Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day002.15
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Last-Modified: 2000/07/20
Q. Yes. Right, now, will you please, just so that we can
clear up this, I will not use the word, just this little
dispute, please keep your finger where you are and turn to
. P-227
tab 11 which is something you said apparently on the
unedited transcripts of an interview on 15th and 28th
November for the "This Week" programme and I think Irving
and Leuchter at the Chelsea Town Hall was a press
conference you gave announcing your publication of the
Leuchter Report, am I right?
A. It was a lecture that we organized at the Chelsea Town
Hall, yes.
Q. Can you turn to page 2, please, of this transcript?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, Mr Rampton. This contains two
separate things, this tab, does it? One, the press
conference and the other a television interview?
MR RAMPTON: It does.
A. What I am I supposed to be looking at?
MR RAMPTON: Page 2 of the transcript which is at tab 11,
please.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is the press conference.
MR RAMPTON: This is the press conference and there is a
passage time at 0014.25.
A. I only have tape 191 in this book.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is what you are meant to be looking
at.
MR RAMPTON: Page 191.
A. Tape 191.
MR RAMPTON: Tape 191. Please turn to the second page of
the
transcript and look at the last paragraph on the
second
page.
. P-228
A. 1425 right? The time?
Q. Yes, 1425. You told his Lordship this morning that,
so
far as you could tell, these were accurate transcripts
of
what you had said. I will read the sentence and you
tell
me whether you want to ----
A. Excuse me, you just said that I told his Lordship that
these were accurate transcripts of what I have said.
Q. So far as you could tell, I think, yes. He asked you
that
question.
A. I said with reservation, with the reservation that
some of
them have been subjected to editing.
Q. Well, just let us have a look at this one sentence and
then you can tell his Lordship whether you think it
has
been edited and in some way crafted to misrepresent
what
you said?
A. The one sentence, yes.
Q. The one sentence: "The biggest lie of the lot, the
blood
libel on the German people, as I call it", that is
you,
"is the lie that the Germans had factories of death
with
gas chambers in which they liquidated millions of
their
opponents"?
A. That is an accurate transcription of what I said.
Q. You did say that?
A. Yes.
Q. And did you regard that proposition, that the Germans
had
factories of death with gas chambers, plural, in
. P-229
which they liquidated millions, plural, of their
opponents, at this date in November 1991 as a lie?
A. A big lie, yes.
Q. A big lie?
A. Yes.
Q. It is that proposition, is it not, Mr Irving, which
most
people regard as representing not in any accurate or
meticulous, historical sense, but generally understood
as
the Holocaust?
A. I disagree with that. I have made quite plain that in
my
mind most people when they think of the Holocaust
think of
everything they are shown on television. Mostly
nowadays
it is people being made to walk to the edge of a pit
and
being bumped off by soldiers holding rifles. That is
the
visual image that people now have.
Q. Right. So that does not represent the Holocaust,
millions
of people being killed in gas chambers in factories of
death.
A. It represents a part of the Holocaust story.
Q. So will you please go up the page two paragraphs to
the
words "timed at 1213", and explain what you meant by
what
you here said? "If you look at my great Adolf Hitler
biography here, this bumper Adolf Hitler biography
that we
have only just published, in fact, it literally
arrived
off the printing process today, you will not find the
Holocaust mentioned in one line, not even a footnote.
Why
. P-230
should we? If something didn't happen, then you don't
even dignify it with a footnote"?
A. That is correct. The word "The Holocaust" you will
not
find in that book.
Q. What was the Holocaust that did not happen that you
meant
to signify by those words?
A. The way I then I specify it two paragraphs later which
is
the millions being killed in the gas chambers. This
makes
it quite plain it is all part of the same story.
Q. So what it comes to is that the Holocaust, your own
words ----
A. Yes.
Q. --- has been denied by you, does it not?
A. No. The Holocaust as defined here by me later on, the
description of people being killed in factories of
death.
This is the description here which I say you will not
find
in the book and you will not find the word "Holocaust"
in
the book which you will not, because I think it is
very
confusing to use words like that. I mean, this is
where
the confusion has come from, that instead of you
asking me
a question about the shootings and a question about
the
gassings, you are asking a question about a vague
concept
called "the Holocaust" knowing that you will get me
one
way or you will get the other, rather like Mortimer's
Fork. I think it would be more forensic if you were
to
ask specifically about what you mean rather than ask
about
. P-231
vague concepts.
Q. Thank you for your advice about how to conduct my case
in
court, Mr Irving. I am grateful for that. What do
you
think was the Holocaust about which Professor Lipstadt
wrote in her book?
A. Which Holocaust are we talking about?
Q. I am ----
A. The broad definition?
Q. --- asking you to answer my question, what is it in
her
book that you object to in the words "Holocaust
denier"?
A. The word "denier" that is attached to it. That is
what I
object to it.
Q. You did not deny the Holocaust in that passage ----
A. I denied the gas chambers. I denied that the Germans
killed millions in gas chambers and we are going to
have a
great deal of interest when we get to that phase of
this
trial.
Q. How many people do you think -- I mean innocent
people,
I am not talking about bombing raids, Mr Irving, I
mean
innocent Jewish people do you think the Germans killed
deliberately?
A. You mean like Anne Frank?
Q. I do not mind whether they are like Anne Frank or not.
How many innocent Jewish people ----
A. Well, I mean, she is a typical example and a very
useful
example to take because everybody has heard of Anne
. P-232
Frank. She was innocent. I have daughters of my own
and
if what happened to her happened to one of my
daughters, I
would be extremely angry.
Q. Oh, I see, so Mr or Mrs Frank might not have been
innocent, is that what you are trying to say?
A. But I asked you about Anne Frank; I did not ask about
her
parents.
Q. No, I am sorry, Mr Irving. The procedure in this
court is
that you do not ask questions, I do. I asked you how
many ----
A. I did not ask a question. I just said, I mean, shall
we
talk about Anne Frank?
Q. No, I do not want to talk about Anne Frank.
A. You want to talk about nameless, unspecified Jews so
that
later on we can say, "Well, I was not meaning those
ones,
I meant those ones"? The reason you do not want to
talk
about Anne Frank, of course, is because she is a Jew
who
died in the Holocaust and yet she was not murdered,
unless
you take the broadest possible definition of murder.
Q. Mr Irving, this is becoming somewhat comical. We will
get
to Anne Frank along down the road, I assure you. She
is
part of Professor Evans' report, apart from anything
else,
for a completely different purpose.
I said "deliberately killed". How many
innocent
Jewish people do you say that the Nazis deliberately
killed during the course of World War II. That was my
. P-233
question.
A. Now, you heard me say in my opening statement, Mr
Rampton,
that I am not an expert on the Holocaust. What I
would
now say would be a figure without any value
whatsoever.
It would be just an assessment off the top of my head.
I can say what did not happen because you can apply
certain logistical principles, but I cannot say what
did
happen. It would be a waste of this court's time for
me
to make an assessment.
Q. Let us break down your Holocaust denial then, so far
as
you will accept that you have made it. You dispute
the
word "millions"?
A. I dispute the word "millions"?
Q. Yes.
A. No. I do not think I have disputed the word
"millions".
Q. So "millions" is only wrong so far as the gas chambers
are
concerned, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. So there are no gas chambers, I think we know that, do
we
not?
A. Mr Rampton, if I may, I will not venture a question,
but
I will make a statement. A million people weigh
100,000
tonnes. We are talking of a major logistical problem
here.
Q. We are not -- I think, Mr Irving, we are at
cross-purposes. I am trying to understand what it is
that
. P-234
you deny, not your reasons for denying it. That will
come
much later on.
A. I am denying that any kind of multiples of millions of
people were killed in the gas chambers at Birkenhau.
Q. Articles then of -- no, that is not what you have said
here.
A. I am very being very specific which makes it much
easier
to nail me down.
Q. No, "factories of death" is plural.
A. Well, there were several factories of death,
allegedly, at
Birkenhau, the crematoria.
Q. What you do you say about Sobibor, Treblinka, Belsac
and
Chelmo?
A. Nothing at all. I am not an expert.
Q. Do you deny that they were killed in gas chambers in
those
places?
A. You did not hear what I said, Mr Rampton. I am not an
expert.
Q. You have no opinion about that at all?
A. Except what I have read from other people. If other
people come and tell me that, for example, there is no
trace of any mass graves at Treblinka even now, then
I begin to get suspicious about the story.
Q. Let me understand it, Mr Irving. By "factories of
death"
in this sentence on page 2 of tab 11, you had no
intention
of including in that phrase "factories of death" the
. P-235
installations, whatever they were, at Belsac,
Treblinka,
Sobibor or Chelma, is that right?
A. Mr Rampton, you are asking me a question about a
verbal
statement I made nine years ago and, if you wish, I
will
look to see what the rest of the statement is and I
will
tell you which parts of the universe I was talking
about.
But ----
Q. Your answer just now -- it may have been too quick an
answer; it was not, perhaps, your best answer -- was,
"Oh,
when I said 'factories of death' here, there were
factories of death at Birkenhau"?
A. Well, I presumed that as we are still talking about
the
Auschwitz phase of the cross-examination, you are
talking
about Auschwitz and Birkenhau.
Q. No, I am talking about what I call your Holocaust
denier
here you write a sentence or you speak a sentence,
presumably written out before: "The biggest lie of the
lot
is the lie that the Germans had factories", plural,
and
I said that when I read it to you first time, "of
death
with gas chambers in which they liquidated millions of
their opponents"?
A. Yes.
Q. Let us get back to the present. Which of those
elements
in that statement "factories", plural, "of death with
gas
chambers", plural, "in which they liquidated
millions",
plural, "of their opponents", which of those elements
do
. P-236
you still deny?
A. The millions in gas chambers.
Q. Yes.
A. Because, among other reasons, which we will come to
later
on in this trial, the logistical problems for a start.
Q. But you do deny it?
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