Day 20 Transcript: Holocaust Denial on Trial

Part I: Initial Proceedings (1.1 to 1.26)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE 1996 I. No. 113 QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London Tuesday, 15th February 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 TWENTY

Part II: Professor Richard Evans’ Cross-Examination by David Irving continued, Morning Session (2.1-114.3)

Section 2.1 to 22.16

<Day 20 Tuesday, 15th February 2000. < Professor Evans, recalled. ;< Cross-Examined by Mr Irving, continued. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving? MR IRVING: May it please the court. I have placed in your Lordship’s bundle F a continuation of about 20 or 30 pages, and I have also provided your Lordship, as you have just noticed, with a copy of Nuremberg to which we were referring to yesterday. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I see that. Thank you.

MR IRVING: And if we can just take up one or two of the points your Lordship requested yesterday? Your Lordship requested a copy of what the pull-down menu says. That is in the bundle which I have just given you, bundle F. It is at the back of bundle F which your Lordship was using yesterday. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The pull-down menu, where do I find that? MR IRVING: If you go to page 93 of bundle F, my Lord, it should be — unless the numbering has gone wrong.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I had this in a different form yesterday, did I not, from Mr Rampton? MR IRVING: Well, I did not have it yesterday from Mr Rampton. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Did you not? Well, I got something. MR IRVING: It is difficult to obtain, but that is the works of it, in what is called HTML. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Having looked through it, whilst we are on

this, it did appear to me that whatever their titles may be, they are mostly Jewish organisations of one kind or another. MR IRVING: My Lord, that is not correct. If you look at the list, there are 16 items, of which seven are not, if I can put it like that. MR RAMPTON: I do not think we have 16. MR IRVING: That is precisely why your Lordship should be looking at my pull-down menu rather than the one given to you. Shall I read through them?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think that would serve any particularly useful purpose. MR IRVING: No. But your Lordship will notice the Australian Government, the Centre for Democratic Renewal, the Coalition for Human Dignity, the German Government. MR RAMPTON: There are only two I think that are not Jewish, my Lord. MR IRVING: Searchlight —- MR RAMPTON: Two National Governments.

MR IRVING: Well, Mr Rampton, if you would just allow me to finish reading out those that are not Jewish that are on the list? MR JUSTICE GRAY: You read out the ones you say are not Jewish. MR IRVING: I will start again. Australian Government, Centre for Democratic Renewal. MR RAMPTON: That is Jewish.

MR IRVING: I beg your pardon? MR RAMPTON: It is Jewish. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let him read them, Mr Rampton, then we can debate it further, if needs be. MR IRVING: Coalition for Human Dignity, the German Government, Searchlight, and Surf Watch Internet Censorship. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: Each of those, if you would click on that, you would come to a subindex, my Lord, which has the actual documents which qualified for inclusion in the list of enemies of free speech.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I think this is in a way dicing with words because I have actually got the indices supplied yesterday. It appears to me, without knowing in detail what the individual items on the indices are, that really all of these organizations, there is a great deal of interplay, put it like that, between these organizations and what you would, perhaps, describe as the Jewish lobby. Is that not fair?

MR IRVING: In some of the documents quite clearly there is, in some of the documents listed on the index, and, obviously, I then have to make the point that this is a website which has been set up in response to the attack on me. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I follow. MR IRVING: So, clearly, this is not a global attempt to address all the world enemies of free speech when,

undoubtedly, you bring in the Chinese Government and all sorts of other ghastly organizations, but these are the bodies that have impinged on my professional career. That is why they figure on my personal list of traditional enemies of free speech. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I follow that. I think I interrupted Mr Rampton. Did you want to add anything? MR RAMPTON: I was just going to say, Mr Irving has identified as being not Jewish I think four that, in fact, are Jewish.

The only two that are not that we can tell are the Australian and the German governments. MR IRVING: Perhaps you should say which of the four that you consider are Jewish. MR RAMPTON: All the rest are Jewish. MR IRVING: Centre for Democratic Renewal? MR RAMPTON: Yes. MR IRVING: A Jewish body? MR RAMPTON: Yes — so I am told. MR JUSTICE GRAY: We may or may not come back to that at some later stage. Let us leave it for the moment. I cannot actually find my bundle F.

MR IRVING: I asked your clerk, my Lord, this morning to put the fresh documents into it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I then think I said not for the time being until I know that is what everybody thinks is right. MR IRVING: Your Lordship will need bundle F9, in fact.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not seem to have F. Yes. So I put this in the back? MR IRVING: That is correct, my Lord. Mr Rampton’s intervention, of course, has highlighted the problem that I face in view of the fact that the representative of the Centre for Democratic Renewal and the Coalition for Human Dignity who gave statements relied which have been relied upon by Professor Levin, those statements are not sworn. They are just put in by way of evidence. They are relied on by Professor Levin.

Professor Levin is not going to give oral evidence, so I cannot test the validity of any of the statements that Mr Rampton has made or any of the statements these witnesses have made. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Levin, who is not coming to give evidence, I had understood (and perhaps I am wrong about this and perhaps we can clarify now) that his report is no longer relied on. MR RAMPTON: No, that is not right. There is a Civil Evidence Act Notice. MR JUSTICE GRAY: For an expert?

MR RAMPTON: Yes, in respect of that. What weight it has is another question, but it has to be a 1968 Act Notice because this case was started before the 1995 Act came into force. So there is a Civil Evidence Act statement in respect of Professor Levin. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is highly unusual to have an expert’s

report subject to the Civil Evidence Act. MR RAMPTON: It may be unusual but —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not know whether I have ever heard of it before. MR RAMPTON: — there is nothing the matter with it in principle. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may be right. MR IRVING: It does place me at a serious disadvantage, of course. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I know.

Actually, I thought the disadvantage was less great than it now appears to be because I had wrongly taken it (and I am glad I have now discovered my error) that the Defendants were not any longer relying on Levin and Eatwell. MR RAMPTON: If I can say this, quite frankly, I do not myself believe I need to depend very heavily on Professor Levin anyway for —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is probably right. MR RAMPTON: — quite different reasons.

The factual witnesses probably, so far as the United States and Canada are concerned, are more important. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. To help you with your difficulty, Mr Irving, can I suggest this, that when you come to be cross-examined, as you will be I think on —- MR IRVING: Next week sometime. MR JUSTICE GRAY: — the sort of rogues’ gallery point, if

I can rudely call it that, namely your associating with these extremists. MR IRVING: Guilt by association. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, well, that is the way you put it. I am not sure it is as simple as that. MR IRVING: It is the way Morland J would put it probably too. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, you might then take the opportunity, either in cross-examination or perhaps re-examining yourself, to make the points you are wanting to make in reference to Professor Levin or Dr Levin’s report.

MR IRVING: I was proposing to make it by way of submission. MR JUSTICE GRAY: All right. You can do it that way as well or instead, rather. MR IRVING: But is a rather unfortunate halfway house that he is going to partly rely on Mr Levin’s report, and we have no way of knowing which part he is relying on and which part he is not. Either he should or he should not, in my view, my Lord, and your Lordship may wish to make a ruling on that.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, you may want to make the application that it is not legitimate for a party to use the Civil Evidence Act machinery to avoid having the expert witness in question called and cross-examined. MR IRVING: Now that we are under the CPR, as we are, I think it should be either or. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well I am not going to that now because

Professor Evans is, no doubt, wanting to get on with his evidence, but if you want to make that application, feel free to do so. But, as I say, I think it is unusual. Yes, now, are we ready to resume? MR IRVING: One more minor matter, your Lordship asked to see the index of the Hitler’s War books, the new version, and that also appended as — it is the very last page of what you have. MR JUSTICE GRAY: When you say the “new” version, the one that is about to come out?

MR IRVING: No, this was an index we commissioned for the 1991 edition, in other words, it is a fuller index for 1991. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see. MR IRVING: It has now been superceded because we are about to do a completely updated edition. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So this is just the extract dealing with… MR IRVING: That, I presume, is the page that your Lordship was interested in. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, you are quite right.

MR IRVING: Also, finally, my Lord, if you look two items back from that, your Lordship will find The Spectator. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is this “as many as”? MR IRVING: “As many as”, yes, my Lord. Your Lordship will see that I was absolutely correct; either Professor Eatwell or Professor Levin or both omitted the word which completely reversed the meaning.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Professor Evans, this is a point at which I think you ought to join in, if I can put it like that. I think, Mr Irving, the point he made yesterday is right? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is right, yes, indeed. MR IRVING: Is it right to say that I, therefore, did not double the death roll by means of the comparison, in fact? I adhered to a death roll in Hamburg of up to or nearly 50,000? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Not, I think, your error, but Professor Eatwell’s? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It looks like it, my Lord. MR IRVING: My Lord, the problem is Professor Evans’ report has turned out to be a bit of a dummy minefield. I am advancing into it, but very gingerly, because I do not know where the real mines are and where the dummies are like that one, and this is what is delaying us. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure I accept any of that, but let us move on anyway.

We have got to about 100? MR IRVING: 128, my Lord, is where I propose to continue, my Lord. I am on 128 at paragraph 4, Professor Evans. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are still on the topic of Holocaust denial, are you not? MR IRVING: We are, my Lord, and we are dealing just briefly with the experiment made with the gas vans. Your Lordship

was concerned that I described this as an experiment in view of the large numbers. So Professor Evans has quoted me as saying, “So I accept that this kind of experiment was made on a very limited scale”. Do you agree that there was, in fact, an experiment, Professor Evans, the use of the gas vans for a limited period of months on the Eastern Front and elsewhere?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You go on to say: “But, I don’t accept that the gas chambers existed, and this is well known. I’ve seen no evidence at all that gas chambers existed”. So what I am saying there in that quotation is that you say that gassing took place on a very limited scale, experimental scale, but, as you say, it was rapidly abandoned as being a totally inefficient way of killing people. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I understand that during the trial you have now admitted that that was wrong, that it was, that gassing was not merely used on a limited experimental scale. Q. [Mr Irving]: You are overlooking the use of loaded words like “conceded” and “admitted”. Do you accept that, therefore, the gas vans were used as an experimental basis for killing, and that they were abandoned then for whatever reason afterwards? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not.

They were used for killing on a large scale, as I think—- Q. [Mr Irving]: Did they continue using them throughout the war or did

they stop? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: There was a transition to mainly using gas chambers, but they were used on far more than a limited scale, as I believe you yourself have said in the course of this trial. Q. [Mr Irving]: Looking purely at the word “experimental” at this point, you have agreed that Professor Burrin, the Swiss Professor is something of an expert. He is not an extremist or what you call a Holocaust denier. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is so, yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: I just put to you one sentence from his standard work on this. This is on page 112 of Philip Burrin: “The gas truck had been an improvised response to a situation no one had foreseen or imagined”. Would you agree with that? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I would have to see the whole passage. I find it difficult to comment simply on a single sentence taken out of that.

In any case, the context of this section of my report is concerned with your denial that gas chambers existed, that gas chambers were used. That is the context. Q. [Mr Irving]: Before we move on, just a simple answer. You do accept therefore that the gas vans were used and then abandoned at some stage as a means of killing? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, yes. In the end of course the gas chambers were abandoned as a means of killing when they had fulfilled their purpose.

I do not accept—-

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I just want to see where we are going occasionally. MR IRVING: That was the end of that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: At an earlier stage in this case — correct me if I am recollecting wrongly — you were presented with a document which indicated that at Chelmno 97,000 Jews were killed in five weeks. MR RAMPTON: Five months, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I agree you did not accept that figure was correct, but I believe you did accept in terms that the gas vans were not used on a solely experimental basis but were used for the systematic killing of substantial numbers of Jews. MR IRVING: They were. I do not agree that they were used only at Chelmno. They were certainly used once at Chelmno because there was an explosion there, but there is no evidence they were used only there.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I did not say “only there”. I am using that as an illustration of what I had understood you to have accepted earlier in this case. MR IRVING: I am trying to justify the use of the word “experimental” by the virtue of the fact that other historians of reputation have also described this as being an interim phase and it was abandoned, as it proved not to be a very feasible or practical way of doing things. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may be rather a different thing from

saying it is experimental, but there we are. MR IRVING: I think that you had fastened on the word “experimental” as being something repugnant in this particular connection and I can appreciate that, but I was just trying to establish what was meant by the word “experimental”. Can we now proceed to paragraph 6 on the same page 128, where we are talking about the subsequent Polish tests which attempted to replicate the Leuchter tests.

You say that I allege that there was a refusal of the authorities to call for site examinations and that forensic tests were carried out by the Poles, but the results were suppressed”. Is that correct in the last four lines on page 128? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you suggesting that I have got it wrong somehow? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: In this paragraph I am trying to sum up your views as succinctly as I can.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you accept that the Poles did carry out tests and suppress them? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not. I have to say I am not an expert on Auschwitz and there has been a separate, as I call attention to at the top of the next page 130, expert witness report by Professor van Pelt, who is an expert on Auschwitz, who goes into this in very great detail. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. So we will not dwell very long on this, but would

you go to page 56 of the little bundle, which is the first page of the Polish report I am referring to. We are going to look at two dates on it. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: It is a Polish document. I am told that the date at the top in Polish means 24th September 1990, and that is the date that the report was submitted by this Polish Institute to the museum at Auschwitz, as you can see in the address line on the top right quarter.

If you look in the rubber stamp box, can you see a date on the final line? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Indeed, 11.10.1990. Q. [Mr Irving]: Did the Polish State authority, the Auschwitz authorities, at any time thereafter publish that report, or did it sit in their safe for some months and years? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am not an expert on this subject. I cannot really comment.

I think probably, if one consulted Professor van Pelt’s report, one would be able to clear that up. Q. [Mr Irving]: You spent a whole page — again on the foot of page 129 you say that Irving went on to claim that Dr Piper, in other words the Auschwitz State Museum, had suppressed the fact and filed the report away. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I say that. Q. [Mr Irving]: You disqualify the Leuchter report in your view.

I have to ask you these questions because it is said that I have relied on the Leuchter report and that this was an

unjustifiable act of a responsible historian. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You do not have to ask these questions. I have already indicated that on Auschwitz — I know it is referred to in Professor Evans’ report — it does not appear to me that, if I may respectfully say so, Professor Evans’ opinions really bulk very large. I think that is really Professor van Pelt. So do not feel you have to ask these questions. MR IRVING: I would like to ask him purely then about one matter.

Is it right that you suggest that the report was not admitted as evidence at the Toronto trial, and that this in some way discredits the report? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I cannot see that in my report. I say it was discredited at the Zundel trial in 1988. That is my understanding, having read some of the transcripts of the trial. Q. [Mr Irving]: Was the report actually admitted as evidence of the Zundel trial? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think we know it was, do we not? We can move on.

MR IRVING: The point that I am trying to make, my Lord, is that I have had considerable dealings overnight with the Canadian solicitors involved in that action who confirmed to me — I just put the essential three lines of their letter to you. The solicitor Barbara Kulaska has written to me saying that the Leuchter report itself was not filed

as an exhibit for the sole reason that such engineering reports are not generally admissible under Canadian rules of evidence unless the other side consents. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I treat that with a certain amount of scepticism. The evidence up to now is that it was not admitted in evidence at the Zundel trial because it was not accepted that Leuchter was suitably qualified as an expert.

MR IRVING: My Lord, with the utmost respect, I have to say that I have a very large bundle here now which contains the actual transcript on that matter between the prosecution and the defence and the court in Toronto. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall we put that on one side? I do not suppose Mr Rampton has had a chance to look at what you are referring to me at the moment. At any rate, let us got on with Professor Evans. I am not shutting you out from adducing that evidence.

MR IRVING: I am prepared to make this transcript available to the Defence in this matter. MR RAMPTON: I have the transcript. I used it in cross-examination of Mr Irving. It is perfectly clear the judge would not admit Mr Leuchter as an expert. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What you have not seen is what Mr Irving is relying on from the Canadian lawyers giving an entirely different reason why. MR RAMPTON: I have seen it. There is a one page letter

I think in this new bundle. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What I am suggesting is that Mr Irving follows this up later. MR RAMPTON: Yes, I agree. I attach no weight to what the lawyer says at all. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Rather than now. MR IRVING: Whether Mr Rampton attaches weight to it or not is neither here nor there. In that case I shall put it to your Lordship by way of submission later on. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Would you mind.

MR IRVING: At page 130 line 8 you say that my arguments derive from previous work from well-known Holocaust deniers, and then you mention some. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Professor Faurisson. . Are you familiar with the expertise of Germar Rudolf? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I mention Faurisson there. I do not mention Rudolf there. Q. [Mr Irving]: I can make this very brief.

Can you accept that there are a number of other documentary bases on which I base my arguments, for example the air photographs as interpreted by a man called John Ball? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is clear I think that in the documents that I cite you do rely heavily upon Faurisson, whose work you did read in the late 1980s, as you recall in your diary. Q. [Mr Irving]: Which works of Professor Faurisson do you allege that I read?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It was an article in your diary entry of 26th July 1986. You wrote “Faurisson’s paper on Auschwitz set me thinking very hard.” I presume that is an article that he published or a paper that he gave to you. Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you suggesting that he is my only source, the only basis of my arguments that I do not rely—- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I am not. I give that as an example there.

Q. [Mr Irving]: When is set thinking very hard, as no doubt you have also been occasionally made to think very hard, you then start looking at other sources to see how one should finally align one’s own political or scientific or historical viewpoint. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. I say here that it derives from previous work by well-known Holocaust deniers such as Faurisson. Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you call Professor Hinsley a well-known Holocaust denier?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not think that these arguments, the arguments are derived — you misuse Professor Hinsley’s material in your work. Q. [Mr Irving]: But you have here referred of course only to Professor Faurisson. Does that imply that he was my only source of any change of mind or new direction of my thinking that I may have adopted? MR JUSTICE GRAY: “Such as” are the words used. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: “Such as”, yes.

You were familiar with the brochure, Did 6 million really die, by Richard Verul of the National

Front published under the pseudonym of Richard Harwood. Q. [Mr Irving]: You are saying I am very familiar with it. When did I become familiar with it? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You note in 1988 that you said in the Zundel trial in the evidence you gave over 90 per cent of the brochure is factually accurate.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you also read in the diary that the Verul report was given to me to read one day before I gave evidence, and that I looked at it the same as you look at documents here in order to be able to form an opinion of it? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am saying you read it, Mr Irving. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, but are you suggesting that I thought it out and read it and then used it as a basis for my arguments? MR JUSTICE GRAY: He cannot possibly answer that, can he?

MR IRVING: I mean, the allegation, the suggestion, the imputation, from the witness is that I have read it and used it as a source when, in fact, I read it as an expert witness has to read documents that are put to him. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You just said you were familiar with it, Mr Irving. MR IRVING: I had sufficient familiarity with it on the basis of 24 hours study in order to be able answer questions as an expert witness. This is the point I wish to put to him.

If the witness makes a statement like that, which is intended to create an impression, then I am surely entitled to rectify the impression.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, you cannot ask him questions to which he obviously cannot possibly know the answer. MR IRVING: My Lord, he can because the reference to this particular report is in my diaries which he has just quoted from and it makes quite plain that the Verul(?) Report was submitted to me. It was put to me by the Defence counsel to read in order that I could answer questions on it when I came into the box. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, what is the answer?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am not sure what the question was, my Lord. MR IRVING: Are you familiar with, have you read my diary and do you accept that, in fact, the Verul report was put to me purely for that purpose? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is what your diary says. I am familiar with the diary entry. The fact is that you read the report and you judged it 90 per cent correct.

Similarly, you are familiar with the work of another Holocaust denier, Dr Wilhelm Steglisch which you have commented on on a number of occasions. Q. [Mr Irving]: Notwithstanding your desire to move on to other matters, can we deal with one thing at a time and say that a number of documents have been put to you by me in the last few days, is that is right? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you find it repugnant if people said you have relied on these documents that I have put to you and that

you have read these Irving documents and that, therefore —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, please, come on. It is just becoming unhelpful and argumentative. Let us get on to what matters. I say that for, I should think, the 12th time. MR IRVING: 132, Professor, page 132, line 4. I am afraid I have to demolish this witness in detail, my Lord. It is the only way I can do it.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I am sorry, I am intervening more than I want to, but I have told you before that on Auschwitz I do not regard Professor Evans as being, if I may say so, authoritative. Therefore, you do not have to ask interminable questions about Auschwitz. What matters starts at about page 150, as I have said many times before.

Section 22.17 to 40.22

MR IRVING: If I am accused of putting things into documents which are not in the documents, this goes to the root of one of the principal libels on my name, my Lord. That is in line 4. That is why I will ask this witness now to go to page 57 of the bundle and see the document to which I am referring. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 54. MR IRVING: Page 57. Is this an invoice for the supply of Zyklon-B to Auschwitz concentration camp? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, it appears to be.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you in your report say: “It makes no mention at all of pest control”? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I do, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you now look at line 5 of the invoice, the typed portion? Do you agree that it says: “This material was sent to Auschwitz Abteilung, Entwesung und” —- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. My mistake, Mr Irving. Q. [Mr Irving]: This is your mistake? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: So, in other words, I did not fake and I did not distort and I did not insert and I did not manipulate on that particular document? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let me read the paragraph. “The plates”, we are still on the plates of your Nuremberg book, and the caption says: “Tonnes of Zyclon-B pellets, containing poisonous hydrogen cyanide, are shipped by the Degesch factory to the Pest Control division of Auschwitz and other camps including Oraneinburg in 1944″.

The delivery note, though, only concerns Auschwitz. I agree I overlooked the mention of the pest control in Auschwitz, but it does not affect the other camps. Q. [Mr Irving]: It does not affects the other camp? But that is not the point I am making here. It is just that once again I have been accused of distorting and manipulating and you have now admitted that you are wrong? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, no —-

Q. [Mr Irving]: Just as on the Spectator letter and other things. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: — because you are illustrating, you have an illustration there of a note to Auschwitz and you are making claims on the basis of it about other camps. Q. [Mr Irving]: I am not going to put to you all the other invoices which I have in the file which show deliveries to the other camps which makes the point.

But the point I am making here, will you accept that, is purely that you wrongly accused me of mistranslating or distorting a document? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not think I wrongly — and I admit I am wrong on that point, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Thank you. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have already admitted that. Q. [Mr Irving]: Footnote 60, very briefly, you reference there the Gerstein report.

Will you now accept that the Gerstein report has been totally discredited by the people you call the Holocaust deniers because of the figures and ludicrous facts it contains? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I will not, no. As I have said, I am not an expert on this subject, but it is a report that is — I will not accept simply on your word, that it has been discredited.

Q. [Mr Irving]: The next footnote, No. 61, you refer to an interview between me and Radio Ulster, but, unfortunately, is not produced in any of the bundle of documents, so it is difficult for me to judge how accurate this is. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you help about that, Professor Evans?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I cannot, I am afraid. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Do you know where the transcript is? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am unable to locate it, but we can quite well dispense with that. There are plenty of other statements here on which we can rely, as in the very next sentence: “There were no gas chambers in Auschwitz” as you said on 5th March 1990. MR IRVING: Are you familiar with the distinction between Auschwitz and Birkenhau?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think we have been through this in this case, Mr Irving, and that —- Q. [Mr Irving]: No, but I am asking you. Are you familiar —- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is generally understood that when one talks about Auschwitz, one talks about the whole complex of all the various camps inside covered by the name of Auschwitz. When one talks about Birkenhau, that includes Birkenhau. Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you been to Auschwitz?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have not been to Auschwitz. Q. [Mr Irving]: So I cannot ask you and there is no point in my asking you questions about that. You refer on page 133 to the shower baths? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am not, really not an expert on this. What I am trying to do here is to assemble evidence that you have denied that there are gas chambers, there were gas chambers in —- Q. [Mr Irving]: I am placed at a disadvantage and I appreciate his

Lordship’s impatience with this procedure, but you have rambled on for pages in your report about Auschwitz and included numerous false statements and I am trying to proceed at speed, but every time I ask you you say you are not an expert on this. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: What I am trying to do here is to include and present numerous statements of yours to the effect that gas chambers were not used, did not exist, and so on, at Auschwitz and elsewhere.

I presented a substantial number of these statements here. I do not really propose to read them out. Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, I am afraid you will have to do what I ask under cross-examination. One of them is look at line 1 at page 134, please. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: “On 8th November 1990 he”, that is Irving, “repeated the same claim to an audience in Toronto: ‘The gas chambers that are shown to the tourists in Auschwitz are fakes’.” A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you now agree that this is true? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is true that you said that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do we have to go through this again? You say fake, Mr Rampton says reconstruction. I have the point.

MR IRVING: This is my way of now introducing a cardinal document which is on pages 59 and 60, my Lord, on which I shall very definitely rely. It is a visit by a very

well-known French news magazine called L’Expresse on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. On page 60 there is the admission that everything in it is fake, and they do not know how to tell the tourists this. MR RAMPTON: I really do not know where this is going. This was not put to Professor van Pelt who made it perfectly clear that the single gas chamber at Auschwitz (i), Sturmlager, is a post-war reconstruction and he explained —- MR IRVING: It is a postwar reconstruction.

MR RAMPTON: He explained how it had been done and that the beginning and the end of that story. How Professor Evans is expected to deal with this, I do not know. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The difficulty, as you know, is that one does have the section on Auschwitz. That is the problem.

MR RAMPTON: I know, but, as your Lordship knows, as I have shown your Lordship already and Mr Irving has been in court, again and again Mr Irving has referred to gas chambers in the plural, not just at Auschwitz but elsewhere. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I just have never from the word go understood the point that you make about these so-called fake gas chambers. MR RAMPTON: There are two points, my Lord. First of all, Mr Rampton calls it a “reconstruction”, I call it a “fake”.

The second point is if I am accused of having a

criminal conviction in Germany, which is used against me by the Defence, I am entitled to point out the criminal conviction is for saying precisely this sentence and it turns out to be true. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not remotely interested in your criminal conviction in Germany. I simply am not. MR IRVING: I am indebted to your Lordship for saying that because the Defence has repeatedly referred to it —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am now going to rule that you get on.

Please, Mr Irving, this is enough about Auschwitz. I just do not think that there is anything to be gained by any further cross-examination on Auschwitz. You have spent a long time on it. MR IRVING: Just about Auschwitz or about the Final Solution, my Lord? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not stopping you on the Final Solution. MR IRVING: Page 134. “Systematic nature of the extermination”.

You take exception to my suggestion that Jews were the victims of a large number of rather run-of-the-mill criminal elements, and I mention there the Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And Austrians. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And Germans. Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you familiar with the report by Jan Karski who was one of the first people to report on the Final Solution?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not — I am not, no. Q. [Mr Irving]: In that case I cannot ask you about it. On page 135, paragraph 3: “Irving’s view that these local initiatives were excusable”, is the word “excusable” excusable in this context? Have I ever tried to excuse what the Germans are doing to the Jews?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, let me read what you told the press conference in Australia in 1986 which is the quote beginning halfway down the quote on the previous page where you say, you are questioning whether the killing of Jews “was a tragedy ordered and organized on the very highest German state level, namely by Hitler himself.

Because if my hypothesis is correct, it means that all these Jews – and it may be any figure, I don’t look at the figure concerned – if my hypothesis is correct, it indicates that the Jews were the victims of a large number of rather run-of-the-mill criminal elements which exist in Central Europe. Not just Germans, but Austrians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, feeding on the endemic antisemitism of the era and encouraged by the brutalization which war brought about anyway.

These people had seen the bombing raids begin. They’d probably lost women, wives and children in the bombing raids. And they wanted to take revenge on someone. So when Hitler ordered the expulsion, as he did – there’s no doubt that Hitler ordered the expulsion measures – these people took it out on the person that

they could”. Q. [Mr Irving]: And you say this is somebody excusing the Nazis for taking these ghastly actions against the Jews? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It seems to me that that is the implication in that statement, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it not, in fact, a very sloppy use of the English language? What you meant was not “excusable” but “explicable” and there is a very great difference between these two words?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think, given your attitude — well, first of all, I find it very difficult to see how Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians could get so worked up by bombing raids on Germany that they started killing Jews. Q. [Mr Irving]: Is that what I say?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is the clear implication, “these people”, and in the previous sentence you say, “Not just Germans, but Austrians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians”. “These people had seen the bombing raids begin”. Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you familiar with the fact that Jan Karski, the man whom I previously referred to, warned the Polish government of the likelihood of pogroms in the Baltic states, and he had explained the reasons why in a 1940 report?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Mr Irving, there is plenty of documentation to show that there were, that Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians and so on were involved in the mass killing of Jews with the

encouragement of the SS unit and the Einsatzgruppen. Q. [Mr Irving]: But are you not by using the word “excusable” suggesting that David Irving said that what had happened to the Jews was right, that I am excusing it, whereas, in fact, I am explaining it and there is a substantial difference. Do you not agree? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not. I am afraid the tenor and tendency of your explanations is to find excuses.

Q. [Mr Irving]: So —- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And you go on, and I go on to quote numerous places in the report at some length arguments which you put forward to try to suggest (and sometimes say in so many words) that the Jews were responsible themselves for the misfortunes which befell them. Q. [Mr Irving]: You still do not appear to appreciate the difference between the word —- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think this falls into a pattern.

Q. [Mr Irving]: — to excuse and to explain. Your use of the word “excusable” implies that David Irving welcomed the Holocaust, that I am excusing it; whereas I am explaining it by saying, “These people had a vengeance, these people had a grudge, these people felt wronged, these people took it out on the people they perceived as being the ones who did it”. Is that an excuse or is that an explanation?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think given the fact that they not been bombed, that is an excuse.

Q. [Mr Irving]: I think we can abandon bombing for a moment and point to other things. I do not want to go into the reasons why the Baltic Jews had a particular grudge, but that is neither here nor there. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, I think it is very much here or there.

If you want to use as an explanation of the massacres of Jews by Baltic peoples, if you want to use in explanation of that allegations that you want to make about their maltreatment by Jews or justified — or in some ways grievances that they had which were in some ways justified, that seems to me that you are excusing it. Q. [Mr Irving]: In other words, what you are saying is that I welcomed the Holocaust, is that the way you are trying to put it to the court?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not use the word “welcome”, Mr —- Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, I am trying to understand why you use the word “excusable”. If something is excusable, then this implies that the person who is making the excuses thinks it is a jolly good thing. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not think that is true actually. Those are two rather different things.

Applauding something and excusing it are rather different things, Mr Irving, and I come back to this fact that you say, “These people had seen the bombing raids begin, they’d lost probably women, wives and children in the bombing raids”. So these poor Estonians who had been subjected to allied bombings,

therefore, felt so angry with the Jews that they took it out on them. Now, I do not think there is evidence that Estonians were heavily bombed by the Allies in 1941. Q. [Mr Irving]: Forget the bombing raids for the time being. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am not forgetting the bombing raids because that is a central passage — a central part of this passage, Mr Irving. Q. [Mr Irving]: My Lord, let me explain the reason why I am dealing with this at length.

This is one of the issues pleaded. In the pleadings one of the complaints is that I am accused by the Second Defendant of having, I think, applauded the incarceration of the Jews in the concentration camps. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not believe that she ever has made that accusation. What you are accused of in this part of the report is making excuses for those who took part in the —- MR IRVING: Finding something excusable rather than explicable, and there is a substantial difference there.

I find the use of the word “excusable” which I hope the Professor will admit was a slip, but now he is trying to justify it? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I will not admit it is a slip, no. I mean, I looked at this passage and it seems to me to excuse these massacres. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Speaking for myself, I think I understand the point you are making, Mr Irving, and I understand the answer as well. MR IRVING: In that case, I will now wish to speak another

paragraph about the explanation why the Baltic Jews took revenge on their native Jewish population during the brief interregnum between the time the Soviets moved out and the German Army arrived. Did you appreciate that there were substantial killings in that period? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I would have to be provided with evidence, I think, to show that. Q. [Mr Irving]: So you make the allegations without the evidence then?

You say that the bombing raids and so on, you say they had, the Nazis, the Latvians and Lithuanians the Estonians had no —- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let me set the context here, Mr Irving, is that I am talking about your denial that there was a systematic element in the Nazi extermination of Jews. Q. [Mr Irving]: You are going substantially further; you are saying that I am welcoming it, I am excusing it? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not say you are welcoming it.

Welcoming is different from excusing. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, he is not saying you are welcoming it. He is saying you are making excuses for it. MR IRVING: And this is precisely the point that I have to challenge, my Lord, because, of course, what I am actually saying is there are explanations for these pogroms committed by the local population against the Jews, and that is not making excuses for them in any way at all. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have already said, I understand the point

you are making and I understand the answer. MR IRVING: But it is a repugnant allegation to be made either —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is no point in just using this point as a sort of punch bag and going on and on because I have the point. MR IRVING: Well, I am beginning to feel like a punch bag when I read this report with things being thrown at me the whole time like that, and I find that allegation particularly repugnant.

I have described the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the Jews and by their collaborators against the Jews in very much detail in my works and never at any time have I given even the slightest hint of relish or welcoming these things. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is not what I am saying, Mr Irving. Q. [Mr Irving]: I have repeatedly tried to argue away the Wannsee conference, you say at the foot of page 137. I am not going to dwell at length on that.

If you are an historian, you would, no doubt, know that there is a great debate raging among genuine historians and scholars — to spare you any difficulties here — as to whether the Wannsee Conference was important or not. Do you agree with that? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: There are arguments about how important it was, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, so if somebody tries —- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not think anybody has said that it was unimportant.

It is a question of the level and degree of importance you attach to it. Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you agree that there is no reference to the word “liquidation” in the records or to any order by Hitler or to any systematic killing in the Wannsee Conference? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, that is true. Q. [Mr Irving]: Middle of page 138, please. You say that I relied on Eichmann’s testimony on other occasions but not when it does not suit me.

This is another allegation of manipulation, right? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you tell me what other occasions I did rely on Eichmann’s testimony? Are you just referring to the episode where he looks through the peep hole in the back of the van and saw the gas vans operating? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think that is one of them, yes. There are others, I think, which I mentioned in the report.

Q. [Mr Irving]: I relied on it when it suited me — why would it suit me to use Eichmann’s confirmation of something which I, as a denier, am supposed to be denying? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, this comes back to the point that we talked about yesterday, that I made it clear that Holocaust deniers as a group have, on the whole, always admitted, as Faurisson said, there were some small scale, relatively small scale, killings on the Eastern Front of Jews, and that belongs to that.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you ever read very much of Eichmann’s testimony either in his memoirs or in the subsequent trial in Israel? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have read some, not the whole thing. Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you familiar with the passage where Eichmann, challenged about a particular episode, interrupted the interrogator two minutes later and said words to this effect: “I am sorry.

You asked me two minutes ago about that episode, and I have to say now I cannot remember whether I am actually remembering it or just remembering being asked a question about it more recently”? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, you would have to show me that document.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you agree that sometimes this happens in interrogations, that the interrogator puts questions with such force that sometimes the person being interrogated comes to believe what is being suggested to him by the questions? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, that is a very general statement, Mr Irving, and I suppose in some integrations somewhere or other that kind of thing takes place.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Going on to page 139, the Commissart Order, and the guidelines for jurisdiction issued to the German Army and armed forces in the spring of 1941. I am not asking you in detail about them, but would you agree that these are documents of a military nature? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am sorry, I cannot see this.