Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day029.04
Last-Modified: 2000/07/25

                  (The video was shown).

.          P-27


   MR RAMPTON:  Stop there, please.
   A.   You are right.  You are absolutely right.  In that
        particular one I did not put in the rider that that is the
        one they show the tourists.
   Q.   You did not.  Frequently you have not.  Not only have
        you not put in the rider, you have added other gas
        chambers elsewhere, Treblinka, Belzec.  Not here.  In the
        documents we were looking at yesterday.
   A.   You are adding them now verbally into my speech.
   Q.   No, I am not.
   A.   Shall we just abide by the speech that I was speaking
        here?
   Q.   You said a moment ago that you never make any reference to
        any gas chamber but the one which was reconstructed by the
        Poles after the war.  That is simply false, is it not?
   A.   The one that is faked by the Poles after the war.
   Q.   Yes, whatever you like.  It is simply a false statement,
        is not, Mr Irving?  We saw a whole lot of statements by
        you yesterday, did we not?
   A.   Will you please ask the question again because you --- -
   Q.   Your statement that you never make reference to any but
        what you call the fake gas chamber at Auschwitz (i), gas
        chamber singular, is a false statement, is it not?
   A.   I frequently refer to gas chambers elsewhere, yes.
   Q.   Yes.
   A.   But in what connection?

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   Q.   In the context of saying that they never existed.
   A.   In Dachau, for example.  We now know that eyewitnesses
        reported there were gas chambers in Dachau, and we now
        know the German government has confirmed there were never
        any gas chambers in Dachau.  That is a typical example.
   Q.   Mr Irving, I do not believe you have that bad a memory.  I
        really do not.
   A.   You just asked me a question and I have answered it.
   Q.   In that case I am going to have to remind you of what you
        were shown but yesterday.  Laborious, but necessary.
   A.   Dachau is typical example of survivors who were caught out lying.
   Q.   You will have to be patient with me, Mr Irving.  I will
        find it.  This is just an example from page 156 of
        yesterday's transcript, if you have yesterday's
        transcript.  This is a speech by you at Moers that we
        looked at yesterday.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Would you like a copy of it?
   A.   If it is not going to be too tedious.
   MR RAMPTON:  I will read it out.  You said:  "The dummies are
        still standing in Auschwitz, because the German government
        has no sway there".  Page 156, line 8.  "The dummies are
        still standing in Auschwitz because the German government
        has no sway there, and understandably that is problem for
        you" -- that is the Germans -- "that you have a
        government in Bonn that allows its own people to be

.          P-29



        defamed by all countries of the world, although in the
        meantime it is cried out that these things in Auschwitz,
        and probably in Maidonek, Treblinka and in other so-called 
        extermination camps in the East, are all dummies".
        That is a direct quote from your speech in Moers.
   A.   Yes.  Are you quoting the speech to me?  Are you going to
        quote something from the exchange that follows?  If so,
        I cannot quite understand why we are looking at
        yesterday's exchange rather than looking at the actual speech.
   Q.   Because it was the easiest way to what you said in Moers.
        I have it in the file.
   A.   Of course, if you do it that way, we do not know exactly
        what was said in the actual speech.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We can track it down, I am sure.
   MR RAMPTON:  Page 3, tab 5, Mr Irving.
   A.   Perhaps we can just wait to see what the question is and
        then it may not be worth the effort.
   Q.   I have put the question already.  You made a statement not
        more than a couple of minutes ago that you never make
        reference to the non-existence of gas chambers except in
        relation to what you call the fake gas chamber at
        Auschwitz (i).  That statement was false, was it not?
   A.   "The dummies were still standing in Auschwitz, these
        things in Auschwitz and probably in Maidonek, Treblinka
        and in the other so-called extermination camps".  I think

.          P-30

        the word "probably" therefore has to be looked at and
        emphasised.
   Q.   Carry on.  Read on.
   A.   In other words ----
   Q.   Read on.  The fact is that Auschwitz we know that what
        they show the tourists is fake because the Poles have no
        now admitted it.  I am sorry, "reconstructed" is what you
        call it.
   Q.   What?
   A.   But the other places, Maidonek, Treblinka and so on, my
        hands are tied in really dealing with that because, for
        the purposes of this court action, I am not challenging them.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think we are getting a bit confused here.
   A.   My Lord, perhaps I can help?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, because I may have misunderstood the
        position.  I think it all arose out of your saying to
        Mr Rampton earlier that, whenever you refer to no Jews, or
        virtually no Jews, having died in concentration camps, you
        add the rider that you are really talking about what you
        call the dummy constructed after the war at Auschwitz.
   A.   I hesitate to allow your Lordship to put words into my mouth.
   MR RAMPTON:  Let us go back on the transcript for today and we
        will find it.
   A.   I am much more specific than that, and I say that, in this

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        rather tasteless way, more women died on the back seat of
        that car than died in the gas chamber at Auschwitz,
        meaning the one they showed the tourists.
   MR RAMPTON:  It is when I was reading the transcript before we
        saw the video.  We will get the exact words, my Lord.
   A.   It is part of the gramophone record, if I can put it like that.
   MR RAMPTON:  In the light of yesterday's evidence from
        Professor Funke -- I cannot read that.  Now, Mr Irving, I
        am going to read you back your answer.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Page 24.
   MR RAMPTON:  Page 24 of today.  This what gave rise to all of
        this, you see, Mr Irving.  You made yet another, shall
        I say courteously -- "The applause drowned the rest of the
        sentence, unfortunately, which is, 'in the gas chambers of
        Auschwitz which are shown to the tourists'.  I always say
        exactly the same thing".  It was a false statement, that,
        was it not?
   A.   It was clearly wrong.
   Q.   Yes.
   A.   But not deliberately wrong.  I have this same part of my
        speech that I deliver again and again and it is possible
        that, in the heat of this particular speech which was
        spoken without notes, as you will see ----
   Q.   No, Mr Irving.
   A.   -- to a non-skinhead audience.

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   Q.   What was false is that you always say exactly the same
        thing.  You do not.  You frequently refer to the
        non-existence of any gas chambers in the plural.
   A.   I think you will have to show me the passages where
        I frequently say this.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  The point is you deny the existence of gas
        chambers and, when you do that, you do not talk only of
        the dummies such as the one that was constructed after the
        war at Auschwitz.  That I think is the point.
   A.   If that is the point he is trying to make, then of course
        he is wrong because I have made it quite plain earlier in
        this case that I accept that in Auschwitz Birkenhau gas
        chamber experiments were conducted, for example, in the
        bunkers, the two buildings called the bunkers, and to that
        degree I certainly do not deny it.
   MR RAMPTON:  I expect you have been reading the Eichmann
        memoirs, have you not?
   A.   Not yet.  If you know how little time I have.
   Q.   If you do a word search on them, look for the word
        "Vergasungslager".
   A.   I take your tip.  Thank you very much.
        "Vergasungslager"?
   Q.   Yes, "Vergasungslager", gassing camps, Mr Irving.
   A.   I will tell you the result of that when I come here
        tomorrow.
   Q.   I am just going to finish.  My Lord, unless your Lordship

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        wants me to ----
   A.   Mr Rampton, if you intend to rely on that particular word,
        I think you should show me the passage so I can comment on
        it now, rather than just leave it hanging in mid air.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  At the moment we have not gone to the
        Eichmann diaries at all, and I do not know whether we are
        even going to.
   MR RAMPTON:  I am going to continue, my Lord, if I may, with
        page 18 of the transcript, unless your Lordship would like
        to see it on the screen.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, I think not.
   A.   That is certainly not the way to introduce the Eichmann
        memoirs, to do it like that, just to throw one word out.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY: They have not been introduced, Mr Irving.  Let
        us go back to page 18.
   MR RAMPTON:  After the statement that more women died on the
        back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquidick than
        died in the gas chambers (plural) at Auschwitz, there is
        some applause which did not drown out anything else you
        said.  You then continued:  "Now" you think that is
        tasteless.  What about this?  I am forming an association
        especially dedicated to all these liars, the ones who try
        and kid people that they were in these concentration
        camps.  It is called the Auschwitz Survivors of the
        Holocaust and Other Liars Assholes", and you spell it out
        for them so that they get the joke.  "Cannot get more

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        tasteless than that but you have got to be tasteless
        because these people deserve all our contempt and in fact
        they deserve the contempt of the real Jewish community and
        the people, whatever their class and colour, who did
        suffer."  I do not know that I need to go on.
   A.   Yes.  I got something wrong, of course.
   Q.   What was that?
   A.   The title of that association.  It is the Association of
        Spurious Survivors of the Holocaust, but, once again, in
        the heat of the talk, I got it wrong.
   Q.   I am awfully sorry about that.  The fact is, Mr Irving,
        what you are doing here, as you were at Hagenau and on
        other occasions that we have seen ----
   A.   Mocking the liars.
   Q.   Oh yes, Mr Irving, but why the applause?
   A.   Because I am a good speaker, Mr Rampton.
   Q.   What?
   A.   I am a good speaker.
   Q.   Mr Irving, Professor Funke had you bang to rights, did he
        not?  What you are doing is appealing to, feeding,
        encouraging, the most cynical radical anti-Semitism in
        your audiences, are you not?
   A.   Do liars not deserve to be exposed as such?  If you saw
        the audience as you saw them in that film, did you see any
        skinheads or extremists or people wearing arm bands?
        I did not.  They looked like a perfectly ordinary bunch of

.          P-35



        middle-class Canadians.
   Q.   No doubt they too, Mr Irving, will spread the word, if
        I may use that terminology?
   A.   Is that evidence or are you asking me a question?
   Q.   I am asking you a question.  That is what you are hoping,
        is it not?
   A.   Spread the word that there are elements of the Holocaust
        story that need to be treated with scepticism, yes.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, an I ask you this?  Of these
        eyewitnesses, are you saying that they have come to
        believe what they say about their experiences and that is
        why they need psychiatric treatment?  Or are you saying
        that they are collectively telling lies, deliberate falsehoods?
   A.   Different people have different motives or different
        reasons.  There are different reasons why they tell
        stories that are not true in this particular context.  We
        saw the witness Professor van Pelt in the video and in his
        report talking of the almost mystical and religious awe in
        which he holds the site of Auschwitz.  I can well
        understand that.  It has become very central to their
        existence as the Jewish people.  It has become an
        important part of their social awareness.  It has become
        very close to religion in some aspects, in my view.  It
        has become almost blasphemy to trample on any part of that
        ground.  It has become holy ground, both in the physical

.          P-36



        concrete sense and in the metaphysical sense.  As with any
        religion, there are hangers on, people who believe they
        were there, people who believe they touched the cloth, if
        I can put it like that.  There have been an increasing
        number in recent years -- Benjamin Wilkormierski is one
        example Ely Wiesel is another -- who have capitalized on,
        or instrumentalized, the Holocaust.  Now, I am not a
        psychologist, I am not a psychiatrist, but I have looked
        into some of the learned psychiatric texts that have been
        written about this phenomenon of the man who believes he
        is a survivor, the man who has been through a traumatic
        experience and either puts himself in the middle of an
        experience that he was on the periphery of, or who puts
        himself into an experience when he was not there at all.
        That is what the reference to the psychiatric problem is
        in this.  It is put admittedly in the most tasteless
        possible way.  Nobody can accuse me of not having been
        tasteless, and I probably deserve to be horse whipped for
        it, but the fact is that I am dealing here with a serious
        problem concerning the eyewitness accounts from Auschwitz.

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