeller (1) in crematoria (ii) and (iii) in a moment. You have never ever publicly acknowledged the powerful -- no, I am going to use this -- . P-56 cogent, very cogent, critiques which you have received of the Leuchter report? A. Because, in the meantime, of course, Leuchter had been replicated by other experts. At the very press conference that you read excerpts out from, I was challenged on this point, and I said, "If you don't like Leuchter's results, go and do the tests yourself and prove that I am a nincompoop", I think was the word I used. Q. Professor Markievitch did just that and did prove that you were a nincompoop, did he not? A. Are you going to put his report in evidence to the court? Q. It is here. A. Shall we say that when we get to it? Q. Yes, we will look at it. It is not done until 1994. A. There is also an earlier report conducted in 1945. Q. That is in German and we are certainly going to look at that. That is the one from Cracow in December 1945. Go back to this question. A. And, of course, Gelmar Rudolf did a much more detailed scientific test. Q. I am sure you will refer to that in your evidence at some stage. A. It cannot be ignored. He is a qualified scientist. The only reason he did not get his doctorate was precisely because of coming up with politically incorrect findings on this matter. . P-57 Q. Mr Irving, the fact is, though you evidently do not know it, that the walls of Leichenkeller I and crematoria 2 and 3 are not made of concrete at all. A. We are talk about the roof, the ceiling. Q. You are talking now about the roof, are you? A. The cyanide was not exactly selective about where it settled. Q. Do you agree with me that, if the concentration needed to kill lice is 22 times greater than that needed to kill human beings -- I am not suggesting this is an exact proportion -- it is more likely that you will find 40 years later or whatever it is, 50 years later, you will find residual traces of hydrogen cyanide in the delousing facility than you will in the supposed gas chamber? A. They carried out controlled tests on buildings where there had been no cyanide used whatsoever, not just in these camps but also in for example in Bavaria, and found exactly the same in significant levels. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think that that is an answer to the question at all. A. Very well. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you want the question repeated? A. If those figures are correct, then obviously you would expect substantially more. This is correct, but you certainly would not expect nothing significant in the alleged homicidal gas chambers and that is what all the . P-58 tests so far have established. MR RAMPTON: Would you please turn to tab 9 of this bundle? It is a very short extract? A. Oh, yes, Dr Roth. Q. Tell me who Dr Roth is? A. Dr Roth was the forensic analyst who was employed by Ernst Zundel's defence team to carry out the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the 30 odd samples which were brought back by Mr Leuchter from his visit to Auschwitz in February 1988. Q. Thank you very much. Now I will read out what he said in a television---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, you are assuming quite often more knowledge on my part than I possess. You are now looking at tab 9? MR RAMPTON: Tab 9, my Lord, Dr Roth. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I know nothing about Dr Roth at all. MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving has just said that he is the chemist in charge of the Leuchter analysis. A. He was the one who actually carried out the tests on the samples that Leuchter brought back. MR JUSTICE GRAY: He is the chemist from the independent company? A. In New England, yes. The Cornell University or something. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It does sometimes help me if I have a little more context. My Lord, this transcript is, I believe from . P-59 the film Dr Death, Mr Death, so we do not know if it is a complete transcript or not, but I accept for the purposes that it is.
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