| [Verbatim trial transcripts | David Irving's "Radical's Diary" für Jan.: 28 | 31 | Feb: 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 20 | 24 | 28 | Mar: 1 | 2]
Friday, March 3, 2000
Mr. Irving said that he was "mocking the liars" who had told untrue stories about what had happened to them. Mr. Rampton replied: "Oh, yes, but why the applause?" Mr. Irving, who is representing himself during his action before Mr. Justice Gray, replied: "I am a good speaker." Mr. Irving, of Mayfair, central London, is seeking damages over Professor Lipstadt's 1994 book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, which he says has generated waves of hatred against him. The defence alleges that Mr. Irving's audiences often consisted of radical right-wing, neo-Nazi groups, Mr. Rampton reminded the court of what Mr. Irving had said to an audience in Canada in 1991. Mr. Irving then stated: "I don't see any reason to be tasteful about Auschwitz. It's baloney, it's a legend. Once we admit the fact that it was a brutal slave labour camp and large numbers of people did die, as large numbers of innocent people died elsewhere in the war, why believe the rest of the baloney? Mr. Irving said there were no "skinheads or extremists" in the audience, who looked like a "perfectly ordinary hunch of middle class Canadians." Mr. Irving rejects the accusation that he is a Holocaust denier, although he does question the number of Jewish dead and denies the systematic extermination of the Jews in concentration camps. The hearing was adjourned until March 13.
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Friday, March 3, 2000 |