Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day019.21 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 Q. It was not before, but you put in a word like "concede" or on the next page 121, first line, "Irving agreed once more conceding that"? A. You have to put that in the context of what I say in the previous paragraph, which is where you go through the usual litany of stuff about casting doubt on the estimate of the numbers killed. You are trying to say that there . P-189 was never any written order from Himmler stating that Hitler decided the Final Solution and so on and so forth. I am using the word "concede" here to balance out what I say in the previous paragraphs. What I am saying really is that your views conform to those of Holocaust deniers, but in this case you do say that there are some unauthorized mass shootings. Q. The words Holocaust denier are becoming more and more meaningless as we progress. If you look at the first on page 121, "Irving agreed once more", conceding (this is 1995) there again these are loaded words, Irving agreed once conceding that "there is no doubt in my mind that on the Eastern Front large numbers of Jews were massacred by criminals with guns, SS men, Ukranians, Lithuanians, whatever, to get rid of them". That is a strange kind of Holocaust denier. A. What I am saying here is that Holocaust deniers, including Monsieur Faurisson, whom I quote on the previous page as saying the same kind of thing, agreeing with you, have always admitted or said that there were unauthorized massacres of Jews behind the Eastern Front. Therefore, that is not evidence of, as it were, not being a Holocaust denier. That has always been a concession they have made to those who have argued that the Nazis killed large numbers of Jews. You yourself have now of course admitted in the course of this trial that there were up to a . P-190 million Jews who were shot behind the Eastern Front as part of a systematic plan. Q. Why do you say admitted? MR RAMPTON: Let him finish. MR JUSTICE GRAY: May I make a suggestion and see whether you agree with it. Your thesis, whether it is right or wrong, is that Mr Irving denies to an extent the fact and the scale of the extermination and whether it was systematic. It seems to me that, if that is your thesis, when you get Mr Irving, he will not like the word, making admissions or concessions that particular events happened, you are going to describe it as an admission or a concession. Is that why you use the word? A. Yes, exactly. Q. It is not really in any sense intended to be denigratory of you, I think? MR IRVING: I disagree, my Lord. In the context of this report it is used as a loaded and as an emotive word. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not read it that way. I really do not. You can take it from me that I do not. A. I certainly did not intend it that way. It is difficult to find another word in this context. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is true. MR IRVING: Page 123, please, paragraph 27, "The standard works on the Holocaust", you write, "make it clear both that a substantial proportion of those killed were shot or . P-191 starved to death or deliberately weakened and made susceptible to fatal diseases as a matter of policy, and that gassings took place at other centres besides Auschwitz, including notably Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka". That is you writing that, is it not, Professor Evans? A. Yes. Q. From what part of that statement or cataclysm that you have written down there yourself do you believe I differ? Is there not one line of that statement with which I agree? A. Well, it looks at the previous part of that paragraph, where you say that, "The Holocaust with a capital 'H' is what's gone down in history in this one sentence form, so to speak: 'Adolf Hitler ordered the killing of six million Jews in Auschwitz'". What I go on to say is that nobody in fact has ever argued that six million Jews were killed by gassing at Auschwitz, or indeed six million Jews were killed in Auschwitz. That is not the common definition of "the Holocaust" and I am trying to say that your notion that that is what the Holocaust with a capital 'H' is is a figment of your own imagination. Q. You have now skirted around answering my direct question. The final sentence of that paragraph is your definition of the word "Holocaust" and there is not one line of that with which I disagree, is there? . P-192 A. Yes, there is. Gassings took place at other centres besides Auschwitz, including notably Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. You denied altogether---- Q. This is a point that his Lordship is familiar with, I have conceded in all my books as well. A. I wrote this report before this trial, Mr Irving. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure about Belzec. MR RAMPTON: No. The concession was recently made in the course of this trial. MR JUSTICE GRAY: And conceded Belzec too? MR IRVING: Yes, my Lord, and also in the books as well. A. I could not know, Mr Irving, what you were going to concede when I used the word in this trial. Q. They are also in the books, are they not, the fact that these gassings took place, exterminations in Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka? The only point I am holding out on is that crematorium No. 2, that particular building. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are now. Yes, I agree. I did not realize that you had been conceding this all along, and indeed I thought at the earlier stages of this trial you were not conceding it, but anyway. A. This is not the case, Mr Irving. MR IRVING: It is an important point. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think it may be. Which books, Mr Irving, can I ask you that? Hitler's War? Do not answer if it is difficult off the top of your head. . P-193 MR IRVING: It would be time consuming to look it up but I will look up the references overnight, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is fine. MR IRVING: I have tripled lined that in the margin, that particular part of the report, as being a definition with which I wholeheartedly agree. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes? A. My view is that you did not agree with that definition when you said, "The Holocaust with a capital 'H' is what's gone down in history in this one sentence form, so to speak: 'Adolf Hitler ordered the killing of six million Jews in Auschwitz'". MR IRVING: That is the popular view, is it not? A. No. Q. The man on the Clapham omnibus view. If you say to him, "What is the Holocaust?", he will say, "Is that not that guy Hitler, did he not kill 6 million Jews in Auschwitz?" Is that not the common view of the Holocaust now? A. "The Holocaust with a capital 'H' is what's gone down in history in this one sentence form, so to speak: 'Adolf Hitler ordered the killing of six million Jews in Auschwitz'". I am not aware of anybody in print who has argued or suggested that. Q. Even when I am quite specific about how huge the figures concerned are, I am looking now at the next paragraph, you dismiss that as being just one occasion when . P-194 I accidentally or inadvertently conceded these huge figures. A. Well, let me make a couple of point about that. That is the only occasion I could find. Q. Yes. A. I did not find any more. And, of course, when you say 4 million, then you say that is of course due mainly to barbarity and typhus and epidemics, as you say, and you have many other statements which I cite in my report, where you say the Nazis killed in the order of thousands at a time, not millions, as you said in 1990. Q. Can we just ---- A. I also make the point that of course that last statement, the statement before the last one, the last statement I quoted you as saying the Nazis killed of the order of thousands at a time, not millions, as in 1990, and your exceptional figure, the only instance I could find of 4 million, where you mentioned barbarity and typhus and epidemics was in 1995. In other words, that is after Professor Lipstadt's book was published. Q. Can we just reel back slightly there? Looking at the last sentence in paragraph 29, the Nazis killed in the order of thousands at a time, not millions. I am not going to bother the court with looking up what the omission is because I will presume it is not important. But it is perfectly correct, is it not, that the Nazis killed them . P-195 thousands at a time, did they not? They did not kill them millions at a time? A. I guess it depends what you mean by "at a time". Q. In other words, there is one trench with thousands being lined up and shot into it on a particular morning. That statement is accurate, is that right? A. In that sense, yes, of course. Q. And July 27th 1995 is over a year before the writ was issued in this particular action? A. Yes, I do quote this here, but I do point out that it is after Professor Lipstadt published her book. Q. Have you any evidence that I took cognisance of the content of Professor Lipstadt's book or indeed even of her opinions before the middle of 1996? A. No. I am not suggesting anything. There is no suggestion in my report that you said that because Professor Lipstadt had published her book. Q. Is not the evidence in fact that some time in 1996 I obtained a copy of the report of the book round about April when I was marketing the Goebbels biography, and that I immediately wrote a letter before action and took legal steps. So it was 1996 after I made this broadcast? A. Yes. I am not suggesting anything else. as I said, I repeat myself, I am not suggesting that you said this because of Professor Lipstadt's book. Q. So this broadcast cannot have been self-serving in any . P-196 particular way in connection with this action? A. I am not concerned with why you made this broadcast. Q. Would it be possible that I made those statements because I considered them to be true, in your view? A. Perfectly possible, yes. Let me quote the whole statement we are talking about. "I have to say, the figure I would have to give you is a minimum of one million, which is a monstrous crime, and a maximum of about 4 million, depending on what you mean by killed. If putting people into a concentration camp where they die of barbarity and typhus and epidemics is killing, then I would say the 4 million figure, because undoubtedly huge numbers did die in the camps in the conditions that were very evident at the end of the war", and on other occasions, as I go on to say, you have argued that the deaths from disease in the camps were due in large measure to the allied bombing of the factories that made the medicines in Germany. Q. Professor Evans, have I put this July 1995 broadcast with those figures on my website for the world to see already for a couple of years now? A. It is here in my report, Mr Irving. I have not suppressed it. Q. No, but is there any indication that it was a one off on my part and I blurted it out by mistake at four in the morning, this is after all Australia I am talking to? A. When did you put it on your website? . P-197 Q. Well, within the last year or two. A. That is after the beginning of this action. Q. Yes. In other words, there is no reason to suggest that this is a one off broadcast. You said that it is the one recorded episode. There may have been more episodes when I gave the same kind of figures. A. It is the one recorded episode when I wrote this report which I finished last spring, spring last year. Q. But in fact the figures I give there are probably pretty accurate, are they not? Killed by all means? Order of one to four million? Hilberg says 5.1 million, others say 6 million, does that make me a Holocaust denier because I come down to four? A. I think, in conjunction with the other things -- well, let me say two things. First of all, this is an isolated statement by the time I had written this report, and you had not made it before Professor Lipstadt wrote her book. You have many other statements where you give much lower figures, and indeed the interviewer Rawden Casey was extremely surprised that you should give this figure. Secondly, you suggested and you have to take this as a kind of package, that huge numbers died in the camps in the conditions that were very evident at the end of the war, and that epidemics ----
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