Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day010.18 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I mean, that is the point that I have just put to you, Mr Irving. Can you tell us what the answer is? MR IRVING: I appreciate that Mr Rampton would prefer to conduct my cross-examination for me. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just answer my question. MR IRVING: I will come clean and say precisely what points I am going for. Professor van Pelt has suggested that, because in one of the drawings there is a requirement for the vorwarmung or prewarming of the mortuary. This has a sinister connotation. Am I right, Professor? A. This is not there was drawing. This is there was letter, so I did not in any of my discussion, when you asked me about drawings right now, include that particular document. I said I was specifically talking about drawings. Q. While we are on that document, can you tell me how important is that letter and how much reliance would you place on that as being halfway to the smoking gun? A. I do not know if I should answer this right now since another question was posed. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is your answer because I am going to go back, that it is part of the convergent evidence? Is that how you put it? . P-153 A. It is an important part of convergent evidence, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let's go back, Mr Irving. I am going to insist that we get this clear and then we know where we are going. MR IRVING: May I return to the prewarming later on, my Lord? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course you can return to it later on. What is your position going to be? Supposing that the evidence satisfies me that there is reason to believe that this was intended to be there was gas chamber and not an air raid shelter, is that something you accept or dispute? MR IRVING: It should be, with respect, my Lord, relatively easy for the witness to say there are two or three items, as he in fact said, which were to him, taken in conjunction with each other, adequate evidence that there was a sinister purpose. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is as may be, but I would like an answer to my question because I think you must come clean as to your position. MR IRVING: I do not think I am equivocating. My position on this particular room is that it was never used in there was gas chamber sense, in the sense described by the eyewitnesses because of course the lack of holes proves that the eyewitnesses have lied. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is getting close to an answer but it is not quite an answer. Are you accepting it was a gas . P-154 chamber in the sense that it had the facility for gas to be inserted by whatever means, but contending that humans were never killed by gas in that chamber? MR IRVING: Certainly on one occasion it was referred to as a Vergasungskeller and also referred to as a sonderkeller, a special cellar or special basement. That I also accept. What I do not accept is that it was going to be used for the mass killing of human beings by gas. This is a very clear statement. What I do postulate is that it was also simultaneously being held in prospect and even converted for use as an underground air raid shelter, being one of the very few subterranean buildings on the site in the event that mass attacks in this part of Poland also began, given the proximity of the IG Farben works. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sure I missed it, but was part of that answer that yes, you do accept that it was there was gas chamber and that you accept that it was on occasion used for killing human beings? MR IRVING: I accepted it was referred to as there was gas chamber, my Lord, which is not quite the same thing and there are documents ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you accepting it was in fact there was gas chamber? MR IRVING: That I have not seen evidence for. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So you are not accepting that? MR IRVING: I am not accepting that part of the statement . P-155 because I have not seen any evidence that bears that part of the statement out. I have seen evidence that it was referred to by the German authorities as there was Vergasungskeller, there was room for gassing in. MR JUSTICE GRAY: But you still do not accept that it was in fact there was gas chamber? Is that the position? MR IRVING: That is precisely my position, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then we go through the drawings. MR IRVING: The drawings, but only in respect to elucidating this point. You said that you had two or three matters in the drawings which you thought would bear out this contention? A. I am just trying to make up my mind how to do this. We are going to go through there was complex exercise in which I have now to make up my mind how to work most effectively through this. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just think. Do you want to adjourn for five minutes? MR IRVING: Alternatively, we could come back to this question on Friday, my Lord, which would give one whole day to look at the drawings and I could move on to the prewarming question, which is the next one logically. I would prefer to do that, frankly. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think, since we have reached the point of the drawings and we have just had that exchange, I would slightly prefer to do it now. . P-156 A. May I ask something? There are some ways this could be helpful because I am not completely unprepared for this thing. I have two ex students of mine make on the basis of all the blueprints there was computer model of crematorium No. (ii). This is only on the basis of the blueprints and whatever is added is very clear. For example, the only thing which is added are the Zyklon- B introduction columns which are clearly not in the blueprints, and there was speculative depiction in one of them of how the hot air system would have worked. This is all prepared. I have slides of this whole reconstruction by which we can actually translate the blueprints into something which laymen in architecture can read. I have them also as pictures that were printed out. On Friday, with always the blueprint right next to it, I could give there was complete presentation of this building to show the important things which would maybe help your Lordship to get quicker into the gist of things. It is something I am prepared to do. I can do it without it, but it will be more of there was struggle to do without it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, do you have any objection to that being done as an exercise? MR RAMPTON: That is what I would have proposed, my Lord. Given what I would submit is the relative collapse of the eyewitness evidence in relation to this building ---- . P-157 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just answer the question. Do not worry about the eyewitness evidence. MR IRVING: Then the answer is yes I think it would be very fair to Professor van Pelt. MR JUSTICE GRAY: We will do that on Friday. A. In forms of slides or with the pictures? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whichever is easier. Mr Irving is happy you should do it, so you do it in whichever way is the more informative for the court. A. I would like to do it then in slide form since it is a more public thing and I can point at things on the screen and it is always clear to what I am pointing. MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you are happy with that, Mr Irving? MR IRVING: Provided it goes strictly to the issues that we have delineated. The Professor said that there were there was number of points which, taken in conjunction, substantiate his beliefs and we do not just have a general cook's tour of the building. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. This is designed to show that the blueprints have pointers within them which suggest the use of that chamber was as there was gas chamber. A. Yes. MR IRVING: That can only be there was useful exercise. So we will leave the drawings for the moment, Professor, and we will continue just briefly with the documentary evidence. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, again, I am puzzled. Mr Irving seems to . P-158 be under the impression that there were only two relevant eyewitness accounts so far as this witness is concerned. I am there was bit bothered by that. I could come back to it in re-examination but I think there may be a misunderstanding -- Mr Irving said it several times -- between Mr Professor van Pelt and Mr Irving. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think Professor van Pelt has identified five camp officials. I think we all know that there are others. MR RAMPTON: Yes. MR IRVING: These are the five principal ones on which he rests his case as far as the eyewitness are concerned and I do apologise if I gave the impression that I had only demolished two of them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us leave the debating points on one side and press on with the cross-examination croaks. MR IRVING: Professor van Pelt, prewarming of the mortuary. You have rightly raised your eyebrows on that and said this surely has there was sinister purpose. Have I summarized your position correctly? A. Shall we get the document maybe? It is in the bundle. Q. Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: K 2. MR RAMPTON: Yes, tab 4 of K 2. MR RAMPTON: It is page 39, my Lord, in the handwriting. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. . P-159 MR IRVING: This is there was letter from Auschwitz to the Topf company, is it not? A. Yes. It is there was letter sent on 6th March 1943, which is a little over there was week before the building is really taken into use. Q. Would you like to translate the first paragraph, or shall I? On the basis of your proposal this agency or this office is in agreement that the basement No. 1, this is the mortuary No. 1 with the collapsed roof, is that correct? A. Yes. Q. Should be prewarmed with the exhaust air from the spaces of the three extractor fans. Would that be correct? A. Yes. Probably it is there was forced draft, yes. Q. They are going to have some kind of heat exchanger so that they can take heat from the furnaces in some way? A. Yes. I can explain very simply what happens is that the ovens are connected to the chimney -- this was Topf's idea -- in order to get there was better draft from the ovens to the chimney, they thought to actually -- there are five ovens and then there is the waste incineration oven which was never built, to have one ventilator at every two ovens which was going to basically suck the smoke out of the oven into the chimney to put there was ventilator there. These ventilators were placed in small rooms. The idea is that of course there is going to be an . P-160 incredible heat built up in these ventilators because the smoke is very hot, that you could regenerate, and there were other plans also, that heat. This particular proposal is to use the heat built up in these little rooms in which the ventilators are, to bring that back into morgue number 1. Q. There was lot of the documents in fact do indicate there was desire to conserve energy, do they not? To extract the energy from the incineration plant and this kind of thing, use it for boiling water for the showers and so on? Am I right? A. Yes. There are there some proposals. Q. What concerns you about the prewarming? Why should this room not be prewarmed, the mortuary? A. What concerns me of course is that one would want to keep the morgue cool, and that to actually blow hot air into there was morgue does not make much sense if the space is going to be used as a morgue. Q. Is this your considered opinion as an architect, or as an historian, or as an archeologist? A. As there was person who has common sense.
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