Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day011.11 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 MR IRVING: Try us. A. OK, my speculation will be the following: that "Vorsontercommander" for inmates before these buildings had been brought into operation. There would have been little reason for them at that moment necessarily to want to steal these plans. We know that the camp resistance actually stole a set of these plans in 1944. There was a Czech woman, who was able -- ultimately working in the Bauleitung. She stole the set of plans in order to warn the outside world. Q. Which crematorium are we talking about? A. Crematorium 2 and I think crematorium 4. Q. Of the factory -- A. A set of plans, which are smuggled outside of the camp. There is eyewitness testimony about that, about everything. So my speculation would be -- and it is not more than speculation -- that once these buildings had been committed to genocidal use somebody must have said "we must prevent any information of these buildings getting to the outside world. We want these plans to be . P-91 under lock and key". Q. -- can I interrupt you at this point and say, was the genocide of the Jews or of the other minorities being liquidated by the Nazis in some way a contribution to German's war economy? I am putting it in your language, it was just part of the Nazi programme, or was it a fundamental contribution to the German war economy? My Lord, you will appreciate why I am asking the question. It is from the document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think so. I am just wondering in what sense the contribution, you mean mouths to feed, something like that? MR IRVING: I am reading the words from the document, my Lord, that is before us. A. Certainly, many trains with valuables of the deportees which had been -- we gathered in Canada one -- and then later in Canada two also were sent back to the Reich. I do not think -- and, of course, we know from Operation Reinhardt that an incredible amount of loot was ultimately -- Q. Precisely. A. -- sent back -- Q. Can I draw your attention to the first sentence of the third paragraph: "furthermore, it must be pointed out we are concerned here with works that are connected with the war economy and to be kept secret"; the genocide was not . P-92 connected with the war economy, but the looting of the corpses was, was it not? A. -- it was not the looting of the corpses, because the looting of the corpses themselves was almost insignificant; what was important, ultimately, was when people were taken off the trains their luggage remained in the trains. Now ultimately that luggage, that stuff, was the important stuff which was being transferred to Canada No. 1. It was the vast bulk of the stuff. Not the stuff which was actually found on the corpses. Q. Do you not rely on the witness, Dr Bendel, as an eyewitness? A. No, no, this is -- Q. Will you answer my question, please. A. -- no, I am not. Q. You have not relied -- A. For this particular statement? Q. -- no. You will understand the reason why I ask this question: have you relied on the witness, Dr Bendel? A. In my book Bendel is only mentioned one, with a description of bunker No. 2. Q. Are you aware that Dr Bendel has testified under oath that the Nazis extracted 17 tonnes of gold in teeth from their victims? Whatever you make of that figure, would that not be a contribution to the war economy? MR JUSTICE GRAY: What happened to it? . P-93 MR IRVING: My Lord, I respectfully submit that is not material to this issue, the whole point is we are trying to work out what the Germans were ashamed of and what they did not want the outside world to know. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well -- MR IRVING: And if it is something that is a contribution - - MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure I agree with that; was it still there when the Russians arrived? MR IRVING: No, of course, not, my Lord. Whatever the quantity was, it went initially to the SS, as part of operation Reinhardt, and we will be introducing the documents to substantiate that along with all the other pathetic, personal effects of the victims; the watches, the fountain pens the spectacles. Everything else was recycled and turned into a mass cash spinning operation by Heinreich Himmler. The gold was a major part of it. Hence that room set aside which you, yourself, showed us drawn on the maps that they want to keep secret, showing a gold working room with the smelting furnace in the corner. A. If this is a question, my Lord, I am happy to answer. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, it is a question. A. I think that given the amount of investment being done in building the crematoria and the labour being expended and money being expended and especially the material in the war, in a war economy and a possible yield of that in terms of dental gold, I think that the Germans were, to . P-94 say the least, not very smart in economic sense. MR IRVING: I have only one final question on this document then; in that case, Professor, will you please tell the court what were the jobs connected with the war economy which had to be kept secret which were connected with the crematorium then? If it was not the genocide and it was not the gold? A. I mean the question of course we have to face here is, if he means -- if they mean literally war economy. If they mean literally war economy, in 1943 the SS wanted -- they were building a plant right next to Auschwitz No. 1. Q. That was not in the crematorium, was it? A. That was not in the crematorium. Q. This paragraph is purely concerned with the plans of the crematorium, which they are trying to keep away from prying eyes for some reason which they indicate, in my submission, by the use of words "vital to the war economy" or "important to the war economy". My Lord, I have no further questions on this document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The only question I was going to ask you, I think you may in a way have answered; it is the dating of it is slightly odd, is it not, in a way if this sort of instruction is going to go out, you rather expect it to go out when they are deciding they are going to convert crematorium No. 2 to genocidal use? A. No, I would say that -- you see I do not think they think . P-95 of everything in advance. What happens is that in March you get the first, the first trial gassing in crematorium No. 2; by May 1943 all of the buildings except crematorium 3 are in operation. I think it is quite likely that somebody -- that at that moment somebody said "we have a problem". I think that the whole history of (German spoken) and the history of architecture in Auschwitz, construction of Auschwitz, the Germans do not think of everything ahead. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, could I -- it might save my having to come back to it in re-examination -- just draw your Lordship's attention to the first paragraph of that letter, which I think has escaped your Lordship and the witness's. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, even that date is a bit odd too if you think about it, because Himmler was not there until July. MR RAMPTON: That is why I thought your Lordship might want to pursue the enquiry by reference to 19th June 1942. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, but that is a little earlier than you would expect. MR RAMPTON: Exactly. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So it is double edged, really. MR IRVING: Well, I am indebted to Mr Rampton for pointing that out then. (To the witness) Just one more question in that . P-96 relationship, and that is; have you seen documents under which any SS member involved in operation Reinhardt, or in whatever was happening at Auschwitz, was obliged to keep secret, under pain of death, a number of matters, including -- have you seen such a document? A. I have not seen a document. I know it from testimony, from... who was it? Was it Hans Stark? I think Hans Stark gave testimony that he had to sign such a document when he came to Auschwitz and that the first thing he did was he was brought to the Political Department and asked to sign such a document, the general rule to remain completely secret. It also came up in the Jacob Ertl trial, when Ertl started talking in mid-1942, he got in trouble over that. He mentioned it. Q. Will you take it from me, Professor, that there is such a document in Berlin documents relating to a man called Weiss (?). I believe he is a low ranking SS NCO. I have seen this document, and that he was required to sign such a security undertaking. A. I trust you on that matter. Q. In that case I cannot ask you details as to what they were obliged to keep secret because if you have not seen the document you cannot tell the court. But I will ask the other witnesses when they come. Having, I think, disposed of this document, my Lord, we can now resume questioning based on the pictures . P-97 that we have seen. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, dealt with it, anyway. MR IRVING: Well, not -- I would have said "disposed" actually. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You can say that at the end of the case. MR IRVING: Yes. In my famous closing speech. (To the witness) How often did Himmler visit Auschwitz? Did he visit Auschwitz again after July 19th or whenever it was, 1942? A. Now, there is an account by Vrba that he did. Q. By Vrba, who is one of the eyewitnesses on whom you rely? A. On Rudolf Vrba. I have used Rudolf Vrba in the book twice, yes. He is, of course, very important in the history of Auschwitz, because he was one of two escapees, three escapees, however, you want to count it, who brought news of the killing of the Hungarian Jews to the outside world in the spring of 1944. Q. When did Vrba suggest that Himmler visited Auschwitz on a second or further occasion? A. The third one. Q. The third occasion; was this 1943 or 1942? A. No, he talked about it in his account I Cannot Forgive. Q. This would be 1943? A. That is -- Q. The visit? A. -- yes, there is a visit. He says 1943. He actually says -- he remembers it as January 1943 and then says that . P-98 he -- Himmler came to the opening of the crematorium and he said would have been January 1943. In any case, we know he was confused on the date because it would have been March 1943. Q. Vrba, in fact, am I right in saying this; concertinaed a number of different events and different buildings into one event and one building, did he not, when he wrote his report up from memory? A. We are talking about the Vrba-Wetzlar Report right now? Q. No, the original one that he wrote when he came out and he dealt I think with a Slovakian Jewish organization who then reedited the report for consumption and a lot of details got concertinaed, did they not? A. Now, the question is I want to know exactly what your question with the verb "concertinaed" because it is a word I normally do not use, so I want to know exactly what you mean. Q. Sometimes when a person visits a place two or three times in later memory it becomes just either one or two visits and the events of three visits are then concertinaed into one or two. But Vrba was not very precise about dates and times and places, was he? A. I mean Vrba wrote, certainly his first report, under incredible stress. The Hungarian action was going on. Tens of thousands of Jews per week were shipped to Auschwitz, and he wanted to warn the Hungarian Jewish community that . P-99 what was happening in Auschwitz, what was awaiting them, he had escaped from having been an inmate in Auschwitz for two years, a little over two years, and was recalling from memory his -- you know, tried to make a case that this was a very serious thing and tried to describe the camp as good as he could. Also even tried to describe the crematoria. Q. But his report is flawed, is it not? A lot of it is bunk? A. No, I would like -- I mean, if you make a challenge like that I will be willing to go with you over the report in detail. Certainly, the report is not more flawed, and in general terms I would want to say that if I had been Vrba coming out of the situation I am, going to then at a certain moment be, as you said, he was interviewed. He was interviewed by people in Bratislava. Q. A Jewish community, was it not? A. These were people of the Jewish community --
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