Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day017.21 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. This, I think there is no dispute about this, announces the starting of the journeys of 5,000 Jews a day from Warsaw to Treblinka and twice a week of 5,000 Jews from an . P-186 unpronounceable Polish word. A. Schemeshall. Q. To Belzec, is that right? A. Yes. Q. And again the appellation or classification is, is it not, on the front page, Geheim? A. It is Geheim. Q. A mere Geheim for that one. Just by way of contrast, we can look at Wolff's reply, which is 99C, 13th August 1942,. This is not a Nuremberg document. This looks like a copy of an original, does it not? Have you got 99C? A. Yes. We have the initials on this, but it is not clear. I am not sure whether this is in the files of the person who received it, or the person who sent it I assume this is in fact in Wolff's file because that is I think where these documents come from. Q. It may be. The only thing we can see about this is that there is no Geheim, still less a Geheimerreichssacher . The only thing you can see in the box at the top of the page is a Gothic AR. Do you see that? A. Yes. Q. What does this series of documents that we have looked at, and I can tell you in the file there are lots of other fairly sinister documents which have no security classification at all, what does that tell you about the classification Geheim as used on documents of this kind? . P-187 A. That there are many documents referring to the workings of the Final Solution and deportation and killing that do not have a high secrecy rating. Q. Finally -- I know this has been laborious -- what is your reaction then to the suggestion that the classification, a mere classification of Geheim, on the Muller order or message to the Einsatzgruppen? It is suggested it is not a document of any importance. A. That would not be a persuasive document. Q. Now, this will be slightly disorderly, not in any sense a criticism of Mr Irving, simply because I track his cross-examination in my questions to you. Are you familiar, I am talking now about numbers, with something called the Korherr report of 23rd March 1943? A. Yes. Q. So as to save us all getting it out, it is noted in some detail in Mr Irving's book Hitler's War, in the 1977 edition, at pages 503 to 4. The numbers it apparently gave---- MR IRVING: My Lord we have not raised Korherr report in the examination. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, but there was an issue about numbers. MR RAMPTON: It has to do with the cross-examination about numbers, scale. MR JUSTICE GRAY: If it casts light on that issue, it does not matter whether it has been referred to or whether it has . P-188 not. MR RAMPTON: It has to do with numbers in the East. I can give you the numbers. Numbers given for people subjected to Sonderbehandlung before it was edited. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you, Mr Rampton, very quickly remind me who Korherr is? MR RAMPTON: He was Himmler's statistician. Is that right? A. Correct. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I had forgotten that. MR RAMPTON: He is Dr Rickard Korherr, he is an anorak and he crunches numbers for Himmler. Anyhow, the numbers he gave, if you remember, I will read them out, are for people deported from the eastern provinces subjected to Sonderbehandlung 1,274,166; for people in the Warthegau, and this is at the 23rd March 1943, 145,301, making a grand total of 1,419,467. Now, as at that date, 23rd March 1943, do those numbers seem surprising to you? A. No. If anything, I would have thought they would have been slightly higher, because at that point in these regions the first sweep through the ghettoes has already taken place, so this is a very cautious estimate. Q. By this date, speaking from your general knowledge of the subject and your detailed knowledge, end of March 43, roughly speaking, how many people do you think have been Sonderbehandelt in the three Reinhardt camps? Roughly. A. Roughly. I would say that would be the lower estimate and . P-189 it might be 100 or 200,000 higher. Basically, the question is how many Polish Jews do we still know are in other places and they are in the work camps in Lublin, there is still 50 to 60,000 in the Warsaw ghetto. They have not liquidated the remnant ghettoes. So, when they made the first sweep, they would take between 70, 80, 90 per cent and there would be remaining then in the ghettoes a smaller group that would be left for work. Then the sweep through those ghettoes came in 43. So most of the Polish Jewry has been destroyed but there is still a segment that has not. Q. I was going to ask you that as my final question on this part of numbers. We saw that Hans Frank estimated between 2 and a half and 3 and a half million Jews or people with Jewish connections on 16th September 1941. A. Yes. Q. Is it known how many Jews were left in Poland by the end of the war? A. First, I should say those who have looked at real statistics and not Frank talking off the top of his head would not accept the 2.5 to 3.5 in the Generalgouvernment. I should say in Poland the pre 1941, that is the German share of Generalgouvernment and to the West, I believe German demographers who made reports thought it was close to 2 million Polish Jews who were there. Galicia has another 500,000. Bialystok I believe . P-190 has 200,000 or 300,000, and then of course the unknown question is just how many managed to flee. And of those who fled were they then killed in White Russia or the Ukraine? Q. I am coming to some fleeing along the line because we had that yesterday in report number 81, I think. What shall we say then? 3 million? We are talking about Warthegau, Generalgouvernment, Bialystok and Galicia in the southeast. Total 3 million? Three and a half? A. I would say that the prewar population has been estimated about 3.3 million for all of Poland but in terms of the Generalgouvernment, Galicia, Bialystok, that would leave us I think around 3. Q. Can I repeat the question? You are quite right not to adopt Frank's figure and to give us what one might call a real figure. Has anybody done work to estimate how many Jews were left in this area of Europe after the war? A. This is the difficult question because you had a constant flow of Jews who survived fleeting from Poland to Germany so you always have a moving target. Q. They flowed westward as well, did they? A. After the war they fled westward. Most of the immigration to Palestine came in fact via Germany. Jews returning from hiding who came back to Polish towns felt very insecure in the atmosphere, where it was feared they would be reclaiming their property and this kind of thing, and . P-191 so they moved out of Poland very quickly. Q. So population lost figures are not necessarily a very reliable means to an accurate answer? A. We get an approximate figure by subtracting the postwar from the prewar to get an approximate number of Polish casualties. So we generally say out of 3.3 million probably 3 million were murdered and 300,000 survived, but those are rough figures. Q. Yes. I am only asking for what you Americans call ball park figures. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are they worth anything, these ball park figures? A. Yes, I think those are accurate as ball park figures, but they could easily be off 100 thousand on either side, I would think. MR RAMPTON: Yes. A. Where the ball park figures are very uncertain is for the Soviet Union. Q. Now I am afraid I shall need some help from people in court. This has to do with three different things that arose during your cross-examination, Professor. The first thing is to go back, if you will, to 19A in the Browning document section of file L1, which is tab 7. Please could somebody find the Professor file H1(vii) please? That file hunting can stop now because Miss Rogers has done the trick with a little file of documents which can go into . P-192 this section. I would like to start with the Muller message of 1st August 1941, the first sentence of which says something like this, does it not, Professor: Running reports on the work of the Einsatzgruppen in the East are to be placed, or will be placed, before the Fuhrer from here"? A. Yes. Q. Yes. I am sorry about my translation. That is roughly what it says, is it not? Then can you have a look, please, at what I think is probably the first of the documents in that little clip, which is the situation report number 80 dated 11th September 1941? MR JUSTICE GRAY: In English? MR RAMPTON: This is an English translation. The German is there too and I shall need to ask you about that in a moment. MR IRVING: My Lord, I am unhappy about this introduction of documents in this way when I have no chance to re- examine on them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You will be offered the opportunity to follow up any new points, but this is entirely legitimate re-examination. MR RAMPTON: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because it arises in relation to a topic that you have cross-examined on. MR RAMPTON: Indeed. It arises, if I may say so, in relation . P-193 to three topics. It arises in relation to what information Hitler was being given, about which the Professor was cross-examined. It arises in relation to the disappearing Jews that ran across the Urals, which we had yesterday, and it arises in relation to the translation given by Mr Irving for Hitler's table talk on 25th October 1941, where he translates the word "Schrecken" as "rumour", if I have the right German, but anyhow he gives "public rumour" as the translation. So all three of those points arise from these documents. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: Can I ask to you look at report number 80 in English, September 11th 1941. Have you got that one? A. Yes. Q. Good. The second paragraph read as follows. I ask you to note the words carefully. "The rumour that the Germans shoot to kill all the Jews has advantages. This is probably the reason why all the time the EK's encounter fewer Jews. Thus it should be noted that everywhere more than 70 to 90 per cent of the original local Jews have fled. In contrast to the past this concerns not only those Jews who once held influential positions". This comes I think from Einsatzgruppen C, which had which area under its jurisdiction? A. Ukraine. Q. Then, just in passing, please note the other side of the . P-194 page, which has a 129 at the bottom, "Notwithstanding that those people had, as it were, done a bunk, we still find something like 30,000 Jews shot by the 11th September 1941". Do you see that? A. Yes, at the bottom. Q. I have done the arithmetic for you. A. The Kommandant, he mentions already 23,600, then Sonderkommando A had reached a figure of 7,000 so the cumulative is 30,000. Q. 31,000, something like that, and notwithstanding that some had been able, most had been able, to get away, they still found 23,600 which they managed to shoot in three days yes. Q. Now I would like you to look at the German of that document, if you will, and the relevant passage, if you have this thing, this one is marked Geheim Reichssacher. It looks like a 60 on the front but it is not in fact, it is an 80, and you can see the date 11th September 1941 on the top right hand corner. Have you got that one? A. Yes. Q. Can you turn to page 9, please, and look at the last paragraph on the page? A. Yes. Q. It reads: (German - document not provided) Please translate that for me. A. It turns out to be beneficial. The rumour turns out to be . P-195 beneficial, that all the Jews are shot by the Germans. Q. If you were asked to translate the word "rumour" into English, what word would you use? A. Well gerucht would be the common one. Q. Finally this, and do you still have Dr Longerich's report up there with you? A. Yes. Q. Could you turn to page 59?
Home ·
Site Map ·
What's New? ·
Search
Nizkor
© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012
This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and
to combat hatred.
Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.
As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may
include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and
provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist
and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.