Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day026.06 Last-Modified: 2000/07/25 . P-46 Q. And on Thursday, of course, we did look at the other document quoted in the book "Auschwitz [German]" from Himmler to the Ministry of Finance also talking about how nice it would be to have the funds to buy the barracks so we do not have to ship the Jews over to Auschwitz and then back to the barracks they are building in Germany, they would save the transport costs ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think it says anything of the kind. I did look at that again. We can go back to it if you want to, but it seemed to me that actually what that was saying was: "There are problems transporting the French Jews right across the Reich to Auschwitz. Therefore, as a sort of security measure we will build barracks for them on the western side of the Reich". MR IRVING: Which will spare the cost. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which will avoid -- no, but the bit I do not agree with is I do not think there is any reference to transporting French Jews back westwards to the barracks on the western side of Nazi Germany, as it then was. Q. I am indebted to your Lordship for having attended to this matter with such concentration. My reading of the document was that they were -- I have the quotation here [German- document not provided] "The costs on paragraph B, and paragraph B concerned the section of the trip from the Reich frontier to the Auschwitz camp, can in future be dramatically cut or substantially cut, reduced, by the . P-47 erection of a reception camp in western Germany", which means they are not going to go to Auschwitz. They are just going to stay at the reception camp. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Quite. They are not going to come back from Auschwitz. That is the point. MR IRVING: That is right. They are trying to avoid this two way trip. We may be arguing about the same thing. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I cannot find the reference. MR IRVING: But I mean the general question which arises is, why are they building all these camps, Dr Longerich, in Russia, the White Sea, Western Germany at Dusseldorf for the deported Jews if the extermination is the homicidal intent of everyone from Hitler downwards? A. I cannot comment on this question because I have not seen any evidence, you know, for the building of camps. I have seen some scattered documents which refer to plans or ideas to build camps. One is referring to probably a camp for Dutch Jews in Russia. The other one is referring for an idea to build a camp for French Jews on the western part of the Reich. Then we have a letter from an SS man to his comrades referring to -- which is, in my opinion, a camouflage letter. So I do not think we have a story of a number of -- you know, we do not have here a story, you know, can establish a story of camp building for Jews in 1942. Q. Can we look at it in two sections? Suppose we admit for . P-48 the moment that no such camps were built, and I have no idea, can we say that it is evident from the documents which have been put to you on Thursday and today that there was an intention at high level, certainly Adolf Eichmann, certainly the Reichssicherheitshauptamt to build camps and to obtain the barracks, to purchase the barracks, to build reception centres elsewhere than Auschwitz for these deported European Jews, and the intention was there, regardless of whether or not the barracks were actually built? A. Well, I would not draw this conclusion from these documents because I only can say Eichmann expressed his view in this letter here that one should actually order barracks, or that the commander of the security police in Den Haag should order barracks. It could also be a part of this camouflage operation, and I cannot see how you connect this document, this quote from Eichmann, with other documents and can build up this story, kind of intention or story that actually they planned to build a system of camps, whereas, on the other hand, we have plenty of evidence what actually happened to the people who were deported from France, from the Netherlands and from Vienna and Bratislava to extermination camps. So I cannot see the kind of alternative history. Q. Yes, but we are looking at intentions here and the possibility that the people at the top level were issuing . P-49 orders and living in possibly cloud cuckoo land, imagining that nice things were happening and that the Jews were being sent, at the worst possible extent, to build roads until they dropped in the White Sea or in Ruthenia or elsewhere, and that they were actually making concrete provisions for it. They were saying, "Send the boots and the shoes and the blankets and the eating equipment and build the barracks and provide the funds to purchase the barracks", and this kind of thing was going on? A. Yes, that is the official line. This was a part of this system of camouflage. You can probably, if you read, for instance, the official declaration of the Party Chancellory, what happened to the Jews, you find the same sorry. You send them to the East, they will live in barracks, they have to do hard labour. This is the official camouflage story and this is reflected to a certain extent in these documents as well. Q. Yes, it is right, is it not, that there was camouflage evident in the euthanasia programme? There are great similarities between the euthenasia programme and the Final Solution, are there not? A. Yes. Q. And that no one denies that the truth was kept from the parents of the unfortunate mentally disabled children and so on. There was camouflage there, was there not? A. Yes. . P-50 Q. But here we have the problem that some of the documents seek with brutal frankness about what is going on and a lot of documents which do not fit in with your consensus you dismiss as camouflage, and this is the only way you can get over the other documents. You roundly dismiss the other ones as camouflage? A. Well, I would not agree with you and I made my statements concerning these documents, and I do not agree with this view, with this view. Q. I am now going to come to vernichtung durch arbeit which is page 76 of your report, I think. My Lord, I am now just going to pick up a few remaining points on his report and then ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right. Just for the transcript, I am putting Arnott, this little clip you have just handed in about Arnott, in tab 13, but I would be grateful if somebody could provide me with another file because this one is bursting. MR IRVING: Page 77, Dr Longerich, you say that the SS invented the expression "annihilation through labour", "vernichtung durch arbeit", now you have produced to the court this morning three or four documents you obtained from the Institute of History, is that right? A. Well, I did not produce them. I have them with me. I can produce them. Q. I have not had time to scan them in any detail, but I can . P-51 see we have here vernichtung [German - document not provided] and there is vernichtung durch arbeit in one of the documents. Is there reference there to destroying only the Jews through labour or is it ---- A. No. There was a programme vernichtung durch arbeit, there was an agreement between ---- Q. Tirack and Himmler, is that right? A. Himmler, and this refers to the killing of so-called asocials and then in the letter it says who the asocials are, and among one of the groups are the Jews actually, people actually kept in German prisons. Q. Just any Jews or Jewish convicts? A. Oh, no, convicts. Q. Were they going to be destroyed as Jews or were they going to be destroyed as convicts? A. I do not think for the people who were destroyed it mattered, it really mattered, but I think it is clear that the definition asocialist, the definition is given in this document. It says "Asocials are Jews", and so on in other groups. So I do not think, we cannot make a difference here. Q. Asocials are Jews or Jewish convicts? A. Jewish convicts and others, yes. Q. So I have to ask the question again. Which was the most important element in this particular homicidal equation, the fact that they were Jews or the fact that they were . P-52 convicts exposed them to vernichtung ---- A. Well, the fact that they were Jewish convicts made them asocials, so I cannot separate these two issues. Q. Are you saying that they said the other convicts were not asocials, the non-Jewish convicts were not asocials? A. Well, I think in the letter it is clearly said who actually were the others. I do not have the document in front of me. If you want to read out the others, I think it becomes clear what the definition of "asocials" is. Q. Does the word "vernichtung durch arbeit" appear in the other documents that you produced? A. Yes, there is a ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have I got the documents you are now referring to? A. I do not think so. They just arrived this morning and Mr Rampton gave them to me. MR RAMPTON: I think we made copies of them, my Lord. I am hoping that somebody has got them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is becoming a bit of a nightmare, this case, with odd documents cropping up and getting slotted in, here, there and everywhere. MR RAMPTON: I agree. I have my own copy which I will willingly surrender. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, do not do it if it is the only one you have. Maybe I have them, but I do not know what they look like. . P-53 MR RAMPTON: They look dirty. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I may have them then. I have certainly some dirty documents. I think I may have them. Have they got 285 written on them? MR RAMPTON: Yes, there are actually three documents. The first one is a four-page document and then there are, I think, two single sheet documents. So far as I can tell, they are three different documents. MR IRVING: I have to say that a rapid scan produces the word vernichtung durch arbeit on the first page, 2864 at the bottom, but I cannot see it on any of the other pages. I am sure Dr Longerich knows ---- A. There are two different things. MR IRVING: Yes. A. There was a programme of vernichtung through work. This was according to the agreement between Tirack and Bormann and, as you said, this was a programme for the murder of asocials and asocials included as a category convicted Jews. I used the expression here just to show you that the expression vernichtung durch arbeit was used during the war by German authorities. I used the term in my report in a wider sense, saying that if you look at the Holocaust, the vernichtung durch arbeit in this wider sense, was a complementary element. So the best -- and it was not -- the terminology was sometimes different. So the best, I think, proof, the best evidence, . P-54 for this complementary element is the Wannsee protocol because here Heydrich referred to Jews sent to the East used in labour gangs. They would become, they would die, you know, out of natural dissemination and the fittest would survive and have to be dealt with else in another way. So I think this is the best ---- Q. By [German]? A. --- this is the best evidence I think I have that this method, extermination through labour, was also used on a wide scale to exterminate Jewish, to exterminate Jews as slave labourers. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just ask this one question? So what you are saying is that you do not think whether the label was being used during the war ---- A. Yes. Q. --- is of particular significance? A. Yes, that is true. MR IRVING: I was about to say exactly the same. I was going to put it like this. The fact is that the phrase vernichtung durch arbeit occurs in scattered documents, is that right? A. Yes, that is true. Q. And, in your opinion, it could be applied to what Heydrich was proposing at the Wannsee conference? A. Exactly. Q. But it was not absolutely used in the documents, the . P-55 phrase? A. The phrase vernichtung durch arbeit, as far as I know, relates, as the documents relate to this limited programme, if I may say so, the killing of asocials. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not myself think that we need to put these anywhere in the papers.
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