THE DEFENCE subsequently offered a plethora of reasons why they did not call Auschwitz survivors as witnesses.
   The obvious one might seem to be that they were fearful that their survivors would crack under cross-examination, as they did dramatically in the Zündel trial -- the most famous survivor of all, Rudolf Vrba finally admitted under oath that he had never seen a gas chamber, or a gassing, and that his statements to that effect were consequently untrue.
   A more likely reason why survivors were not called was that this was a case being heard by a judge alone; emotional survivors, in their striped pyjama suits, might impress a jury, but not a judge.
   Moreover, there was nothing they could formally testify to, except perhaps that Mr Irving had not interviewed them in writing his books -- but he is not a Holocaust writer and never has been. The case was about Lipstadt's lies, not about the history of Auschwitz.
   As for the stated fear that Mr Irving might bully these aged witnesses, Lipstadt's own counsel Richard Rampton in a later press interview commented favourably on the courtesy displayed by Mr Irving towards all witnesses in cross-examining them.