Day 10 Transcript: Holocaust Denial on Trial

Part I: Initial Proceedings (1.1 to 4.1)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE 1996 I. No. 113 QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London Wednesday, 26th January 2000 Before: MR JUSTICE GRAY B E T W E E N: DAVID JOHN CAWDELL IRVING Claimant -and- (1) PENGUIN BOOKS LIMITED (2) DEBORAH E.

LIPSTADT Defendants The Claimant appeared in person MR RICHARD RAMPTON Q.C. (instructed by Messrs Davenport Lyons and Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the First and Second Defendants MISS HEATHER ROGERS (instructed by Davenport Lyons) appeared on behalf of the First Defendant Penguin Books Limited MR ANTHONY JULIUS (of Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the Second Defendant Deborah Lipstadt (Transcribed from the stenographic notes of Harry Counsell & Company, Clifford’s Inn,

Fetter Lane, London EC4 Telephone: 020-7242-9346) (This transcript is not to be reproduced without the written permission of Harry Counsell & Company) PROCEEDINGS – DAY TEN

<Day 10. Wednesday, 26th January 2000. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving? MR IRVING: My Lord, may it please the court. Two minor housekeeping matters: first of all, I have postponed my two witnesses until later because, obviously, we are in the middle of Professor van Pelt’s cross-examination, and that is the witnesses Fox and Peter Millar. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I hope that does not cause problems. MR IRVING: Not at all, no. I dealt with them last night about this.

So one of the things I gave to you in the bundle yesterday morning referred to the Millar. It is a section of the 1992 diary. It will presumably be in your —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have it loose and I will keep it loose. MR IRVING: Keep it loose or put it in J. My Lord, the other minor matter concerns once again the press. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR IRVING: From today’s press coverage — particularly I am referring to the Times — one gets the impression they are relying more on hand outs than on their personal experiences in the courtroom. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I saw the report. I did not read it. What about it are you concerned? MR IRVING: Purely, that there were things in the article which were not in the testimony yesterday, and I am not in any way pointing a finger at the Defendants on this. It may

well be there are third parties who are doing this and providing copies of the Professor’s report or something like that to the press. This clearly disadvantages me. I am aware of the fact that your Lordship is sitting without a jury, so this is of less moment, but if it in any way gradually affects or put wrong guidelines on public opinion and skews public opinion in some way, then this may indirectly be seen to be affecting the outcome of this decision.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I am afraid that really is a sort of fact of life that you just have to put up with. Really, what matters here for my purposes is whether I am going to be influenced by it and, as I have not read it, I will not be. MR IRVING: Very well, my Lord. Clearly, it would be improper for any of the parties in this case to start putting hand outs to the press in the way I appreciate the law is on contempt which would disadvantage the other party.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: If anything that really does disturb you comes up, mention it, but at the moment I do not think there is anything that can usefully be done about what appeared or, indeed, should be done. So I think we might as well get on. MR IRVING: Very well, my Lord. It will probably assist your Lordship if I now just in one topic paragraph, so to say, outline what I intend doing —-

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I would find that very helpful.

Part II: Professor van Pelt Cross-Examined by Irving on Auschwitz(4.2 to 110.2)

Section 4.2 to 15.16

MR IRVING: — for the next hour, shall we say? Firstly, there will be no more traps being sprung. I am sure that the Professor will appreciate advance notification. There are no more hidden booby-traps or mines, but I am going to be dwelling briefly on crematorium No. (ii) still for a while because I believe the Professor wishes to make certain comments on what I said yesterday.

I then want to have a look at the quality of the eyewitness evidence that the Professor was relying upon, in particular the witnesses Tauber and Bimko and Broad. Then we will move to Auschwitz, the main camp, and have a look at the alleged gassing facilities there. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Thank you for that. MR IRVING: If I can just recapitulate where we were when we ended yesterday and invite the Professor to state what comments he had on that.

This was the fact that we had established, I believe (and I am sure the Professor will correct me when the time comes if I am wrong) that the evidence on which he based his contention that crematorium No. (ii), the mortuary No. 1 in that crematorium, the underground mortuary, was, in fact, a gas chamber, was entirely eyewitness evidence, what we would call anecdotal evidence from certain named eyewitnesses.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think he would, accept but that may be what you are putting to him.

MR IRVING: He may wish to tell the court what other evidence he is relying upon. I shall certainly invite him to do so. If I may continue? The evidence then is that the roof has pancaked downwards, has remained relatively intact, sufficiently in tact that one can draw certain conclusions from its present condition, and that in its present condition it certainly shows no signs of the holes through which allegedly the murderers poured the cyanide capsules into the chamber below.

They should certainly have been visible, in my submission. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that is the point we were on yesterday evening. MR IRVING: This is where we left it yesterday evening, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, absolutely. <PROFESSOR VAN PELT, Recalled <Cross-examined by MR IRVING, continued. Q. [Mr Irving]: Professor van Pelt, do you disagree with any part of that brief summary? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: My Lord, I do. Q. [Mr Irving]: Right. With which part do you disagree?

Shall we take it stage by stage? My contention that your belief that this building was a homicidal gas chamber rests solely on the eyewitness evidence of those named eyewitnesses? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I disagree with that statement, and I can bring in some other evidence, if you would like to consider it?

Q. [Mr Irving]: Was this other evidence contained in any of your reports or in your published book? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is contained in a report. It is also contained — it is basically a number of images I would like to introduce right now. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just be clear? Are we talking about crematorium (ii) or generally? MR IRVING: We are still talking about crematorium No. (ii), my Lord, the one of which we had these large photographs.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I just wanted to be clear. MR IRVING: We are talking specifically about the Leichenkeller No. 1. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Or, even more specifically, we are talking about the way Zyklon-B was introduced in that Leichenkeller by means of wire mesh columns which above ground were capped with a kind of introduction device, a chimney like introduction device. Q. [Mr Irving]: Rather like a funnel of some kind? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Some kind of little chimney.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Was this introduction device made of wire mesh or was it made of concrete or do you have any evidence? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Tauber describes it as a chimney with a concrete lid, but I would like at the moment, with your permission, just to introduce the evidence and maybe we can consider the evidence. Q. [Mr Irving]: This is the eyewitness Tauber you are referring to?

1 A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. My Lord, I would like to go to core file Auschwitz

2, the trial bundle,. MR JUSTICE GRAY: K2 we are talking about? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. 2, K2, and I would like to go to tab 1 where it is called “Plans and blueprints”, and I would like to go to page No. 10 and No. 10A. MR IRVING: Handwritten 10? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think it must be a handwritten 10. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. It is 22 printed and 45 printed, but it is 10 and 10A.

That is how the numbers of the sequence in which these images are in the file. MR JUSTICE GRAY: These are photographs? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: These are photographs, and what we see here is we have an image of the back of crematorium (ii) in February 1942. You see it is winter. The photo is very clear. There is snow on the ground. We are looking at the foreground is actually the construction site of the Klaranlage, the sewage waste, the sewage treatment plant.

We look at the back of the crematorium, and we see there the main building with the roof and the chimney and then, jutting out from that building and it is clearer on the next page, we see the gas chamber, or the morgue No. 1 as a kind of box, a low box like structure, and on top of that we see four boxes. It is certainly three of them are very clear and maybe the fourth one to the left right under the

window. This would be the third double window from the left of the building. We see these box like, chimney like, structures which jut up from this low, this low box like structure, which is morgue No. 1. This is a picture of the building as it was on the construction.

Shortly after this photo was taken the gas chamber itself, or the morgue No. 1 itself, was covered with dirt, and so that the projection of the little chimneys above the level of the roof of the morgue in the final result would probably have been less, but we do not, of course, know if we look at the finished chimneys right now or if these were in some way still capped with another kind of structure.

So this is, I think, a very important piece of evidence because this is a photo taken by a member of the SS Bauleitung, Schaffuhrer Kaman. He was the only one allowed with a camera in the camp and this photo very clearly shows the structures. MR IRVING: Can I interrupt you at this point? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, of course. MR IRVING: Right. I am anxious to let the witness have his say, but you refer to them as “chimneys”; of course, they are not. They are objects on this photograph.

We do not know what the objects are. Professor, have you, presumably, in your life visited a building site? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: And have you seen flat roofs on building sites under construction? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you seen these roofs when they are being treated with some kind of substance to water proof them? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: What does the substance come in? Would I be right in saying it comes in 40 gallons drums or something like that? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I would not be able to comment on that.

I mean, if you want to assert it comes in 40 gallon drums, I will accept that. Q. [Mr Irving]: But it comes in drums, does it not? These drums stand around the roof while the men brush it up and down on the roof. This kind of thing happens? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That is quite possible. Q. [Mr Irving]: And this photograph was taken in the winter of 1942? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: At this time this particular building was under construction, was it not?

They were stilling completing —- A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It was under construction. Q. [Mr Irving]: It was under construction. Of course, if we cut straight to the bottom line in this, if we are to accept your hypothesis or theory that these were rather irregularly spaced openings in the roof, and these were some kind of

pipe on top of that, as I understand you are putting to the court, with some kind of cover on top, then we would expect to find the openings in the roof, would we not, or some trace of those openings in the roof even today? Here is the roof now, that is the very roof we are talking about, is it not? That has pancaked downwards. The underside of the roof is largely intact.

You can see just where those columns would have been then, these openings would have been, and there is not the slightest trace of them, is there?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have said, it is in my report that one cannot observe these things, but I have also said before that when the gas chamber was dismantled before the destruction of this building, two months before the destruction of this building, it would have been a very likely, I mean, the obvious solution would have been to actually close these holes. Now, I have also mentioned yesterday —- Q. [Mr Irving]: I am going to question you on that in a minute.

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I wonder if I should go back to the discussion of yesterday or address straight the issue of the boxes with material, the alleged boxes with the material on the roof. Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, we will come back to the alleged boxes with material on the roof, but I must hold up your statement to the court where you said that just before demolition of the building, workers were sent in with the instructions to fill the holes with cement or concrete or something?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is an inference on my side because you do not want these holes in the roof of a space to remain. When you have taken out the columns, it is an obvious conclusion that you would close these holes. Q. [Mr Irving]: I can see his Lordship frowning and I think the whole court is inwardly frowning about this rather improbable story, implausible idea. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, just for the record and for the transcript, I did not frown. MR IRVING: I am sorry, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us get on with the question. MR IRVING: Yes. The implausibility of the story, that before putting in packs of dynamite beneath the building to blow everything up so that the Red Army does not find any criminal traces, they send in workmen with buckets of cement and trowels and tell them to make good the holes in the roof.

This sounds, I must say, totally implausible to me, and we know now that it never happened because the roof is there and there is not the slightest trace of such patchwork having been done on the concrete? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: My Lord, it is at the moment impossible to see because of the state of the roof if there was patchwork or not. The roof is fragmented.

The roof has weathered very, very badly over 50 years, and the colour of concrete in the roof is of a motley quality, to say, and there is a lot of growth has been on the roof. It is impossible to tell one

way or another. Q. [Mr Irving]: We are talking about the underside of the roof, of course, and we have any number of photographs of the underside of that roof where you can actually see the original wood grain in the formwork on the concrete that survives, and that shows not the slightest displacement or interference or tampering with. This is the implausible part of your story.

I appreciate that you are anxious to move on to other topics because, frankly, this blows holes in the whole of the gas chamber story. If there are no holes in that roof, no holes in that roof, there are no holes now and there were no holes then, and that totally demolishes the evidence of your so-called eyewitnesses?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: My Lord, I have already yesterday pointed out that the column which remains and over which the room has been folded is the second column which was not the column where the column, the Zyklon-B introduction column was attached to, there were four of them, attached to column 1, 3, 5 and 7.

May I address —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I wanted to ask you — may I do it now — about the columns because I understood your evidence yesterday to be that jutting out, as it were, from the roof of the alleged gas chamber there were the columns as well as the metal apertures through which the Zyklon-B, you say, was poured? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The columns — it is unlikely, my Lord, that the —-

Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Did I misunderstand that? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — columns would be going through the roof completely because the columns themselves were wider.

They had these three concentric layers, but what would have happened is that there were a hole through the roof, and then on the top of it you get a kind if chimney like structure, and as long as the hole is connected to the innermost, to the innermost kind of column inside and of the same width so that this little thing can be brought up and down which ultimately allowed people to retrieve the earth in which the Zyklon was absurd during transport.

As long as that hole was the same as the diameter of the inner column, then whatever you do above the roof is irrelevant. I mean, you can have a box or you can have just a lid there. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I follow. But the question I am really trying to get at is this. If your evidence is that the pillars were protruding above the level of the roof —- A. [Professor Van Pelt]: You said the Zyklon-B introduction pillars? Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Well, that is what I am asking you.

I thought you said that the pillars, the structural pillars, were protruding —- A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, the structural pillars did not and do not. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Well, that was my misunderstanding of your evidence. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We have a blue print which shows those pillars and we can look at if you want.

Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Whilst I am asking you questions, I am not sure you have really responded to the suggestion that was implicitly being put to you by Mr Irving which is that these objects that one can see on the roof of the gas chamber, alleged gas chamber, are, in fact, drums containing some sort of sealant. You have not actually dealt with that suggestion. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, and I would like to deal with that, if it is possible?

MR IRVING: Are you saying that all four of those objects were the pipes, as you call them? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, these would be, this would be the chimney. There would be some structure around the pipe, because if you just have a pipe coming up, you want to have probably some kind of insertion mechanism.

If you take a tin of Zyklon-B, that probably there is a little funnel attached to, and also you want probably not the pipe to run straight through the earth, you probably want to have some kind of protection around that pipe. Q. [Mr Irving]: My Lord, can I draw your attention to picture 10A in K2? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I still do not think, Professor van Pelt, you have really dealt with the suggestion that these are drums containing sealant. Could that be so?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I would like to deal with it. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Deal with it now. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: First of all, we are coming, of course, in a — the

problem is the exact dating of this image. If this image had been taken, let us say, in November, December, let us say December 1942, I think it could have been a plausible suggestion. I mean, we would have to look then in what shape of tins sealant is coming, but let us assume that this is, this is December, at that moment we know that there was construction activity on the roof.

We also know that by the end of January, I mean, in fact, by the middle of January already, from correspondence, that the roof of morgue No. 1 had been completed, and one of the reasons for that we know that is the notorious Fergantung’s letter of January 29, 1943. So, what is the reason that we know that this is not December 1942, but that this is or that we are already talking about probably February 1943. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I thought you said ’42, I am bound to say.

MR IRVING: November ’42?

Section 15.17 to 37.11

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: My argument is that Mr Irving’s argument could be taken seriously at least for a moment until we have established what shape these containers come if this photo had been taken in December 1942. My argument is that the roof was already completed by January 1943. My second argument is that one can, if one looks carefully at this photo, see that there is some kind of black line on the top of the chimney.

There seems to be some soot on the top of the chimney which means that the chimney, as it is depicted in this photo, has had some

kind of activity already. We know that there were trials, the first trial firing of the incinerators was, in fact, in late January

1. That was the first trial firing of the

incinerators. On the basis of that, it is very clear that this photo must be taken after the first trial firing of the incinerators. That is again the letter of 19, 29 talks about the trial firing of the incinerators, otherwise there would be no soot on the top of the chimney.

On the basis of that, it is possible to date this photo at least after the end of January 1943 when the roof was completed and, therefore, would be no reason at that moment for any other kind of boxes with sealant to be on the roof. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just ask one question and then I will stop? How do you date this photograph as February ’43?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Because we know that by early March ’43, the whole building was completed and, by implication, the gas chamber would have been covered with dirt. We know also — so that is the last date that is possible. I mean, these photos are not dated. We also know that the first experimental firing of the incinerators happened in end of January 1943. So it must have been, this photo must have been taken after the end of January 1943 and before the official completion

of the building in early March 1943. This is why I say February. MR IRVING: Professor van Pelt, have you seen a photograph of that roof with just snow on it and no kind of protruberances at all, that flat roof? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I think there is a photograph of that, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: What conclusions do you draw from examining that photograph? Those protruberances were moveable? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: If you present me to the photograph, I will draw conclusions from it.

Q. [Mr Irving]: You say you have seen the photograph. If there is a photograph of that roof with flat snow on it, a pure sheet of white snow, and no protruberances on it, and that implies that the protruberances were mobile and could be carried around like drums of tar, for example? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Mr Irving, I am not going to speculate upon a photograph I do not have in front of me.

If you present the photo, I am very happy to explain that photo and I have an explanation for that photo. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor, actually I think you are wrong on this point because you have accepted there is such a photograph. You have seen it. Can you not help Mr Irving — he obviously has not got the photograph — by giving the explanation that you obviously have? MR IRVING: I have the photograph but not immediately available, my Lord.

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: OK. Then the explanation is simple. What happens is that after the dirt was brought on top of the roof of the gas chamber or morgue No. 1, the protection of these chimneys would have been less. If we then had snow on top of that, it is very unlikely we would have seen much of these little chimneys. MR IRVING: I only have one more question going to these protruberances on the roof.

You say the Germans are basically a very methodical and orderly kind of people when they design their buildings; they are not arty crafty. They do not put a pillar here and a pillar there and “Let us have two over there”. They will put them in a straight line down the middle, as, indeed, we know they did in that very building, in the gas chamber, as you call it? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They are construction pillars we are talking about?

Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, the construction pillars that go down the centre of the room, do they not, with one single reinforced concrete beam down the centre of the room? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: So these pillars go down the centre of the room. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Not only Germans. I presume even English architecture and Canadian architecture do the same. Q. [Mr Irving]: I am sure they do.

Therefore, the wire mesh columns that you talked about which went up the side of the pillars would also be running down the centre of the roof, would

they not? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, not necessarily. I mean, you can put them either on the left or on the right side of the columns. Q. [Mr Irving]: Can we have another look at that photograph, in particular the one on page 10A? Is it your impression that those four objects are evenly spaced?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It seems that the second object is slightly more, the second object from the right, seems to be slightly more to the left — it seems to be at a different line than the first and the third. Q. [Mr Irving]: Very well. Do they appear to you to be running down the centre line of that roof? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. Q. [Mr Irving]: Or anywhere near the centre line of that roof? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not know, near.

It is very difficult to say in this photograph exactly where they are, but it seems to be in this perspective that the interpretation is that No. 1 and No. 3 maybe would be in line, but certainly No. 2 would not be on the same line as No. 1 and 3, going from the right, and No. 4 it is very difficult to determine exactly what that thing is. Q. [Mr Irving]: Professor van Pelt, have you received just now a copy of this photograph of the underside of the roof? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.

I have it right in front of me. Q. [Mr Irving]: You accept that the underside of that slab we are looking at there in the colour photograph, which is Leichenkeller

No. 1 of crematorium No. 2, is the room you identified as the room where 500,000 people were gassed to death? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you accept that we can indeed see a very large amount of the space of that underside of that roof? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is very difficult from this photograph to say how much space it is.

I have been under the roof and it is a very tight space when you go there, when you actually film it or photograph it, the scale becomes very difficult to determine. What we certainly see here is that, if indeed what we see in the front of this photograph is the bricks, and pieces of bricks, then actually we are looking in a very, very narrow space, because these bricks are this size more or less, so we are talking about a space here, a crawl space right now.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Like speediology, is it not, like cave hunting? It would be like going down into a very narrow cave, but all the same the people manage to get down there and take the photograph of that large area of roof space and you can see the lines of the formwork, the wooden lines where the concrete has been moulded into the wet concrete as running between the boards of the formwork? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: You would expect therefore to find that interrupted in some way if there were these holes in the roof? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I would like to point out to you that in fact, if we see

the kind of converging parallel lines of the formwork going from the top of the photo, then passing over at least two big kind of stains, which shows it is not very smooth, and then suddenly that formwork stops because there is actually a diagonal line going more or less from the top left of the picture to the middle of the right hand side, so the form work certainly not very regular, which it is very easy to see on this photo.

Q. [Mr Irving]: You do accept, do you not, that the whole of the story of the 500,000 people killed in that chamber rises or falls, rests or falls on the existence of those holes in that roof? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. Q. [Mr Irving]: We only have the eyewitness evidence. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I disagree with that. The whole story rises and falls on the evidence that this room was a gas chamber, which is a slightly different issue.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, setting that aside for a moment and we will come back to that other evidence in a moment, we still have not heard any other evidence than the eyewitness evidence we have heard about. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, before you leave the photograph, took this photograph? MR IRVING: A number of, shall we say, revisionist researchers have gone down there and taken these photographs. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The professionals say it is revisionist

research. MR IRVING: It is revisionist research, my Lord, but the point I was about to make was, as your Lordship may apprehend it was, as it is now accepted and has been accepted for some years that the whole story rises and falls on the existence of holes, one would have expected the researchers at the other end of the spectrum to have been down frantically looking for those holes to prove us wrong and they have not.

They have not bothered to scrape off the rubble on the top to look for the evidence on top of the holes.

They have not bothered to make any kind of survey clearing aside this brick mess underneath, digging deeper in, looking for evidence that those holes exist and frankly, my Lord, I cannot accept the notion that the Nazis, in the last frantic days when we heard yesterday they were in a blue funk, blowing up buildings, taking out the equipment, dismantling everything nut and bolt, that they would have gone round with a bucket of cement filling in the holes of the buildings they were about to

dynamite. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is in the nature of a small speech and obviously you will be making that point later on, but for the time being press on with your questions. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: My Lord, may I respond to this? Can I take the speech as a question? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us deal with it slightly more evidentially. You are being asked for the evidence you

rely on apart from the eyewitnesses. MR IRVING: My Lord —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just pause. You have your shout and I am going to have mine. You have identified the photographs which we have just been looking at, and I think we are going to want to know what other evidence you rely on. Mr Irving, that is not an inconvenient moment to ask that question, is it?

MR IRVING: I was just going to ask one supplementary question, which is to your knowledge, Professor, have any investigations of the underside of that roof been made by the Auschwitz museum authorities or the Polish authorities? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not know, my Lord.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you believe that, if there was any doubt as to the existence of those holes, or if there was any belief that those holes really existed, is it not likely that they would have made the most strenuous attempts to establish that fact? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I cannot second guess the way the Auschwitz museum or the Polish authorities operate. What I do know is that they do not generally allow their research agenda to be set by revisionists. Q. [Mr Irving]: Very well.

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: My Lord, may I introduce a second piece of evidence? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I would find it helpful, Mr Irving, to

know what other evidence. You started by asking what other evidence is there. MR IRVING: This is the question I asked earlier on and I did say that we would come back to that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have the answer now. MR IRVING: We have the eyewitnesses to whose integrity I shall be coming back later on this morning, but let us hear what else you have?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The second piece of evidence I would like to introduce is in tab No. 2, and it is circled photo No. 6, which is an air photo taken by Americans in the summer of 1944, which shows, if we look at that –, I do not know exactly how to turn it. If one looks at the photo from the side, we see crematorium (ii) to the right and crematorium 3 to the left. Now, one sees in this photo very clearly jutting out the undressing room. It is actually the entry at the end.

It is like a little tab attached to it, and the morgue No. 1, and on morgue No. 1 there are four dots. In the same morgue No. 1 at crematorium 3 one sees those three dots. MR IRVING: You describe them as dots, Professor. Would you like to estimate how long those dots actually are? MR JUSTICE GRAY: The dots are going, as it were, in a line up to the top of the page. Are these the dots there? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see.

MR IRVING: If I may point them out on this large colour map, my Lord, they go along this roof here, do they not, which is the alleged gas chamber? Right? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: OK. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So that is a second piece of evidence, and I will leave it to this for the movement. I presume Mr Irving will challenge this and I will respond to his challenge. Q. [Mr Irving]: I did ask you a question if you remember.

This was, would you estimate on the evidence in front of you approximately how big those dots are? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I find it very difficult. I do not know exactly how the shadow runs. Q. [Mr Irving]: Is that a shadow or an object? MR RAMPTON: My Lord, can I intervene to be helpful? There is an even clearer photograph, a medium enlargement, on the previous page in the bundle on the right-hand side. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that is a better photograph. I think that is helpful.

MR RAMPTON: It is even clearer. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is it the same photograph? MR RAMPTON: I do not know. The witness will know that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: More overexposed, as it were, than the other one. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. It is not exactly. It was not taken from the same thing because you can see near crematorium 3, on the one

photograph you can see these lines going in, which actually were used for labels, attach labels to it, and when they were published in 1979 or so, and you do not see those lines pointing to crematorium 3, the morgue No. 1 and the fence in the image on page No. 5, printed No. 4. MR JUSTICE GRAY: On page 5 crematorium (ii) is on the left. Correct? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. Crematorium (ii) is on the left. MR IRVING: Are these the same photographs, Professor?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, they do not seem to be. I think they are the same photograph but they come from a different source. Q. [Mr Irving]: I do not think they can be the same photographs Professor, because of course the shadow of the chimney is going in the different direction, unless I am wrong.. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The shadow of the chimney goes in the same direction. We see the shadow of the chimney going north west in both photos.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think one may be the mirror image of the other but I am not sure it matters very much whether they are the same photographs? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So the question posed to me was the size of the objects. It is very difficult to determine the size of the objects, because of the way the shadow works. If one looks at the shadow of the chimney, one sees that the chimney really projects considerably out of the building, the shadow of the chimney.

So it seems to be the sun is coming in this

case from the southeast. I do not know exactly what time, maybe it comes from the east more. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I would not build too much on that, because I think it could be the same photograph which has been put in the wrong way round, as it were. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, they are exactly the same. MR IRVING: I accept they are the same photographs. Would you agree that both the chimney of the crematorium and whatever these pipe like objects you say are would all be vertical?

They would not be leaning in any one direction? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The object, you mean? Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The chimney itself and the —- Q. [Mr Irving]: Both the crematorium chimney and the protruberances on the roof which you think these dots are, would they all be vertical? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: So they would all cast shadows in the same direction, at the same angle, would they not, if that were so?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, that is quite likely. Q. [Mr Irving]: On this photograph they clearly do not cast shadows in the same direction. The smudges or dots appear to be first one way and then another? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, that is the indeed true. Q. [Mr Irving]: Are these dots visible on any of the other air photographs taken of that building?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes they are. Q. [Mr Irving]: Either before or after? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you going to show these photographs to us? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. I just selected one. Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, might I suggest that it would have been helpful to the court if you had produced the other photographs that you allege exist containing these dots?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I thought that this was sufficient, but I presume the court can obtain them if they want it. But I think that these dots show very clearly that there are four introduction devices in morgue No. 1, or four something on top of that roof.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Professor, I strongly suggest that is a major quantum leap to suggest that a dot which on the face of it is about 15 feet long on the roof of this crematorium building can have anything at all to do with the protruberances that you were talking about earlier, which at its largest extent in the eyewitness evidence that I have seen is of the order of 36 inches.

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Mr Irving, the whole of the width of what you call the alleged gas chamber I think is something like, what is it, a little less than 20 feet. So, if you look at the width of this room and you look then at the dots, we are certainly not talking about dots which are 15 feet wide. We are more looking at dots which are probably 3 feet

wide. Q. [Mr Irving]: I strongly disagree. They are over one quarter of the width of that roof in all their versions and manifestations on these various photographs. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I am not going to argue at moment about the width. Q. [Mr Irving]: Moreover, they cast no shadow. A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is impossible to say what kind of shadow they cast. Q. [Mr Irving]: They cast no shadow.

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Mr Irving, we are looking at an immensely enlarged image from a small negative. These negatives, by the way, my Lord, have been preserved. They are sitting all on a roll and they have been preserved. These photos have been analysed by two different parties. Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you name those two different parties please? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Mr John Ball in Canada and in British Columbia was the first one who analysed these photos in the early 1990s.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it not correct they were first analysed by a man called Mr Brigioni? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, the CIA. I am sorry, indeed the CIA published these photos in 1979. Q. [Mr Irving]: About 1974, I believe? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Whatever, 1974, 1979.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware of the fact that Mr Brigioni, the author of that publication of photographs, the CIA operative who, with a fellow author, first published these photographs, has recently published a book called Photo Fakery?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I am not. Q. [Mr Irving]: In which he sets out chapter by chapter how easy it is to forge photographs, as we all know. Using modern computers and this kind of thing you can take people out of photographs and move people around. This same Mr Brigioni is an expert on photo forgery. Are you aware of that fact? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I was not. I presume that, with today’s computer technology, he indeed would be able to do this.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you suggesting, Mr Irving, that these photographs are forgeries? MR IRVING: I am not suggesting that per se, my Lord, but what I am suggesting is that one has to be alert to the possibility that somebody, for whatever reason, has put a smudge on these photographs.

The National Archives of the United States, where the original photographs were housed in the cartographic division, at the time they were issued by the CIA, the National Archives issued a disclaimer saying these photographs, as they are housed in the National Archives Cartographic Branch, do not contain the labelling which the CIA has attached. They made no references to these actual dots or anything. They just dissociated themselves from the kind of treatment.

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: My Lord, may I continue? Because I was asked —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. What question do you think you are answering?

MR IRVING: Do you have any opinion as to the integrity of these photographs? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have an opinion on the integrity of the photographs which is based on an analysis by Dr. Neville Bryant at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasodena done in 1996, and I actually was present in the room with him when he got his job. I was not present when he actually handed in the report.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Professor van Pelt, is this report of the Pasodena Jet Propulsion Laboratory in evidence before us? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is not, but I have testimony of Mr Michael Schurmer, who commissioned the report, of the results and I just want do explain the position of Dr Bryant. He is the supervisor of cartographic applications and image processing applications at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and he seems to be the most experienced analyst of air photos in the United States.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Is Mr Schurmer a friend of yours? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, he is not. We have met a couple of times. Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there any reason why he would not have provided any written version of that testimony to you for the purposes you needed it for? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not think that at the moment it is necessary to have a testimony by Dr Bryant in court. You will have to prove this is a fakery, Mr Irving. These photos are at the moment evidence as photos.

If you want to say that this

is a fake, I would say prove it and then we can get the report of Dr Bryant. Q. [Mr Irving]: Professor van Pelt, I think that his Lordship will educate you as to the burden of proof in an English defamation action. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure that is really quite right.

If you are not saying that these are fakes, and I think you just told me that you were not putting forward that positive case, then it does not seem to me that it is necessary for this witness to refer to the expert analysis at all. But, if you are saying it is a forgery or has been tampered with in some way, then it may be that we do need to see what the expert said.

MR IRVING: In that case, my Lord, I think we ought to ask the witness as to the nature of the expertise given by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which did not go to the forgery aspect, as I understand it, but to the aspect of what those objects were and how large they were. Am I right, Professor? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that right? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. The question which was asked to Dr Bryant was very simple. The first question was: Had these negatives been tampered with?

It was partly based on a suggestion by Mr Ball who had analysed them in 1990, using analogue machines, which means he did not use computer enhancement but he used analogue machine, in which Mr Ball

had said that in the CIA report things had been added to the photo, and this went very specifically to groups of prisoners being marched around the camp where at a certain moment one could see something like a little —- MR IRVING: Brush marks? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Brush marks which had been drawn in. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is not these photographs, anyway, is it? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is actually in these photographs, but it is too small. But that was one of the”proofs”.

It was that group of prisoners which is not seen in this enlargement. They are walking around in the camp. Q. [Mr Irving]: Can we remain with these photographs, please? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They are in these photographs but not visual. I am just trying to explain the brief which Mr Bryant got. Q. [Mr Irving]: Was he given the original negatives to look at or copies of the negatives? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The negatives are in Jerusalem.

Q. [Mr Irving]: The original negatives are in Jerusalem? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, there is a roll of negatives in Jerusalem. Q. [Mr Irving]: How did the American government negatives come into the possession of the Jerusalem authorities? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have no idea. They are in the Abfashen(?) Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you sure this is not just a duplicate made by the National Archives of the United States? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I am not sure.

I know there is a roll of negatives in the Abfashen and I have been always under the impression that

it is the original roll of negatives given to Israel because of the importance of this material. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What I think we are really looking for is what was the was conclusion at which Mr Bryant arrived?

A. [Professor Van Pelt]: What Dr Bryant did was analyse these images by using computer technology, and he said that the problem which occurred in marching these prisoners which were marching around is that the size of a head of a person is the same as the size of a grain in the negative, and that the result of that was that a morey effect which occurs when also in the newspaper when you photograph a picture which has been screened twice. This is one of the problems.

When you go to the very small scale, it becomes very difficult to exactly understand the behaviour of these individual grains at that level. MR IRVING: Can we remain with the dots on the roof, please? Is there any morey effect visible on them? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We are basically talking about very small objects, and I do not know if there is morey effect on them.

But the issue which Bryant had to address was that the so-called proof Ball had for the tampering with these photos were these lines of prisoners. Once Bryant showed that these had not been tampered with, that there had been absolutely no tampering with this image, then the issue of if they had been tampered with, the dots on top of the Leichenkeller No. 1, became in some way irrelevant,

because the issue which Ball had brought to him was based on those groups of prisoners. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. So Bryant did not actually address the question whether these dots that we see on the enlargements were added, forged additions? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. He looked if there was any proof of addition to it and he had said no. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Generally speaking? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, generally speaking. There is a second one and this is quite an interesting one.

Again, the big problem with all of this of course is that nothing of this has been published. It would have been published by Schurmer if it was not for this libel case. People are waiting to see what the outcome of this libel case is. That is that these photos were taken in sequence, which means that it is a mechanical camera which starts running, and photos were taken for bombing raids on the Bunaplatz in Monowitz.

So what happened is that, as the bomber starts to approach, this was probably taken by a Mosquito, the camera starts to run 10 to 15 minutes ahead of time, and starts taking photographs as it is approaching the bombing site. 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

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. [Professor Van Pelt]: 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. [Mr Irving]: 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. [Professor Van Pelt]: I cannot judge that. In the one photo we looking from

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. [Mr Irving]: 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. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have no comment on that.

Section 37.12 to 53.26

Q. [Mr Irving]: 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. [Professor Van Pelt]: These are the two images which confirm the eyewitness report, and then there are a number of drawings made by a survivor. Q. [Mr Irving]: Mr Olaire? A. [Professor Van Pelt]: 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. [Professor Van Pelt]: He was a sonderkommando. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Drawing No. 3?

Source Information
Original Publication: 2000-01-26
Digital Archive: Focal Point Publications
Accessed: June 4, 2026

See Also

• David Irving v Penguin & Lipstadt — Jan 1995 (Article)
• Index: Lipstadt Trial Documents (Article)
• The defeat of the denierDanuta Kean reports on how Penguin p (Article)
• Irving v Lipstadt: Trial Documents (German language) (Article)
• Documents on David Irving's early clashes with Professor Deborah Lipstadt (Article)