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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