Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day010.05 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 MR IRVING: It takes stereoscopic pairs, does it not? In other words, each photograph was a certain distance away from the next one in terms of seconds, so, when viewed through a stereoscopic viewer, you would get a stereoscopic effect . P-35 so that you could see if these objects were in fact just smudges on the roof of some kind, or plant growths, or if they were what you would call chimneys? A. I do not think that they were taken with the intention to be looked through a stereoscopic viewer. It was simply that the camera was running with a certain speed and, as a result of that, you can look at them with a stereoscopic viewer, which is a slightly different issue. Q. This was the system. They did not take two photographs simultaneously. They would take them at five second intervals to produce a stereoscopic effect? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I think we are straying a rather long way down a possibly unprofitable side alley. MR IRVING: In view of the fact that apparently, unless I am wrong, this is his only other evidence apart from the eyewitnesses. MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have not asked him that yet. I have the point. You are alert to the possibility that these may be forgeries. Dr Bryant apparently concluded they were not. MR IRVING: I have one more question to ask about the smudges on the roof as visible in the air photographs. What have you to say about the spacing of those smudges when you compare them with what I call the tar barrels on the roof in the other photograph? They are differently spaced, are they not? A. I cannot judge that. In the one photo we looking from . P-36 more or less ground level at these boxes, and now we look more or less straight from above and it is impossible to come to any conclusion one way or another. Q. I disagree with you. Would it not be correct to say that in fact there is a very uneven spacing in the four tar barrels visible from the ground, whereas the smudges on the roof appear to be admittedly irregularly spaced but in a totally different way. Therefore, they have no connection whatsoever with the protruberances that are visible from ground level. A. I have no comment on that. Q. Can we hear what other evidence you have that this building here, the Leichenkeller No. 1, of crematorium No. (ii) was a homicidal gas chamber, apart from the eyewitnesses and apart from the smudges on the roof? A. These are the two images which confirm the eyewitness report, and then there are a number of drawings made by a survivor. Q. Mr Olaire? A. Mr Olaire, which are in tab No. 3. There are three drawings I would like to refer to. The first drawing is No. 1 printed 3. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you just remind me? Olaire was an inmate. Was he a sonderkommando? A. He was a sonderkommando. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Drawing No. 3? . P-37 A. It is circled in my horrible handwriting No. 1. MR IRVING: What tab are we under, please? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Tab 3? A. It is a plan of crematorium No. (iii) which is the mirror image of crematorium No. (ii), so we have in some way to start to switch the left and right halves of our brain to understand this. What he has drawn in the room No. 3, which is, according to him, the gas chamber, are in fact four little blocks, four little squares, which are spaced from left to right, from left to right. They are labelled here, and of course they were not labelled at the time, as the Zyklon-B introduction openings. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Who did the labelling? A. In the final publication of Olaire's drawings I think they were done by Klarsfelt or somebody who was working with Klarsfelt. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Did Olaire survive? A. Olaire survived, yes. He survived and he was very far from Poland when Tauber gave his testimony. He was liberated in Germany and then he went back to Paris immediately. So the chance of cross pollination, as Mr Irving calls it, is very little. There is a second drawing which is in 46, so we are now one year later. It could be a little bit more problematic except the fact that at that moment images of the crematoria were not yet published. I just would like to draw your attention to . P-38 drawing No. 5 which is an image of crematorium No. (iii) as people are coming in, and this was drawn in 1945 and at that moment ---- MR IRVING: Is that 1945 or 1946? A. 1945. Q. I do not have a date on mine. A. OK, it says 1945. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, it would not be 1946, would it? MR IRVING: These have been drawn from memory, am I correct? A. These are drawn from memory. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see. I thought he was drawing them whilst -- no, I see. MR IRVING: My Lord, this is very important you should appreciate these are drawn after the war. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am afraid I had not, yes. A. These are drawn from memory. What I would like to say that he seems to have a very good memory because the first time actually that either the plans or images of crematorium (ii) or (iii) was published was in 1946 in the book by Kraus und Kulgar. That is a very crude image which Kraus und Kulgar, they made a little model. The plans were not published by the Polish Commission in 1946. So we have here in 1945 someone who has been in that building, who lived in that building, who was a sonderkommando, who is a very, very experienced draftsman and painter, had a career before the war as a painter and, . P-39 obviously, has a good visual memory and who draws this building; and when one compares this building with the images of crematorium No. (iii), then in general one must say that, indeed, he remembered quite well. So I would say that this building suggests at least that he is at least knows what he sees and he is a credible witness as even when he works from memory. Q. What is it that you derive from photograph No. 5? A. Nothing, except that I want to show that it is remarkable that he is able to remember this building as well as he does without any visual aids. Then we come to No. 6 which is a drawing he made in 1946 of the same building which is crematorium No. (iii). MR IRVING: Which is a mirror image of No. (ii), is that correct? A. Yes. What he does there, there is one problem with this drawing because he has to try to represent something which is hidden, but we where see in the middle level, to say, that is the incineration hole with the ovens, the ovens which are labelled as No. H in this case, and we see No. I, we see the coke to the right, we see the little officers, the SS man sitting there with the window through which he looks at the incineration room, you see upstairs. Q. Which is the gas chamber in this building? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Bottom level, is it? . P-40 A. At the bottom level, No. D. Of course, the gas chamber, taken from this perspective, would have been hidden by, when we see the soldier standing at No. C in the corridor, the gas chamber would have basically been running to the back out of the plain of the ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Towards the ---- A. Not towards, that would have been crematorium (ii). It runs away from us, if we go back to the original plan I showed you which was No. (i). So the problem he had of how to represent that gas chamber. So he drew it as if it is under the incineration room because there was no other way to really represent it, because he also wants to represent the undressing room which is No. A. You see there are basically two stairs, one stair to the left for people that are going down and we see the second stair is at No. B. MR IRVING: In other words, his memory was wrong; he drew it in a way it actually was not? A. No, his memory is absolutely right. Q. But you said that he drew it in a way that it is not because he wanted to represent it -- he could not do it otherwise? A. No, I mean, he had to represent the location of the gas chamber which is because the gas chamber jots out from the plain of the drawing. He now draws it under the incineration room, but, in fact, it goes, you know, it . P-41 goes to the back. I can do it, I mean, if this is the plain of the drawing, then the gas chamber would have gone like this, to the back. So he has to represent it one way or another and he does it a little bit in the way as probably somebody in ancient Egypt would have done it. Q. Was Mr Olaire ever interrogated or questioned? Did he provide eyewitness statements? A. No, I am happy to answer that he was not, but I would like to finish the drawing. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, make your point on this because I have not understood it yet. A. The major point is seen at No. E, one sees here in the drawing, and the photocopy is not very good, but E points at some shadow -- it is almost seems like a shadow going down from the roof of the gas chamber to the bottom, and then you see three others, and the most right one is the clearest one in this photocopy and these are the four wire mesh introduction columns. MR IRVING: This is in 1946? A. This is in 1946. Q. You are saying that he has not heard any stories at all of what allegedly went on? A. I do not know exactly about the state of communication in 1945 and '46, but the eyewitness testimony about these introduction columns was given in May 1945 to Jan Sehn, but it was only published somewhere in 1946 and it was . P-42 actually the actual Kuhler document, and the actual, I mean, I mean the results were only published but the statements themselves were never published. Q. Am I not right in saying that Mr Tauber, when he gave his statements to Jan Sehn, there were many photo opportunities and his photographs were splashed all over the press with stories, the other eyewitness, and that would have been early 1946 or 1945? A. I do not know of any photo opportunities for Mr Tauber having been published in the press. If you can bring this, you know, I would be very happy to consider it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor van Pelt, can I just make sure I have understood it, that when you say that these show the projections, whatever they may have been, you are talking about -- can you see -- that smudge there, that smudge there, that smudge there? A. No, that is actually, that is the installation which brings forced air into the ovens which actually, so that other little -- no, the smudges are going down. I tried to interpret what your finger is doing. Q. There? A. No, that is the door. That is the door. You are pointing now to the door. Q. Hold up your plan and tell me where I am supposed to see evidence of these projections? A. Do you see the arrow with No. E? . P-43 Q. Yes. A. There you see where it just goes down, the arrow just points at a first line going down, but the most clearest one is the one ---- Q. Oh, I see. A. --- the clearest one is the one which is half a centimetre away from D Olaire, for his name. There are four of these columns quite literally drawn into this gas chamber going down. MR IRVING: But, in fact, he has it on the wrong side of the building. You accept that? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, he has turned it 90 degrees on its axis, that is your evidence? A. Yes. Then we have a third piece by Olaire which again is a drawing from 1946 which is No. 7. There we see two sonderkommandos who are collecting, as it says, gold teeth and hair in the gas chamber. Then we see in the background, we see one of those columns. MR IRVING: The cross-hatching, you mean? A. The cross-hatching, yes. It is drawn in the same way ---- Q. Are you saying they actually did this job of removing the gold teeth and the hair actually inside the gas chamber? A. No. In general, they did it outside the gas chamber, but you must remember ---- Q. The picture says it is happening in the gas chamber, according to you? . P-44 A. But you must remember that by the end of 1943 the gas chamber of crematorium (ii) was divided into two. There was a back gas chamber and there was a gas chamber in front. Q. Here is the wire mesh in the back of this picture? A. No, but there were two wire mesh columns in the back gas chamber and there were two wire mesh columns in the front gas chamber.
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