Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day014.01
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE            1996 I. No. 113
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice
                                           Strand, London
                                  Wednesday, 2nd February 2000

                                Before:
                            MR JUSTICE GRAY

        B E T W E E N:
DAVID JOHN CAWDELL IRVING
                                                Claimant
-and-

(1) PENGUIN BOOKS LIMITED
(2) DEBORAH E. LIPSTADT
                                                Defendants
   The Claimant appeared in person
   MR RICHARD RAMPTON Q.C. (instructed by Messrs Davenport Lyons
and Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the First and Second Defendants
   MISS HEATHER ROGERS (instructed by Davenport Lyons) appeared on
behalf of the First Defendant Penguin Books Limited

MR ANTHONY JULIUS (of Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of
        the Second Defendant Deborah Lipstadt

        (Transcribed from the stenographic notes of Harry Counsell
& Company, Clifford's Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4 Telephone: 020-7242-9346)
(This transcript is not to be reproduced without the
            written permission of Harry Counsell & Company)

PROCEEDINGS - DAY FOURTEEN



.          P-1

        (Day 14  Wednesday, 2nd February 2000.  10.30 a.m.)


   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes?
   MR IRVING:   My Lord, may it please the court.  Mr Rampton
        wishes to put the witness van Pelt back in the witness box
        (and I have no objections) to take further submissions in
        connection with the challenged document.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Right.
   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  The incineration capacity?
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, he has done his homework and I am just going
        to let him tell your Lordship ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Whilst we remember what the point is, it is a
        good idea.
   MR RAMPTON:  Can I, first of all, pass up to your Lordship, as
        requested, he has given your Lordship a nomenclature guide
        for Auschwitz and also he has done a hand drawn sketch
        plan of the whole site.  I suggest your Lordship puts that
        in the front of the Auschwitz file, probably the second
        Auschwitz file.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  K2?
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, K2.  The documents which he will produce in a
        moment will go in tab 4 of K2, I suggest.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You have had these documents, Mr Irving, have you?
   MR IRVING:  Yes, my Lord, I have just received them.

.          P-2

   MR RAMPTON:  Yes.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I see, this is what I asked for.
   MR RAMPTON:  It is, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Thank you very much.  I had not realized what it was.

(PROFESSOR VAN PELT, recalled. Further re-examined by MR RAMPTON, QC.)


   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Professor, thank you very much for doing
        that.  Yes, Mr Rampton?
   MR RAMPTON:  Professor van Pelt, just one question.  Have you
        taken up his Lordship's request or invitation to study
        this document, which is the one we had which is the
        document of 28th June 1943, which relates to incineration
        capacity, to study the question whether or not it is
        authentic ----
   A.   Yes, I have.
   Q.   Its having been challenged.  Will you then please tell his
        Lordship what conclusions you have reached by reference to
        this document and any others in this little clip?  Can you
        give that to the judge?
   A.   I have last night with what was still available to me,
        because I only carry a small bundle of documents I carried
        with me to London and even some already had been packed
        I did not want to open the box, but whatever I had, I was
        going to look at a couple of the challenges which had been
        made yesterday by Mr Irving.

.          P-3

                  Before I go into that, I would like to present,
        first of all, my copy, my marked copy, which is No. 1 of
        the document which comes from Moscow.  There are some
        calculations on the back, on the side, which are
        irrelevant.  I have indicated on this, this is page No. 1,
        on what were the particular issues Mr Irving found
        important which is the way the date was typed in as 28th
        June 1943 without a location, without Auschwitz,
        Achtundzwanzigte Juni Neunhundertdreiundvierzig.
                  The second thing which was challenged yesterday
        was the code which indicates the Brieftage Buchnumber
        which is 31550, and then Jahrling, or Jahrling, and then
        the secretary.
                  The third one was the title of SS Brigadefuhrer
        Generalmayor der Waffen SS Kammler.
                  On the last point, I did not have find any
        document where the same mistake had happened.  So I cannot
        explain that or I cannot give any second document, but
        then I only had one other document with me which was the
        Vergasungskeller letter of 29th June 1943 where Kammler
        has got on the right and the correct title.
                  The first document I would like to present which
        is a new document is No. 2, which is the copy which is in
        the Domburg archive in the DDR -- the former DDR now - -
        and which was made available to the Auswenzin archive.
        This was the document, the copy which actually has been

.          P-4

        published in the 50s, and I have here the original.
        I have given you a copy of my copy, but I have here the
        original copy from the Auschwitz archive with the original
        stamp on it, so I do not know.
   MR RAMPTON:  I do believe his Lordship ought to see that partly
        because our copy ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is not a very good copy.
   MR RAMPTON:  It is not a very good copy.  There are some colour
        on that, original colour on that.
   A.   This copy is not much better, but at least it shows the
        original stamp of the archive.
   MR IRVING:  Just so we can be plain, this one went, in other
        words, to East Germany and Auschwitz, not the other way
        round?
   A.   Yes, probably.
   Q.   Where it was stamped?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Just to make sure I am following, the one
        that we have previously been looking at, I thought you
        said came originally from the Moscow archives?
   A.   That is the Moscow copy, yes.
   Q.   This is DDR?
   A.   Domburg, yes, the Domburg archive, which has been
        available in Poland since at least -- this was published
        in the 50s and this is also the document which went to
        Vienna, this particular copy.  A copy of that was made
        available to Vienna.

.          P-5

                  Now, what is important in this second copy, and
        it is not a very clear copy, but I think the essential
        information is the same.  I mean, the information is the
        same but the formatting is different.  We see when we look
        at this particular copy, we see at the top it says
        "Abschrift" which means this is a typed copy.  There was
        no photocopy machine in it.  So while the original, the
        Moscow copy No. 1 is a carbon copy of the original, the
        second one is actually a newly typed copy, and with all
        these newly typed copies there would always have been a
        note at the bottom.  It should be signed.  It says: "Fur
        Die Richtigkeit der Abschrift which means for the correct ----
   Q.   Accuracy?
   A.   --- the correctness of this copy and then there is an
        initial there.  It is very difficult even in my copy to
        see who actually signed this.
                  The reason that I think this is quite important
        is that this is a different copy of the Moscow one which
        is in a different archive.  So we have now two different
        objects, both talking about an incineration capacity of
        4,756 persons in the camp.  If, indeed, the Moscow --
        I mean, I think it is very, very unlikely that somebody
        who would have falsified this document, made it up
        afterwards, would have created both a carbon copy of one
        and then have made a new kind of Abschrift of that same

.          P-6

        document, and then placed it into two different archives.
   Q.   Well, on the contrary, I thought that might have been what
        a determined forger might have done.
   A.   So that he actually make two different versions of the
        same copy?
   Q.   I understand your point.
   A.   I disagree with your Lordship on that, but your opinion in
        the end is more important than mine on this, I think.
   Q.   Your are rather better informed than me.
   A.   This very much takes the format of a typed copy as you
        find in the Auschwitz archive.  So I think that in this
        case there is a convergence of two different objects,
        showing in two different archives, that, indeed, we have
        here, you know, as far as I say with absolute certainty in
        the original document.  But there were other challenges
        made and, in order to deal with the other challenges,
        I would like to go to a very short review of the way
        documents in the Auschwitz archive, both letters and also
        copies, are dated, and the way the code which shows which
        file it has to go in is done.
                  So when I go to No. 3, which is a letter from
        Bischoff, the chief architect to the chief doctor in
        Auschwitz, of 30th June 1944, about the building of small
        morgues in Birkenhau, they were built in the existing
        barracks -- every camp in Birkenhau would get one morgue
         -- we see basically that the heading says Auschwitz, 30th

.          P-7

        June, "den 30.Juni 1944".  It would be the normal accepted
        way of dating a letter, and then we see the brief type of
        book number.  We see there two numbers and then we see
        "Jo" which is for Jotam who was at that moment the chief
        architect, and "Go" without dots, without periods.
                  If we go to No. 4, this is a record of a
        meeting.  We see that the date is again Auschwitz, 30th
        January 1943, but we see that the secretary who typed this
        letter in this case has a period behind the initial.
                  If we go to No. 5, which is a letter to Topf u.
        Sohne, a carbon copy of a letter to Topf u. Sohne, which
        was done on letter head, we see that there is no place.
        It says simply 28th February 1943.  In this case there are
        no periods behind the initials of both Jahrling and the
        secretary.
   Q.   When you say "no place" do you mean no "den" ----
   A.   No period.  It does not say Auschwitz den 28th February.
        Mr Irving yesterday challenged the authenticity of the
        Moscow document because there was no place.  So this one
        does not have a place given.
                  Then we have No. 6 which is one of these typed
        copies, Abschrift, which does not have a place which
        probably would be, you know, probably would also not have
        been in the original.  But what we see here is that the
        secretary has again a period behind her name, but the
        Jahrling thing, we see in this case Jahrling is typed JA

.          P-8

        umlaut H, while in other ones he is only typed as JAH,
        umlaut, which means now they have added an H.  So there
        seemed to be at least also the way the name has been
        shortened, there seems to be no kind of agreement on it.
                  Then we go to No. 8 because No. 7 is the --- -
   Q.   Second page?
   A.   --- the second page of that letter.  We see that again the
        secretary has a period and then Dr E has a period.  He is
        one of the doctors in the camp.   No. 9 we see again, no
        place.  This is a letter to Hoess from Bischoff and one
        would have expected this to be probably correct, following
        the correct format.  We see that there is no place
        indicated.  It says 12th February 1943.  Again, the
        secretary has a period but not the Sturmbannfuhrer Pollok,
        who dictated the letter.  But, when we go to No. 10 and
        No. 11 ----
   Q.   There is a point on 6.  I just wonder whether it is a good
        point or a bad point?  Tell me.  The tagebuch number is in
        typescript, not manuscript.
   A.   Sometimes it is typescript, sometimes manuscript.

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