Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day007.19 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is not fair. I am anxious not to have a sort of running commentary about the evidence, but the fact is, it seems to me on what I have heard so far, that you have been far more unrestrained in your assertions . P-162 about Auschwitz when speaking at these various talks that you gave. A. Private gatherings, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Gatherings. Well, I do not know that it matters very much that they are private gatherings. I think the Defendants are perfectly entitled to put that to you. A. Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I bear in mind what you said about these being, relatively speaking, unconsidered remarks, but the fact is you made them, so I am not going to stop Mr Rampton. Indeed, I think it is very important that we do see some of the things that have been said. We are on now to the press conference. That is Tab 5. MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving was about to say provided your Lordship does not attach too much weight. On the contrary, Mr Irving---- A. I was not. I was about to say provided he bears in mind they are extempore, not scripted. Q. On the contrary, Mr Irving, what you say in private to what I might call people of like mind is, in our submission, likely to be far more revealing of your true thoughts and motives than what you carefully craft for publication to the world at large. Do you follow me? A. I do not follow where you get people of like mind from. What is the evidence for that? . P-163 Q. We are coming to that when we look at some of your remarks, for example, to the national alliance. A. We have just been looking at this particular meeting. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us get on. I really think we are spending an awful lot of time debating and fencing. The thing is, I need to be shown what it is the Defendants rely on that you said and to hear what you say about it now, Mr Irving. MR RAMPTON: In answering your Lordship's request I am only showing your Lordship a fragment of what we rely on. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I follow that. Prime example. So press conference. MR RAMPTON: Can we turn next, please, to page 35 of tab 5? Before I do that, Mr Julius has drawn to my attention something which your Lordship may actually think really rather important. Mr Irving challenges me to justify my observation, proposition, that these remarks, these, what shall I say, unclothed naked remarks, are to people of like mind. I do that by reference, if I may, before I leave tab 4, to page 16, and we see this again when we get, for example, to Calgary in 1991. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whereabouts on the page? MR RAMPTON: In the middle of the page there is a sentence which starts: "The Auschwitz propaganda lie that was starting to run in 1944 is now out of control and it is going to take he men of the kind of stature of Ernst Zundel to kill that particular hare. Applause." . P-164 That is not the only such example. A. Of what? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the question, because it was not quite put as a question, is does that not show that you were addressing a bunch of supporters of Zundel? A. I think they were just people who appreciated the fact that I had compassion for a man who had had his house burned down and been subjected to repeated physical violence and that he was still standing up to this kind of intimidation. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is the answer. On to the press conference, page 35. MR RAMPTON: Page 35. You are answering questions at the press conference. Just under halfway down the page somebody asks: "Everybody who has written about their camp experiences ----" You do not allow them to finish what they were going to say, Mr Irving. You butt in: "Anybody who has described gas chambers in slave labour camps at Auschwitz or anywhere else is to my mind making it up." A. Yes. Q. Did you mean to say that? A. Well, I think that, if I had written this sentence out logically and not in this incoherent scramble, it would have been anybody who has described gas chambers in the slave labour camp at Auschwitz is to my mind making it up and it has probably come out a bit garbled, for which of . P-165 course I accept full responsibility. Q. What do you mean, garbled? It is a perfectly good English sentence. Garble: It is as clear as a shaft of sunlight. A. In slave labour camps at Auschwitz or elsewhere. Q. Yes, exactly. Or elsewhere. That is why you have used the plural, slave labour camps. A. That is why I am talking about garbled. You cannot have camps at Auschwitz, when Auschwitz was just one of two camps. It is garbled. MR JUSTICE GRAY: "All" should be "and" really. A. Yes, but the sense of that is saying anybody who describes gas chambers in the slave labour camp at Auschwitz is to my mind making it up. MR RAMPTON: Or elsewhere, gas chambers elsewhere, is making it up too, are they not? A. Well, I might have to be pernickety and say I would like to see me actually saying that and hear what emphasis is attached to the words verbatim. This is the problem with transcripts, particularly when it is an incoherent passage. Q. Questioner: Not at slave labour camps either? Is that what you are saying? A. They have obviously got hold of the wrong end of stick straightaway. Q. You repeated, no gas chambers at slave labour camps . P-166 plural. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, is that really fair? Over the page, "Question: What do you think happened at Treblinka and Sobibor? I do not know". MR RAMPTON: Fair enough, my Lord, yes. Let us concentrate on Auschwitz. That is danger of taking these plums ---- A. Springing them on me like this, that is the danger. Q. What did you say? A. One springs just fragments on me and on the court like this, but his Lordship has quite wisely read ahead. Q. Mr Irving, you have for a very long time, I mean months, had a whole list of the speeches, the transcripts of speeches etc. on which we rely. You have had copies of them. And you made them in the first place. How can you say I am springing it on you? What shall I do? Give you a marked up copy Is that the best thing? I do not know what your Lordship thinks? A. Sarcasm apart. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall we press on and find the other passages relied on? I just think we have to get to the passages that are relied on. MR RAMPTON: I am looking, my Lord, yes? A. My Lord, these are not my transcripts. These are transcripts made by -- MR RAMPTON: I am looking for a way round two problems, one that this is taking far too much time. . P-167 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you went direct to the passages, as it were, one after another, would that not help? MR RAMPTON: I just did that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I know. MR RAMPTON: I do not want to be disobedient but this is cross-examination and I cannot just stand in cross-examination and read out passages without the witness being given a chance to speak about them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, he has to have a chance to comment but I just wonder whether we do not want to go from one to another with a minimum of intervening exchanges. MR RAMPTON: I will do what I can. I am not going to get the file out for this one because it will take too much time. Do you remember you made a speech at Dresden in February 1990? A. On the anniversary of the air raid, yes. Q. So what? A. So what? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us concentrate on what was said. MR RAMPTON: Yes. Did you say something like this: The Holocaust of Germans in Dresden really happened. That of the Jews in the gas chambers at Auschwitz is an invention. I am ashamed to be an Englishman? A. Could I just have that? Q. By all means, so far as I am concerned. A. There is what happened in Dresden and of that I am . P-168 ashamed. I am sorry, my Lord, I have only got one copy with me but it is a picture of the old market in Dresden, thousands of bodies, victims of the air raid. Mr Rampton, you mentioned it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes but I am going to ask you to put it down. We are going to spend no doubt a lot of time on Dresden. The reasons, as you must appreciate, that Mr Rampton put that alleged quote was nothing to do with Dresden but what you said by way of comparison between Dresden and Auschwitz. Did you make that comparison? A. Perfectly entitled to I think. MR RAMPTON: Did you say: I am not at present interested in Dresden. We can argue moral and historical questions about Dresden until the cows come home. At the moment Mr Irving we are dealing with your statements about Auschwitz. A. Can I see the passages you are relying on? Q. Which is why I said so what? A. Can I see the actual passage you are relying on? MR JUSTICE GRAY: That you are perfectly entitled to do. MR RAMPTON: You have to get out another file, D3(i)? A. I am afraid, when somebody says so what about Dresden,- --- Q. No. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Please. There is going to have to be a ruling before long. This is just absurd, this back and forth exchanging. Dresden is, I am sure, where is it in . P-169 the index? MR RAMPTON: D3(i) 25, page 493. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you know the internal pagination Mr Rampton? MR RAMPTON: No. I do not have a copy of it here. I have only got an extract. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you found the passage, Mr Irving? A. I am sorry I have not. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think, if things are being put, they really have to be available in documentary form in case Mr Irving wants, as he has in this case, to see the context. MR RAMPTON: I agree with that. All that follows from this is that the reference I have been given is not the right one. It is entirely my fault. I am using the wrong idiot's guide to those transcripts. Can we forget Dresden for the moment, Mr Irving? A. I can never forget Dresden. Q. Not Dresden what happened, what you said about Auschwitz at Dresden, and then come back to it at some later stage if we have to? In D3(i), page 25, tab 25, may I please have a copy of that file? There should be, my Lord, a speech at an IHR conference on 14th October 1990. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Was that where we were just now, D3(i)? MR RAMPTON: Yes, I think it was because what I am told by Miss Rogers is that in that speech one finds a reference back to what Mr Irving said at Dresden. That, I think, is . P-170 the point, which is why I was given the page reference which I will now go back to. I am sorry about the muddle. A. What is the section again, please, or tab? MR JUSTICE GRAY: 25. MR RAMPTON: Page 493 in this tab. The page numbers are at the top of the page, Mr Irving. A. I have it. Q. In the right-hand column of page 493 somebody has written: "Irving concluded his address" -- this is about near the end of the middle paragraph -- "in Dresden with these words: 'Ladies and gentlemen, survivors and descendants of the holocaust of Dresden, the holocaust of Germans in Dresden really happened. That of the Jews in the gas chambers of Auschwitz is an invention. I am ashamed to be an Englishman'". This article starts with the heading: "Battleship Auschwitz, David Irving, (Remarks presented to the Tenth International Revisionist Conference With an Introduction by Mark Weber". That recitation or repetition of what you had said at Dresden, therefore, comes, does it not, the mouth of Mr Weber? A. Did he write this or is this --- MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is his introduction to your talk. A. Very well. Q. It looks as if he did, but the question is was he . P-171 accurate, was he right, had you said that? MR RAMPTON: Did you say that? A. I do not think so. There is a transcript of my speech in Dresden which your researchers could have obtained. Q. OK. So Mr Weber got it wrong? A. Well, on the evidence of this document, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where is the transcript? A. They could have had the video tape transcribed. MR RAMPTON: No, we have not got a tape of Dresden? A. I am sorry, but a tape was made by Mr Geiger. Q. Maybe it was, but we have not got it. A. I am sorry but ---- Q. If you would be kind enough to retrieve it, we should very much like to have it transcribed. A. I will see if I can obtain a copy for you. Q. Which is why our only source of what you said in Dresden is this document. A. Yes, it is not the kind of source that I personally would have relied upon. Q. Who is Mr Weber? A. Mr Weber is, I think he is the head of the Institute Historical Review.
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