Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day020.18 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 Q. Answer my question. Is it likely that if he is a Jewish writer he is probably not going to be disposed to me in a very friendly way initially until he gets to know me, is that correct? A. No, it seems to be -- I do not accept that, no. . P-159 Q. "Moreover, in the course of his conversation with Mr Rosenbaum, Irving admitted", you say, "of some Holocaust deniers 'that there are certain organizations that propagate these theories which are cracked anti-Semites'". Does that show that I am a great admirer of these organizations? A. Well, I do not know. You do not say, or Rosenbaum does not say, what organizations you are referring to, so it is impossible to guess. Q. Well, you would not expect a Holocaust denier like David Irving roundly to dismiss other organizations of Holocaust deniers as "cracked anti-Semites"? A. Do you do not mention what those organizations are. It would be more plausible, more plausible if you did. Q. Well, what organizations do you think I was talking about there. A. I really ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Why do you not put to the witness which organizations you... MR IRVING: My Lord, that was going to be the follow up question when he answered, "No, I do not know which ones" and I was going to say could it possibly be -- would I have been talking about the Institute of Historical Review? A. You do not mention them. Q. Yes. Would I have been talking ---- . P-160 A. It is impossible to tell who you are talking about. Q. Are you surprised to hear somebody ---- A. As I say here, you say this without actually saying who you meant by this or what kind of damage or harm you are referring to ---- Q. Does it surprise you to hear that ---- A. --- the damage done to you. Q. --- I regard a number of these Holocaust deniers as "cracked anti-Semites"? A. I have not read anything that you have written that refers specifically to any specific individual or organization as being "cracked anti-Semites", only these very, very general statements which really have very little value because they have no precision, no reference. Q. They have no precision, but this is as represented by a neutral observer who has spoken to a lot of authors, and do you accept that -- are you surprised to read in a book that I have described Holocaust deniers as "cracked anti-Semites"? A. I have -- some Holocaust deniers. What you say, "there are certain organizations that propagate these theories which are cracked anti-Semites" but it is impossible to say who you are referring to. Q. Now, Rosenbaum's book was reviewed, thank goodness, by Norman Stone who pointed out that Rosenbaum is yet another of these ignorant, negligent reviewers whom have met . P-161 before, is that is correct; that he had not done his homework and he did not know enough to write such a book properly? Is that the next paragraph's burden, 3.6.2? A. Let me just have a look. He says that stone was critical of Rosenbaum. He said he could not follow subjects, he had misunderstood one of books he was writing about. That is certainly the case, yes. It is a critical review. Q. Yes. So why did you mention the Rosenbaum book because you do accept that there are serious authors out there who accept that I am not a Holocaust denier and that I do have differentiated views and that I regard Holocaust deniers as "crack pots" and you could not get passed this? A. Nobody says that you regard Holocaust deniers as crack pots. What you say is that there are certain organizations, unnamed, that propagate these theories which are cracked anti-Semites. You do not say that all Holocaust deniers are crack pots. Q. Does it matter what the name of the organization is if I just refer to Holocaust ---- A. Yes, of course it does because this is so vague it is completely meaningless. It is just -- I mean, one could read this as just some kind of alibi. It has no reference at all. It is a meaningless statement unless you actually say who you are talking about. Q. I could hardly be more specific. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Put to him the organizations that you regard . P-162 as consisting of cracked anti-Semites. Is the IHR one of them? MR IRVING: I did, my Lord, and he waffled. We did not get a clear answer. A. Well, let me say ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: So your case is -- I want to be clear about this -- you do regard the IHR as an organization consisting of cracked anti-Semites, is that your case? MR IRVING: I think that the correct thing to say there is that it consists of some elements which are cracked anti-Semites. I do not think I would wish to brand an entire organization. As far as I know, some of the officers of that organization, I would regard them as cracked anti-Semites. That is the point I wanted to make plain in my discussion with Mr Rosenbaum, but I would respectfully submit ---- MR RAMPTON: I would like to know who those people are. It has some bearing on what is to come. MR IRVING: Your time will come in cross-examination, Mr Rampton, to ask that question, and it would be helpful if you did not interrupt. I would say that ---- MR RAMPTON: Perhaps it would have more value, my Lord, if it came directly now, otherwise we may find a list composed later. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, if I may say so, Mr Rampton, since Mr Irving has taken the point that he does not want to say . P-163 at this stage in the course of his cross-examination of Professor Evans, I think he is entitled to say that. MR RAMPTON: All right. MR IRVING: And I would respectfully submit ---- A. However, Mr Irving, if you were, of course -- if you do think that the certain organizations that propagate these theories and certain organizations, not individuals, which are cracked anti-Semites and if the Institute of Historical Review is an organization which is cracked anti-Semites, then it is extraordinary that you should have spoken so regularly at their meetings in the course of the 1990s. Q. Do you consider this view, as you just stated, expressed to Mr Rosenbaum, as a kind of alibi that I just use to people like him? A. Well, in its vagueness, it sounds rather like that to me, but I am speculating there. I am simply quoting your statements here. Q. Is this the only occasion when I have expressed such a view, to your knowledge, having had complete access to all my papers? A. I think there is one other occasion, but I cannot recall exactly where it is. Q. Can I suggest you look at page 90 of my bundle, please? A. Ah, yes. Q. A letter to "Dear Connie" -- does your Lordship have it? . P-164 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, when you say your bundle, do you mean F? MR IRVING: Bundle F, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: 90, that is a letter. MR IRVING: "Dear Connie""? A. Yes, I have this, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Dear Miss Kadashka" I have got at page 90. MR IRVING: No, it has to be "Dear Connie". MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mine is 89, but it does not matter. MR IRVING: Is this letter dated June 24th 1988? A. It is, yes. Q. Is this about two months after I read the Leuchter report, in other words, two months after the Zundel conference -- the Zundel trial? A. The trial. Q. Yes. A. You will have to remind. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is right. Take it from me. A. Is that right? OK. MR IRVING: Can I read to you the final paragraph or the bits thereof? First of all, looking at the address at the bottom, am I writing to my publishers, William Morrow & Company in New York ---- A. Yes. Q. --- who published the Goring biography. "I have been invited to speak as a guest speaker at a right wing . P-165 function in Los Angeles next February. They have offered a substantial fee and all my expenses and until now I have adopted a policy of never refusing an invitation if the organizers meet my terms, namely free speech and fat fee. On this occasion I intend to give the audience a piece of my mind about some of their more lunatic views". Does it say that? A. It does indeed, yes. Q. So, in other words, I do not just express views about crack pot anti-Semites and crack pot ideas or whatever as an alibi, but on the evidence of this letter (which I found in the early hours of this morning by chance) on quite a few occasions I have expressed robust views about people I associate with? A. This, Mr Irving, is not evidence of what you actually said at this meeting, if you indeed went to it. It is simply a letter to a publisher, obviously. You do not say what their lunatic views are and there is no evidence here that you have gave them a piece of mind. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Who was the right-wing organization holding a meeting in? MR IRVING: That was the IHR, my Lord. That was precisely this body, the Institute of Historical Review, who at that time were under different management, if I can put it like that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So the lunatic views attached to the old . P-166 management, not to the present regime, is that it? MR IRVING: I shall be submitting to your Lordship at the proper occasion that as the years passed, I tried to persuade them to adopt a more serious profile, to invite respected historians as well as more unorthodox revisionist historians and try to straighten their act out, if I can put it like that. There is correspondence ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: So you did have an association that enabled you to bring that sort of pressure to bear, did you? MR IRVING: Oh, yes. They looked to me. They were constantly wooing me and I wrote them letters saying, "In my view, you should do this and you should do that", and I am sure they got similar advice from other people. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much. MR IRVING: Thank you. So do you accept that on the basis of those two letters I had a robust attitude towards the Institute which indicated I was in no manner travelling in their tow or in their wake? A. Sorry, what is the other letter? Q. Well, on the basis of the Ron Rosenbaum ---- A. Ah, yes, the interview. Q. --- matter and this letter. A. I have to say that on the basis of having read your speeches or articles in the Institute and its Journal that you did come to them in the 80s for the first time that . P-167 you went to speak at the Institute with what seems to me like a certain apprehension of the fact that your views would differ somewhat from theirs, but this disappears, in my view, entirely in the 1990s when you were a regular attender at their conferences and a regular speaker. Q. At their conferences I regularly rubbed their noses in what actually happened in the Holocaust and that I read out the Bruns' interrogation report in all its gory detail of the shootings on the Eastern Front, and that I was held up to criticism by some of their members for doing this? A. You read out parts of the Bruns' report, excluding the reference to Hitler's order which we went through sometime ago in this trial. You have a very selective version of it. I think you did say at the beginning of this trial you had not actually read it out before. I do not deny that there were some arguments in discussion (as there always is in discussions) after your speeches, but in the 1990s I think you were purveying the same views as they had on the whole. There were some minor differences between yourself, in particular, Professor Faurisson, but your speeches to the Institute of Historical Review did not meet with jeers and cat calls, as I recall. Q. They did not meet with jeers and cat calls. Do you believe that a body like the Institute of Revisionist Historians, or whatever they call themselves, performs any . P-168 useful function at all? A. No.
Home ·
Site Map ·
What's New? ·
Search
Nizkor
© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012
This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and
to combat hatred.
Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.
As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may
include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and
provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist
and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.