Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day026.07 Last-Modified: 2000/07/25 MR RAMPTON: No, I agree. There is one of them which may have some significance in a different context which is the longest of the three. MR IRVING: It is construction of Auschwitz, I think, is it not, or expansion of Auschwitz? MR RAMPTON: It is not the construction of Auschwitz. It is the expansion of Auschwitz which is rather significant because this document is dated 16th September 1942. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, would you like to suggest where it goes? Probably in Auschwitz, will it not? MR RAMPTON: It will best go in the Auschwitz file. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, is that all right? MR RAMPTON: In tab 4 of ---- MR IRVING: Indeed, my Lord. MR RAMPTON: Tab 4 of K2, I think it is. MR IRVING: It would be nicer to have a legible copy of it and I am sure his Lordship will agree. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I agree with that entirely. I do not know whether that is possible. MR IRVING: If a legible copy is provided, I can have it . P-56 translated. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Tab 4, did you say, Mr Rampton? MR RAMPTON: Yes, that is the one with the written documents in it, I think, tab 4, K2. 3A following. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where are you suggesting? MR RAMPTON: Tab 4, 3A, B, C, D. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: Page 77, paragraph 9, Dr Longerich, you say in Auschwitz between February 1942 and January 1945 between 900,000 and 1 million Jews were murdered. I have to ask you what documentary evidence do you have for the statement that 900,000 or a million Jews were murdered as opposed to merely being sent there? A. Sorry? Q. As opposed to merely being sent there? A. Well, I followed here because I am not an expert on Auschwitz, and we have an expert here. I followed, basically, the research which was done during the last years, mainly by van Pelt, and also by Piper. So, of course, you have to make a distinction here between the people who died, sent to gas chambers and the people who actually died in the camp. Q. From other causes? A. From other causes, but I think the whole working conditions in the camp were such that you can, in general, say that somebody who was transported to Auschwitz and . P-57 died there because of exhaustion, hunger and of other causes was murdered. This was a part of a murderous programme in this general sense, I use the term here. Q. That is important. I think this needs to be fixed, therefore. You are saying, therefore, that the 1 million people who died in Auschwitz were murdered, not necessarily homicidally killed by violence, but you include in that figure the numbers who died from typhus and the other epidemics? A. Well, if you look at the figures, the vast majority of Jews who were sent to Auschwitz were directly sent into gas chambers, and it is -- I am referring to, I would definitely say that this was a murderous operation and I would also include the other people who died there. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I am not sure you quite really grappled with Mr Irving's question which was are you actually including in your 1 million figure those who died as a result of forced labour? A. Yes. MR IRVING: And the starvation, pestilence, plague, epidemics, all the other ancillary causes? A. Yes, as far as I am familiar with the history of Auschwitz, this is a situation which was deliberately prepared by the camp authorities. So it is not simply a camp, you know, where things went wrong, but this is a camp designed to systematically kill people, also the . P-58 labour camp. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you basing yourself on basically Professor van Pelt? A. Van Pelt also. Q. Because I am not sure that his evidence was quite to that effect, but at all events that is what you say? A. Yes. MR IRVING: Are you aware of the book by Professor Arnott Myard, "Why did the heavens not darken" ---- A. Yes. Q. --- in which he said, in his opinion, two things, first of all -- I will ask you first of all -- he said that in his opinion by far the greatest number of deaths at Auschwitz were from what I would call non-homicidal causes? A. That is definitely not true. Q. That is definitely, in your opinion, not true. In his opinion he said, "The only evidence to the contrary is unreliable, being based on eyewitnesses"? A. I am afraid to say, Professor Myerd, his book is particularly weak, as far as Auschwitz is concerned. This number here is based on the calculation that about 865,000 Jews actually were not registered in the camps. It was 865,000 were directly sent to the gas chambers and 100,000,, about 200,000 Jews were registered in the camp and of these 200,000, 100,000 died because of the conditions in the camp. . P-59 Q. What documentary evidence do you have -- just a brief question -- for this non-registering of the ones who were sent directly to the gas chambers? A. Well, these are calculations and estimations based on the reconstruction of the deportations from the different places to the camp. They were done by different scholars at different times in different countries, and this is, I think, the number 900,000 to 1 million, is the best we know at the moment. Q. So this comes back to the first question I asked in this series which is what evidence do you have for the fact that the 1 million who were sent to Auschwitz stayed there, effectively, and were not transported somewhere else? None of them, it was not just used as a transit camp to any effect? A. We know that some of the people sent to Auschwitz were actually sent to other camps, but it does not, I think the statement here that between 900,000 and 1 million Jews were murdered represents the knowledge we have at the moment about the events in this camp. Q. Dr Longerich, those are the only questions I have to ask on your expert report, but I am afraid I am going to ask you (as a facility of which his Lordship is aware) just to comment on two documents. One is the Horthy conference with Hitler. Do you have it, April 16th 1943? It is two pages, my Lord. . P-60 A. Just a moment. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have it. Thank you very much. MR IRVING: Your Lordship will remember that we were looking at the reasons why they wanted the Hungarians to take steps against the Jews. I was invited to produce evidence that there were reasons. Also, I have translated rather more, in other words, than was put into the expert reports. Does your copy have the German original? A. I am sorry, I do not find the copy at the moment. I am sure you gave it to me. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It looks like this. It is headed "Horthy conference with Hitler". Is there a spare? Yes, there is a spare coming up. A. Yes. MR IRVING: Does it have the German original attached to it at the end? A. Yes, it is not the original, it is ---- Q. The Hilgruber text? A. Yes. Q. I am only going to rely on a few words there. Eight lines down, we have ---- A. In your translation or in the original? Q. In the translation. "Germany was standing today with her morale firm because she had removed the Jews of which even those remaining would also soon have vanished to the East." That is Hitler talking. Is that an accurate . P-61 translation of the words used in the original? A. Well, let us look at the original. Q. It is the last line. A. Which page? Q. Six lines down on page 240. "Vanished to the East [German - document not provided]". A. Yes. Q. OK. Of course, you would probably say "to the East" is just camouflage, would you? A. Well, what is happening here is that Hitler tries to persuade Horthy to hand over his Jews and he would not actually say in this conversation, "Actually we are going to kill them" because it is an official visit, they are minutes, and Hitler would have avoided that. In these minutes you find the term, you know, "We are going to kill them in the East". He would use this phrase "They vanished to the east". Q. Is pressure not actually being put on Horthy not to hand them over but to lock them up, to lock them away? A. No. I think if you look at the history of deportations from other European countries, it is quite clear what the Germans did at this time. They were sending deportation trains to extermination camps. Q. Four lines from the bottom of the translation, please, the first page: "For the present war and the shape which it had taken, they", the Jews, "were responsible particularly . P-62 for the bombing of the civilian population and the countless victims among women and children". My Lord, you will remember that Professor Evans disputed that bombing was talked about in this conference. You will find the original German on the same page, 240, towards the end of the paragraph. A. Yes. Q. Yes? MR RAMPTON: No, he did not say that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think what he said was -- I am trying to remember -- the Hungarians were co-operative or felt resentful against the Jews because of the allied bombing in, I think, Hamburg and places like that. It is a slightly different point, is it not? MR IRVING: I am sure your Lordship will look up the appropriate reference when the time comes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Am I right about that, Mr Rampton? MR RAMPTON: I do not remember that. What I do remember Professor Evans reporting is that Hitler had mentioned the bombing, but had said that it was a bit irritating but trivial. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I remember that too. Was that in reference to the Hungarians? MR RAMPTON: I think it is in reference to them, but I could be wrong. I think that was the Professor's evidence. MR IRVING: Well, I remember lecturing Professor Evans on the . P-63 air raids that had taken place on Essen and Nuremberg in the previous days. MR RAMPTON: Yes, I dare say he did not take it too well. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think what Evans said was that it was ridiculous to suppose that the Hungarians could care less about what had happened in Essen. MR IRVING: Well, some days ago. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Some days ago. MR IRVING: My Lord, over the page we now go to the translation at page 245. MR RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord. It is day 23, 21st February, page 159, yes. This is Professor Evans, line 15: "Hitler says the attacks themselves have been irritating but wholly trivial", so the bombing was talked about. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much. MR IRVING: We are now looking at the second page, Dr Longerich, of the translation. At the end of the first paragraph, this is the famous piece, of course, "He had done, he said, everything one decently could" -- this is Horthy -- "he had done, he said, everything one decently could against the Jews, but one could not very well murder them or bump them off somehow. The Fuhrer replied that there was no need for that either. Hungary could accommodate the Jews in concentration camps just like Slovakia". Now, is that an accurate translation of those two sentences? It is on page 245. "One could not very . P-64 well murder them or bump them off somehow to which Hitler replied that there was no need for that either". Of course, I rely on this following sentence: "Hungary could accommodate the Jews in concentration camps just like Slovakia". A. Yes. At this time -- I am sorry to interrupt -- at this time the majority of the Slovakian Jews were already killed in concentration camps, extermination camps. Q. So can I remind you of the little exchange we had a few minutes where I said that the Germans were not pressing the Hungarians to hand over the Jews; they were merely asking them to lock them up? A. Yes. They invent this story that all the Slovakian Jews are at the moment still kept, locked in concentration camps. This is the way he tries to persuade Horthy, you know, to hand over his Jews. If he had agreed, he would have done the same, the same with them as he did in 1944 when he systematically killed the Hungarian Jews. I do not -- I cannot see the point actually of this. Q. Is there another explanation for why Hitler would say that? A. Well, he was more explicit than on the meeting on 17th or the 18th. Q. On the following day. A. So when actually he used the quite different and quite clearer language a couple of days after that. . P-65
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