Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day011.02 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 (PROFESSOR VAN PELT, Recalled; Cross-examined by MR IRVING, continued.) MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the question is this, I will put it very shortly. Is there anything to be derived or inferred from the blueprints relating to the construction of the gas chambers -- sorry, from a construction at Auschwitz which entitles one to infer that provision was made for gas chambers generally and, in particular, perhaps for the ducts into which these Zyklon-B pellets are alleged to have been poured? MR IRVING: On the roof. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That, I understand, to be the broad issue which you are now going to address, is that correct, Professor? A. Yes, my Lord, and I have a question, because we have been talking about crematorium (ii) and, by implication, crematorium (iii) until now, as Mr Irving has said, indeed, in the gas chamber of crematorium No. (ii), in my judgment, most of the people, I mean, at least half of the people killed in the gas chambers were killed in that particular space; but, of course, if we go back to the document recording the meeting of 19th August 1942, a point I made in my presentation on Tuesday was that it . P-10 were actually crematoria (iv) and (v) which were designed in immediate response to what I see as the change of purpose of Auschwitz. Now, if you think that this is irrelevant because we have only been talking really about the design of the adaptation of morgue No. 1, I will not talk about it, but in case you think it is useful, I do have prepared also walk through of crematorium (i) and a discussion on the blue prints of crematorium (iv) and (v). MR JUSTICE GRAY: My reaction to that, and it is subject to anything Mr Irving may want to say or Mr Rampton, is that you can take whichever crematorium you wish or, I suppose, really Leichenkeller you wish, because if you are able to establish -- I do not know whether you will or you will not -- that they were designed to be gas chambers or that there was a duct through which the pellets could be poured, it seems to me it is likely to be the right inference that a similar plan was contemplated in relation to the other morgues. So Mr Irving, unless you wish to dissuade the witness, I think he is entitled to look at any of the so-called gas chambers. MR IRVING: In theory, yes, my Lord, but does it not rather fly in the face of your response to my remarks about proof, that I am not required to establish everything about the Holocaust. . P-11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are not dealing with proof at all at the moment. We are dealing with how this witness chooses to the question that I re formulated for him. MR IRVING: But if by a shifting of his ground now from the one where he originally said 500,000 people died in this gas chamber, and this was the centre of the universe of atrocities, and he now wishes for whatever reason to shift his ground away from there to 4 and 5, this, I would submit, cannot really go to the issue of my negligence or deceit. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it can, it is relevant. MR RAMPTON: My Lord ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just answer that and then, of course, Mr Rampton? Supposing he answers the question by reference to 4 and 5, you can then pick up your cross-examination and say, "Well, come on, that is 4 and 5. I thought we were talking about 2". MR IRVING: My Lord, I certainly shall do when the time comes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do. MR IRVING: But I just wish to wave a little red flag and say that they are now changing the rules. They are changing not only the rules, but they are changing the football ground halfway through the game. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is a point you are entitled to make. MR IRVING: This certainly lowers the standards of evidence, but let us take that when we come to it. . P-12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, I am sorry? MR RAMPTON: No, my Lord, I was interrupting and I should not have done. I do believe again that Mr Irving has completely misunderstood the nature of the case. Mr Irving chose to focus on Leichenkeller 1 in crematorium (ii). That is fine. Professor van Pelt's evidence-in-chief, which is in his report and which, if he disputes it, Mr Irving will have to challenge, is that there were, in fact, at least seven homicidal gas chambers in use at Auschwitz and Birkenhau at various times up to the autumn of 1944. Two of the most important of those buildings are crematoria (iv) and (v) which Professor van Pelt tells us in his report were purpose-built as gas chambers, and it is only for the case of coherence, if anything else, that he should, in my submission, explain what he says about those to your Lordship as relevant. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Having said what he wants to say about crematoria (iv) and (v), it is, of course, open to Mr Irving to say, "Well, that does not prove anything in relation to crematorium (ii)". MR RAMPTON: It may not do. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not know whether it does or it does not, but he can cross-examine on that. MR RAMPTON: It is a question of the cumulative effect of the evidence. . P-13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Quite. MR IRVING: My Lord, the allegation really is the factories of death allegation. If I have denied the factories of death, which is the nub of the allegation against me, and if I have successfully established to the court's satisfaction that this building was not what has been claimed over the last 55 years, and there is not the slightest shred of reliable and plausible evidence for that, then I would submit that I have discharged my obligations to the court in a satisfactory manner as far as my own reputation is concerned ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: --- regarding the factories of death. If they come along with subsidiary allegations and say, "Yes, but a lot of Jews of gypsies were killed in this building too", I would say I have never denied that there were killings in Auschwitz. What I have denied is this mass production of factories of death allegation, this churning out 2,500 bodies per day kind of allegation. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are beginning to give me a foretaste of what we call your final speech. MR IRVING: My Lord, like any good advocate, I have been preparing my final speech from the moment this case began. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sure you have, but what I am really saying is that we are on the evidence at the moment and not on speeches. So let us get on with the evidence, . P-14 shall we? MR IRVING: You allowed learned counsel some leeway on this matter, my Lord, and I was only claiming the same amount of leeway. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton probably has not started his final speech yet. MR RAMPTON: Absolutely right. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Now, Professor? A. There are two issues. First of all, if we can have the override ---- Q. I know the problem. I think we have solved it, I hope. A. And I would like, my Lord, there is going to be one particular detail which I do not have a sight of, but I refer to it when I come to it which is actually in Auschwitz 2, core file Auschwitz 2, the picture file, trial bundle, and it is actually in tab 1, No. 3B. It is actually to be seen in two pictures; detail B and the little colour version of detail B which is right below there. Now, I will point out, since I do not want to come over to you and point on your document and then on Mr Irving's document and Mr Rampton's document, exactly which detail, but certainly I will put my finger on the thing in the slide which is not visible in the slide, but it visible actually in your enlargement right here. I want you to be prepared for that. Is it OK that I move . P-15 to the screen? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course, yes. Thank you very much. A. My intention when the lights go out is very simple. It is very simple. It is to make the blueprints intelligible. There are a couple of things which are not in the blueprint, two things which are not in the blueprint, but we know from other sources, from correspondence which were installed, and I will tell those when we go through. But there are already in the document which was submitted by Mr Irving, I already point them out, it is the drawing by Kate Mullen, my student, then submitted by Mr Irving in evidence to you and I will just point them out. These are the columns which are not in the blueprints. So that the first thing. The second thing is the duct which was going to bring the hot air from the ventilator rooms to the gas chambers which is in the document of 6 March 1943. So what I am going to do now is introduce a new set of images of which copies, I have given copies to Mr Rampton, and I will start with this one, very simple above ground incineration room, coke stores, space, administration offices, toilets, chimney, ventilator mounted, an original design for a fresh ventilator, not installed, but it was installed in crematorium (iii) and the dissection rooms. That is difficult for me to actually focus to . P-16 see whether it is really in focus or not. That would seem to be in focus. If you tell me when it is not in focus? MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is fine now. A. Here are the dissection rooms. Morgue No. 1, gas chamber, morgue No. 2 and an outside entrance with two staircases that slide in between. Now I am going to the images which were produced quite recently and -- can somebody mark, can you focus for me? I cannot see. It is blurred. The first ring, if you can control the first ring. OK. We are going back to this. I am going to make -- we are going -- the first thing I am going to do after just showing the kind of diagrams you are going to get later, I am first going to actually walk you through the building, around the building, in a reconstruction made on the basis of the blueprints. I am just going to flag a few major things. It is exactly the same perspective as we had before was included here and which we tried to make very clear is really the ventilation systems as they were. The ventilation systems which are in green which is right here, above the incineration room and alongside the ceiling of the undressing room or the morgue No. 2 is indicated in green, and all of the systems came into this chimney. Then there was a second part of the ventilation system. This is called the entluftung system, a second system, and this is basically coming into the ceiling of . P-17 morgue No. 1 and that is blue. So blue is bringing fresh air in, green is taking foul air out and whatever is in there, and that we will come later back to that would have been that duct for hot air based -- reconstructed on the basis really of two documents but no blueprint. Then here the pink stuff, basically the funnels for going to the chimney below the ground from the incinerators. If you want me to slow down at any given moment or point out any detail, explain, please do so because I am going to walk through this. This is what the building as it would have been seen when one is at the end of the railway track. This is crematorium (ii), so, more or less, when you enter the compound in which the crematorium was placed. This is the main chimney with the place, the extension, the projections of the building in which the waste incinerator was originally projected, the incineration room sits more or less here. This is the coke store space, and the dissection rooms are there. I am going to make actually two entries into the building, one along a staircase which is still there right here, and the staircase which goes to the basement and we really concentrate our presentation on the basement. Later we see here the kind of slightly high elevation of the underground morgue No. 2. We will enter the building through that entrance there, an entrance which was made in 1943. . P-18 We come closer to the building. Here we see the staircase going down. This is an entry to the autopsy rooms right there. We will actually go down the staircase, and since it was very difficult to model that situation, how to go down, the people who did it, two architects, chose to show actually a kind of section of the building. Here is the grate level. We have here the underground morgue and we see actually the staircase going down. Basically, the soil has been cut away with the entrance right here going into this little vestibule.
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