Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day008.34 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 MR RAMPTON: Maybe. I do not know that I think that that is an answer to his Lordship's question. Perhaps that is no business of mine. He goes on: "Additionally, if the gas eventually did fill the chamber over a lengthy time period those throwing Zyklon B in the roof vents and verifying the death of the occupants would themselves die from exposure to H C N". A. I would have thought it was rather unscientific also. Q. It is complete rubbish, is it not? H C N is slightly heavier than air, is it not, and they wore gas masks, and all they did was lift up the vents and drop the pellets in and quickly close the vents? A. The ones on top of the roof, right. Q. So what is left of this report, Mr Irving? A. The forensic statistics which are what I base my conclusions on. Q. Which is precisely consistent with what Professor Markievitch found in 1994, and what Krakov found in 1945, is it not? Q. Small traces? A. What I have always said, Mr Rampton, is that the report is . P-117 flawed and in my letters to associates I clearly said what a pity Leuchter started speculating about things that were beyond his ken when the chemical figures are all that can be relied upon and that speak the real language. Q. Mr Irving, the position is this, is it not? You know as well as I do that this Leuchter report is not worth the paper it is written on. You know that he got the crucial concentration completely the wrong way round and therefore drew false conclusions from it. You know that the true measurement of concentration is consistent with what Krakov found in 1945 and with what Markievitch found in 1994. Your only way round that is to assert that these were indeed gas chambers, but not for killing people. Is that not right? A. Designed as, yes. But what I do not accept is your suggestion that the Leuchter report is totally valueless. The most important part of the Leuchter report was the forensic results which were done in fact not by Mr Leuchter but by Dr Roth. Q. Which is precisely consistent with the kinds of concentrations in residue which you would expect to find if on the one hand there are low residue areas with homicidal gas chambers, and on the other hand the high residue areas were delousing chambers? A. Not entirely. That is going to extremes and you are not entitled to go to total extremes like that. . P-118 Q. Broadly consistent? A. I do not think even broadly so. Q. You have known this since ---- A. The total discrepancy in these figures is so eclatant, is to dramatic, that there has to be some explanation for them. Q. So you say. You can put that to Professor van Pelt. A. So I say and so I believe. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I go back to an answer you gave a minute ago? Mr Rampton asked this question: You know that the measurement of concentrations is consistent with what was found in 1945 and 1994; your only way round that - this is the question - is to assert that these were indeed gas chambers but not for killing people, is that not right? And then you said "designed as, yes". Can you elaborate a little on that? A. We do not know to what degree they were then subsequently used. Q. Do you mean by that that these chambers were designed as gas chambers for killing people? A. No, I did not mean that, my Lord. I meant that we know that this particular one, the crematoria 2, the one which interests me, Leichenkeller 1, the mass one where Professor van Pelt says 500 thousand people died, that the documentary evidence shows that it was also designed with dual functions as an air raid shelter and as a fumigation . P-119 chamber. We do not know whether it was used in either of those capacities. Q. Designed as a fumigation chamber? A. That is what I should have spelt out. We have not really been told what these other reports say yet. Q. No, I am waiting to hear. MR RAMPTON: There is one other part of this report, Mr Irving, which is not dealt with in that list of the bullet points -- I would say that they were blanks rather bullets - - in Mr Leuchter's report. It is incineration capacity. A. Yes. Q. He got that completely wrong, did he not? A. Incineration capacity has been a matter of great debate among... Q. I know that, but answer my question. Leuchter got it wrong, did he not? A. I would not be surprised if he got it wrong. Q. Completely wrong? A. I would not be surprised if he got it wrong. There are very widely different opinions. Even the experts cannot agree what the capacities were. Q. Notwithstanding this catalogue of fundamental errors in Leuchter, you publicly, in your public role, have adhered to it as though it was the gospel of St John, have you not? A. If you have read correctly what I said in my public . P-120 utterances, I have always relied on the chemical forensic part of the Leuchter examinations and not on any of his other rather absurd statements which I regarded as if -- in fact, I never even read those statements except when I, in general, took on board the fact that he was an engineer and he was venturing outside his proper field. Q. Well, you knew that at the time, did you not? A. Knew what at that time? Q. That he was venturing outside his expertise which was extremely limited? A. Well, I said so in my correspondence at the time. I said if only ---- Q. Correspondence, I am not interested in your correspondence. A. Well, the correspondence shows my state of mind at the time, Mr Rampton, which is material in this court. Q. So, in private, in your mind, I suggest to you, you had received material from Beer, Crabtree, Wegner, which, in effect, completely discredited Leuchter, but you never gave that any public notice at all, did you? A. I was not under any compulsion to give private correspondence public notice. When you are an author, you are constantly receiving letters from members of the public suggesting you have got things wrong. Sometimes you ignore them, and I know a lot of people ignore lots of things. A lot of the experts in this case have ignored . P-121 lots of documents until they finally come up in this trial. But when you are conscientious, then you will put those objections to other people who are probably better informed than yourselves and say, "What do you say about this?" This is precisely what I did. Q. Mr Irving, I have got very little left on this Auschwitz question now. Can you tell me this, because the answers to these questions, I am not going to cross-examine you about them if your answer be yes. I leave you to raise them with Professor van Pelt by way of rebuttal of what I would characterize as the overwhelming evidence in favour of his thesis. First, do you see the coke supplies at Auschwitz as being significant? A. Coke? MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Coke" did you say? MR RAMPTON: Coke, C-O-K-E, which in those days meant what it said! MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I assumed that. MR RAMPTON: You are going to raise that with Professor -- I need to know because he has to prepare himself, you see? A. Yes. Q. Are you going to raise the question of coke supply? A. We shall raise that because if Holocaust denial is said to be minimising or reducing the scale of the tragedy in a numerical sense, then we are entitled to look at the coke . P-122 supplies. Q. Are you going to deal with incineration capacity? A. Cremation capacity, the various crematoria. Q. I am talking about burning corpses in ovens or in pits. A. Well, in my side of the courtroom you call it "cremation" rather than "incineration". Q. Call it what you like. Are you going to raise that with Professor van Pelt? A. I think so, yes. Q. Are you going to raise the question of the Hensley decrypts? A. Yes, but also I shall be doing that with Dr Jean Fox as well. Q. I am sure you will. Are you going to raise the question of the so-called "death books"? A. Yes. Q. Are you going to raise the question of the supplies of Zyklon B to Runinberg and also to Auschwitz? A. I am going to be raising the general question of the production rate of Zyklon B by the factory. Q. I am sorry? A. And its delivery and to specific quantities delivered to various camps, yes. I shall also be raising the question of the authenticity of the eyewitnesses. Q. Certainly. A. Their integrity. . P-123 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I think what Mr Rampton was really doing, if I understand him right, was investigating with you what other positive pointers you feel exist towards the non-existence of gas chambers. A. The eyewitnesses come into that. I suppose that is negative. That is negative. Q. You say they are negative. I think what Mr Rampton really would like you to say is, is there anything else that you are positively relying on, as it were, against the existence of gas chambers? Do you understand the question? I hope it is not ---- A. I do not really understand that. Q. --- obscure. A. Yes. Q. Well, I think you agreed with me that Mr Rampton has just run through various topics which you are going to raise because in your ---- A. Of course, we are relying on the architectural evidence, my Lord, what Mr Rampton will call the archeological evidence. Q. Right. MR RAMPTON: That is fine, my Lord. With your Lordship's leave, at present -- I may come back to it by way of re-examination -- I see no purpose in my dealing with those what I call rebuttal topics in cross-examination. If your Lordship wishes me to do so, I easily can, but it . P-124 will take time and we are going to go round the houses all over again when Professor van Pelt gives evidence because what I put in cross-examination is only what Professor Van Pelt will say from the witness box. A. Will Professor van Pelt be actually giving evidence-in-chief or will he be relying on his report? MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is a question for me and the answer is he will be relying on his report. MR RAMPTON: I am going to ask his Lordship about that in a moment because I have now finished, my Lord, so far as Auschwitz is answered. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, but, I mean, in answer to the question, 750 pages is enough to speak for itself. MR RAMPTON: I am not going to read it all out your Lordship -- which your Lordship has read once, if not more often. It seems to me that, really, we have reached the position now, if your Lordship agrees, where all I really need to do -- I had had in mind a sort of nice graphic demo and screens and all that kind of thing for Professor van Pelt, but I no longer think it necessary because, apart from this question of concentration and the chemical analysis results, it seems to me, I may be wrong, that really Mr Irving has abandoned Mr Fred Leuchter and his report in toto. That being so, I do not need to go through the proofs. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is probably right. You will . P-125 though, presumably, have to deal, and I think probably in general terms only, with the other bodies of evidence, categories of evidence, for the existence of the gas chambers? For example, we have had a bit of evidence about eyewitnesses, but we have not had anything, for example, about the drawings made by -- I cannot remember his name, the Frenchman. MR RAMPTON: Dayaco and Eiffel who were two of the Auschwitz architects. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I was thinking actually of the inmate. MR RAMPTON: Oh, Dave Olaire. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Olaire. Things of that kind will have to be put in general terms, will they not, as to whether Mr Irving knew about them, whether he attached any credibility to them.
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