Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day009.02
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

   MR RAMPTON:  It has always been my intention to start my
        cross-examination with Auschwitz.  Because Mr Irving fell
        short in chief -- I know not why -- I started
        cross-examining earlier than I had expected.  His original

.          P-9



        estimate for his own case was two to three weeks.
                  I, therefore, got Professor van Pelt over here
        for Monday, 24th January, when I was expecting to start my
        whole cross-examination with Auschwitz.  Stockholm, as it
        happened, came later, his appointment at Stockholm.
        Incidentally, I add that the First Defendant, Professor
        Lipstadt, is not going to Stockholm, despite what
        Mr Irving says.  That is why Professor van Pelt is here.
                  I then read, if I may, what Mr Irving said
        on Tuesday, 11th January, at the beginning of this case.
        This is page 5:
                   "I am perfectly prepared to have Professor van
        Pelt come over in the middle of whatever else is going on
        and we can take him as a separate entirety.  He is
        certainly an extremely interesting witness to be heard".
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  I had got the impression that this was
        all happening by agreement really on both sides.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes.  There cannot be any question about it.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, we are going to have Professor van
        Pelt now for you to cross-examine.  But one thing I have
        said before now and I say it again, I am very conscious of
        the burden that is being placed upon you.  It must be
        gigantic.  I think it is going to get more difficult when
        you are cross-examining.  If you want more time when the
        court is not sitting so that you have got the ability to
        prepare and so on, all you have to do is ask and within

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        reason I will try to accommodate you.
   MR IRVING:  That would have been the request that I would
        have ultimately submitted, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think, when you have one expert after
        another, as Mr Rampton was forecasting will happen in
        about 10 days' time, that is when I think your
        difficulties will be at their worst.  If then you want
        time between the witnesses to prepare yourself, then again
        within reason I will try to accommodate you.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, as to my remarks about the Second
        Defendant also going to Stockholm, that was based on the
        Swedish government's announcement that she was attending.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, you have been told by Mr Rampton that
        she is not.
   MR IRVING:  She is listed in all the agenda at the conference
        as a speakered.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, well, I think it is unlikely she will be
        going in view of what Mr Rampton has said.
   MR IRVING:  Very well, my Lord.  They are the only submissions
        I had to make on that.  I wished really to draw to your
        Lordship's attention, that is all, that things have been
        taken out of my hands in an unsatisfactory way.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, well, my function is to make sure that
        you are not disadvantaged because you have no lawyers.
        I cannot provide you with a back up team, obviously, but
        I am trying to look after your interests, as judges always

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        do with litigants in person.  But so far, I do not believe
        you have suffered any disadvantage.
   MR IRVING:  Well, only inasmuch as I have not had the
        opportunity to put before your Lordship the documents on
        which I rely as yet which would be the normal sequence of
        events.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You could have done that before the trial
        started.
   MR IRVING:  Well, my Lord, the bundles had been prepared
        entirely by the Defence.  They are not agreed bundles.
        They have large lacunae in them, as your Lordship will see
        when the time comes.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, but you knew that you had the
        opportunity to put before the court any bundles of
        documents that you wanted to rely on.
   MR IRVING:  This is precisely what we were working on when the
        Defendants came charging in with a reversal of the
        timetable, my Lord.  This is basically the problem, yes.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  Right now you want to take me through
        some documents, do you, before Professor van Pelt goes
        into the witness box?
   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, can I, first of all, add one thing before
        that discussion is closed?  It is this.  I think I need to
        say it because inevitably sometimes Mr Irving has
        attempted to use the court as a public platform.  True it
        is there is an inequality of resources; true also it is,

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        however, that my clients are defending a suit brought by
        Mr Irving.  It reminds one of the old French proverb:
         "These animals are very naughty.  They defend themselves
        when they are attacked".
   MR IRVING:  That proverb cuts both ways, Mr Rampton.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, well, that is enough of that.  Now, do
        you want to do this now?  Is that what you are proposing?
   MR IRVING:  Do I wish to?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Address me on these documents you handed in
        this morning?
   MR IRVING:  One or two of them, my Lord.  The others are there
        purely for the purposes of being in your Lordship's hands
        when we start with Professor van Pelt.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Just so we get things done in the right way,
        I think you ought to go back into the witness box just to
        deal with whatever evidence you want to give arising out
        of yesterday.  It is just so we know which hat you are
        wearing, advocate or witness.  It is difficult, but I
        think it is quite important to keep an eye on the
        difference.
                     (MR IRVING, recalled.  Examined by the Court)

   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Right?
   THE WITNESS:  The first document, my Lord, is the one headed
        "Institute for Historical Review".  This is a letter
        written by the Institute for Historical Review to

.          P-13



        Professor Gerald Fleming who is an acknowledged expert on
        the Holocaust.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
   A.   And I draw your Lordship's attention purely to the
        paragraph on the second page which I printed in bold face,
        the last paragraph.  Your Lordship was enquiring about
        what other reports after the Leuchter report continued to
        support that contention, and here is a very useful summary
        of them:  "Rudolf reached essentially the same conclusion
        as had American gas chamber specialist, Fred Leuchter, in
        his 1988 forensic investigation of the allied gas chambers
        at Auschwitz and Birkenhau.  You may also be aware that as
        a result of Leuchter's findings, the Institute of Forensic
        Research in Cracow conducted a partial investigation and
        that its forensic analysis, given in a
        confidential September 1990 report, corroborated
        Leuchter's findings".  Your Lordship may remember that
        I referred to the fact ---
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, you did.
   MR IRVING:  --- that the Auschwitz authority had locked it
        away.  "This report was published in the summer 1991
        Journal of Historical Review.  Moreover, Austrian
        engineer, Walter Luftel, who was, in fact, the President
        of the Austrian Federation of Engineers,
        explicitly endorsed Leuchter's findings in the detailed
        March 1992 report published in the winter 1992 to 1993

.          P-14



        Journal, and the German engineer, Wolfgang Schuster, and
        the American research chemist, William Linsky, reached
        conclusions similar to those of Leuchter and Rudolf".
        More of that is relevant, but that is the only paragraph
        that I would just draw to your Lordship's attention to
        bear out the fact that Leuchter was not one lone voice
        crying in the wilderness.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We are taking a relaxed view of the rules
        about evidence, but this is Mr Weber of the Institute for
        Historical Review telling Professor Fleming what he says
        these various individuals concluded.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Are you going to show me the Rudolf report in due course?
   A.   The Rudolf report ----
   Q.   Not now.
   A.   I should have handed it to your Lordship.
   Q.   Do not worry now, but this is rather third hand, is it
        not?  That is what I am saying.
   A.   It is, my Lord, but the Rudolf report is the glossy blue
        publication which I brought in about a dozen copies this
        morning, and through an oversight it obviously was not
        listed in discovery for which I do apologise.  That was an
        omission.
   Q.   Yes, that is that?
   A.   My Lord, the only other document I draw to your Lordship's
        attention is the one headed top left, it is an invoice

.          P-15



        Vedag, V-E-D-A-G.
   Q.   Yes, I noticed that.
   A.   And it is the United Cardboard Factory of Silesia.  It is
        an invoice to Auschwitz crematorium -- I am sorry, it is
        an invoice to the central construction office in
        Auschwitz, 28th July, an invoice concerning the Auschwitz
        crematorium for ----
   Q.   "Entwesungsanlage"?
   A.   Just the first two or three lines inside the box on the
        invoice shows that it is for sealing work, S-E-A-L-I-N-G
        work, carried out for the Entwesungsanlage -- E-N-T  - ---
   Q.   And that is the delousing chamber?
   A.   Disinfestation chamber, or disinfestation installation,
        strictly speaking.  I mean, we may have an interesting
        discussion with Professor van Pelt about precisely what
        that was, but certainly it tends to bear out my contention
        of one of the uses to which that building was being put.
        My Lord, that is all I wish to say from the witness box.
   Q.   Just let me get that.  Thank you very much.  I think you
        can go back and resume your role as ----
   MR RAMPTON:  Could I just ask one question before he does, my
        Lord?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Arising out of that?
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, it is only an administrative question.
                  < Cross-examined by MR RAMPTON
   Q.   I want to know, Mr Irving, whether you received yesterday

.          P-16

        an invoice, I think it is, or something of that nature --
        I cannot find it at the moment -- dated 13th April 1943
        from Topf to the Zentralebauleitung at Auschwitz
        concerning [German - document not provided].
   A.   I received just a loose document faxed through to me
        sometime in the evening, yes.
   Q.   You did receive it?  That is all I wanted to know.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Good.  Thank you very much.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That does not tell me very much.
   MR RAMPTON:  Has your Lordship not got it?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, well, if I have, I am not aware of having
        it.
   A.   Can I be shown a copy now in case there is any comment
        I wish to make on it?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  There are an awful lot of spare bits of paper
        flowing around.  It seems extraordinary when ----
   MR RAMPTON:  This arose simply because yesterday for the first
        time Mr Irving brought to our attention a document dated
        20th August 1943 which on its second page, as we now see,
        is a bill from Topf, or an invoice, it mentions
        "Entwesungsanlage", as does the piece of paper that he
        has just given to us and to your Lordship.  There is, in
        fact, another piece of paper which is very likely related
        to it which as its last item but one mentions two Topf
        entwesungsofen ----

.          P-17

   A.   Yes.
   Q.   --- for crematorium (ii).  Those are delousing ovens?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   I make no comment beyond that.  I will hand that up to
        your Lordship because I am sure your Lordship will need it
        in due course.  It goes with the other two documents from
        Mr Irving's side.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Shall I put it in J as well because I am
        really anxious we keep an eye -- I seem to have the Rudolf
        report at the same time.
   A.   That is the Rudolf report, my Lord.
   MR RAMPTON:  It might be convenient to have them in
        chronological order.  That document I have just handed up
        will be the first.  The second would be the one that
        Mr Irving has just handed in dated 28th July.  The last
        would be the document we got last night, if we did, which
        is the invoice from Topf.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  That is the only questions, so would
        you mind going back.  

(The witness stood down)

   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Rampton, you are going to call your witness?

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