Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day008.34
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

   MR RAMPTON:  Maybe. I do not know that I think that that is an
        answer to his Lordship's question.  Perhaps that is no
        business of mine.  He goes on: "Additionally, if the gas
        eventually did fill the chamber over a lengthy time period
        those throwing Zyklon B in the roof vents and verifying
        the death of the occupants would themselves die from
        exposure to H C N".
   A.   I would have thought it was rather unscientific also.
   Q.   It is complete rubbish, is it not? H C N is slightly
        heavier than air, is it not, and they wore gas masks, and
        all they did was lift up the vents and drop the pellets in
        and quickly close the vents?
   A.   The ones on top of the roof, right.
   Q.   So what is left of this report, Mr Irving?
   A.   The forensic statistics which are what I base my
        conclusions on.
   Q.   Which is precisely consistent with what Professor
        Markievitch found in 1994, and what Krakov found in 1945,
        is it not?
   Q.   Small traces?
   A.   What I have always said, Mr Rampton, is that the report is

.          P-117



        flawed and in my letters to associates I clearly said what
        a pity Leuchter started speculating about things that were
        beyond his ken when the chemical figures are all that can
        be relied upon and that speak the real language.
   Q.   Mr Irving, the position is this, is it not?  You know as
        well as I do that this Leuchter report is not worth the
        paper it is written on.  You know that he got the crucial
        concentration completely the wrong way round and therefore
        drew false conclusions from it.  You know that the true
        measurement of concentration is consistent with what
        Krakov found in 1945 and with what Markievitch found in
        1994.  Your only way round that is to assert that these
        were indeed gas chambers, but not for killing people.  Is
        that not right?
   A.   Designed as, yes.  But what I do not accept is your
        suggestion that the Leuchter report is totally valueless.
        The most important part of the Leuchter report was the
        forensic results which were done in fact not by
        Mr Leuchter but by Dr Roth.
   Q.   Which is precisely consistent with the kinds of
        concentrations in residue which you would expect to find
        if on the one hand there are low residue areas with
        homicidal gas chambers, and on the other hand the high
        residue areas were delousing chambers?
   A.   Not entirely.  That is going to extremes and you are not
        entitled to go to total extremes like that.

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   Q.   Broadly consistent?
   A.   I do not think even broadly so.
   Q.   You have known this since ----
   A.   The total discrepancy in these figures is so eclatant, is
        to dramatic, that there has to be some explanation for them.
   Q.   So you say.  You can put that to Professor van Pelt.
   A.   So I say and so I believe.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can I go back to an answer you gave a minute
        ago?  Mr Rampton asked this question: You know that the
        measurement of concentrations is consistent with what was
        found in 1945 and 1994; your only way round that - this is
        the question -  is to assert that these were indeed gas
        chambers but not for killing people, is that not right?
        And then you said "designed as, yes".  Can you elaborate a
        little on that?
   A.   We do not know to what degree they were then subsequently
        used.
   Q.   Do you mean by that that these chambers were designed as
        gas chambers for killing people?
   A.   No, I did not mean that, my Lord.  I meant that we know
        that this particular one, the crematoria 2, the one which
        interests me, Leichenkeller 1, the mass one where
        Professor van Pelt says 500 thousand people died, that the
        documentary evidence shows that it was also designed with
        dual functions as an air raid shelter and as a fumigation

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        chamber.  We do not know whether it was used in either of
        those capacities.
   Q.   Designed as a fumigation chamber?
   A.   That is what I should have spelt out.  We have not really
        been told what these other reports say yet.
   Q.   No, I am waiting to hear.
   MR RAMPTON:  There is one other part of this report, Mr Irving,
        which is not dealt with in that list of the bullet points
         -- I would say that they were blanks rather bullets - - in
        Mr Leuchter's report.  It is incineration capacity.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   He got that completely wrong, did he not?
   A.   Incineration capacity has been a matter of great debate
        among...
   Q.   I know that, but answer my question.  Leuchter got it
        wrong, did he not?
   A.   I would not be surprised if he got it wrong.
   Q.   Completely wrong?
   A.   I would not be surprised if he got it wrong.  There are
        very widely different opinions.  Even the experts cannot
        agree what the capacities were.
   Q.   Notwithstanding this catalogue of fundamental errors in
        Leuchter, you publicly, in your public role, have adhered
        to it as though it was the gospel of St John, have you
        not?
   A.   If you have read correctly what I said in my public

.          P-120



        utterances, I have always relied on the chemical forensic
        part of the Leuchter examinations and not on any of his
        other rather absurd statements which I regarded as if --
        in fact, I never even read those statements except when I,
        in general, took on board the fact that he was an engineer
        and he was venturing outside his proper field.
   Q.   Well, you knew that at the time, did you not?
   A.   Knew what at that time?
   Q.   That he was venturing outside his expertise which was
        extremely limited?
   A.   Well, I said so in my correspondence at the time.  I said
        if only ----
   Q.   Correspondence, I am not interested in your
        correspondence.
   A.   Well, the correspondence shows my state of mind at the
        time, Mr Rampton, which is material in this court.
   Q.   So, in private, in your mind, I suggest to you, you had
        received material from Beer, Crabtree, Wegner, which, in
        effect, completely discredited Leuchter, but you never
        gave that any public notice at all, did you?
   A.   I was not under any compulsion to give private
        correspondence public notice.  When you are an author, you
        are constantly receiving letters from members of the
        public suggesting you have got things wrong.  Sometimes
        you ignore them, and I know a lot of people ignore lots of
        things.  A lot of the experts in this case have ignored

.          P-121



        lots of documents until they finally come up in this
        trial.  But when you are conscientious, then you will put
        those objections to other people who are probably better
        informed than yourselves and say, "What do you say about
        this?"  This is precisely what I did.
   Q.   Mr Irving, I have got very little left on this Auschwitz
        question now.  Can you tell me this, because the answers
        to these questions, I am not going to cross-examine you
        about them if your answer be yes.  I leave you to raise
        them with Professor van Pelt by way of rebuttal of what
        I would characterize as the overwhelming evidence in
        favour of his thesis.
                  First, do you see the coke supplies at Auschwitz
        as being significant?
   A.   Coke?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  "Coke" did you say?
   MR RAMPTON:  Coke, C-O-K-E, which in those days meant what it said!
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think I assumed that.
   MR RAMPTON:  You are going to raise that with Professor --
        I need to know because he has to prepare himself, you see?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Are you going to raise the question of coke supply?
   A.   We shall raise that because if Holocaust denial is said to
        be minimising or reducing the scale of the tragedy in a
        numerical sense, then we are entitled to look at the coke

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        supplies.
   Q.   Are you going to deal with incineration capacity?
   A.   Cremation capacity, the various crematoria.
   Q.   I am talking about burning corpses in ovens or in pits.
   A.   Well, in my side of the courtroom you call it "cremation"
        rather than "incineration".
   Q.   Call it what you like.  Are you going to raise that with
        Professor van Pelt?
   A.   I think so, yes.
   Q.   Are you going to raise the question of the Hensley
        decrypts?
   A.   Yes, but also I shall be doing that with Dr Jean Fox as
        well.
   Q.   I am sure you will.  Are you going to raise the question
        of the so-called "death books"?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Are you going to raise the question of the supplies of
        Zyklon B to Runinberg and also to Auschwitz?
   A.   I am going to be raising the general question of the
        production rate of Zyklon B by the factory.
   Q.   I am sorry?
   A.   And its delivery and to specific quantities delivered to
        various camps, yes.  I shall also be raising the question
        of the authenticity of the eyewitnesses.
   Q.   Certainly.
   A.   Their integrity.

.          P-123



   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  I think what Mr Rampton was really
        doing, if I understand him right, was investigating with
        you what other positive pointers you feel exist towards
        the non-existence of gas chambers.
   A.   The eyewitnesses come into that.  I suppose that is
        negative.  That is negative.
   Q.   You say they are negative.  I think what Mr Rampton really
        would like you to say is, is there anything else that you
        are positively relying on, as it were, against the
        existence of gas chambers?  Do you understand the
        question?  I hope it is not ----
   A.   I do not really understand that.
   Q.   --- obscure.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Well, I think you agreed with me that Mr Rampton has just
        run through various topics which you are going to raise
        because in your ----
   A.   Of course, we are relying on the architectural evidence,
        my Lord, what Mr Rampton will call the archeological
        evidence.
   Q.   Right.
   MR RAMPTON:  That is fine, my Lord.  With your Lordship's
        leave, at present -- I may come back to it by way of
        re-examination -- I see no purpose in my dealing with
        those what I call rebuttal topics in cross-examination.
        If your Lordship wishes me to do so, I easily can, but it

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        will take time and we are going to go round the houses all
        over again when Professor van Pelt gives evidence because
        what I put in cross-examination is only what Professor Van
        Pelt will say from the witness box.
   A.   Will Professor van Pelt be actually giving
        evidence-in-chief or will he be relying on his report?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is a question for me and the answer is
        he will be relying on his report.
   MR RAMPTON:  I am going to ask his Lordship about that in a
        moment because I have now finished, my Lord, so far as
        Auschwitz is answered.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, but, I mean, in answer to the question,
        750 pages is enough to speak for itself.
   MR RAMPTON:  I am not going to read it all out your Lordship --
        which your Lordship has read once, if not more often.  It
        seems to me that, really, we have reached the position
        now, if your Lordship agrees, where all I really need to
        do -- I had had in mind a sort of nice graphic demo and
        screens and all that kind of thing for Professor van Pelt,
        but I no longer think it necessary because, apart from
        this question of concentration and the chemical analysis
        results, it seems to me, I may be wrong, that really
        Mr Irving has abandoned Mr Fred Leuchter and his report in
        toto.  That being so, I do not need to go through the proofs.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think that is probably right.  You will

.          P-125



        though, presumably, have to deal, and I think probably in
        general terms only, with the other bodies of evidence,
        categories of evidence, for the existence of the gas
        chambers?  For example, we have had a bit of evidence
        about eyewitnesses, but we have not had anything, for
        example, about the drawings made by -- I cannot remember
        his name, the Frenchman.
   MR RAMPTON:  Dayaco and Eiffel who were two of the Auschwitz
        architects.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, I was thinking actually of the inmate.
   MR RAMPTON:  Oh, Dave Olaire.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Olaire.  Things of that kind will have to be
        put in general terms, will they not, as to whether
        Mr Irving knew about them, whether he attached any
        credibility to them.

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