Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day012.04 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. No, Mr Irving. It was a repetition of a deliberate . P-27 mistranslation that you had already put on your web site, was it not? A. I strongly resist the phrase "deliberate mistranslation." In fact, I have had e-mails from Germans all over the world who have read my web site within the last 24 hours who said that the translation "field kitchens" for "Feldofen" is entirely acceptable and intelligable. The word "ofen" is a stove as in a kitchen stove and, without knowing what the background was of the document, it was an entirely plausible translation. Q. Have you had a chance to consider that report from Zamoysk of 5th May 1943? No sorry, wrong date, 16th December 1942 that you said you wanted time to think about? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you remind me what that was about, Mr Rampton? MR RAMPTON: It relates to a transport of 644 Poles to Auschwitz. A. My Lord, I was going to make a submission about that report. You remember this is one which the Defendants received anonymously, so they say, on the very day before the ---- MR RAMPTON: No "so they say", please, Mr Irving. If I tell the judge on instructions from my solicitor that we received it the day before, you can take it that it is true, unless you can prove otherwise. A. That is precisely what I said. They say they received it . P-28 anonymously the day before. Q. It is the case. A. That is not the point I am about to make, my Lord. May I make a submission on that? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I would like to see the document if you can tell me where it is. MR RAMPTON: I did hand it in together with the document about keeping the plan secret. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where did it go? MR RAMPTON: It did not go anywhere, but I have a spare. MR JUSTICE GRAY: If it is loose, I probably still have it. MR RAMPTON: I am sorry, my Lord. It should go into K2 in due course. Let me pass it up. (Same handed). MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. I have now found it, actually. MR RAMPTON: It can go into tab 4 of K2 in due course, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: If it is going ever to go there, can it not go there now? MR RAMPTON: Yes. My only question at the moment is whether Mr Irving is yet willing to be cross-examined about it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. A. I said that I wished to make a submission to his Lordship about this. My Lord, you know the circumstances in which this report was provided now? It has been supplied anonymously to the Defendants. Whether "anonymously" means it is anonymous in as much as we are not to be told the source? . P-29 MR RAMPTON: That is right. A. Or whether it is anonymous in as much as they know the source but do not intend to identify it to me? There is a substantial difference there, my Lord. MR RAMPTON: Let me make it quite clear. We know who the source is. I think I said actually when I produced the document, the source did not wish to be identified. A. This is an entirely unsatisfactory state of affairs, my Lord. I should be placed in a position where, if necessary, if the source is within the jurisdiction, and I am sure Mr Rampton will be willing to tell us that, I should be put in a position where I can issue a subpoena duces tecum for the production of surrounding documents. MR JUSTICE GRAY: At the moment this is just a bit of typescript. I do not think myself that the identity of the person who actually physically handed it to the Defendants really is either here or there. Its authenticity is not going to, I think, depend on the identity of the person who made it available to the Defendants. A. It is clearly unsatisfactory that I should be supplied with an orphan stray document. We are required to rely on the assurances of the Defendants that it is authentic, that it comes from a proper provenance. I should be placed in a position, my Lord, where I can, if necessary, see the surrounding documents which we were informed by . P-30 Mr Rampton also exist. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am with you to this extent, Mr Irving, that I do think that I have to be told something by the Defendants which at any rate makes it, on the face of it, an authentic document. For all I know at the moment, this was typed yesterday on some rather old fashioned typewriter. There must be a limit to the way in which documents surface in court. MR RAMPTON: Yes. Mr Irving has the document. Had this been discovered by us earlier, it would have been in our list of documents and he would have been enabled to investigate, and if he found it appropriate to do so, dispute its authenticity. I am only asking him shut up about it until such time as I can tell your Lordship exactly from which archive it came. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is what you need do, if I may respectfully say so. MR RAMPTON: That is why I asked if he was ready to be cross-examined about it. The answer seems to be no. A. The question was not whether I accept its authenticity. The question was whether I am willing to be cross-examined on it and the answer is that I was already planning to make the submission that I did to your Lordship, that we should be told more about where it comes from so that, if necessary, I can subpoena the remaining documents. We had . P-31 a very good example with the cross-examination of Professor van Pelt on that Feldofen document, where the document has, on the face of it, a perfectly innocent explanation until you know the surrounding documents of which Professor van Pelt was aware, which gave it a very sinister connotation. In this case it may be precisely the reverse. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think what I am going to say about this, Mr Rampton, is that you can return to it when you are in a position to say which archive it came from, which should not be all that difficult. MR RAMPTON: No, it is not. I think I know the answer but I am not going to say it in case I am wrong. I am going to get chapter and verse. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then you can cross-examine on it. MR RAMPTON: I will find out which archive it is in and how long that archive has been open to us. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is right. I am going to put it in as 51, I think. Do you agree? K2 tab 4, page 51. MR RAMPTON: Yes. A. Of course I have already asked all my advisers around the world what their take on this document is. I have not been idle over the weekend, but I have to have time. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is fair. MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, I want to turn to something completely different, if I may, which is a meeting I think at . P-32 Klessheim which I think is somewhere in Austria? A. Schloss Klessheim, spelt either with one S or two Ss. I think it is spelt both ways. It is a castle, a chateau, near Salzburg. Q. That means that it is a place in Austria, I suppose, or was then. That meeting, I believe, took place on 16th and 17th April 1943, did it not? A. Well, if we know which meeting you are referring to. On those days Adolf Hitler had a number of meetings with foreign leaders. Q. He met Admiral Horthy, who was the Hungarian leader. I do not know whether he was President or Prime Minister or whatever he was. A. He was the Head of State. Q. Head of State at Klessheim on 16th and 17th April 1943, did he not? A. Yes. Q. One of the topics which was discussed between them on both those days was the attitude of the Hungarian government towards its large Jewish population. A. That is correct. Q. I do not know how many Jews there were in Hungary, but it was a very large number, was it not? It was over 500,000. A. Of the order of a million. I think there were 500,000 in Budapest alone. . P-33 Q. You correct me if I am wrong. I am summarizing, my Lord, relevant part of Professor Evans' report is page 437 and following. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. I was just looking for that. MR RAMPTON: What I am putting to Mr Irving is taken from that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is helpful to have the reference thank you. MR RAMPTON: I hope Mr Irving has it. May I ask you, to save my asking questions ---- A. What page are we on? Q. 437 it starts. Is it right, as Professor Evans writes in paragraphs 1 to 8 of the introduction of this part of his report, that from about the middle of 1942 until January 1943, the Nazis had been making attempts to persuade or lean on the Hungarians to be, what shall we say, more severe with their Jews than they had hitherto been willing to be, and in particular to allow them to be deported out of Hungary? A. Yes. Q. That is correct, is it not? A. Since the summer of 1942. Q. Yes. So is it right that one of the topics discussed between Hitler and Admiral Horthy on 16th and 17th April 1943 was the Nazis' position that they thought that the Hungarians ought to buck their ideas up about getting rid of Jews from Hungary? . P-34 A. The Nazis regarded the Hungarians as dragging their feet on this issue. Q. Yes. Were the proceedings at those meetings recorded by a plan called Otto Schmidt? A. No. They were recorded by a man called Paul Schmidt. MR RAMPTON: Sorry, wrong man. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Both are right. Paul Otto Schmidt. MR RAMPTON: We are both right, Mr Irving, for once. Isn't that nice. A. There were two Paul Schmidts, and also they were recorded by hidden microphones on disk. Q. Yes. The discussions were reproduced in a book by somebody called Hillgruber, were they not? A. The Schmidt records were microfilmed by a German Foreign Office official called Lersch, to whom Professor Donald Watt referred. Thanks to the Lersch microfilms we have that transcript, and they were printed by Professor Andreas Hillgruber in two volumes. Q. Can I then please pass up two pages? Actually, it is four pages, but they are double pages, from Professor Hillgruber reprinting of these. My Lord, bureaucrats are at work! MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the bureaucrats are probably right. Otherwise I am going to get completely submerged with paper. MR RAMPTON: That is for Mr Irving. (Same handed) That is a . P-35 Hungary file. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can we give it a letter of the alphabet rather than Hungary? It has one already. Is there going to be a translation, Mr Rampton? MR RAMPTON: Yes. The translation appears on page 441 of Professor Evans' report, the first page that I intend to refer to. Professor Evans' translation given on page 441 at paragraph 1, in the English begins "On Horthy's retort, what should he do with the Jews then ...", that is to be found in the middle of the German on the left hand column at page 256 of the original, "Auf die Gegenfrage Horthys", does it not, Mr Irving? A. Yes. Q. Could you please read from "Auf die Gegenfrage Horthys" down to the end of the first paragraph on the following page 257? I do not mean read out loud. Just read them to yourself and tell us please when you have finished doing that. A. (Pause for reading) Yes. Q. Would you then look, please, at the translation in Professor Evans' report in paragraphs 1 and 3? A. Yes. Q. Do you agree that Professor Evans has accurately translated the words in the German from after "Auf die Gegenfrage Horthys" down to "Moglichkeit gabe es nicht"? . P-36 That is the exchange between Horthy and the Reichs Hausen minister Ribbentrop. A. Yes.
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