Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day019.19 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 Q. It just says there were children who were in the camp at the time of the liberation? A. There is no indication of what they are doing there or why they were there. Q. You said also the ones who were sick were also selected for death? A. On the whole, yes. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, I think this is really a little unfair. Professor Evans is not a Holocaust expert. Professor van Pelt has already told your Lordship, which Mr Irving knows perfectly well, that the gas chambers ceased operation in October 1944. MR IRVING: My Lord, Professor Evans on page 114 has gone in some detail into the death books. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. My own feeling is that we went into all these questions, particularly the camp registers, in great deal with Professor van Pelt. You are right in saying that Professor Evans does mention gas chambers in Auschwitz, but he has told you he does not regard himself as a great expert, besides which Mr Rampton's last . P-171 observation does seem to be a fair one, does it not? MR IRVING: I completely endorse this, and I always bow to Mr Rampton's wisdom which is far superior ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: You do not need to do that. MR RAMPTON: I have no wisdom but I have a wizard short- term memory. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is right, is it not, that the gas chambers ceased to exist when they were really destroyed in 1944, so that if there were transports including women and children you would expect to find them within the barbed wire at Auschwitz in 1945? MR IRVING: They must have arrived then as children and they must have avoided selection somehow as children. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It may be that the selection process stopped when the gas chambers disappeared. MR IRVING: If your Lordship will rule that this witness should not be asked questions about Auschwitz, then I will happily comply. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I cannot do that, because he has referred to Auschwitz in his report and therefore he is, it seems to me, amenable to cross-examination on that topic. But if I were you, I really would not bother to cover the same ground, because you cross-examined Professor van Pelt ---- MR IRVING: I agree, but I am in difficulties because this witness has covered the same ground, particularly in his footnote, for example, No. 13 where he says: "As we have . P-172 seen, the camp records did not include those killed or shortly on arrival". MR JUSTICE GRAY: I know. That is why I am not going to rule out this cross-examination, but I say again, the bits that matter in Professor Evans' report start in, I am afraid it is still 30 pages time when he starts to make the historians' criticisms of you, and that is the meat of his report. But I cannot stop you, it seems to me. I can encourage you to take it quickly. MR IRVING: Which is what I am doing. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I can suggest you might not think it really worth doing at all. MR IRVING: My Lord, this is short track I am taking at present. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right. MR IRVING: If I could take you now to page 115, we are now going to deal with Professor Hinsley. On paragraph 16 you say Hinsley did not claim that nearly all the deaths were due to disease. Professor Hinsley is of course a recognized authority, he is not? A. He was, yes. Q. He is an official British historian of the British Intelligence Services? A. He was, yes. Q. In volume 2 of his work he published an appendix, did he not, on the police decodes? . P-173 A. Yes. Q. In the first line you write, in paragraph 16: "All he wrote was that the British decrypts of encoded radio messages sent from Auschwitz did not mention gassings", but in fact if you look at your footnote 18 on the next page he is slightly more specific, is he not? He says: "The returns from Auschwitz, the largest of the camps with 20,000 prisoners, mentioned illness as the main cause of death", is that correct? A. Yes. Q. "It included references to shootings and hangings", and then he continues: "There were no references in the decrypts to gassing". MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I am sorry, I am going to interrupt you because I think we may be able to take this a bit more shortly. Professor van Pelt said, well, that probably is right and it is not very surprising because the decrypts were talking about what was going on in the camps, and the whole point about the gassing was that it was not going on in the camps in that sense. Mr Rampton, am I wrong about that? MR RAMPTON: That is absolutely right. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That was what he said? MR RAMPTON: That is absolutely right. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Therefore, this point -- I am not saying it is not a good point on Hinsley and the decrypts, but that . P-174 is the explanation we have had so far. MR IRVING: I must have nodded when Professor van Pelt said that, my Lord, because if he had said that I would certainly queried that and said: Well, where were the gassings takings place then? MR RAMPTON: I can also tell your Lordship, to save coming back to it, this comes from Mr Irving's website, that on 13th September 1941 Deluge, who was the Chief of the Order Police, sent a message to the forces in Russia about confidentiality and he said this: "That information which is containing State secrets calls for especially secret treatment. Into this category fall exact figures executions. These are to be sent by courier". MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but that is another point. Am I wrong about what I recall Professor van Pelt having said? MR RAMPTON: No, you are absolutely right. What van Pelt, amongst others, has said, it is in his report and I think he also said it in the witness box, is you would not expect to find details of the gassings on the decrypts for two reasons. First, because it was secret, as this message suggests, but much more important because the people who were gassed on arrival were never registered and would not have been subject of the codes anyway. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I thought he had said that. We can look up the reference if you are doubtful. MR IRVING: My Lord, that was a horrendous interruption . P-175 Mr Rampton and I withdraw the nice remarks I said earlier. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not upset Mr Rampton, but I had rather encouraged that, I am afraid it is my fault. MR IRVING: Deluge was only referring to the shootings on the Eastern Front. Deluge was only responsible for the shootings on the Eastern Front. He was in no way responsible for the concentration camp system which came under a completely different hierarchy. I am sure Mr Rampton knows that. MR RAMPTON: No, the point is the same. MR IRVING: But I will move on from there because clearly we are not going to ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you want to take a short break, Mr Irving, at any stage you only have to ask. You know that, do you not? MR IRVING: Can we move on to page 118. We are getting very close now to the ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: You refer to the aerial photographs, but, witness, you are not an expert on Auschwitz, so there is no point really asking you about this at all, is there? I mean all the statements you made about Auschwitz and in these 180 pages so far are, effectively, off the top of your head, because you have not studied it to the same degree other witnesses have? A. I am not making statements about Auschwitz. I am making . P-176 statements here about what you write about Auschwitz, and this is a particular section here which is, if I can find the beginning of it, about the figures, the numbers killed, and I am trying to go through what you write about it. Q. Yes. Are you not familiar with the history of the operation of the Haganah in Germany after World War II? A. No, I am not. My point here is that you claim that the Jews who disappeared did not die but were secretly transported to Palestine by the Haganah and given new identities, rather than have being killed in Auschwitz. I have to say I find that quite a fantastic suggestion for which you provide no documentary basis, even though in other areas, as we have seen repeatedly, you demand the most strictest criteria of documentary support for any statements made about the Nazis policy towards the Jews and what happened to the Jews and so on. Q. Would it fair to expand that sentence that you have just read out slightly: He has, for instance, claimed that some of the Jews who disappeared, because obviously I am not claiming that all Jews disappeared went to Palestine? What you meant there was that I am saying that some of the Jews or a part of or a large part of the Jews but not all of, right? A. I would have to go back to what you wrote there. Q. Clearly I have not suggested that all the Jews who . P-177 disappeared went to Palestine, have I? Do you agree? A. I am afraid I would have to go back and check. I mean where have the bodies gone from -- "There is no trace in Allies' aerial photographs of mass graves in Auschwitz. Where have the bodies gone?" You have supplied more than one answer. So, these answers may cover different groups of Jews of course. Q. Yes. So you accept then that I am talking about a part of the missing Jews? A. Well, the implication in what you write is clearly it is a very significant part, as again your claim that some of the missing Jews had fled to Dresden and were killed in the February 1945 bombing raid. Q. Can we just stay with the Palestine ones? You say that you are not familiar with the operations of the Haganah in Germany after World War II, operating in conjunction with UNRRA, the Refugee and Relief Agency? A. No, I am not, no. You do not provide any evidence that they were secretly transported to Palestine by the Haganah. Q. Do you accept that there is a very lengthy report on the operations of the Haganah in the American Government archives about 250,000 pages long by the Military Governor of Germany describing how ---- A. Mr Irving, I am concerned with what you write here and what you write is a suggestion which is unsupported by . P-178 anything like that, that large numbers of Jews were secretly transported to Palestine by the Haganah and given new identities, therefore, rendered untraceable, and did not die in Auschwitz and other extermination camps or were not shot and killed. Q. So you maintain that this did not happen? You are casting doubt on it? A. No, I am not talking about what happened and what did not happen. I am talking about what you present as having happened. MR JUSTICE GRAY: And the evidence for that? A. And the evidence. MR IRVING: Yes, but I just tried to put to him this lengthy report in the American Government archives and the witness interrupted me halfway through. A. I am sorry. What I am trying to say is that irrespective of that, you do not cite that as evidence. You are simply suggesting, as it seems to me out of thin air, that large numbers of Jews were secretly transported to Palestine and did not die in Auschwitz. Q. Will you accept that I do not write passages like that out of thin air? A. No. Q. That in fact I probably have a very good source which for one reason or another I have not identified? A. No, I am sorry, I will not. . P-179 Q. In other words, you believe that I write this out of thin air, that I make it up? A. I do not see any evidence that you have not made it up. Q. And you are not prepared to accept my suggestion that there is this very lengthy report in the US National archives on the operations of the Haganah written by the American Military Governor? A. Well, you can suggest whatever you like now. The point is what I am doing is looking in here, in this report, is looking at what you have written and said in the past and the documentary support or otherwise that you have adduced for it.
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