Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day012.03
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

   Q.   So Professor Bauer, who was the commissioning, the head of
        the Institute which paid the commission to Professor
        Lipstadt to write this research project originally,
        received the original draft and he said, "Not good enough,
        we need more on David Irving", is that what he said?
   A.   That is a fair summary.
   Q.   I will see if we can find the exact letter.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Page 161.
   MR IRVING:  Thank you very much, my Lord.  I am indebted to
        you.
   A.   161.
   Q.   Will you please turn to page 161?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   He says, and it is fair to say this, in a letter to the
        Second Defendant:  "The book is extremely well written and
        fascinating", this is 1992, "but I suppose what you want
        is a critique.  What I miss in the main is the world wide
        perspective".  Then he goes on a bit lower down to say
        that, in his view, the author has concentrated too much on
        North America and I believe on France.  "Irvin is
        mentioned but not that he is the mainstay of Holocaust
        denial today in Western Europe".  So what do you think
        Professor Bauer is asking her to do?
   A.   He is clearly asking her to expand the coverage on you.

.          P-19

   Q.   Right.  If you will now turn to page 163, a month later we
        have a letter from the Second Defendant to an Englishman,
        Anthony Lerman, who wears various hats.  Here he is at a
        newspaper or magazine called "Patterns of Prejudice", and
        is it fair to say this is a letter asking her for more
        information on David Irving because she has now been given
        the job of shoe-horning this British author into the book?
   A.   Yes, that seems to be the import of that letter.
   Q.   Does she say,"I am just finishing up the book and, as you
        can well imagine, David Irving figures into it quite
        prominently".  Do you have in your files a few Irving
        articles from recent months?"  So would you say that she
        is now asking for whatever various bodies around the world
        because there were other letters, are there not, of this
        nature?
   A.   Yes, and she clearly views him as one of the most
        dangerous figures.
   Q.   My Lord, the reason I am asking these questions is as a
        means of putting these letters before the court.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I see your difficulty and I see what you
        are doing.  This seems to me to be more relevant than the
        general sort of evidence that the Professor was giving
        earlier.  So let us see what the reply was, shall we?
   MR IRVING:  I hear what you say.  I am very nearly finished, in
        fact, with the examination.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, this is not irrelevant.

.          P-20



   MR IRVING:  On the following page, page 1674, does Anthony
        Lerman, now on the headed notepaper of the Institute of
        Jewish Affairs, say that he is going to fax a lot of
        material to her?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   From your reading of this file, have you observed that
        various Jewish organizations maintain files on people like
        that?
   A.   It is quite clear, yes, from this file plus from other
        things I have read, yes.
   Q.   Do you know any names of other famous authors that they
        have kept files on, both Jewish and non-Jewish?
   A.   Noam Chomsky comes to mind -- I cannot think of specific
        names right now.
   Q.   Very well.  Do you think that these organizations give a
        chance to the victims of their dossier keeping to have a
        look in those files to see if the materials they keep in
        them are correct or not?
   A.   Not without a great deal of legal proceedings.  I should
        say there are other people, like people associated with
        the Institute of Historical Review and other so-called
        revisionists, and they are, well, they do keep documents,
        dossiers, in there.
   Q.   Yes.  Did you see an affidavit in this file from the
        Director of a British organization, a similar British
        organization, in which he confirms that he provided

.          P-21

        material on me to the Canadian Government indirectly?
   A.   Yes.  I do not recall the page again, but, yes.
   Q.   And for the purpose purely of abrogating my freedom of
        speech in Canada?  Would you agree that is correct?
   A.   That is correct, and there are several instances in which
        your talks and so on were -- there was pressure placed on
        organizations, hotels or wherever the venues were, to
        cancel these talks and so on.
   Q.   So we are now going from the particular of what you have
        seen in this file very briefly back to the general, do you
        consider what you have seen in this file by way of
        evidence in my particular case, over the last 10 years, to
        be part of a group strategy that has been evolved by the
        Jewish communities around the world to protect themselves
        or to preserve their interests?
   A.   Yes, I think that anti-Semitism is, you know, a perennial
        problem, and Jewish organizations have developed very
        sophisticated ways of dealing with it.  This is one way of
        dealing with it.  Anti-Semitism or any anti-Semitism is
        fought very, very intensely.  They take it very seriously
        and they do quite a job, obviously, of suppressing it, yes.
   Q.   Whom do you mean by anti-Semites, people who go round
        scoring swastikas on synagogues or people who have a
        genuine grievance?
   A.   Well, yes, the term they will use is very broad.  The word

.          P-22



         -- I am not saying, I am not implying that you are an
        anti-Semite, I am saying that people they view as being
        detrimental to their interests.  Some of them might -- the
        term "anti-Semitism" is hard to define anyway.
   Q.   Have you seen references in this file to the Second
        Defendant and others describing me as being "a danger"?
   A.   Absolutely.  It says right in the previous document we
        have just mentioned.
   Q.   Particularly dangerous?
   A.   The Second Defendant mentioned you as a very dangerous
        person.
   Q.   In what way am I dangerous, do you suspect?  Am I the kind
        of person that they think I may place a bomb in their
        letter box or what kind of danger are they referring to?
   A.   No, obviously, they view you as a danger because of your
        intellectual -- because of your writings.
   Q.   But a danger to what?
   A.   I believe they think it is a danger to their, what they
        view as an important, that their version of events be
        accepted as the truth, and that the dissent from certain
        of these tenets should be viewed as beyond the pale of
        rational discussion.
   Q.   Finally, in order to pre-empt a question Mr Rampton may
        wish to ask, do you consider me to be an anti-Semite from
        your knowledge of me?
   A.   I do not consider you to be an anti-Semite.  I have had

.          P-23

        quite a few discussions with you now and you have almost
        never even mentioned Jews and, when you have, never in a
        general negative way.
   Q.   Yes.  So from your discussions in private with me, or from
        your perceptions of me in company with circles who might
        be considered to be receptive to such remarks, you have
        never heard me expressing any anti-Semitic utterances of
        any kind or beliefs?
   A.   No.
   Q.   I do not think I have any further questions of this
        witness at this stage.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, was the material promised by
        Mr Lerman in the letter at page 164 ever provided?
   MR IRVING:  It is identifiable in the discovery, but only
        fragmentary.  There are pages missing.  I made application
        for the missing pages without much success.  I was
        informed that I could go behind her affidavit when the
        time came to cross-examine her, and as your Lordship now
        knows, I am going to be denied that opportunity.  So it is
        a rather unhappy position.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But is it in this bundle somewhere, or not?
   MR IRVING:  It is certainly in the discovery, my Lord, and it
        was of the nature of press clippings and that kind of
        thing which I may have included in part, but it would not
        have served any purpose in this bundle.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  All right.  Thank you very much.  That was

.          P-24

        economically done.  Thank you, Professor McDonald.
   MR RAMPTON:  I have no questions.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Thank you very much, Professor McDonald.
        There is no cross-examination so that concludes your
        evidence.
   MR IRVING:  Is the witness released, my Lord?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, you are released.  You are free to go.

                  (The witness withdrew)

   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, as I understand the plan, you are
        going back in the witness box to be cross-examined
        further.
   MR IRVING:  We have one witness which we are calling on
        Thursday, I believe, Mr Peter Millar, in my timetable.
        I try occasionally to adhere to my timetable.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  He is Goebbels diaries, is he not.
   MR IRVING:  That is correct.  He is Moscow.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not know whether the idea of reducing
        the ambit of the evidence on that issue has brought forth
        any fruit.  If it has, well and good.
   MR IRVING:  I did hear Mr Rampton mention that they were going
        to try and plead section 5 on Goebbels, and no-one would
        be happier than I, because I think it would place him in
        an indefensible position if they were to do that.
   MR RAMPTON:  I am sorry, that is a misapprehension.  I fall
        back on section 5 if I need it, but essentially the plea
        in relation to Moscow is that the substance of what was

.          P-25

        said is true.  Mr Peter Millar helps to prove it.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If it is remaining an issue -- I just had an
        idea that it would be possible and obviously desirable to
        maybe have some admitted facts with a view to reducing the
        ambit of the oral evidence.
   MR RAMPTON:  There is an admission by Mr Irving in writing
        already.  If we can get him by writing to him to admit
        that what Mr Peter Millar says in his witness statement is
        correct, then we do not need to call Mr Millar.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  This is the sort of thing I had in mind.  It
        is only a suggestion, obviously.
                  Yes, Mr Irving, would you like to go back into
        the witness box?

        ( MR DAVID IRVING, recalled.  Cross-Examined by MR RAMPTON, QC.)


   MR RAMPTON:  Mr Irving, there is one thing I would like to pick
        up from Auschwitz, which is now more or less a closed
        book, which arose during the course of your
        cross-examination of Professor van Pelt.  Do you remember
        the radio signal of 15th September 1942 ordering a car
        from Auschwitz to Lodsh?
   A.   With the feldofen, yes.
   Q.   Yes.
   Q.   Do you remember that you produced a translation in court
        which translated the German word feldofen as field
        kitchens?

.          P-26

   A.   Yes.
   Q.   His Lordship drew your attention to that translation or,
        one might say, mistranslation.
   A.   No. His Lord asked who made the translation.
   Q.   You said you did.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   You said that you made it at 2 o'clock that morning, and
        that there was an element of stress, thus accounting for
        mistranslation?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Could I ask you to look at a piece of paper, please?
        (Same handed) Do you recognize that piece of paper?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   What is it?
   A.   It is from my web site, yes.
   Q.   Yes.  Despite what you told his Lordship about having that
        done that mistranslation under stress at 2 o'clock in the
        morning the same day, that has been on your web site since
        at least 24th November last year.
   A.   This is true.  However, what I said is also true.
        I re-translated it that morning.  This was presumably put
        on my web site a year and a half ago so, rather than go to
        the web site to find out what translation I used for two
        and a half lines a year and a half ago, I just
        re-translated it.

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