Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day007.15 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. Venturing on to a territory of history, an area of history, of which he had absolutely no knowledge whatever, making world-shattering statements from the witness box in Canada without having done any research suggests, does it not, Mr Irving, that you had an ulterior motive for doing it? A. Let me give you an analogy, Mr Rampton -- it just occurs . P-125 to me. Suppose just before you are going to go into the witness box, the barrister for the Defence comes up to you and says, well, the man is alleged to have been shot by a nine-milimetre automatic, but, unfortunately, we now find out that the bullet that was found in the body was a 38; would not this be sufficient grounds, even for a person who is not versed in ballistics, to say, "Well, I am beginning to change my mind"? Q. It is a rotten analogy which I do not want to pick up, Mr Irving, because it will just waste time. A. You have to remember, I have just been going into the witness stand in Toronto to pontificate, if you can put it like that, about Hitler and the decision-making at the top level, and I have been shown by the barrister laboratory reports produced by a qualified laboratory in New England, suggesting very strongly that there is no significant residue of cyanide compounds to be found in the fabric of the so-called gas chambers at Auschwitz where millions of people have been gassed, or hundreds of thousands of people have been gassed. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What was the relevance, as you saw it, of that to your own evidence? Why did they come to your hotel and talk about the Leuchter report? A. I think probably because they were trying to get the Leuchter report before the judge. Q. Not through you? . P-126 A. They were having difficulties, my Lord, because the judge had taken judicial notice of the Holocaust in Canada and they were in legal difficulties. My Lord, I am not a legal expert and I can only begin ---- Q. No, the answer is you do not really know? A. The answer is I do not know, but if you ask me the reason why I suspect they were trying to get me to make reference to it and to try to bring it before the jury, before his Lordship, in that case Lock J could intervene to say this matter has been ruled inadmissible. Q. I was puzzled. MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, you just given what you know to be an untrue answer to his Lordship. The Leuchter report was ruled out of court because the judge held that Mr Leuchter had no relevant expertise that would justify his report going before the jury. A. I would be grateful if you would lead that evidence actually on a documentary basis. Q. I will. I do not have the file here. You will see it on Monday. A. Yes, but you remember I questioned that before when you said that. Q. It is in the transcript. I cannot give you the page number. A. That was not my understanding of the reason why the document was ruled inadmissible. . P-127 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We will wait until we have the transcript, shall we? A. And certainly, if that is the reason why, then it was not to my knowledge. MR RAMPTON: It was quite clear from the answer -- I am not suggesting you gave an answer to the judge in Canada which was untrue at all? A. You are saying I gave an answer just now which was untrue and I am on oath. Q. Yes, I believe that it is and we will come back to it. Mr Irving, you said to the Judge in Canada, truthfully I believe, that you had never been to Auschwitz to look at the archive? A. It was true then and it is true today. Q. It is true today? A. And you know the reason why. Q. I have no idea what the reason why is? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does it matter? MR RAMPTON: It does not matter. A. Because I am banned from visiting Auschwitz or the archives. I am the only historian in the world who is not allowed to set foot in the Auschwitz archives. Q. When did that happen? A. Last summer -- summer 1996. Q. But between this trial in 1988, yes, and whenever the ban was imposed recently, you have had every opportunity to . P-128 visit the archives in Auschwitz, have you not? A. I do not think so. I think the ban would have been imposed even then. I think it is like the big casinos in Los Vegas. They do not want the big winners to come. They said, "For God's sake, don't let David Irving come and look in our archives". Q. What is the reason for the ban in the Czech Republic - - no, Poland, sorry, as it is still is, Mr Irving? A. They did not state. In their letter to me, they said: "Mr Irving, you will not be permitted to set foot on the territory of the Auschwitz camp nor will you be allowed to enter the archives". Q. Do you not think it virtually certain that the reason for that is that ever since the Zundel trial in 1988, you have been up on your hind legs denying that Auschwitz served the purpose which everybody knows that it did? A. Well, in that case they have taken precisely the wrong attitude with me. They should have said, "Mr Irving, do come round. We have some very interesting documents here which will change your mind". They know perfectly well that had they produced one document to me of quality, I would immediately have changed my mind because I have no axe whatever to grind on this. I have repeatedly said that. But they took the opposite attitude. They said, "Don't let him anywhere near our archives. That is David Irving who exposed the Hitler diaries and all these other . P-129 frauds". MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does it matter what these various governments have said and done? MR RAMPTON: Yes, it does. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Why? MR RAMPTON: Because the reason for the ban has likely been Mr Irving's denial of the Holocaust without any evidence. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, sure, and I want to see the denials, but I do not think I am really interested in knowing what the Polish government did about it. MR RAMPTON: It is only a passing suggestion that he has brought the ban on himself. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So what if he has? A. In which case this is one more example of the damage done to me by the book that the Defendants have published. MR RAMPTON: Did you make any attempt to go to Auschwitz, following your first receipt of the -- I cannot remember the man's name -- Leuchter report and your publication of it in this country in 1989? A. Why should I have done so, if I may ask the question? What possible reason would I have had to go to Auschwitz? MR JUSTICE GRAY: But the answer is no? A. The answer is no because I am not a holocaust historian, my Lord. MR RAMPTON: The answer is no. Did you take any steps before you published it with a press conference in London in May . P-130 or June -- June, I think it was -- 1989, did you have any steps to have its logic and its science and Mr Leuchter's methodology verified? A. The whole point of publishing a document like this is in order to test the hypothesis. You put it up on the wall and you invite people then to contact you and say, "This is wrong, that is wrong, this is flawed", and this is precisely what happened. In fact, Mr Rampton, you will notice in my introduction to the report, as you are aware, I described this report as being flawed. One would have wished to see it written differently and the investigations carried out differently. So it was published with reservations by myself as a publisher. Q. Mr Irving, the answer to my question is no, is it not? A. The answer is just as I gave it. Q. The answer is you did not take any steps to have the contents of the Leuchter report, and Mr Fred Leuchter's shattering conclusions, as you describe them, you did not do anything at all to have them verified by an independent expert or experts, did you? A. The very act of publishing the report was the attempt to get it verified. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The answer is no. MR RAMPTON: The answer is no? A. I beg your pardon? . P-131 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The answer is no. It is helpful to -- you add things, but, you know, answer the question and then elaborate if you feel you must. A. Is a publisher bound to take steps to verify in detail the scientific basis of every book that he publishes? MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, if he adds the weight of his own authority as a noted historian on this period in human history, then the answer must be yes, must it not? A. Mr Rampton, then I would draw your attention to the language in which my introduction was couched which was clearly with reservations. Q. Some small reservations? A. And it says the ball is now in their court which makes quite clearly the trial nature of the publication of this document. Q. Did you have a press conference on 23rd June 1989 to announce the publication of the Leuchter report? A. Yes. Q. Did you say at that press conference: "The buildings which we now identify as gas chambers in Auschwitz were not"? A. Yes. Q. Had you had any research done beyond what appeared in the Leuchter report to verify that statement before you made it? A. No. Q. Thank you. "I cannot accept", you said, "that they had . P-132 gas chambers there. There was no equipment there for killing people en masse." You went on: "And hydrogen cyanide is wonderful for killing lice, but not so good for killing people unless in colossal concentrations". A. Yes. Q. Did you take any steps to verify the scientific and biological correctness of that statement ---- A. No. Q. --- before you made it. Do you know now that it is complete rubbish? A. No, I would not agree. Q. Have you read the appendices to Mr Leuchter's report? A. Which appendices? Q. The ones appended to his report? A. There are several appendices. Q. Yes. They are all here. I have got them. A. Yes, but I am saying that I have read some of them and I have not read the others. Q. Shall we just have a quick look at them? Are they attached to your version? A. Well, they are not in the slim line version, as you might call it. Q. Unless somebody can find me the reference in court, this also will have to go back to Monday. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, it must be somewhere, surely. MR RAMPTON: Well, I know. . P-133 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is probably the most important single document in the case. MR RAMPTON: I am sorry, I did not do the files. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I am not casting blame anywhere. MR RAMPTON: No, I am not trying to cast blame. I am trying to find the report. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor van Pelt might know where it is. MR RAMPTON: He has his own copy, I expect, and he did not do the filing either. I will send out some messages, to put it politely, at the end of today and make sure that everybody has the same copy as I have. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You did say you were going to deal with the denials. MR RAMPTON: I am. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So that is something one can deal with without the Leuchter report. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, there is a problem about this, not from my point of view, but from your Lordship's point of view. Miss Rogers and I have not been arguing about it, but we are thinking the best way of dealing with it. There are so many of them and the transcripts are so long that my voice could conk out and your Lordship would die of boredom if I went through them all. The fact that I select some passages in some of them over a period of time should not allow anybody to think that this is not a topic which Mr Irving has . P-134 returned to again and again and again over a period of years from 1988 onwards. A. We will not have difficulty with the denials because I denied at that time and I deny now that the buildings shown to the tourists at Auschwitz are gas chambers or ever were. Q. That is easy. In case, I can give your Lordship the references simply, can I not? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Can we just spend a few minutes on this because it is really a sort of methodological kind of problem, is it not? MR RAMPTON: It is.
Home ·
Site Map ·
What's New? ·
Search
Nizkor
© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012
This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and
to combat hatred.
Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.
As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may
include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and
provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist
and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.