Irving v. Lipstadt

 1Q. [Mr Irving]     70 centimetres is of the order of 2 feet 6 inches?
 2A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     Yes, a little less, 2 feet three inches.
 3Q. [Mr Irving]     So this hole in the roof or these holes in the roof, how
 4many wire mesh columns were there, four?
 5A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     Four.
 6Q. [Mr Irving]     So the holes in the roof would have been up to 2 foot 6
 7inches across?
 8A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     Absolutely not, because the whole column may be 2 feet 4
 9inches, but Zyklon-B is only introduced right in the
10centre piece. The centre piece, we have concentric
11columns, so ultimately the centre piece can be a rather
12narrow thing, so the hole through the roof could have been
13a relatively narrow pipe.
14Q. [Mr Irving]     But we are told here he had a concrete cover with two
15handles covering this whole, which rather suggests
16something larger than a tennis ball?
17A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     But the concrete cover, we have a picture of these actual
18chimneys in the documents. Of course you do not when you
19create this pipe which comes up out the centre of the wire
20mesh columns, of course you take a larger kind of little
21chimney around it.
22MR JUSTICE GRAY:    As a funnel?
23A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     As a funnel, yes. Like a chimney itself always is wider
24than the actual smoke channel going through it.
25MR IRVING:    Yes. So you are saying there was a relatively
26small hole or four small holes smaller than 2 foot six

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 1inches across then, and after they had spent all this
 2money building this underground crematorium with all the
 3problems of damp that is implicit in that, somebody was
 4allowed to come along after the event, because it was not
 5included in the drawings, and knock holes in right next to
 6the supporting pillars?
 7A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     I did not say that. The crematorium roof, as we know from
 8other documents, there were problems with finishing the
 9crematorium, roofs of the Leichenkeller, in December of
101942 and January 1943. We actually have photos of the
11completion of the roof.
12Q. [Mr Irving]     But this is not the question.
13A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     May I finish? No, but the thing is you assert that
14they knocked holes inside the roof of the gas chamber.
15Q. [Mr Irving]     Through the roof.
16A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     That did not happen.
17Q. [Mr Irving]     Through the roof?
18A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     Through the roof. Well, the modification and design had
19been made before that roof was completed.
20Q. [Mr Irving]     What modification?
21A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     The roof of the gas chamber, or morgue No. 1, and the roof
22of morgue No. 2, later the undressing room, were only
23completed in December and January, in December 1942 and
24January 1943, by which time the modification of the
25building into a genocidal extermination machine had
26already been decided on. But they did not have to make

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 1holes in the roof because the roof was not yet complete at
 2the time.
 3Q. [Mr Irving]     But if you were an architect, and neither of us is an
 4architect, and some SS Rottenfuhrer comes along and says,
 5"I am going to knock four holes in the roof right next to
 6the supporting pillars", what would you have told that
 7man?
 8A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     May I just point out that if we look here at, for example,
 9that column and that column, there is a beam supporting,
10connecting the two columns. Of course it is going to be a
11real problem when you go right through the beam you weaken
12the beam. That is one of the reasons that these columns
13are placed next to the column, so that they do not
14challenge the structural integrity of the main beam. If
15they had been -- may I point it out?
16MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes. I think I understand what you are
17saying.
18A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     I am just going to make a drawing here. This is the gas
19chamber. The columns are right here. The structural beam
20sits right on top of that. So your point is absolutely
21valid if you put the columns right there, but if you put
22the grid columns right here, then there is absolutely no
23structural, the structural integrity of the roof is in no
24way challenged.
25MR IRVING:    Professor van Pelt, we are wasting our time really,
26are we not? There were never any holes in that roof.

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 1There are no holes in that roof today. There were never
 2four holes through that roof. They cannot have poured
 3cyanide capsules through that roof. The concrete evidence
 4is still there. You yourself have stood on that roof and
 5looked for those holes and not found them. Our experts
 6have stood on that roof and not found them. The holes
 7were never there. What do you have say to that?
 8A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     I would just say why do we not put up the picture of the
 9roof and look at the roof in the present condition? The
10roof is a mess. The roof is absolutely a mess. A large
11part of the roof is in fragments. The concrete has many
12different colours. You pretend that you are talking about
13a piece which is intact. It is not.
14Q. [Mr Irving]     Can I remind what you have written in your book?
15A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     It is impossible to determine nowadays what was the
16situation of that roof in 1945.
17Q. [Mr Irving]     Can I remind what you have written in your expert report
18for this case?
19MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Page?
20MR IRVING:    I have page 295, my Lord, but that is my copy which
21I printed out again.
22MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I imagine it is the same page for us too, is
23it not.
24MR IRVING:    I would not bank on it.
25MR JUSTICE GRAY:    It obviously is not.
26MR IRVING:    Would the witness kindly read out the paragraph

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 1I have outlined beginning with "Today the four holes
 2cannot be found".
 3A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     Can I -- I just want to let -- I will try to find the page
 4number. It is in the Leuchter interrogation.
 5MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Mr Irving, I am in your hands about time.
 6You remember I said I would rise whenever was convenient
 7to you after a quarter to 4.
 8MR IRVING:    My Lord, you may apprehend that the trap is now
 9sprung and it would be a pity to put the mouse back in its
10cage.
11MR JUSTICE GRAY:    The trap is what you have just asked?
12MR IRVING:    Precisely it, my Lord. There are no holes in that
13roof. There were never any holes in that roof. All the
14eyewitnesses on whom he relies are therefore exposed as
15liars.
16MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I am just identifying the trap.
17A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     OK. Now if I am sitting in the trap I will take a little
18longer to look for the information because ----
19MR IRVING:    Take as long as you like.
20A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     --- because I prefer to remain in the trap and eat the
21cheese while it lasts! OK, we are here at page 518, my
22Lord.
23MR IRVING:    518?
24A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     Yes. The bottom two lines: "Today, these four small holes
25that connected the wire-mesh columns and the chimneys
26cannot be observed in the ruined remains of the concrete

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 1slab. Yet does this mean they were never there? We know
 2that after the cessation of the gassings in the fall of
 31944 all the gassing equipment was removed, which implies
 4both the wire-mesh columns and the chimneys. What would
 5have remained would have been the four narrow holes and
 6the slab. While there is no certainty in this particular
 7matter, it would have been logical to attach at the
 8location where the columns had been some formwork at the
 9bottom of the gas chamber ceiling, and pour some concrete
10in the hole and thus restore the slab."
11Q. [Mr Irving]     Hold it there. So what you are saying is with the Red
12Army just over the River Vistula ever since November 1944
13and about to invade and, as we found out earlier this
14morning, the personnel of Auschwitz concentration camp in
15a blue funk and destroying their records and doing what
16they can, some SS Rottenfuhrer has been given the rotten
17job of getting up there with a bucket and spade and
18cementing in those four holes, in case after we have blown
19up the building they show?
20A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     I would like to point out that the gas chamber was removed
21in November 1944.
22Q. [Mr Irving]     The gas chamber was removed?
23A. [Professor Robert Jan van Pelt]     The gas chamber, the installations were removed. The
24installations in the gas chambers were removed. Also
25during the month of November and December 1944, because
26the Germans were still confident that they could hold back

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