Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day011.20 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. That is my mistake. I see two chimneys. One is on the right of the picture. There are two large chimneys, one on the right and one on the left. A. The chimneys of crematorium (ii) to the left and (iii) to the left. Q. There is on the left of the picture, therefore, to the south, a hut or building. Do you see that? A. Yes. Q. And there is a line of what looks like concrete posts probably with wire on them. Is that right? A. Yes. Q. What is behind that wire? A. Behind that wire is the women's camp, what is the called women's camp in 1944. Q. We see the people; they look as though they perhaps have just got out of the train. That is for reference because I now want you to look at, please, just for in passing, at page 22. . P-176 A. Should I keep this one out? Q. Yes, I think probably it is a good idea to keep it out. That is what I shall do; it makes it easier to know what one is looking at. MR JUSTICE GRAY: 22. MR RAMPTON: 22, my Lord, yes. This is just in passing. There we are looking -- have you got 22? A. Yes. Q. There we are looking in the opposite direction towards the entrance to the camp, are we not? A. We look eastwards, yes. Q. So from what you have just said, the women's camp is on the right of this picture? A. Yes. Q. Is what we see there what you have described as selection into male and female? A. This is the moment just before the selection. It seems that the people who are still ---- Q. Division, I mean. A. Yes, the division between on the one side, men and older boys, and on the other side, women and children, has occurred. Q. Yes. Then, if you please, the last photograph I need you to look at, I am afraid you look in a different place now, you look in the bottom left-hand corner for a very small printed italic 32? . P-177 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Further on. A. Yes, I see. MR RAMPTON: It is further on, my Lord. Yes, it is about - - 15 pages maybe. That is the one. Now, Professor -- has your Lordship got it? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: Do you see the building, long low building behind the people in the half background? A. Yes, I see. Q. Is that the same houses we were looking at earlier? A. That is the block for the women's camp. Q. And you see to the left there is a lorry? A. Yes. Q. A truck. Behind the truck is what appears to be a gate? A. Yes. Q. And is the gate shut? A. The gate is shut, yes. Q. The people in the line appear to be women and children, do they not? A. They are women and children, yes. Q. On the right of the picture, apart one or two SS men in uniform, there is what looks like a uniform figure on the far right of the picture, but ignoring him, the women and children on the right of the picture are moving in what direction? A. They walk along the railway track to the West. . P-178 Q. What lies at the end of the railway track to the West? A. Crematorium (ii) and crematorium (iii). Q. Is there any access to the women and children's camp from this point onwards between ---- A. No. Q. --- here and crematorium (ii)? A. There is no access. Q. Is there any access from that point to the sauna building north, or whatever it is, west of Canada? A. At the moment there is, but not at that time. Q. That is what I mean. I meant here in May 1944? A. Yes -- no there was a gate, but the usual way to go to the central sauna was actually to take the lagerstrasse which is through the middle of the camp and then go up past crematorium (iv) and (v). Q. Which means going in the opposite direction? A. Going in the opposite direction. MR IRVING: At the risk of testing your Lordship's patience once again, this material was not in the expert report. It was not dealt with in cross-examination, and I really have to be lectured on how it can be introduced at this late stage. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I am with you to the extent that it does not really seem to go quite to the selection process; more to what was going to happen after the selection process had taken place. . P-179 MR IRVING: Precisely. One is being invited to draw a lot of inferences from pictures which one would like to have had spelt out explicitly either in the report or in cross-examination. MR RAMPTON: Why do we not get Professor van Pelt to spell out the inference which do I do not really think needs doing. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is what Mr Irving is objecting to. MR RAMPTON: I am quite willing, while he is still here, if Mr Irving then wants to ask a question about it for him to do so. MR IRVING: This is not the way this thing should be done though. MR RAMPTON: I do not agree with that, as a matter of fact. Professor van Pelt was cross-examined about selection. He explained what it was for and he explained what had happened to the people that were not selected to go into the camp to work. That being so, this is directly relevant. It has been in this file, in these bundles, ever since they were first composed. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I mean, having said that, I mean, the evidence is in now, I am sitting alone, so in a sense there is not so much harm, but I think one has to be a bit cautious when one has so much expert evidence about introducing what one might, I think, fairly describe as fresh points. This is evidence buttressing an existing point but it is ---- . P-180 MR RAMPTON: Yes, that is right. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am only just really putting down a marker at the moment, but the inference does not need to be spelt out because I think it is obvious. MR RAMPTON: No, I do not think the inference does need to be spelled out. I would much rather not spell it out. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, you have heard what I have said. That is how I am dealing with this. MR IRVING: As long as your Lordship does not feel I am being tedious with these interruptions. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. I do not want to stop you. If you feel something is going on that you do not like, say so and if I do not agree, I will say so. MR RAMPTON: All right. (To the witness): Gas pillars, gas introduction, pellet introduction pillars, Professor? Can you take up that file K2 again? This time I want to look at some documents we have looked at before but in a slightly different way. A. Which is K2? Q. K2 is the second Auschwitz bundle. A. Yes. Q. You should have it. A. Yes, I have. Q. I would like you to turn, first of all, please, to tab 3, which are David Olaire's drawings, and to the first page in that tab. I think you told us that Mr Olaire probably . P-181 did this drawing in 1945 or 46. I cannot remember which? A. It is dated 1945. Q. Where do I find that? It is. It is in the bottom right-hand corner in manuscript, is it not? A. Yes. Q. D. Olaire, 45. Yes, I have it. Where did he make this drawing, do you know? A. Back in Paris. Q. In Paris. Do you know the circumstances in which he made these drawings? A. No, I do not know. Q. Then can we, please, turn back a tab, to tab 2, and page 5 in that tab -- no, first of all, take out, will you, the aerial photographs? That is the best way of doing it. A. All of them? Q. No, just the one at page 5. Page 5 in handwriting. A. Yes. Q. It is the clearest possibly although, funnily enough, it is not the largest. Can you go back to the Olaire drawing on page 1 of tab 3, please? A. Yes. Q. I want you to look at in a moment at the aerial photograph. Which crematorium is this that Olaire has drawn? A. Crematorium No. (iii). Q. How do we know that? . P-182 A. He was working in No. (iii). Q. Right. A. And that also the plan itself is of No. (iii) because it is now reversed from crematorium No. (ii). Q. We see that at No. 10 in his key are the Zyklon-B introduction vents? A. Yes. Q. If you look at the drawing, you see them, the dotted lines run from the figure 10 to squares on the ground plan? A. Yes. Q. Do you notice the alignment of those squares? A. Yes, I do. Q. Will you please look at the aerial photograph? A. I do. Q. K3 is on the right-hand side of the photograph, is it not? A. Yes. There is a lettering right next to it almost, 160. Q. Yes, that is right. How does the alignment of that photograph, those black dots, match what Olaire has drawn? A. It seems identical. Q. Do you know of any reason to think that David Olaire was shown this photograph before he made that drawing? A. This was not available until 1979. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where was it until 1979 -- in Moscow? A. No, no. This is the American, this is the American. Q. It is American bombing ---- A. It is American bombing photo. . P-183 Q. --- photos. I had not written that down. A. So, yes, all declassified. Q. The summer of '44? A. In the summer of '44, yes. MR RAMPTON: Now I want to ask you one or two questions, Professor, which I fear you may find rather foolish, but I am going to ask them just the same, if you do not mind? You will remember a time at which Mr Irving has proposed -- I cannot remember quite when it was, perhaps several times -- that the absence of holes in the present ruins of Leichenkeller 1 at crematorium (ii) means that it can never have been meant for gassing live human beings. He suggests as an alternative that it had a dual purpose as a room for delousing corpses or, alternatively, other sorts of objects. First of all, can you give us your opinion, if there were no holes in the roof, how do you think that the SS -- sorry, the sonderkommando would have been able to put the pellets into the room? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is there not a question before then, if you do not mind my saying so? MR RAMPTON: You ask it, my Lord, please. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you think there was any other way in which the Zyklon-B might have been inserted into the gas chamber into the morgue? A. One could have used the same way. There are two ways apart from these columns. I mean, there are obviously no . P-184 windows, so the way it was done in crematoria (iv) and (v) it would not have worked. Q. What I was really asking is do you think it, in fact, happened in any other way? That was the question that I thought, perhaps, needed to be asked first. A. Sorry, my Lord. A way, when you delouse a building or even in a delousing room, sometimes you could just put the palettes right on the floor. So that is a possibility. Q. Sorry, Mr Rampton I thought I might have got a different answer to that question. MR RAMPTON: No. Are there any contemporaneous documents (and it is a harmless procedure to disinfest corpses or clothes, there is nothing sinister about it) referring to such a procedure as this, the gassing of corpses? A. I have never seen or heard of a document like that. Q. Are there any eyewitness accounts from either side or any side? A. No. There are no eyewitness accounts. Q. Can you think of a reason why you would need to have, leaving aside the air raid question, we will come back to that, a double 8 millimetre thick glass spy hole to observe the gassing of corpses or clothes? A. I cannot think of any reason. Q. Can you think of any reason why that door with the luckloch should have a metal grille on the inside of it? A. No. I cannot think of any reason. . P-185 Q. If it were an air raid shelter, can you think of any reason why the metal grilles should be on the inside? A. No, I cannot think of any reason.
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