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    Day 11 Transcript: Holocaust Denial on Trial

    Part I: Initial Proceedings (1.1 to 10.2)

      1  IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
    1996 I. No. 113
    QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
      2  Royal Courts of Justice
      3  Strand, London
      4  Friday, 28th January 2000
      5
      6  Before:
      7  MR JUSTICE GRAY
      8
      9  B E T W E E N: DAVID JOHN CAWDELL IRVING
    10  Claimant -and-
    11  (1) PENGUIN BOOKS LIMITED
    12  (2) DEBORAH E. LIPSTADT
    13  Defendants
    14  The Claimant appeared in person
    15  MR RICHARD RAMPTON Q.C. (instructed by Messrs Davenport Lyons and Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the First and
    16  Second Defendants
    17  MISS HEATHER ROGERS (instructed by Davenport Lyons) appeared on behalf of the First Defendant Penguin Books Limited
    18  MR ANTHONY JULIUS (of Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of
    19  the Second Defendant Deborah Lipstadt
    20
    21  (Transcribed from the stenographic notes of Harry Counsell
    &Company, Clifford’s Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4
    22  Telephone: 020-7242-9346)
    23  (This transcript is not to be reproduced without the written permission of Harry Counsell &Company)
    24
    25  PROCEEDINGS – DAY ELEVEN
    26

    .           P-1


      1
      2 <Day 11 Friday, 27th January 2000.
      3  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes?
      4  MR IRVING:  Good morning, my Lord. This morning I believe the
      5  witness is going to make a presentation to us, but before
      6  he does so, I believe I am right in saying, my Lord, that
      7  the Defence learned counsel wishes to make some kind of
      8  submission to your Lordship.
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Does he? Right.
    10  MR RAMPTON:  It is not really a submission; it is about
    11  Professor McDonald. I do not know if your Lordship has
    12  had a chance to read his two statements.
    13  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Glanced at it this morning, but only one
    14  actually I have seen.
    15  MR RAMPTON:  Well, there is a new version. It does not really
    16  matter because they are all to the same effect. I am not
    17  submitting that he should not be called, but I am a little
    18  bit concerned that Mr Irving has told my instructing
    19  solicitors that he thinks Professor MacDonald will be in
    20  the witness box for three days.
    21  Professor MacDonald tells us in paragraph 4 of
    22  his paragraph first this: “The main point of my testimony
    23  is that the attacks made on David Irving by the Deborah
    24  Lipstadt and Jewish organizations, such as the
    25  Anti-defamation League, should be viewed in the long term
    26  context of Jewish/Gentile interactions”.

    .           P-2


      1  I have a great deal of difficulty seeing how
      2  that main point has anything much to do with the issues in
      3  this case.
      4  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, this is very much a first impression
      5  because I have only glanced at it, but I did wonder,
      6  looking at it, to what extent he can really assist. But,
      7  having said that, for obvious reasons I am anxious to give
      8  Mr Irving as much latitude as possible. It may be that
      9  something admissible and helpful will emerge when he comes
    10  actually into the witness box.
    11  MR RAMPTON:  As I said, I am not saying he should not be
    12  called, but I am concerned about how it is that Mr Irving
    13  thinks that Professor McDonald should be in the witness
    14  box for three days when it is quite likely that I will
    15  have little or nothing to ask him in cross-examination.
    16  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We need to, perhaps, thrash it out a little
    17  because of the timetable.
    18  MR RAMPTON:  Precisely. I have at the moment got Professor
    19  Browning scheduled to give evidence on 7th February which
    20  is the beginning of the week after next.
    21  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes. Mr Irving, as I said, certainly we must
    22  have him and hear what he has to say, but there is,
    23  I think, some force in what Mr Rampton says about how much
    24  he is able to assist.
    25  MR IRVING:  I hear what you say. When I stated that Professor
    26  McDonald (who is, in fact, our guest in the court today)

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      1  would be here for three days, this was purely to make sure
      2  that the Defence had adequate opportunity to cross-examine
      3  him.
      4  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I see.
      5  MR IRVING:  Your Lordship will certainly not be surprised to
      6  hear that I do not intend, even with your Lordship’s
      7  permission, if I am given that permission, to examine him
      8  in chief at any great length. If I do so, it will be
      9  purely for the purpose of putting before him, as a way of
    10  introducing them to the court, a number of documents which
    11  I have not been able yet to put before the court. This as
    12  one of the very points I was going to discuss with your
    13  Lordship this morning for a few minutes.
    14  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, well, can you assume (because it will be
    15  the case) that by Monday I will have read and, hopefully,
    16  digested what he says, although I have only at the moment
    17  only got one statement from Professor MacDonald.
    18  MR IRVING:  My Lord, you will have been given Professor
    19  MacDonald’s expert report.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is the one I have looked at.
    21  MR IRVING:  I believe that in one of the bundles I also
    22  included a double column preparation which he made as more
    23  of a way of explaining what he is doing here, as I see it
    24  like that.
    25  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I had better try to identify that so I know
    26  what I ought to read.

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      1  MR RAMPTON:  I got it some days ago.
      2  MR IRVING:  About five days ago, my Lord.
      3  MR RAMPTON:  Yes.
      4  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I probably got it, but I did not realize what
      5  it was.
      6  MR RAMPTON:  It is behind one of Mr Irving’s letters, a letter
      7  dated 23rd January.
      8  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let me see if I have it here.
      9  MR IRVING:  I do not really intend to labour this point very
    10  much when Professor MacDonald is giving evidence, but
    11  there are a number of documents (probably three or four in
    12  total) which I would wish to put to him which do highlight
    13  and, in fact, draw the connection directly between his
    14  evidence and this case, which will make it easier for your
    15  Lordship to reach a determination on its relevance.
    16  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Of course. I do not think Mr Rampton is
    17  going to quarrel with that. But, as I say, proceed on the
    18  assumption that I will have read it so that you do not
    19  need to take him through it.
    20  MR IRVING:  I certainly shall not.
    21  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But with all he experts, a bit of
    22  supplemental questioning is inevitable.
    23  MR IRVING:  Perhaps I can just sketch the character of the
    24  document which your Lordship will be funded with when the
    25  time comes. They will show to my mind that there is a
    26  clear connection between the book that is the basis of

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      1  this case, the publication complained of, and these
      2  organizations who provided the material, that they did so
      3  following an agenda and that this may well have tainted
      4  the information which the author and the publisher relied
      5  upon.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is not immediately obvious to me how that
      7  really impacts on the questions I have to decide.
      8  MR IRVING:  Very well.
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But let us wait and see how it can comes out
    10  when he comes to give evidence.
    11  MR IRVING:  That brings us rather neatly, my Lord, to the
    12  question which I was going to discuss, if I might, for
    13  three or four minutes this morning which is the burden of
    14  proof. I have handed your Lordship just two quotations
    15  from documents with which I am sure your Lordship, being
    16  an eminent barrister in your previous incarnation, will be
    17  thoroughly familiar with.
    18  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
    19  MR IRVING:  In Gatley we learn that the standard of proof in a
    20  civil procedure is not just the balance of probabilities
    21  really, but there is a sliding scale, depending on how
    22  grave the allegations were.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am very familiar with that line of
    24  authorities.
    25  MR IRVING:  “The gravity of the issue”, if I may read these
    26  three lines, “becomes part of” — this is Ungoed-Thomas in

    .           P-6


      1  Re Dillows Will Trust — “the circumstances in which the
      2  court has to take into consideration in deciding whether
      3  or not the burden of proof has been discharged. The more
      4  serious the allegation, the more cogent is the evidence
      5  required”.
      6  The reason I am saying this is because dealing
      7  with crematorium No. (ii) and the mortuary No. 1, which
      8  the Professor in evidence has agreed is really the pivotal
      9  point of the whole Holocaust allegation —-
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not think he has, but, anyway, leave
    11  that on one side.
    12  MR IRVING:  That is my submission, as your Lordship is aware.
    13  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I know it is your submission.
    14  MR IRVING:  We are being offered evidence which, in my
    15  submission, falls far short so far, and it may well be
    16  that the witness will come up in the remainder of my
    17  cross-examination with evidence which satisfies these
    18  criteria —-
    19  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not want to get side tracked into an
    20  argument at this stage. Let me make it clear that my
    21  interpretation of those authorities is that the issue
    22  where the standard of proof may be higher than the
    23  ordinary civil standard of proof, is the issue whether the
    24  Defendants have justified their allegation against you.
    25  We do not start applying different standards of proof to
    26  the individual items of evidence as to whether or not

    .           P-7


      1  there were gas chambers at Auschwitz. That has got
      2  nothing to do with the authority that you just referred
      3  to. That applies only to the standard of proof to be
      4  applied in relation to the plea of justification.
      5  MR IRVING:  But, surely, the allegations about the individual
      6  mosaic stones of their own Defence and plea of
      7  justification have to meet the same criteria as the
      8  overall allegations about myself?
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Again, so that you are clear the way I am
    10  thinking at the moment anyway, the overall question I have
    11  to decide is whether you have conducted yourself in the
    12  way that an honest, conscientious historian would conduct
    13  himself. The question that you have not is, I agree, a
    14  serious suggestion to be making, so it may require to be
    15  proved to a slightly higher standard than the ordinary
    16  civil standard. But one tests the proposition against the
    17  totality of the evidence, and the evidence may be good,
    18  bad or indifferent, if you see what I mean?
    19  MR IRVING:  Your Lordship will pardon me for occasionally
    20  waving a red flag when I am worried about —-
    21  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think you have done that very effectively
    22  and I have your point.
    23  MR RAMPTON:  Can I wave my own, I do not think red, perhaps
    24  amber flag? I have said it before and I had the
    25  impression your Lordship agreed with me, but I will say it
    26  again because I do not know that Mr Irving has understood

    .           P-8


      1  it or that, if he has, he agrees with it. It is this.
      2  I do not undertake in this court the burden of proving
      3  that the Holocaust happened.
      4  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No.
      5  MR RAMPTON:  Or that there were gas chambers in Auschwitz.
      6  I undertake the burden of proving that Mr Irving made the
      7  statements he did about the gas chambers in Auschwitz from
      8  1988 onwards without any proper foundation for what he
      9  said.
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is really what I was seeking to put to
    11  Mr Irving, but I think you have put it more clearly and,
    12  if I may say so, correctly.
    13  MR IRVING:  That is very helpful, my Lord. In other words, it
    14  is the “ought to” allegation rather than the “had before
    15  him but disregarded”, if your remember, the negligence
    16  rather than the deceit element.
    17  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I have that well in mind.
    18  MR IRVING:  Thank you, my Lord. Having said that, I have no
    19  further submissions to make except I dealt with the point
    20  that your Lordship will allow me to put to Professor
    21  McDonald three or four documents when he is in the box?
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Depending on what the documents are, yes.
    23  MR IRVING:  Yes. Thank you very much, my Lord. Having said
    24  that, I believe the witness now wishes to make —-
    25  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is notionally cross-examination, but it is
    26  going to be a long answer to a question you have raised.

    .           P-9


      1  MR IRVING:  Would your Lordship like to phrase the question to
      2  the witness which he can now respond to?

    Part II: Cross-Examination of Professor Van Pelt by David Irving continued, Morning Session (10.3 to 152.14)

    Section 10.3 to 29.23

      3  < PROFESSOR VAN PELT, Recalled
      4  < Cross-examined by MR IRVING, continued.
      5  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think the question is this, I will put it
      6  very shortly.
      7  Is there anything to be derived or inferred from
      8  the blueprints relating to the construction of the gas
      9  chambers — sorry, from a construction at Auschwitz which
    10  entitles one to infer that provision was made for gas
    11  chambers generally and, in particular, perhaps for the
    12  ducts into which these Zyklon-B pellets are alleged to
    13  have been poured?
    14  MR IRVING:  On the roof.
    15  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That, I understand, to be the broad issue
    16  which you are now going to address, is that correct,
    17  Professor?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, my Lord, and I have a question, because we have been
    19  talking about crematorium (ii) and, by implication,
    20  crematorium (iii) until now, as Mr Irving has said,
    21  indeed, in the gas chamber of crematorium No. (ii), in my
    22  judgment, most of the people, I mean, at least half of the
    23  people killed in the gas chambers were killed in that
    24  particular space; but, of course, if we go back to the
    25  document recording the meeting of 19th August 1942, a
    26  point I made in my presentation on Tuesday was that it

    .           P-10


      1  were actually crematoria (iv) and (v) which were designed
      2  in immediate response to what I see as the change of
      3  purpose of Auschwitz.
      4  Now, if you think that this is irrelevant
      5  because we have only been talking really about the design
      6  of the adaptation of morgue No. 1, I will not talk about
      7  it, but in case you think it is useful, I do have prepared
      8  also walk through of crematorium (i) and a discussion on
      9  the blue prints of crematorium (iv) and (v).
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  My reaction to that, and it is subject to
    11  anything Mr Irving may want to say or Mr Rampton, is that
    12  you can take whichever crematorium you wish or, I suppose,
    13  really Leichenkeller you wish, because if you are able to
    14  establish — I do not know whether you will or you will
    15  not — that they were designed to be gas chambers or that
    16  there was a duct through which the pellets could be
    17  poured, it seems to me it is likely to be the right
    18  inference that a similar plan was contemplated in relation
    19  to the other morgues.
    20  So Mr Irving, unless you wish to dissuade the
    21  witness, I think he is entitled to look at any of the
    22  so-called gas chambers.
    23  MR IRVING:  In theory, yes, my Lord, but does it not rather fly
    24  in the face of your response to my remarks about proof,
    25  that I am not required to establish everything about the
    26  Holocaust.

    .           P-11


      1  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We are not dealing with proof at all at the
      2  moment. We are dealing with how this witness chooses to
      3  the question that I re formulated for him.
      4  MR IRVING:  But if by a shifting of his ground now from the one
      5  where he originally said 500,000 people died in this gas
      6  chamber, and this was the centre of the universe of
      7  atrocities, and he now wishes for whatever reason to
      8  shift his ground away from there to 4 and 5, this, I would
      9  submit, cannot really go to the issue of my negligence or
    10  deceit.
    11  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think it can, it is relevant.
    12  MR RAMPTON:  My Lord —-
    13  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can I just answer that and then, of course,
    14  Mr Rampton? Supposing he answers the question by
    15  reference to 4 and 5, you can then pick up your
    16  cross-examination and say, “Well, come on, that is 4 and
    17  5. I thought we were talking about 2″.
    18  MR IRVING:  My Lord, I certainly shall do when the time comes.
    19  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Do.
    20  MR IRVING:  But I just wish to wave a little red flag and say
    21  that they are now changing the rules. They are changing
    22  not only the rules, but they are changing the football
    23  ground halfway through the game.
    24  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is a point you are entitled to make.
    25  MR IRVING:  This certainly lowers the standards of evidence,
    26  but let us take that when we come to it.

    .           P-12


      1  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Rampton, I am sorry?
      2  MR RAMPTON:  No, my Lord, I was interrupting and I should not
      3  have done. I do believe again that Mr Irving has
      4  completely misunderstood the nature of the case.
      5  Mr Irving chose to focus on Leichenkeller 1 in crematorium
      6  (ii). That is fine. Professor van Pelt’s
      7  evidence-in-chief, which is in his report and which, if he
      8  disputes it, Mr Irving will have to challenge, is that
      9  there were, in fact, at least seven homicidal gas chambers
    10  in use at Auschwitz and Birkenhau at various times up to
    11  the autumn of 1944.
    12  Two of the most important of those buildings are
    13  crematoria (iv) and (v) which Professor van Pelt tells us
    14  in his report were purpose-built as gas chambers, and it
    15  is only for the case of coherence, if anything else, that
    16  he should, in my submission, explain what he says about
    17  those to your Lordship as relevant.
    18  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes. Having said what he wants to say about
    19  crematoria (iv) and (v), it is, of course, open to
    20  Mr Irving to say, “Well, that does not prove anything in
    21  relation to crematorium (ii)”.
    22  MR RAMPTON:  It may not do.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not know whether it does or it does not,
    24  but he can cross-examine on that.
    25  MR RAMPTON:  It is a question of the cumulative effect of the
    26  evidence.

    .           P-13


      1  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Quite.
      2  MR IRVING:  My Lord, the allegation really is the factories of
      3  death allegation. If I have denied the factories of
      4  death, which is the nub of the allegation against me, and
      5  if I have successfully established to the court’s
      6  satisfaction that this building was not what has been
      7  claimed over the last 55 years, and there is not the
      8  slightest shred of reliable and plausible evidence for
      9  that, then I would submit that I have discharged my
    10  obligations to the court in a satisfactory manner as far
    11  as my own reputation is concerned —-
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
    13  MR IRVING:  — regarding the factories of death. If they come
    14  along with subsidiary allegations and say, “Yes, but a lot
    15  of Jews of gypsies were killed in this building too”, I
    16  would say I have never denied that there were killings in
    17  Auschwitz. What I have denied is this mass production of
    18  factories of death allegation, this churning out 2,500
    19  bodies per day kind of allegation.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You are beginning to give me a foretaste of
    21  what we call your final speech.
    22  MR IRVING:  My Lord, like any good advocate, I have been
    23  preparing my final speech from the moment this case began.
    24  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am sure you have, but what I am really
    25  saying is that we are on the evidence at the moment and
    26  not on speeches. So let us get on with the evidence,

    .           P-14


      1  shall we?
      2  MR IRVING:  You allowed learned counsel some leeway on this
      3  matter, my Lord, and I was only claiming the same amount
      4  of leeway.
      5  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Rampton probably has not started his final
      6  speech yet.
      7  MR RAMPTON:  Absolutely right.
      8  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Now, Professor?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: There are two issues. First of all, if we can have the
    10  override —-
    11  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: I know the problem. I think we have solved it, I hope.
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: And I would like, my Lord, there is going to be one
    13  particular detail which I do not have a sight of, but
    14  I refer to it when I come to it which is actually in
    15  Auschwitz 2, core file Auschwitz 2, the picture file,
    16  trial bundle, and it is actually in tab 1, No. 3B. It is
    17  actually to be seen in two pictures; detail B and the
    18  little colour version of detail B which is right below
    19  there.
    20  Now, I will point out, since I do not want to
    21  come over to you and point on your document and then on
    22  Mr Irving’s document and Mr Rampton’s document, exactly
    23  which detail, but certainly I will put my finger on
    24  the thing in the slide which is not visible in the slide,
    25  but it visible actually in your enlargement right here.
    26  I want you to be prepared for that. Is it OK that I move

    .           P-15


      1  to the screen?
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Of course, yes. Thank you very much.
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: My intention when the lights go out is very simple. It is
      4  very simple. It is to make the blueprints intelligible.
      5  There are a couple of things which are not in the
      6  blueprint, two things which are not in the blueprint, but
      7  we know from other sources, from correspondence which were
      8  installed, and I will tell those when we go through.
      9  But there are already in the document which was
    10  submitted by Mr Irving, I already point them out, it is
    11  the drawing by Kate Mullen, my student, then submitted by
    12  Mr Irving in evidence to you and I will just point them
    13  out. These are the columns which are not in the
    14  blueprints. So that the first thing.
    15  The second thing is the duct which was going to
    16  bring the hot air from the ventilator rooms to the gas
    17  chambers which is in the document of 6 March 1943.
    18  So what I am going to do now is introduce a new
    19  set of images of which copies, I have given copies to
    20  Mr Rampton, and I will start with this one, very simple
    21  above ground incineration room, coke stores, space,
    22  administration offices, toilets, chimney, ventilator
    23  mounted, an original design for a fresh ventilator, not
    24  installed, but it was installed in crematorium (iii) and
    25  the dissection rooms.
    26  That is difficult for me to actually focus to

    .           P-16


      1  see whether it is really in focus or not. That would seem
      2  to be in focus. If you tell me when it is not in focus?
      3  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is fine now.
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Here are the dissection rooms. Morgue No. 1, gas chamber,
      5  morgue No. 2 and an outside entrance with two staircases
      6  that slide in between. Now I am going to the images which
      7  were produced quite recently and — can somebody mark, can
      8  you focus for me? I cannot see. It is blurred. The
      9  first ring, if you can control the first ring. OK. We
    10  are going back to this. I am going to make — we are
    11  going — the first thing I am going to do after just
    12  showing the kind of diagrams you are going to get later,
    13  I am first going to actually walk you through the
    14  building, around the building, in a reconstruction made on
    15  the basis of the blueprints. I am just going to flag a
    16  few major things. It is exactly the same perspective as
    17  we had before was included here and which we tried to make
    18  very clear is really the ventilation systems as they
    19  were.
    20  The ventilation systems which are in green which
    21  is right here, above the incineration room and alongside
    22  the ceiling of the undressing room or the morgue No. 2 is
    23  indicated in green, and all of the systems came into this
    24  chimney. Then there was a second part of the ventilation
    25  system. This is called the entluftung system, a second
    26  system, and this is basically coming into the ceiling of

    .           P-17


      1  morgue No. 1 and that is blue. So blue is bringing fresh
      2  air in, green is taking foul air out and whatever is in
      3  there, and that we will come later back to that would have
      4  been that duct for hot air based — reconstructed on the
      5  basis really of two documents but no blueprint. Then here
      6  the pink stuff, basically the funnels for going to the
      7  chimney below the ground from the incinerators.
      8  If you want me to slow down at any given moment
      9  or point out any detail, explain, please do so because I
    10  am going to walk through this. This is what the building
    11  as it would have been seen when one is at the end of the
    12  railway track. This is crematorium (ii), so, more or
    13  less, when you enter the compound in which the crematorium
    14  was placed. This is the main chimney with the place, the
    15  extension, the projections of the building in which the
    16  waste incinerator was originally projected, the
    17  incineration room sits more or less here. This is the
    18  coke store space, and the dissection rooms are there.
    19  I am going to make actually two entries into the
    20  building, one along a staircase which is still there right
    21  here, and the staircase which goes to the basement and we
    22  really concentrate our presentation on the basement.
    23  Later we see here the kind of slightly high elevation of
    24  the underground morgue No. 2. We will enter the building
    25  through that entrance there, an entrance which was made in
    26  1943.

    .           P-18


      1  We come closer to the building. Here we see the
      2  staircase going down. This is an entry to the autopsy
      3  rooms right there. We will actually go down the
      4  staircase, and since it was very difficult to model that
      5  situation, how to go down, the people who did it, two
      6  architects, chose to show actually a kind of section of
      7  the building. Here is the grate level. We have here the
      8  underground morgue and we see actually the staircase going
      9  down. Basically, the soil has been cut away with the
    10  entrance right here going into this little vestibule.
    11  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is the undressing room on the right, is
    12  it?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This will be then the undressing room and then the alleged
    14  gas chambers would be seen here, but you will see in more
    15  detail. You already can see here the two chimneys, the
    16  chimney of the beiluftung and the entluftung, of fresh air
    17  coming in, foul air coming out. We see in green where the
    18  systems are sitting. This is one of the pipes, that is
    19  one of the pipes, and this is then a probable
    20  reconstruction where that hot air would have come in, but
    21  again we do not have any blueprints for that.
    22  Then one would have come into this little
    23  corridor and then into this large morgue No. 2. If one
    24  takes that entry right under the autopsy rooms, this is
    25  what one would have seen. But was here at the site, based
    26  on the drawing of Olaire, we knew there was a ventilation

    .           P-19


      1  system in that thing, but we did not know how it looked
      2  like because it is not in the blueprints. It was brought
      3  in later. But Olaire depicted to, I have used Olaire as,
      4  basically, the depiction of the undressing as room as the
      5  basis for this thing.
      6  I am very sorry for the way the lighting has
      7  been depicted. This has been, basically, standard 1999
      8  kind of light fixtures, and this is certainly not how it
      9  would have looked, the kind of way these light fixtures
    10  would have looked, but one gets a sense of how much light
    11  would have been in this room.
    12  This is the later staircase. This is the
    13  staircase which goes to the outside which was constructed
    14  in late 1943.
    15  What I am going to do now is actually go around
    16  the undressing room morgue No. 2, and take the second
    17  entrance which was the entrance which was used in the
    18  Hungarian action after it was constructed to get a more
    19  logical flow of people into the underground space. This
    20  entrance is also still there. You can see it. One would
    21  go down here and then enter in this underground space and,
    22  of course, see it then from a different perspective.
    23  Now you come into this large underground space
    24  and now, of course, the ventilation is on the right side
    25  instead of on the left side.
    26  MR IRVING:  My Lord, can I ask occasional questions while we

    .           P-20


      1  have him on a particular picture?
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes. Try not to interrupt the flow otherwise
      3  we will get lost, but, yes, I think that is not
      4  unreasonable. It is cross-examination.
      5  MR IRVING:  If we could just go back to the previous picture?
      6  Can you go back? What kind of door would have been on
      7  that entrance?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We do not know because there is one — the door is not
      9  there and the entrance is available in two blueprints
    10  called “Zeichaufnahme” which means a picture, a
    11  description, of the actual situation, but these two
    12  blueprints do not show actually what kind of door.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: So it could have been an air raid shelter door?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not know.
    15  Q. [Mr Irving]: Very well.
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So we are now in this underground space, what became the
    17  undressing room, as the Defence maintains. Now we go
    18  outside — sorry, I will just go back. We go — actually
    19  behind the columns there is an exit door and comes out in
    20  the little vestibule, and originally where I stand was the
    21  original entrance into this vestibule from above. That is
    22  the first staircase when we went down, and we see here the
    23  chimney going up, the entluftung chimney, taking the foul
    24  air out, and we see here a kind of computer model, this
    25  computer model, we see here basically the pipe coming off
    26  the undressing room going into that chimney, and we see

    .           P-21


      1  the second, we see a second pipe — actually, I do not
      2  know why it is red right now, but in some way the
      3  ventilation system of the gas chamber would also have
      4  connected to this. We see here an elevator. Again I have
      5  to tell you they took kind took 1990’s language for it,
      6  and then here the entrance into the morgue No. 1.
      7  Now, at that point again we have something of a
      8  difficulty, and the difficulty is that you see that there
      9  is one panel of the door is open, but the second one
    10  actually is closed. It is fixed. The blueprint shows,
    11  the last blueprint we have shows basically the double
    12  panelled door opening. But there is at a certain moment
    13  an order for this particular door, and from that order it
    14  is clear that only one of the panels moves and that the
    15  second thing was actually either closed by masonry or by
    16  the fixed panel. We can interpret that later, but in some
    17  way again I just want to point out at the moment what is
    18  in the blueprints, what is in inferred out of other
    19  documents and what, ultimately, is on the basis of
    20  eyewitness testimony.
    21  So this particular reconstruction is made on the
    22  basis of a combination of the blueprint and a particular
    23  order for this gastur, as it is called, of one metre by
    24  100 — one metre by almost two metres high, 192
    25  centimetres high.
    26  We are now in the gas chamber or in morgue

    .           P-22


      1  No. 1. We have just walked in and this was the space one
      2  would have seen. There are, basically, the entluftung
      3  system, the foul air is being taken out at the bottom
      4  connected to that chimney, and we have here the fresh air
      5  being brought in from the top.
      6  Now, I will show you the blueprints in a moment
      7  because this only is to aid interpreting the blueprints.
      8  And then added in this particular thing which is not in
      9  the blueprints are three of the four Zyklon-B insertion
    10  columns.
    11  Now, so there is none at first column, at third
    12  column, right there in the fifth column, they are
    13  alternating on the left and the right side.
    14  I just want to go back for a moment. The
    15  sub-division of this room in two rooms which happened
    16  later in 1943 would have occurred on this line here, on
    17  the fourth column, halfway. Again, there is no blueprint
    18  for that. Then we go back into this elevator space and we
    19  see here the elevator, there were actually doors brought
    20  in. There were no doors and we see here this platform
    21  going up.
    22  MR IRVING:  It is a bit like a builder’s hoist, is that
    23  correct?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. That is what they actually used because they were
    25  not able to get the right elevator. Then this would have
    26  been the incineration room, of which we actually also have

    .           P-23


      1  photos. These are the incinerators, these triple muffle
      2  incinerators. At the back is the coke supply. This is
      3  also the fire grate and this is where the ashes are taken
      4  out. So at a certain moment there is a description in
      5  Tauber. What happens is that he has put in here, but what
      6  he says is that actually they start to fire, not that they
      7  put a fire in the ash muffle. So he is not actually being
      8  burned directly, and so, if you read his description, this
      9  is the ash kind of muffle.
    10  One drawing which is important is this. Could
    11  you see from the inside of the incineration room, the roof
    12  of the morgue No. 1? We have introduced on here, I think
    13  a little high, I must admit, these alleged insertion
    14  points, but certainly, because Tauber says that he is
    15  inside the incineration room, and I asked my student to
    16  actually step back a few steps from the window, so he does
    17  not stand right at the window but, if he was standing back
    18  at say a metre and a half into the space, look through the
    19  window, would he have been able to see anything? He
    20  actually describes the situation and this is what he could
    21  have seen at those points.
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  There is another witness who describes
    23  looking out from the incineration room, is there not?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think that only Tauber does that.
    25  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I thought there was another one.
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: There is another one who sees it from the outside.

    .           P-24


      1  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Maybe I am confused.
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is the question. It is, from the inside of the
      3  incineration room, what do you see? We go now back to the
      4  diagrams and I am going to turn the diagrams around in
      5  four basic exposures, every 90 degrees we turn around,
      6  first without the heating duct and then with the heating
      7  duct.
      8  So again, we have here the incineration room,
      9  the flues going to the chimney. We have here the
    10  entluftung, which is all green, going from the bottom of
    11  the gas chamber or morgue No. 1, and we have here the one
    12  system, only one pipe attached to the ceiling of morgue
    13  No. 2, all connected to this one chimney. It is clearly
    14  indicated in the blueprints except this one which was
    15  constructed later. We have here the chimney house, so to
    16  speak. We have here the Beiluftung going from the second
    17  little chimney going in. Then we have here the staircase
    18  with that slide in between, just indicated again rather
    19  vaguely. We tried to create a wall transparent so that
    20  you can get some sense of what is happening there.
    21  Then I am going to show the same thing. I am
    22  going slowly to rotate it every ten seconds or so. One
    23  can look at from a different perspective. Now we are
    24  looking at it from the west almost, and one can see very
    25  clearly again the size of the undressing room.
    26  If I am going too fast, please tell me because

    .           P-25


      1  I will stop.
      2  Here we have the staircase going into the
      3  basement, second staircase added later. Underground flues
      4  again. It is important of course in relationship also to
      5  crematorium 1 where there was an underground flue
      6  connecting the building to the chimneys. The chimney
      7  seems to be standing separately, does it mean it is not
      8  connected?
      9  OK, so that was the reconstruction. So, with
    10  that in mind, I feel that we can go to the actual
    11  blueprints and so this is a heading of one of the typical
    12  ones. Is there anything you would like to see again
    13  before we go in here?
    14  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No but one thing did occur to me as you were
    15  going through. Was there any heating in the undressing
    16  room?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: There was no heating in the undressing room.
    18  MR RAMPTON:  Could I ask one question before we leave the
    19  picture? It is out of order, I know.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, I think that is sensible, do you
    21  not?
    22  MR IRVING:  Perfectly, my Lord.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We are not exactly playing by the rules at
    24  the moment.
    25  MR RAMPTON:  Professor van Pelt, can I do it now before you
    26  come to the plans and the documents? You showed us the

    .           P-26


      1  new entrance to the undressing room in 43.
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      3  Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you know of any document which refers to gas tight
      4  doors for Leichenkeller 2?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, I do not. The only document which refers to a gas
      6  door quite literally is in relationship to morgue No. 1,
      7  not to morgue No. 2.
      8  MR RAMPTON:  It arose out of what your Lordship asked.
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, thank you.
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So this is a typical heading. This is one of the original
    11  blueprints in early 1942 because we are dealing here with
    12  an adaptation. What is very important — I am going now
    13  to introduce, and I am very sorry, I do not think they are
    14  actually in my expert reports, and I do not really know
    15  how to do it, but this is the very, very first sketch
    16  which was ever made. It was made in October 1941. It is
    17  in my book. It shows basically the same arrangement. The
    18  crematorium is slightly different. They are a number of
    19  things, but we are here at the ground floor. You see
    20  incineration hole. You see here you the autopsy rooms,
    21  the elevator more narrow than in the final one but there
    22  is the elevator. There is the entrance to the side which
    23  is the one with the slide and the two stairs, the coke
    24  storage. We have the office here, we have some bathrooms
    25  and so on, and then here we have the sauzuanlage as it
    26  says, which means the ventilators, not three around the

    .           P-27


      1  chimney but one system preceding the chimney, the chimney
      2  standing asymmetrically, and here the trash incinerator.
      3  So this is the very first design. As you probably realize
      4  now, the design was changed a little bit.
      5  What is quite important in this first design is
      6  the particular arrangement of the underground space. The
      7  only access to the underground space at this moment, and
      8  we do not know what has happened here or there, but I do
      9  not think there is any access on that side, but we have
    10  here the stairs going down with the slide, and then of
    11  course the elevator coming down right there.
    12  MR IRVING:  Would you like to explain the significance of the
    13  slide please, the chute?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The chute is something one has in every underground
    15  morgue. For example, one can go to Satzenhausen today.
    16  There is a morgue and above it a dissection room and there
    17  is an outside entrance into that underground morgue, and
    18  what happens is that the slide can be interpreted both in
    19  a more or less kind of gross manner. One of the things is
    20  that the slide can be used actually to slide corpses down,
    21  which is probably the more unusual way to do it, but the
    22  other thing is that, if one carries a corpse down on the
    23  stretcher, then in this case one had people on the left
    24  and the right of the stretcher, and the stretcher can
    25  actually go over the middle. So this is more or less the
    26  width of the stretcher with two people on each side

    .           P-28


      1  carrying it. But one could also slide the corpse down.
      2  I think that is probably the more unusual thing to do. In
      3  the Auschwitz museum one has actually a picture in the
      4  model one created of actually a truck unloading corpses in
      5  that way. Now I do not know what the evidence is for that
      6  but —-
      7  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is the slide anyway.
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. So what is important here is the way the doors open
      9  into the morgue. So there is a very large morgue here
    10  like morgue No. 2, and this is morgue No. 1, and the doors
    11  open inwards into the morgue in the original design.
    12  Now we come to the first set of blueprints as it
    13  was actually drawn up, and now I have turned them. We
    14  have here the incineration room with the five triple
    15  muffle ovens. This is the chimney. Around the chimney
    16  the three sauzuanlage, the forced draught which becomes
    17  important with the proposal to heat morgue No. 1. Then
    18  these are motor rams, this is actually for the engine, to
    19  run these ventilators. This was then the trash
    20  incinerator, the coke storage offices and here we have the
    21  dissection rooms with in this case again the slide, and we
    22  have the stairs at the side. There are no stairs at this
    23  side right now.

    Section 29.24 to 43.21

    24  MR IRVING:  Professor van Pelt, would you estimate for the
    25  court the distance from the closest furnace to the mouth
    26  of the chimney in terms of feet or metres?

    .           P-29


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Sorry, this furnace?
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, either as shown on this drawings or as finally
      3  built, just in rough terms. Would it be 70 feet?
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: From this furnace?
      5  Q. [Mr Irving]: It would be fair to take the shortest. What is the
      6  shortest path?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The shortest path? This is 3 metres. Quite literally,
      8  this is 6 metres. It is 20 feet. Let us say this is 10
      9  feet.
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: I am talking about from the entrance to the actual
    11  furnace.
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This one here?
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is 10 feet, 20 feet, 30 feet.
    15  Q. [Mr Irving]: Then up the chimney another 30 or 40 feet?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Higher than that, I think. I do not think have the thing
    17  right now.
    18  Q. [Mr Irving]: Just in rough terms. You say the total path travelled
    19  would be about 80 or 90 feet?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not really know exactly the height of the chimney
    21  right now, because you are below ground in the chimney so
    22  it is also a problem. You enter through the entrance
    23  below ground, so if the chimney is visible above ground
    24  you need to add another 6 feet for that.
    25  Q. [Mr Irving]: So in simple terms a flame would have to travel about 90
    26  feet before it emerged?

    .           P-30


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Whatever. I presume so. I do not know exactly the
      2  behaviour of flames in chimneys. But there is a
      3  considerable distance, yes, which of course is important
      4  to create the draught. Now I want to go back to the
      5  original design because we are going to the basement,
      6  which I have now turned around to be exactly in the same
      7  position as we are looking at the rest of the blueprints,
      8  doors open very clearly inwards.
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: They open inwards into the mortuary?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Into the mortuary, yes, which comes later as the defence
    11  alleges, the gas chambers. That is in accordance with the
    12  way the doors open in these other spaces.
    13  Now we get the second blueprint. The problem in
    14  this particular point of the presentation is that this
    15  image, this black and white slide, was made for me at the
    16  museum in 1990, and it is very difficult to see exactly
    17  what happens here. But, when you go to the archive right
    18  now and look very carefully and that is what we have done,
    19  actually that is a detail I was shown, one can actually
    20  see there a door, that the door in this original copy of
    21  the final blue print of 1942 still opens inwards, but in
    22  fact at a certain moment the way the door opens inwards
    23  has been scratched out, but I show the remains of it.
    24  This is what I tried to photograph with my assistant in
    25  these details.
    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: Is that on this map? The one you are showing us? On this

    .           P-31


      1  drawing?
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. It is in this particular copy not visible. But it
      3  is in the trial bundle.
      4  Q. [Mr Irving]: May I approach the screen and have a closer look, my Lord?
      5  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, please do. You are talking about
      6  photograph 3 on 3B?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      8  MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, for reference at page 3B of section 1 of
      9  the second Auschwitz file, there is a small colour
    10  enlargement.
    11  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I have it open.
    12  MR RAMPTON:  When the light comes back on again, one can
    13  actually see quite clearly, as the Professor has said, at
    14  any rate one half of the door opening inwards. It is
    15  probably difficult to see in this light, but it can be
    16  seen.
    17  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You need proper light. I follow.
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That is exactly why I wanted to show this so that we all
    19  know exactly what we are talking about, this thing, and
    20  what we will see is the remains basically of the door
    21  opening inside.
    22  MR IRVING:  Approximately when was the alteration made in your
    23  opinion?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We will look at that at the next slide. This is the
    25  blueprint for that, for the alteration of December 1942.
    26  I would like to show at the moment also some of

    .           P-32


      1  the other details. How do we know where the
      2  entluftungskanal was, how the ventilation system works?
      3  For example, you see here, this is at the bottom of the
      4  thing, this little dotted line, which is the
      5  entluftungskanal. It says right here, entluftungskanal.
      6  Its also says right there entluftungskanal. This dotted
      7  line goes here and goes right there into the chimney. It
      8  is very clear. This one ultimately is connected over the
      9  gas chamber to this one.
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: Into which chimney? Into the main chimney?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, into the chimney for the entluftung, for the vent for
    12  taking out the foul air.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: You have what is called a stack effect? We will come to
    14  that in a moment.
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: OK. Then there is a second chimney here, but it does not
    16  go down to basement level so it is not depicted at
    17  basement level. What is very important here is that we
    18  have the staircase, we have another staircase and we have
    19  these two entluftungskanal, and we have here the columns.
    20  Of course we do not see these Zyklon-B insertion columns
    21  because this drawing is from early 1942.
    22  Now, one of the things which happened is that in
    23  these drawings they always use the same set of
    24  blueprints. When they create modifications at a certain
    25  moment, they only make a small drawing of the particular
    26  modification, which is put literally on top of it, because

    .           P-33


      1  it is transparent originally. We see also that one more
      2  morgue has been included, we see here quite clearly how
      3  the door opens inwards. It opens inwards here. At least
      4  where I stand it is very clear. So this was never taken
      5  out with some razor blades.
      6  You see, by the way, just at this level we see
      7  also very clearly these underground flues. As they then
      8  are joined these two are then connected above with one
      9  particular sauzuanlage going into the chimney.
    10  Here we have then the elevation and we are now
    11  looking at the elevation of the building. Just here in
    12  the original 1942 drawings we see here the elevation of
    13  morgue No. 1. It is a little higher. We are now going to
    14  look in section at the same thing, so first one needs to
    15  flip it up.
    16  Now we are looking in section. The first
    17  section, we see here the slide, the staircase, side
    18  entrance going down into the little vestibule. We see
    19  here the elevator shaft. Then here we see, and we will
    20  get much better ones in a moment, the section through
    21  morgue No. 1. What is important is that the section is
    22  exactly at the point where the connectors are between the
    23  ventilating systems which are on the left and the right of
    24  the thing, so it is not so that there is a hollow space
    25  all above, or all below, above the ceiling or above the
    26  floor. It is only at two points that that actually

    .           P-34


      1  occurs, to connect those systems. We will come back to
      2  that later.
      3  MR IRVING:  The next one is even better, in fact, Professor.
      4  While we have that picture up, could you estimate the
      5  thickness of that concrete roof slab?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This roof slab?
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: The reinforced concrete roof slab over mortuary No. 1?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We have actually the one which is here.
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: This is the actual reinforced concrete?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is the reinforced concrete. It is actually
    11  indicated. The problem is it is written right here and it
    12  is almost impossible to read.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: About 12 inches, do you think?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. This says 38 centimetres right here. 038. This is
    15  38 centimetres. So we are talking here about probably 20
    16  centimetre.
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: 20 centimetres?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is 20 centimetres thick roof.
    19  Q. [Mr Irving]: Steel reinforced concrete?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Steel reinforced concrete, yes. So this whole thing is 2
    21  metre 5, so this is clearly around 20 centimetres. It is
    22  a pity I cannot read this right here.
    23  Q. [Mr Irving]: Is that the double door?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is 50 centimetres wide there, so probably even less
    25  than 20 centimetres, probably more.
    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: Is that the double door that your hand was over?

    .           P-35


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is the original double door, yes.
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there any kind of indication of what kind of door it
      3  is, or what kind of handle?
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The only indication we have is that it was a gastur, which
      5  means a gas door.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is not from the blueprint?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Not from the blue print, that is from the documents.
      8  MR IRVING:  In fact, of course, these are not blueprints, are
      9  they? They are drawings.
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We call these things blueprints.
    11  Q. [Mr Irving]: Architects do not. They call them drawings.
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They are copies and this happens to be a colour copy.
    13  None of the originals, which was drawn on basically
    14  vellum, actually exist any more. These are all basically
    15  copies made in the normal way, and then they
    16  were dispersed. The originals were probably in Berlin
    17  because as far as we know they were kept and openly sent
    18  to the SS headquarters, and they were boxed.
    19  I just want to show here that the most important
    20  thing is against the ventilation system sitting in the
    21  wall, this is the entluftungsanlage, this is taking out of
    22  air. This is the beiluftungsanlage, and here we are at
    23  what is the normal situation where they are not
    24  connected. The left and the right is not connected but in
    25  this one we see them connected at a particular point.
    26  This is just to show how you only need ultimately —

    .           P-36


      1  because the left is connected to the right and then the
      2  right is connected to the chimney. You do not have to
      3  have a special connection from the left side to the
      4  chimney, or connected to one ventilator.
      5  I just want to point out, because we probably
      6  are going to go there, that the thickness, if indeed we
      7  agree the thickness of the slab, was around maximum 20,
      8  probably closer to 18 or 19 centimetres. If one looks
      9  also at the kind of support given by this column, one may
    10  of course at a certain moment ask to compare this, if
    11  indeed the challenge or the suggestion is being made that
    12  this is an air raid shelter, if this indeed follows the
    13  kind of normal structural strength of an air raid shelter.
    14  Now we come to a first declat. The first declat
    15  is not very important from an argument, except that it is
    16  a piece in a sequence. What we see is that the first
    17  modification has already been made, and in this declat
    18  this was created by putting basically tracing paper on top
    19  of the original. One of the things which is not of any
    20  interest to the architect at the moment — but he does not
    21  actually draw any doors in so we do not know how the doors
    22  are hung. What is important here is that we have this
    23  sort of little leichenkeller, which is now much smaller.
    24  We have the leichenkeller No. 1. What we do have here is
    25  a kind of rather gruesome modification because this is
    26  called office. This is called vault. This is either gold

    .           P-37


      1  arbeite or gold arbeiten, or this could be gold workers or
      2  gold works. The question of course is what would they do
      3  right here?
      4  Q. [Mr Irving]: What would you infer from that?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That dental gold was being probably —-
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: Extracted?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Not extracted. It would not have been extracted here.
      8  The dental gold would have been basically worked at and
      9  would have been stored here.
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, a matter of the utmost secrecy, of course?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not know how secret it was. This whole building was
    12  in a completely isolated compound.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: We will see if that is true later on when I show you some
    14  photographs.
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: OK. This is by the way, that connection piece right above
    16  there connecting the pipes of the side to the other side.
    17  We see here the staircases.
    18  Q. [Mr Irving]: What is the overall width of that staircase from wall to
    19  wall?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The overall width of the staircase from wall to wall? Now
    21  you have me.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: Roughly about eight feet?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This thing here?
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I presume something like 8 feet.
    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: The other end of that space is the elevator, is it not?

    .           P-38


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, it is the elevator.
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: Or the hoist?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. The space we talked about, the counterweights —-
      4  Q. [Mr Irving]: It is not an extra space at all. It is just part of the
      5  actual shaft?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. You see that there is some space left so that the
      7  weight can go there.
      8  Q. [Mr Irving]: We gained the impression two days ago that there was a
      9  separate channel for the counterweight to go down?
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I did not.
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I did not want to make that impression.
    12  This is the coloured version. What we see here
    13  is ofen, furnace. But interesting of course is that there
    14  is no ofen in the office. We know from eyewitness
    15  testimony that of course the dental gold was melted in the
    16  crematorium, so is that the ofen put there in order to
    17  melt dental gold? It is a design, nothing more than a
    18  design, but certainly they were designing something to
    19  that effect.
    20  Q. [Mr Irving]: It would be a schmelzofen, would it not?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That is the official German, schmelzofen, but ofen would
    22  be a good shorthand for that.
    23  Q. [Mr Irving]: I think it is a very reasonable inference actually.
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: But certainly this ofen — one would expect also to have
    25  if everywhere there is no heating. My theory is that, if
    26  this would be about heating those particular offices, one

    .           P-39


      1  would first have expected one there, and secondly one
      2  there, but this is actually the other way round. Why is
      3  there no ofen at that site?
      4  Q. [Mr Irving]: That is a very clear inference obviously, which I agree
      5  with.
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: OK. I am going to show a few copies of this. This is a
      7  new declat. Now we see the hand is very different of the
      8  declat. In this case we know actually that the person who
      9  drew it was Dejaco himself, which means the chief of the
    10  drawing room who was an SS lieutenant. It is very
    11  unusual, strangely enough. This man almost never makes a
    12  drawing himself.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: How do we know that he was the person who drew this?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Because it is in the box at the bottom. I am sorry it is
    15  not in this picture. In the box at the bottom it always
    16  says who draws that, who approves that and then finally
    17  the final signing off by Bischoff. Normally what you see
    18  is a prisoner number. In this case Dejaco’s name is in
    19  the first box, and in the second box. He draws it and
    20  then he also ultimately red lines it, and then only
    21  Bischoff signs off on the third.
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Is it dated?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. It is 19th December 1942. So this is quite late.
    24  Now, a number of modifications are in this drawing. It
    25  says again it is a declat number 32 and 33, which are
    26  basically for the standard basement plan.

    .           P-40


      1  The major thing is it says (German spoken) which
      2  means that the entrance to the basement is going to be
      3  moved to the side of the street, street side, which means
      4  the side also where people enter. Whoever is going to
      5  enter this thing. This is basically the railway side. So
      6  we see that the stairs have been removed here and the
      7  rutsche. I will come back to the rutsche because it is a
      8  problem. In crematorium 3 the rutsche is still there,
      9  I mean the fragment. There is no fragment of the rutsche
    10  right here, but in crematorium 3 you can see it under a
    11  collapsed piece of concrete. We see here now a new
    12  staircase. This is a staircase which I depicted in the
    13  model. We see the new staircase going down right here,
    14  going into the first new vestibule which has been carved
    15  out of what was before the bureau, the office. Gold
    16  arbeiten is still there right at the side. The bureau has
    17  been moved to the left where before it was morgue No. 3
    18  the tiny morgue No. 3. Again, there is a Tresor right
    19  there.
    20  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: You have not explained what the Tresor is, but it is
    21  obvious is it not? It is a safe?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is a safe, yes. I thought I had mentioned that
    23  before. Then we come into the vestibule. What is very
    24  interesting in this drawing is that it very clearly
    25  indicates the way the doors are hung. They still open
    26  inwards into morgue No. 1, but they have been rehung in

    .           P-41


      1  relationship to the original design to open outwards.
      2  From morgue No. 2 they go inwards and from morgue No. 1
      3  they open outside. The question, of course, is why would
      4  these doors have been rehung? Why was the design
      5  changed?
      6  MR IRVING:  May I have a closer look at that, please?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Of course.
      8  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Go as close as you like. Just walk up to it
      9  if you can.
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: Which are the doors you are referring to?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The doors, if you just move a little, these are the doors
    12  I am referring to. Those doors.
    13  MR IRVING:  Can I make a comment on them, please.
    14  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Ask a question.
    15  MR IRVING:  Can you see any difference in the way that the door
    16  jamb, the concrete has been drawn there, from the way it
    17  was previously drawn? Previously it was flush, if I can
    18  put it like that, and now it has been rebated inwards to
    19  provide a secure flange, so to speak?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. We can look at the original, I mean, there is also a
    21  photograph, I am quite happy to go back to the original
    22  because we — the nice thing about these things is you can
    23  just go — here we have the same kinds of jambs.
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: But there is no —-
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: At the inside, but not, but that this side it has been
    26  taken out there in the drawing.

    .           P-42


      1  Q. [Mr Irving]: On the inside, yes, but I am looking at the other side of
      2  that.
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This one?
      4  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. If you look at the one you just showed us
      5  previously, there is like an L shaped step in the frame as
      6  though something is going to fit into it, a tight fit?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, but at that moment when we still assume the door is
      8  opening inwards, that same thing, that same tight fit is
      9  right there.
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: But without that L shaped step?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That —-
    12  Q. [Mr Irving]: The section —-
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — original of this.
    14  Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, I did look at it quite closely.
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: One sees it right there. This, of course, is very small.
    16  We have drawn, I think, these drawings scale 1:200. So we
    17  are talking here about, basically what a pen does over 2
    18  or 3 millimetres — less because this is very much
    19  enlarged.
    20  Q. [Mr Irving]: But there is not the same L shaped step shape flange?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We also have a different hand drawing now.

    Section 43.22 to 58.4

    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I ask you a question now? Would this not be
    23  appropriate if you were going to put an air raid door in
    24  there which might have to withstand a blast pressure?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not think this is an air raid door. I do not think
    26  that, I mean, if you want to raise the issue if the morgue

    .           P-43


      1  could have been an air raid shelter, I am quite happy to
      2  give a presentation on that.
      3  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Shall we hive it off? I think in a way it is
      4  a separate issue.
      5  MR IRVING:  It is, but I wanted to draw attention while the
      6  picture was on there, my Lord.
      7  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I understand.
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So the importance of this door, and that is the major
      9  element, it is a question of why would this design have
    10  been hung. The answer, I think, is obvious, that this has
    11  to do with the transformation now of this building into a
    12  gas — of morgue No. 1 into a gas chamber; and then if
    13  that, when the gassing takes place, you do not want to be
    14  able and you have, as Mr Irving has said, you have packed,
    15  jammed people inside the space, and at least we know from
    16  the descriptions with the gas vans that it was a run
    17  towards the door when the gas came in, and that from again
    18  eyewitness testimony that people tried to get out, and
    19  they died right in front of the door. If the door would
    20  have hung differently and would have opened inwards, you
    21  would not have been able to enter the basement any more.
    22  So again we talk about convergence of evidence.
    23  If you just take this drawing alone and say, “Is this a
    24  proof that morgue No. 1 became a gas chamber?” No. But
    25  if you take the drawing in relationship to the original
    26  designs and which we can follow in the original sketch,

    .           P-44


      1  and any original first official blueprint where the doors
      2  are hung exactly the opposite way, and we then at a
      3  certain moment are also going to cross-reference this to
      4  eyewitness testimony, then, of course, it makes perfect
      5  sense.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Is there any reason of convenience why one
      7  might have adapted the design as to the doors opening
      8  outwards rather than inwards?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: In fact, a convenience is actually inconvenient because
    10  one of the problems the door has now is that if it opens
    11  out like that, it starts actually interfering in some way
    12  with the elevator.
    13  Also, the second reason why, when I had assumed
    14  when I reconstructed the change of the door from two
    15  panels to one panel, that probably one would not have used
    16  the second panel anyway because it starts to actually be
    17  in the way of the route towards the elevator when one gets
    18  a mass transport of corpses, so that the panel which would
    19  have been closed in order to use that gas door of one
    20  metre wide by 192 centimetres high, that this one would
    21  have been closed and this one would have been open. So
    22  you have only one panel which can be really securely
    23  locked with a number of locks into this one right here,
    24  instead of having the whole situation going to depend on,
    25  basically, the strength of the bar going up and down into
    26  the floor and the ceiling.

    .           P-45


      1  MR IRVING:  Is that the only change made on this deck plan?
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: There are two other changes, I already indicated. A
      3  second important change is that stair going down. Now,
      4  why would the — why was the slide in this original
      5  entrance removed and why was the stairs moved to the other
      6  side?
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you saying that the slide was permanently removed and
      8  there was never any slide left there?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: There is a problem because Tauber at certain moments
    10  mentions a slide in his testimony. The big problem with
    11  — the question is, and this is a problematic point in
    12  Tauber’s testimony because we know that the sonderkommando
    13  of No. (ii) and No. (iii) were able to basically make use
    14  of those buildings, that when there were no gassings
    15  taking place, that these two compounds were in connection
    16  because some of the facilities used by the sonderkommando
    17  No. (ii) were in No. (iii) and in No. (iii) that slide is
    18  still there. The slide was actually constructed.
    19  To what extent actually he was in his testimony,
    20  I mean, the assumption in his testimony in German is that
    21  he talks about two, but if he introduces that, if he
    22  describes the subterranean level, if he actually describes
    23  something he saw in No. (iii) which is identical except
    24  for the fact that left and right are reversed, and it is
    25  particularly detail of the slide, it is very difficult to,
    26  you know, actually get a real handle on that. One of the

    .           P-46


      1  buildings has a slide, the other buildings does not have a
      2  slide.
      3  Q. [Mr Irving]: Just to be perfectly plain, the entrance which is moved to
      4  the street side of the building did not have a slide, did
      5  it?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. The entrance which is — this other entrance does not
      7  have a slide.
      8  Q. [Mr Irving]: Would it not be a reasonable inference that the architects
      9  had decided that, being good architects, they ought to
    10  design a building where people had ways of getting in
    11  there where they might not have to mingle with corpses
    12  going in?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Can you repeat that?
    14  Q. [Mr Irving]: They decided that they need, for matters of taste and
    15  decency, to have a clean side of the building where people
    16  could go in without having to jostle with corpses that
    17  might be infected going down the steps and they decided,
    18  therefore, for pure hygiene reasons to move the staircase?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That would be perfectly — that would be perfectly fine.
    20  The problem is how do you get then the corpses into the
    21  building, because this corpse access seemed to have been
    22  removed. So what we have here is that there is no way any
    23  more to get corpses into this building, according to this
    24  drawing, and that the only way to get corpses into the
    25  build is that a staircase which has been narrowed to such
    26  an extent that it is certainly very difficult to carry a

    .           P-47


      1  stretcher inside.
      2  I also want to point out to you that in the
      3  original design — sorry again — there was enough space
      4  either when you slide the corpse downstairs or when two
      5  men are carrying the stretcher, there is not enough space
      6  for you to turn around. However, here, this turn around,
      7  I mean, first of all, it is much narrower, as you see. We
      8  are talking here about one metre width of, I think one
      9  meter 60, one metre 80, there is much less space actually
    10  for two people actually carrying a stretcher, there is no
    11  slide at all. Then we get the problem actually of turning
    12  here. It gets very, very tight.
    13  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  So do you deduce from that that it is live
    14  people who are going to go down to that morgue?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    16  MR IRVING:  But is there not also an elevator or a hoist being
    17  installed which, we are told, is capable of carrying large
    18  numbers of bodies from the basement up to the furnaces?
    19  Could that elevator not also have been used to carry them
    20  down in the first place?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Ah, yes, but the problem is how do you get them in that
    22  space? I mean, I am happy to go back to the original
    23  ground plan which we — my Lord, do you want me to go back
    24  to the original ground plan?
    25  Q. [Mr Irving]: The elevator is just next to your shoulder on that design
    26  and there appears to be a lot of space in front of it.

    .           P-48


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Sorry.
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: The elevator is just next to your shoulder, is it not?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, but if you bring down the corpses by the elevator,
      4  and I will go down because again it is an important issue
      5  you raise and an important alternative explanation.
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: A plausible alternative, and you have not established —-
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The problem of the plausible alternative in this case is
      8  that the elevator is here. Now, the only entrance we have
      9  now, the only way to get to the elevator, is to go through
    10  the entrance here, right next to the dissection room. Go
    11  through the foreground, go now into the washing room for
    12  the corpses and then turn around into the elevator.
    13  This elevator was meant to give direct access to
    14  the washing room. When a corpse comes up, it can be
    15  washed and dissected. But I would say that this is an
    16  extremely, and especially these doors here — I mean, how
    17  do you actually — these doors are not wide enough, these
    18  are not double doors which you get in the original design
    19  right here. This is a double door. So again, stretcher,
    20  two people carrying it, four people carrying it, there is
    21  enough width here for them all to go down.
    22  But this is a very, very awkward way to get
    23  corpses actually in and then down in the elevator. The
    24  alternative is that you have to go, there is no direct
    25  entrance into the incineration room. The alternative is
    26  to go through this door, through this door, walk over the

    .           P-49


      1  coke supply between the incinerators and go to that
      2  elevator. Or the third possibility is to — no, that is
      3  actually it. That is it.
      4  Q. [Mr Irving]: Your evidence for saying that there was no corpse slide in
      5  the building as built is?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is not in the drawing. In this drawing and it does not
      7  seem to be there. So, I mean, I can see it, well, I can
      8  still see it in crematorium (iii).
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What would it have been made of? Metal?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The corpse slide?
    11  MR IRVING:  No, a concrete slide.
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Concrete.
    13  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Just a concrete slide?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    15  MR IRVING:  So there is no evidence there was something in the
    16  building now and it was never there — Mr Rampton, I am
    17  asking the questions here.
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We have a blueprint. We have the remains of the building.
    19  Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you answer my question? There is no evidence that
    20  there is something in the building now and it was never
    21  there?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, and I have not seen any evidence. The only evidence
    23  there is — let me be more precise. There is evidence in
    24  Tauber. Tauber says there is a corpse slide. But I have
    25  addressed this problem already as a problem in the
    26  testimony, that I think he refers back to the corpse slide

    .           P-50


      1  in crematorium No. (iii) which was installed.
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: But is there not a lot of evidence that Tauber was being
      3  questioned on the basis of drawings put to him by Jan
      4  Sehn, the prosecutor? When you read his interrogation, he
      5  is actually being interrogated on the basis of —-
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: If we would have seen the drawing which was this drawing
      7  and was available also to Dawidowski and so to Jan Sehn,
      8  then I presume that he would not have invented the corpse
      9  slide when it is not in the drawings. See here, the
    10  corpse slide is still in this one, in the design.
    11  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I suppose Jan Sehn may have used the drawings
    12  for crematorium No. (iii) when he was taking Tauber
    13  through it, if that is what happened?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, there is not a special set for crematorium No. (iii).
    15  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: There is not?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Crematorium (iii), they use the same drawings as No. (ii),
    17  but they just reverse the building.
    18  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Yes.
    19  MR IRVING:  The same as in the days of the British Empire when
    20  we built our buildings in India with blueprints that had
    21  been designed for England — just reversed them, in fact?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. I do know exactly what you did there, but they did
    23  make a new set of blueprints.
    24  So the first problem is the way the doors are
    25  hung.
    26  The second issue, of course, is why is there a

    .           P-51


      1  convenient way of accessing corpses in the morgues
      2  removed, and why at least they are bringing in corpses a
      3  very inconvenient and awkward way is replaced, but a
      4  staircase which seemed to be optimally useful to bring in
      5  human beings who are alive.
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I ask you, were the corpses that resulted from the
      7  great epidemic of 1942, where were they cremated?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The corpses from the great —-
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: The typhus epidemic, the 8 or 9,000 that we know about?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: In August 1942, there were two ways to get rid of corpses
    11  and then the question is where these people died? In
    12  Auschwitz 1, the crematorium was functioning at the rate,
    13  an official rate, of 340 corpses per day. So, certainly,
    14  the people who died in Auschwitz 1 — at that moment
    15  Auschwitz 1 was still somewhere in the main camp.
    16  Birkenhau had not grown so much here. It was still under
    17  construction. So the crematorium in Auschwitz 1, No. (i),
    18  dealt with the corpses of people who died there. In
    19  Birkenhau, the major way of getting rid of corpses at that
    20  time was to bury them.
    21  Q. [Mr Irving]: And the epidemic of 1943, January 1943, in Birkenhau,
    22  where were those corpses cremated?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They had incinerators that open, these things which had
    24  been adopted by the Zentrale Bauleitung in the camp after
    25  the trip to Chelmo in mid September 1942 when they went to
    26  see Goebbels’ ovens.

    .           P-52


      1  Q. [Mr Irving]: The fire grate?
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So they then created something like that in Birkenhau, and
      3  that is how they got rid both of the corpses which had
      4  been buried earlier —-
      5  Q. [Mr Irving]: But are you telling the court then that no external deaths
      6  were brought into this crematorium?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, I do not want to say — I am talking about the design.
      8  I am talking about their intentions. This crematorium,
      9  obviously, undergoes a modification in which it is much
    10  more difficult, I do not want to say impossible because
    11  everything is possible, much more difficult, where a
    12  convenient system of bringing people who have died outside
    13  the building has been removed, and a new convenient system
    14  has been installed in order to bring people down who had
    15  not yet died.
    16  Q. [Mr Irving]: But if you answer my question? Large numbers of people
    17  died outside this building, we know that, in the camp in
    18  Birkenhau?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: When?
    20  Q. [Mr Irving]: In 1943, from various causes, and how would they have been
    21  brought into this building?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is the most likely reason why the slide remains in
    23  crematorium No. (iii).
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: So, no natural deaths were disposed off in this?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We do not know, but, I mean, when I said in the movie
    26  which is the clip we saw that, in my judgment, almost half

    .           P-53


      1  of the people who died in Auschwitz, who were gassed in
      2  Auschwitz, died in crematorium No. (ii) —-
      3  Q. [Mr Irving]: In this very ruined gas chamber we are looking at here?
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The gas chamber, it is based on a number of assumptions.
      5  It is not a calculation made on the back of an envelope.
      6  It is made on which building functioned when, during what
      7  operation, which building was solely dedicated to bring
      8  people in this way, and also at a certain moment, you
      9  know, which buildings broke down at what time? There is,
    10  of course, a clear problem with crematoria (iv) and (v)
    11  where the ovens broke done constantly.
    12  Q. [Mr Irving]: So this building is one of the main factories of death in
    13  the camp?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, but it is a building which, as we have seen now, it
    15  was case of adaptive reuse, and here we see exactly that
    16  piece of adaptive reuse. I just want to — I have various
    17  kinds of details of this drawing again to show the kind of
    18  texture of this particular one. So, I think this is a
    19  very, very important drawing in the context of other
    20  drawings and in the context of testimony.
    21  Q. [Mr Irving]: But you do accept there could have been perfectly harmless
    22  reasons why the basement entrance was transferred from one
    23  side of the building to the other? For example, in
    24  connection with intensification of the air war, the need
    25  to bring people in in a hurry from the street rather than
    26  making them go all the way around the buildings, round to

    .           P-54


      1  the back, to a pokey little entrance around the back to
      2  get into an air raid basement?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think if you want to go, I mean you raise the air raid
      4  issue right now, I mean, I do not want to — I have
      5  studied —-
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No. I think you ought to deal with that
      7  because that is really an issue on the drawings. I mean,
      8  we have a modification and the point has been put to you.
      9  Is one possible explanation for that that they wanted to
    10  make it easier to get in in a hurry when there is an air
    11  raid coming?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is a possible explanation, but I also want to point out
    13  that since I have to give this answer, but since I am
    14  happy to give some, a possible explanation but improbable
    15  for a drawing like that to be made in December 1942, since
    16  all the other drawings and all the documentation in
    17  Auschwitz relating to air raid shelters come from mid and
    18  late 1944. So we are two years, a year and a half, more
    19  than a year and a half out of synch.
    20  MR IRVING:  Profess van Pelt, I showed you about five days ago
    21  a list, or I introduced to the court, a three-page list of
    22  documents from the Moscow collection which clearly show
    23  planning for the air raid precautions in Auschwitz
    24  beginning in August 1942?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: 1942? Mr Irving, I have to disappoint you on this point,
    26  that I actually studied that particular file and I have it

    .           P-55


      1  here and I can submit it to the court.
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is a bit difficult to know when we are
      3  getting on to air raid shelters as opposed to the
      4  drawings, but shall we leave that until later?
      5  MR IRVING:  We will deal with that at a later time.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Professor van Pelt, have you finished on the
      7  blue prints now or are there further points?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. This is crematorium No. (ii). I just want to —
      9  I want to show some other things because they were
    10  raised. Some of the photos, if that is OK, made of the
    11  construction.
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, I do not see why not.
    13  MR IRVING:  I think this is a very interesting photograph, my
    14  Lord. It shows the reinforcing bars being put down,
    15  presumably, on the roof of the crematorium, is that right?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, on roof of morgue No. 2 which later becomes the
    17  undressing room. So we are here in the fall of 19942.
    18  Here we see, we see very clearly, the reinforcing bars
    19  right there. There is no drawings of those reinforcing
    20  bars. I mean, you asked me for those. There are no
    21  drawings of the particular thing like that. We see here
    22  the slab being finished.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What did they do? Pour concrete on top of
    24  the reinforcing bars?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. We see already here there seems to be, these
    26  actually are tiles, there are some tiles, at the bottom

    .           P-56


      1  there, and you see some of these tiles sort of hanging,
      2  kind of hollow tiles, and then you get the reinforcing and
      3  then the concrete is poured from that.
      4  MR IRVING:  I cannot see any tiles there, but I can see the
      5  reinforcing bars very clearly. Professor van Pelt, would
      6  there have been the same kind of reinforcing in the roof
      7  over the mortuary No. 1 which is displayed here, the
      8  collapsed roof?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I presume so, yes.
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: The same kind of mesh of steel bars?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. Now we are looking inside the ovens. There is still
    12  this construction mess around it. Again, the ovens and
    13  here the ash, the place — the crucible and the ash
    14  column.
    15  Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you explain the purpose of those railway lines we can
    16  see there? Are they just purely for the purposes of the
    17  builders?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Which one, this one?
    19  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    21  Q. [Mr Irving]: They were not there at the time that the furnace stage was
    22  in operation?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. There is actually, these, we have here little, there
    24  is a — originally, there was idea to put actually these
    25  rolling little trucks in crematorium No. (i), but they
    26  were actually never built. So what you have is quite a

    .           P-57


      1  short, like a two metre long, little kind of iron —-
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: Trolley?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — almost like little tracks going into each of the ovens
      4  in the concrete, but that is it.

    Section 58.5 to 72.26

      5  Q. [Mr Irving]: So when Aida Bimko in her testimony refers to the railway
      6  line or the rails bringing the bodies out through the
      7  doors and so on, she is lying —-
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, that is not necessarily so —-
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: — again?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — because we know, for example, that one of the things
    11  which was done at crematorium — and she thinks, I think
    12  she is talking about (iv) or (v). There is a difference.
    13  One of the things which happened at the sonderkommando,
    14  when they moved corpses from the gas chambers to the
    15  incineration places, and it was clearly done at bunker
    16  No. 2, that they actually put in some very, very light
    17  track to move them, to move corpses on little trollies.
    18  Now, there is nothing in the design for that.
    19  Q. [Mr Irving]: We only have the eyewitness testimony, is that correct?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Eyewitness testimony, yes. Zeigun talks about it, for
    21  example. Here we have the photo we discussed yesterday.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: With the three objects on the roof.
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Sorry?
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: With the three objects on the roof?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: With the objects on the roof.
    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: Three objects on of roof?

    .           P-58


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: And the thing i pointed out, there is this slight thing of
      2  soot up there. It actually becomes more in one of the
      3  next drawings. So this is taken in February 1943.
      4  One more to go round, you see here then how we
      5  have reconstructed the heating pipes, how they would be
      6  connected, the system which was installed which has broke
      7  down. Again this is the speculation on the basis of the
      8  information on the blueprint and a particular letter of
      9  6th March 1943. The red in this case is the heating and
    10  the heating insulation. We have just gone through the
    11  attic level and then we brought down right very close to
    12  the wall.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there some reason why you are telling us about the
    14  heating system in the mortuary?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The reason is that, of course, while it is not in the
    16  blueprint, it is in the letters, and the heating system in
    17  the mortuary is, in my opinion, again one of the
    18  indications that this building was transformed, that the
    19  morgue was being transformed for a use other than to
    20  simply store bodies.
    21  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can you remind me — I am so sorry, Mr Irving
    22  — of the date of the letter about warming the morgue?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is March 1943.
    24  MR IRVING:  So you disagree with Neufert, which is the standard
    25  architect’s Bible in Germany, ever since before World War
    26  II, right up to the present day, that mortuaries need both

    .           P-59


      1  central heating and cooling?
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, we have had that debate, I think.
      3  MR IRVING:  Yes, thank you very much, but I wondered why he was
      4  telling the court about the heating.
      5  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, you asked him.
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Sorry, the one thing I wanted to point out again is the
      7  little, the little ventilation chimneys, very clearly
      8  visible there. We go round once more and now we make that
      9  trip around. If there is anything — I am just going
    10  relatively fast, if there is anything anyone wants to —-
    11  MR IRVING:  Professor van Pelt, can I ask, you mentioned those
    12  little chimneys, the ventilation chimneys.
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    14  Q. [Mr Irving]: And I mentioned the stack effect. You asked two days ago
    15  where the provision was for cooling the gas chambers or
    16  the mortuary or the morgue?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    18  Q. [Mr Irving]: The stack effect which is known to architects is why they
    19  put these chimneys there because the top part of the stack
    20  is cooler than the below ground part of the stack, and it
    21  generates a draught of its own, a cooling draft. That is
    22  one reason why they are there — so I am informed by
    23  architectural experts.
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So you say that which of these — this chimney, basically,
    25  is the air conditioning system?
    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: They enhance the cooling effect which is already provided

    .           P-60


      1  by the mortuaries having being been built underground to
      2  provide cool space?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I know that this happened in Middle Eastern countries very
      4  often, that you create these things, but I do not know to
      5  what extent the kind of controlled cooling and controlled
      6  heating which Mr Mulka describes for civilian crematoria
      7  in order that the corpses remain nice and pleasant to look
      8  at for people who go and pay their last respects would be
      9  served by the stacking effect of these chimneys. But I am
    10  not a heating or cooling expert, so I am not going to say
    11  anything more on this.
    12  Here again, crematorium (iii), I want to just
    13  show again the same. This is the other one at the other
    14  side of the road again. These ventilation systems were
    15  present in there. This is the cover page of their section
    16  on crematoria in the Bauleitung book, the picture book
    17  from which all these photos come.
    18  Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you explain us to what significance you attach to
    19  the ventilation shafts or what inference you seek to draw?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The ventilation shafts are important that the ventilation
    21  shaft in combination with the blueprint. The blueprints,
    22  when you have blueprints, you never know, of course, if
    23  these things were actually constructed. What the photos
    24  show is that what is in the blueprint was actually
    25  constructed. And so that the ventilation system was a
    26  ventilation system in the morgues, and at the outside you

    .           P-61


      1  can see that in, indeed, this ventilation system.
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am not quite sure that you have answered
      3  Mr Irving’s question which was what inference do you draw
      4  from the fact that there is this ventilation system
      5  with —-
      6  MR IRVING:  What inference does he seek to draw?
      7  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Seek to draw?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That morgue No. 1 was ventilated.
      9  MR IRVING:  Was?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Was ventilated.
    11  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But I am not sure that is quite answering the
    12  question. So what?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So that the descriptions that the eyewitness testimony
    14  which talks about the fact that the poison gas is being
    15  extracted from morgue — from the gas chamber, indeed, is
    16  a very plausible description of —-
    17  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: So the inference is that there is a system for extracting
    18  the poisoned air?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Thank you very much.
    20  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Is that right? Just so it is clear.
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. OK. I have done crematorium (ii), I think. We go
    22  to crematorium (iv) now. OK. This is the very first
    23  drawing, this is that drawing of —-
    24  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Sorry to interrupt. Do you want a break because this is
    25  quite strenuous for the transcriber. Would you like a
    26  break? It is probably quite strenuous for you.

    .           P-62


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I would love a break.
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If everybody does not mind just having a
      3  five-minute break — I do not want to break for longer —
      4  but I think it might be a good idea to break at this
      5  point, just five minutes.
      6  (Short Adjournment)
      7  MR IRVING:  My Lord, this is technically my cross-examination.
      8  I mean no disrespect that I sit during this.
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Of course not. It is very sensible.
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: OK. I think it was first the Tuesday or Wednesday that
    11  I discussed the sequence of events starting with Himmler’s
    12  visit to Auschwitz in July 1942, and that the first
    13  drawing which has been drawn by the tabelleiten which has
    14  no precedent at all of any activity of tabelleiten before
    15  that visit of Himmler is this drawing, which is what it
    16  says (German), which means an incineration installation in
    17  the (German) which is the official destination of
    18  Birkenhau is that of a prisoner of war camp. The only
    19  thing that this drawing does is actually draw in the
    20  incineration part. It does not actually draw in the rest
    21  of the building, which is a problem but, as we know, at
    22  that time, because it is the meeting of the 19th, it is to
    23  prepare for the meeting of 19th August, where Prufer
    24  introduces the idea of using an eight muffle oven. It
    25  actually depicts here the arrangement of an eight muffle
    26  oven, the Mogilev oven which had been designed, so

    .           P-63


      1  I assume what happened was that Topf sent the plans of
      2  these ovens to Auschwitz for preparation into a drawing,
      3  and eight muffle ovens sitting between two chimneys, one
      4  to the left and one to the right.
      5  I will come back to these drawings later. This
      6  is the first one of August. Then we get the meeting in
      7  which this building is discussed as being a building to be
      8  erected by the anlage gesundebadlung. Then there is a
      9  second drawing which is from January 1943. These are
    10  really the only two drawings we have of this building and
    11  there are photos of this building under construction. The
    12  problem in this drawing, we will come back to this drawing
    13  again after we have had to walk through, is that the plan
    14  is reversed in relationship to the elevation. So what is
    15  here left is the incineration room, and what is right
    16  there is left here. So that is just to warn you.
    17  I am going again to have a walk through to the
    18  building. In this case there is nothing in the
    19  reconstruction which is not in the blueprint. So in the
    20  last case we had the hot air installation and we had the
    21  Zyklon introduction columns. This time there is nothing.
    22  There are some pictures of this building under
    23  construction. This is crematorium 5, and this is actually
    24  a postwar post card of a photo of this building.
    25  I actually have never seen, I must admit, the original
    26  photo of this one, where actually the building that we see

    .           P-64


      1  here, crematorium 4 — I think it is No. 4, it is
      2  difficult to say out of the quality of the photo how far
      3  the trees are. In No. 5 there are also trees from this
      4  side where we see that the lower part with the fence
      5  contains either gas chambers, then here a number of rooms
      6  for a doctor or something like that, sonderkommando rooms,
      7  an undressing room but also used as a morgue and the
      8  incineration room.
      9  What we are going to do now is look at, first, a
    10  number of basically models, actually asymmetrics, from
    11  above to get the sense of the building and then we are
    12  going to make a walk through. This is the lower part
    13  where we have these two large rooms, with these tiny kinds
    14  of windows right in there, also between these two rooms
    15  and right there and there, and a big entrance vestibule
    16  right there, two kinds of rooms to the side here, a very
    17  big room in the middle and then after a kind of in between
    18  room we get incineration room, and a coke store place and
    19  an administration room.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Is this 4 or 5 or were they indentical?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is No. 4. Left equals right.
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Otherwise the same?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We are going to turn to the model now. What is the
    24  important thing is that these are stoves indicated in
    25  these rooms. The plan only shows basically a block with a
    26  cross through connected to a chimney. I was not present

    .           P-65


      1  when this final thing was drawn, and my ex students have
      2  drawn in what are Canadian stoves basically, big iron
      3  ones. It would be more likely, given what the design
      4  culture was and the means of production in Poland that it
      5  would have been a so-called cuttle hole in the design at
      6  least. But what we also know is that this cuttle oven
      7  that were installed, but at a certain moment also are
      8  stories about portable stoves. I do not know really know
      9  what to make of that, but they were heated with portable
    10  stoves, these spaces, which means the cuttle oven broke
    11  down, yes or no.
    12  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: What were these spaces again?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: These are the alleged gas chambers right here, and then we
    14  have here the entrance vestibule, undressing room, in the
    15  winter used as undressing room, but also a morgue
    16  installation room. In the summer there are accounts that
    17  people undress outside of the building.
    18  MR IRVING:  The average gas chambers, how were they designated
    19  on the blue prints?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They are not designated at all. There is no designation
    21  at all. Actually, this room is also not designated. So
    22  now we actually are looking at the side we are going to
    23  enter very soon. Again, I do not think we need to explain
    24  too much, except these chimneys, which are sitting right
    25  there, to which these stoves are connected, and also again
    26  the small little windows, 30 by 40 centimetres, as the

    .           P-66


      1  plan says, which give access to these throw light or not
      2  into those lower spaces.
      3  Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I ask you what was the building made of? Just bricks
      4  was it?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Bricks, yes.
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: Quite a flimsy construction, in other words?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. I mean flimsy. If you throw a bomb on it, yes.
      8  Certainly these spaces would not have been very useful as
      9  an air raid shelter. Now our eye level has gone down and
    10  we are now going towards this entrance right here, this
    11  vestibule. We have now come into the vestibule. We turn
    12  left first inside this very big room which gives access to
    13  the schloit and then the incineration room. This is that
    14  very large hole in the middle, which eyewitnesses say were
    15  used especially in the winter as an undressing room but
    16  also was used as a morgue.
    17  Now we turn around 180 degrees. I want to show
    18  you. It is an open roof truss situation there, the
    19  vollmar as it is called, V O L L M A R, that is, it is the
    20  most economical way to construct a roof in a wartime
    21  situation. Now we turn around.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: What are those roof trusses made of? Steel or wood?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Wood. This was really as cheap as possible and as light
    24  as possible.
    25  Q. [Mr Irving]: So it would have been totally unsuitable as an air raid
    26  shelter then, this building?

    .           P-67


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. So we now go back towards the incineration, towards
      2  the vestibule. I just want to say that this actually is a
      3  detail which is in the photos of the building and not in
      4  blue prints, but at a certain moment in the construction
      5  they decided to put windows in that room, which are not in
      6  the blue print, but they are in the photos.
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: About how high up are those windows off the ground? Could
      8  you see in them?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. They were quite high. You would not see in them.
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: Which is what you would expect in a mortuary then?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, possibly, or another use. So now we have turned
    12  around 180 degrees and we are looking back at that door,
    13  just before, and I am going back into that space to the
    14  right. What I am going to do is take you through these
    15  spaces. It is a kind of surreal experience, I must say,
    16  but I do not have a picture right now of this space, but
    17  immediately go into this space. So I have a view going in
    18  here. Then first we have two views inside this space,
    19  which is one from the door looking in, and then from that
    20  point looking back. Let us call this for a moment No. 1,
    21  and this No. 2. Then we look inside this space and from
    22  the door looking back. That is room No. 2, so at any
    23  given moment we know where we are.
    24  We are now in that second vestibule, and we look
    25  here in that space No. 1 to the side, and we have here
    26  actually at the end of it an opening which actually gives

    .           P-68


      1  access to the ovens. These ovens were always fired from
      2  the back, these cuttle ovens, or they could be. Two or
      3  three rooms shared them. So this was to the point where
      4  they could be heated and the same is actually right here.
      5  That is what the blueprints indicate but it is not in the
      6  picture.
      7  I just want to point out this porthole sitting
      8  right there, 30 by 40 centimetres, in the plan. I do not
      9  know exactly which blue print we are talking about in the
    10  court bundle, but now we are looking in room No. 1.
    11  Again, two of those openings right there, plus an outside
    12  door, which by the way opens to the outside.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: Before you move on from that picture, Professor can I ask
    14  you, is there any provision in this room that the
    15  blueprints or drawings inform us for drainage?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: There is drainage, yes.
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: Where are the drains in this room?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They are not depicted, but the blueprints show them.
    19  Q. [Mr Irving]: You appreciate that, if this is a gas chamber, it would
    20  need drainage?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, but the blueprint, I did not oversee the final making
    22  of these models. They are in some way crude but in the
    23  blueprints I am happy to point out the drainage to you.
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: I would be happy, when you return to the witness box, that
    25  you do so because, when people die en mass, it produces
    26  unpleasant after effects which need to be cleaned up. If

    .           P-69


      1  there is no provision for drainage, it is a problem we
      2  have of course with Leichenkeller No. 1, with the draining
      3  provisions there too, which are of course far worse, being
      4  underground.
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We can just look at the blueprints in both cases to look
      6  at the drainage, I think.
      7  Now I just walk outside of that door. I just
      8  want to show you that we were in this room right there. I
      9  just popped outside. We will go back in that room right
    10  now. Now we look back to the door we came in and there
    11  one sees the stove in the corner, and this port hole right
    12  there, 30 by 40 centimetres connecting to the next room.
    13  There we have little detail.
    14  Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you like to tell the court what inference you are
    15  inclined to draw from the porthole’s presence?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The portholes together are obviously the kind of gas tight
    17  shutters which I mentioned in one the bills, 30 by 40
    18  centimetres. They are they are being ordered, 12 of them,
    19  six for this building, six for the other one, and they are
    20  ordered at the size of 30 by 40 centimetres. The plan
    21  shows quite literally they are 30 by 40 centimetres. It
    22  is in the bundle in detail. We have enlarged it a few
    23  times. Then of course a number of these portholes have
    24  survived and are installed in crematorium 1 right now in
    25  the back, and can be inspected, and again are 30 by 40
    26  centimetres and obviously they are very thick and they

    .           P-70


      1  have a kind of gas tight design that there is a number of
      2  different, I do not want really know, my English starts to
      3  reach its limit.
      4  Q. [Mr Irving]: Fasteners?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Jambs have a kind of seal in it in the way it is designed
      6  so it is very difficult. They are very thick. They are
      7  like 20 centimetres thick.
      8  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Have they been tested for cyanide?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They have not been tested for cyanide.
    10  MR IRVING:  Would you agree that those shutters that have been
    11  found in the Auschwitz camp are in fact standard German
    12  air raid shutters supplied by manufacturers to a standard
    13  design?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: First of all, I do not know but it was very clear. What
    15  we do know is that these are 30 by 40 centimetres and that
    16  the things ordered were gas tight things of 30 by 40
    17  centimetres. The only plan I have where they have twelve
    18  of these holes of 30 by 40 centimetres is actually the
    19  plans for these rooms at the end of crematoria (iv) and 5,
    20  which obviously were not air raid shelters because the
    21  roof construction is too flimsy.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: Am I right in suggesting that the inference you are
    23  drawing is that through these apertures the top six
    24  substances were thrown?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. We go back in the vestibule. We are now moving to
    26  room No. 2. The door is open and we see now the stove,

    .           P-71


      1  and again in the room one of these little openings. Now
      2  we are in the room, just entered. Here is the stove. We
      3  look now to the outside door, two other 30 by 40
      4  centimetres little windows, and we turn around now. We
      5  look back at the stove and the door towards the second
      6  vestibule, so to speak.
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: Professor, why would they not have adopted the method they
      8  allegedly adopted here and just drilled holes in the roof
      9  to drop the substances through?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The problem, first of all, is you would have to go on the
    11  roof and this building was all above ground.
    12  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This method was used already in bunker No. 2 and bunker
    14  No. 1, where they used basically holes or little windows
    15  in the side of the building to introduce the Zyklon-B. So
    16  it was a proven method.
    17  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What is the evidence for that?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: For what?
    19  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: That they injected Zyklon-B through the windows of bunker
    20  No. 2 and No. 1?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Eyewitness testimony.
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is what I thought.
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think in my report I quote Dragon on that, for example.
    24  MR IRVING:  You quote who?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Dragon. Now we go out. I just want to —-

    Section 73.1 to 90.21

    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: Am I right in saying that Dragon is one of the principal

    .           P-72


      1  witnesses for the Soviets when they produced their
      2  commission report?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think Dragon came in in April. Dragon was not in the
      4  original Soviet report, I think. The Soviets produced a
      5  report in February or March and Dragon only appears in
      6  April.
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: I am referring to USSR 008, the exhibit.
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. I do not think Dragon was mentioned there, also that
      9  he testified for them when that report came out, in that
    10  report. I could be wrong on that but I do not remember
    11  Dragon in that context.
    12  Now we are back in the vestibule. Go into the
    13  next room, again, and look at the incineration room. In
    14  this case we have back-to-back incinerators with the
    15  firing pit between them, instead of in crematorium 2 the
    16  firing pits are behind the incinerators.
    17  Now I would like to go back to the blueprint.
    18  In your bundle you have a great magnifications of this one
    19  showing, for example, the 30 by 40 size of these openings,
    20  which is very important. There is a problem that 12 of
    21  these things were ordered, 12 of these gas tight shutters
    22  were ordered of 30 by 40 centimetres, in early 1943.
    23  Which were the 12? If you start counting, we have one,
    24  two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, which means by
    25  implication that, according to the design, there should
    26  have been 16 ordered. So how do we explain the difference

    .           P-73


      1  between 16 and 12? It is very obvious that this room, it
      2  was a modification, that is what I call the vestibule,
      3  that this was not going to be to be used as gas chamber.
      4  It is also actually described that only two of these rooms
      5  in the eyewitness reports were actually used as gas
      6  chambers and is not. So then we enter with one, two,
      7  three, four, five, six and the same arrangement in
      8  crematorium 5, which then ends up as 12 gas tight 30 by 40
      9  centimetre shutters. That is very important.
    10  The second important thing, and Mr Irving has
    11  already pointed at that, are the drains. This particular
    12  blueprint is one which exactly shows the drains. That is
    13  why it was created. So we see that on the existing copy
    14  we have here a drain, we have a drain there, and these
    15  drains are connected right there. There is a drain right
    16  there, and they are connected to a pipe.
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you tell the court what they are connected to on the
    18  outside? To the main sewage?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They are connected. This continues. This is not a main
    20  sewage system there. But this obviously connects back to
    21  something.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: It does not just go into a hole in the ground, though,
    23  does it? They do something with it at the other end?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. This probably goes on right there all the way, yes.
    25  Q. [Mr Irving]: What would environmentalists have to say about kilograms
    26  of cyanide being dumped in the sewage system, do you

    .           P-74


      1  think?
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think that virtually all the cyanide would have been
      3  cleared out of the building.
      4  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think we had this debate before.
      5  MR IRVING:  It is very useful, my Lord, actually to see the
      6  drainage system. We only have Professor van Pelt’s word
      7  for it that all the cyanide would have gone out of the
      8  building, none of it would have been washed off down into
      9  the sewage system, which is clearly wrong. Neither of us
    10  is an architect. We agree on that point. But the
    11  evidence of our eyes on that plan is that they had the
    12  drainage going into the public sewage system, and 8
    13  kilograms or however many of cyanide being pumped into
    14  those rooms to kill people on a lethal scale, and the
    15  bodies being washed down, the room being washed down
    16  afterwards, and you are telling us that none of that
    17  cyanide would have gone into the environment?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I certainly think that you are a little over estimated on
    19  the eight kilograms, to start with. The gas thing in this
    20  building could have been very well done in these rooms
    21  with 200 gramme tins, maybe two 500 grammes, maybe a kilo
    22  was used, a kilo of cyanide and most of it would have
    23  evaporated into the air.
    24  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am sorry, Professor I am going to interrupt
    25  you. We must stick to the drawings. We are going down a
    26  side track. Of course you can come back to it, Mr Irving,

    .           P-75


      1  but I think it really is going to be confusing if we go
      2  into that argument now.
      3  MR IRVING:  While we had the drainage map in front of us my
      4  Lord, I wanted to—-
      5  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is established. It is linked up,
      6  apparently or possibly, probably I think, to the main
      7  sewage system of the camp.
      8  MR IRVING:  It goes to the water purification plant.
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, not that, I think.
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So the major point here is that the evidence of the
    11  blueprint of these spaces, with these little windows right
    12  on top there, converges with the document which talks
    13  about the gas tight shutters of 30 by 40 centimetres,
    14  converges with eyewitness testimony which talks about SS
    15  men getting up a little stool or step ladder there and
    16  opening the gas tight shutters and throwing in the
    17  contents of a Zyklon-B canister, and it converges also
    18  with a detail right here that in fact it is difficult to
    19  see in this one that they are actually sealing, sitting
    20  right in here. The roof is not open to the rafters but
    21  there is no sealant in there. So why actually this very
    22  low bit here? It is around 2 metres high. You also start
    23  to put a sealing when you do not put the sealing in
    24  anywhere else. So this is as much as I want to say right
    25  now about crematorium 4.
    26  MR IRVING:  Did these eyewitness you talk about see what was on

    .           P-76


      1  the other side of the wall through which this stuff was
      2  being tossed?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, they were on the outside.
      4  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is crematorium No. 1. I think we can leave it. This
      6  is at the moment the case I would like to make for
      7  crematoria No. 2, and crematorium No. 4, and by
      8  implications 3 and 5.
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I was going ask you that.
    10  MR IRVING:  While we have that map up, can I ask you which is
    11  the fuel supply, which is the room for storing the coke?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is it right there.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: The whole of that room. Can you estimate approximately
    14  how much coke that would hold, how many tonnes or
    15  kilograms?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I cannot, I am sorry.
    17  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Does that conclude our looking at the
    18  blueprints?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  So we can turn the lights on?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, unless you want to see more of the same.
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No. I think I understand what you tell us
    23  about them. Thank you very much.
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Just for your understanding, in the last discussion quite
    25  important are No. 9A and No. 9B in your bundle.
    26  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  In tab 2?

    .           P-77


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: In tab 1. The important point is the 30 by 40, which is
      2  seen there in the size of these little windows.
      3  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, Mr Irving.
      4  MR RAMPTON:  Before this cross-examination continues, I need to
      5  draw your Lordship’s attention to something.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
      7  MR RAMPTON:  On Wednesday evening we received a document, which
      8  we have never seen before, which I do not believe
      9  Professor van Pelt has seen, which Mr Irving has because
    10  we sent it to him on Thursday once we had had it
    11  translated, and which has a bearing, or your Lordship may
    12  think it has a bearing, on this repeated question why are
    13  not these documents marked “secret”. I do believe that,
    14  in fairness to the witness who I believe, I do not know,
    15  is not familiar with this document, he and your Lordship
    16  should be allowed to read it before the cross-examination
    17  continues.
    18  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Is this not re-examination?
    19  MR RAMPTON:  No. I could bring it into re-examination but, if
    20  your Lordship would read it first, that perhaps is the
    21  best thing. It will save time in cross-examination
    22  because the witness will then be familiar with the
    23  document.
    24  MR IRVING:  Are you also offering a translation of this
    25  document?
    26  MR RAMPTON:  Yes. Have you not got that?

    .           P-78


      1  MR IRVING:  I have not. I have only the actual document but
      2  not translated. (Same handed).
      3  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What is the second document, Mr Rampton?
      4  MR RAMPTON:  There is another document. The document which is
      5  clipped to it is the translation.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I have just been handed something headed
      7  “Heinrich Himmler”.
      8  MR RAMPTON:  I do not think that arises now. That will arise
      9  in re-examination.
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where I shall I put this?
    11  MR RAMPTON:  It is the document of 5th May 1943. It can go in
    12  at the end of section 4 of K2, just before page 49 if your
    13  Lordship wants to put them in date order. That means a
    14  different page number. I do not know whether the witness
    15  has it? I do not know what he is looking at.
    16  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think he is looking at the right thing.
    17  5th May 1943?
    18  MR RAMPTON:  Yes, 5th May 1943.
    19  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Professor van Pelt, is that what you are
    20  looking at?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I know this one, yes.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: You know that one?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I mean I have seen it. In my files there is a copy of
    24  that. I had forgotten about it.
    25  MR RAMPTON:  I did not know that.
    26  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Anyway, you have it now. Yes, Mr Irving. I

    .           P-79


      1  am sorry about that interruption.
      2  MR IRVING:  Your Lordship will anticipate the first thing I
      3  will say, which is that this is not the way to do things.
      4  This was supplied to me yesterday afternoon at 1 p.m. It
      5  is a document of great importance, I appreciate that. It
      6  is the document which I would have wished to have seen
      7  many months ago. We have just heard the witness say that
      8  he has had it in his files for some considerable time. If
      9  it was of importance, no doubt he would have advanced it
    10  already. He may well have reached the same conclusions as
    11  I did that there are perfectly plausible explanations for
    12  this document which have a bearing only on one room in the
    13  crematorium concerned, or the building concerned, and have
    14  no relevance for the Final Solution, apart from that very
    15  limited aspect.
    16  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not think it is sensible to have an
    17  inquest as to why it has been produced late. That has
    18  been happening on both sides. The fact is we have it. In
    19  the end I am not going to ignore it.
    20  MR IRVING:  If your Lordship is going to allow it to be
    21  produced in this manner, then there must be some manner
    22  for me to respond to the document. I seek your Lordship’s
    23  guidance as to the appropriate means of doing this. By
    24  putting questions to the witness on this matter?
    25  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Of course you can. Indeed, why not do it
    26  now?

    .           P-80


      1  MR RAMPTON:  That is why I produced it.
      2  MR IRVING:  Yes, indeed.
      3  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
      4  MR RAMPTON:  Professor van Pelt, how long has this document
      5  been in your possession, in rough terms?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I saw this document in 1990 for the first time. I made a
      7  copy of it, and I have forgotten since then. My Auschwitz
      8  archive is something like that wall there, and I have
      9  forgotten about it since.
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: So you attached little importance to it at the time you
    11  first saw it?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, but it was in accordance with other things I had heard
    13  in the Ertl Dejaco trial about the way the design office
    14  operated and already in the Dejaco Ertl trial they had
    15  made a lot about indeed the fact that there was a great
    16  limitation to the number of people who could actually be
    17  entrusted with these drawings. In some way I did not
    18  write in the end a book on the procedures of the
    19  Zentralbaleitung. I know that Mr Montonia has done so.
    20  So in the end I forgot about it and it has been sitting in
    21  my files unseen and unthought of now for the past nine
    22  years, I assume.
    23  Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you accept from me that, had I seen a document like
    24  this I would certainly have turned it over in my hands for
    25  many weeks, pondering the significance of it and wondering
    26  whether it was to be mentioned in my major work or at

    .           P-81


      1  least disregarded on a footnote, and not suppressed, shall
      2  we say?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Mr Irving, I forgot. In the end, I did not write a book
      4  on the work of the Zentralbauleitung. I forgot about this
      5  document because I addressed other issues.
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: Very well.
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So I am sorry that I forgot about it. Maybe it would have
      8  helped the case of the defence earlier.
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: It may not.
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Or it may not.
    11  Q. [Mr Irving]: Professor van Pelt, would you tell the court where you
    12  first saw this document?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This document is in the Auschwitz archive.
    14  Q. [Mr Irving]: And it appears to be bound into a volume?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They are normally in — actually I do not know the
    16  Hauszufugun it is one of first files. They are all in
    17  boxes. What happens is that the first part of the
    18  archive, which is where I started working, which was
    19  actually boxes 1, 2 and 3, only deals with these kind of
    20  procedural matters. They do not deal with design at all.
    21  I think generally they are in folders.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: But you agree that this particular one appears to have
    23  been part of a bound volume. Was it shown to you in this
    24  form or was it shown to you as a loose document?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I went through these files. I do not remember at all.
    26  I know there are at a certain moment some loose pages in

    .           P-82


      1  these things but in general they are bound. It does not
      2  seem to be a Moscow document, if I have to look at it, but
      3  I am not sure even. It could be a copy of it in the
      4  Moscow document because obviously this was a document
      5  which was produced in many copies.
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: It has been produced in many copies?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Because it was a general rule, so quite often you find
      8  many copies of the same document.
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: So you are not certain in your own mind whether this
    10  document actually comes from Moscow or from the Auschwitz
    11  state archives.
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is the first thing I have heard about this document
    13  now it comes up, is right now I have seen it ten years
    14  ago. I made a copy. It is somewhere in my big files, on
    15  procedures in the architectural office.
    16  Q. [Mr Irving]: Please accept my assurance. I am not trying to catch you
    17  out on this document. I am trying to do the enquiry now
    18  that I would have done over the last few months if I had
    19  had this document earlier.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  As to its authenticity?
    21  MR IRVING:  As to its authenticity, my Lord, yes. This is the
    22  only means I have to test its integrity.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think that is fair enough.
    24  MR IRVING:  Professor, you will see that the document to me is
    25  odd in one respect, that it appears to have no printed
    26  heading. All the other documents we have seen, I think I

    .           P-83


      1  am right in saying, have a printed heading saying
      2  Auschwitz Zentralbauleitung and so on, Auschwitz
      3  konzentrationsanlage, whatever. This appears to be just a
      4  blank sheet of paper.
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: But all hauszufugungen, all the internal communication in
      6  the camp, and that is also stuff that is coming down for
      7  the kommandantur. So, when Rudolf Hirst, for example,
      8  creates a canteen for the camp, all of that stuff also
      9  comes down to the office. None of these have a heading.
    10  They all have exactly the same heading as you see, that it
    11  says hauszufugungen number, which rule, a house rule or a
    12  house order, whatever like that, with a number but never
    13  on letter head.
    14  Q. [Mr Irving]: If you had seen the whole file of course, you could have
    15  satisfied yourself that there was a No. 107 before this
    16  and another 109 after it and so on. You could have tested
    17  it, whether it was orphaned or whether it was part of a
    18  series, could you not?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I could have, yes. I saw the whole file but I did not do
    20  that test at the time.
    21  Q. [Mr Irving]: We are not informed as to that. Is the signature at the
    22  bottom of the SS Sturmbanfuhrer? Does that look like the
    23  signatures you are familiar with?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is Bischoff’s signature, yes.
    25  Q. [Mr Irving]: There are no other authenticity marks on it in any way,
    26  are there? There are no rubber stamps or initials or any

    .           P-84


      1  other kind of things that we have seen?
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. You would never have a rubber stamp on any of these
      3  internal hauszufugungen.
      4  Q. [Mr Irving]: Would they also lack any address list of people they are
      5  going to?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, they do not have that. They just appear like this in
      7  the file.
      8  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. My Lord, I could comment on the registration number
      9  at the top, but I am not going to because I can really say
    10  nothing about the integrity of this document apart from
    11  what I have done.
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I can see you are confronted with a bit of a
    13  difficulty because of its late production.
    14  MR IRVING:  I am prepared to address the document as though it
    15  was genuine and just look at the content.
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: My Lord, this one maybe I can add to the heading on top
    17  because the secretary.
    18  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Authenticating it?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. The secretary in the Zentralbauleitung in 1943 was a
    20  certain Eugenie Schulhof, so it seems to be that indeed
    21  the S C H U L would be — that indeed she was a secretary
    22  at the office at the time.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes. Mr Irving will probably say well, if
    24  anyone was creating this document years afterwards,
    25  they might have worked that one out.
    26  MR IRVING:  My Lord, forgers have a desire often to be caught

    .           P-85


      1  out and they do not do the homework. That is my
      2  experience. This is what puzzled us about that cremation
      3  capacity document that they picked on initials that are
      4  only on that document and not on any other document in the
      5  entire record. But to revert to this document, I draw
      6  your attention, Professor, to the third full paragraph,
      7  beginning with the word in English “furthermore”?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: Let us read out possibly the first two paragraphs:
    10  “You are reminded once more of internal
    11  instruction No. 35 of 19th June 1942 — “, which we do not
    12  have, Professor, do we, before the court, so we do not
    13  know what that was. “As is clear from this internal
    14  instruction, Untersturmfuhrer Dejaco is personally
    15  responsible for ensuring that all incoming and outgoing
    16  plans are registered according to the rules in a book that
    17  is to be especially set aside for this purpose, and that
    18  loans of such plans (that is an interpolation by the
    19  translator) are signed for with the personal signature of
    20  the person who has asked for them”.
    21  This is indicative, is it not, Professor, of the
    22  pernickety bookkeeping that the Germans went in for with
    23  their documents, that things were logged in and logged
    24  out, is that not true?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: “Furthermore”, it continues in the next paragraph, which

    .           P-86


      1  is the important one on which no doubt learned counsel
      2  relies, “it must be pointed out that we are concerned here
      3  with works that are connected with the war economy and to
      4  be kept secret”. The words: “Connected with the war
      5  economy and to be kept secret” are underlined in the
      6  original. “In particular, plans for the crematoria are to
      7  be kept under the strictest surveillance. No plans are to
      8  be handed out to the individual installation groups, etc.
      9  In connection with the works to be carried out, the
    10  responsible construction leader – I suppose that be a
    11  foreman – has to give instructions to the corresponding
    12  prisoner unit on the spot. I take it as read that all the
    13  original plans are to be kept under lock and key by the
    14  leader of the Planning Department”. Does Mr Rampton wish
    15  me to read out any more, or is that sufficient?
    16  MR RAMPTON:  Could you just finish the paragraph?
    17  MR IRVING:  “Attention is particularly drawn to DV 91”, that is
    18  “Dienstvorschrifft”, is it not?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    20  Q. [Mr Irving]: In other words, Service Regulation No. 91, confidential
    21  Matters. “It is further taken as read that in cases of
    22  leave or inability to carry out duties, the leader of the
    23  Planning Department hands over the plan room in accordance
    24  with regulations to an SS colleague”.
    25  We can take it from this therefore, can we not
    26  Professor, that they were anxious that the drawings of the

    .           P-87


      1  kind you have been showing us this morning should not be
      2  shown to unauthorized persons?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      4  Q. [Mr Irving]: In fact, it should not be shown to anybody at all who had
      5  no need to know?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. In fact, even people who had need to know, it seemed
      7  to be that they were unwilling to — that normally, of
      8  course, in a building site, plans and blueprints are
      9  readily available to the people who are actually making
    10  it, and in this case, they even had difficulty to do
    11  that. They use here that the only person who can really
    12  instruct these people, they cannot actually leave the plan
    13  there, but there must be a “Baufuhrer” and from the word
    14  “Baufuhrer”, it is very clear that this is not an inmate,
    15  or must be a German, civilian or German SS men, because
    16  the designation Fuhrer was always reserved in this case
    17  for a non-inmate. They would have used for inmate always
    18  something like Alterstorser or some kind of designation
    19  like that.
    20  Q. [Mr Irving]: We are in agreement that this is a security measure
    21  designed to keep these plans that you have been showing us
    22  today, that kind of thing, away from prying eyes?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you see no harmless reason for such a regulation?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: A harmless reason?
    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.

    .           P-88


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I presume there is a general harmless — if we are talking
      2  about patents, I could imagine that companies do the same
      3  thing with patents. But in this case I do not think we
      4  deal really with patent information. So I cannot see what
      5  the problem would be. It is remarkable that crematoria
      6  seem to be designated here for a particular kind of
      7  security, let us call it internal security classification.
      8  Q. [Mr Irving]: They are not being designated as the only ones needing
      9  security, are they? They are just to enhance security,
    10  shall we say?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. It says: “In besonders, in der Plane,” so in
    12  particular, yes.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there any kind of security classification on this
    14  document itself?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: There are never on any “Hauszufugen”; this is going to be
    16  available to everyone.
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, but there is no security classification on this
    18  document?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No.
    20  Q. [Mr Irving]: So it could have been shown to anyone, could it not, then?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. I mean anyone who got a copy of this.
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Have you seen any other similar house order
    23  on any other topic in connection with Auschwitz?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. I remember this one. One of the reasons is that this
    25  one came up. I am trying to recall the first time I saw
    26  it. This was in the Ertl and Dejaco trial, and it came up

    .           P-89


      1  because one of the people who had been in the Bauleitung,
      2  who was an inmate who was drawing there, actually went
      3  into some detail about the procedure of actually getting a
      4  blueprint and saying this was a proof of the criminal
      5  intentions, and then this document was produced. I do not
      6  know what the court in the end did with this document.
      7  But I remember the testimony of the particular — I think
      8  it was an inmate named Plas Kuhrer.
      9  MR IRVING:  Did anything in particular happen in Auschwitz one
    10  or two days before this document that you are familiar
    11  with, or in the neighbourhood? I will give you a clue,
    12  air raids?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, there were no air raids in 1943.
    14  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, there were. Do you agree that there was an air raid
    15  on the Buhne plant on approximately 5th or 3rd May 1943?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: 1944.
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: 1943. Well, if there is a dispute, obviously –?
    18  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  The Buhne plant at Auschwitz?
    19  MR IRVING:  That is right, the synthetic plant being erected.
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The first air raid, so far as I know, happened in the
    21  Spring of 1944.

    Section 90.22 to 109.3

    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: We will check that later on perhaps. I have only two more
    23  questions on this document, my Lord, and this is this. Do
    24  you agree that the Germans had reasons to be ashamed of
    25  what was going on in this building, shall we say, whatever
    26  it was?

    .           P-90


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. They certainly had reason to be ashamed of the
      2  genocidal use of the buildings, but I mean crematoria,
      3  there is no — you see, the date is 5th May 1943. By that
      4  time, these buildings have all been committed to genocidal
      5  use. I presume and I am speculating now, and I do not
      6  know if you are interested in my speculation, my Lord.
      7  MR IRVING:  Try us.
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: OK, my speculation will be the following: that
      9  “Vorsontercommander” for inmates before these buildings
    10  had been brought into operation. There would have been
    11  little reason for them at that moment necessarily to want
    12  to steal these plans. We know that the camp resistance
    13  actually stole a set of these plans in 1944. There was a
    14  Czech woman, who was able — ultimately working in the
    15  Bauleitung. She stole the set of plans in order to warn
    16  the outside world.
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: Which crematorium are we talking about?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Crematorium 2 and I think crematorium 4.
    19  Q. [Mr Irving]: Of the factory —
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: A set of plans, which are smuggled outside of the camp.
    21  There is eyewitness testimony about that, about
    22  everything. So my speculation would be — and it is not
    23  more than speculation — that once these buildings had
    24  been committed to genocidal use somebody must have said
    25  “we must prevent any information of these buildings
    26  getting to the outside world. We want these plans to be

    .           P-91


      1  under lock and key”.
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: — can I interrupt you at this point and say, was the
      3  genocide of the Jews or of the other minorities being
      4  liquidated by the Nazis in some way a contribution to
      5  German’s war economy? I am putting it in your language,
      6  it was just part of the Nazi programme, or was it a
      7  fundamental contribution to the German war economy? My
      8  Lord, you will appreciate why I am asking the question. It
      9  is from the document.
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think so. I am just wondering in what
    11  sense the contribution, you mean mouths to feed, something
    12  like that?
    13  MR IRVING:  I am reading the words from the document, my Lord,
    14  that is before us.
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Certainly, many trains with valuables of the deportees
    16  which had been — we gathered in Canada one — and then
    17  later in Canada two also were sent back to the Reich.
    18  I do not think — and, of course, we know from Operation
    19  Reinhardt that an incredible amount of loot was
    20  ultimately —
    21  Q. [Mr Irving]: Precisely.
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — sent back —
    23  Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I draw your attention to the first sentence of the
    24  third paragraph: “furthermore, it must be pointed out we
    25  are concerned here with works that are connected with the
    26  war economy and to be kept secret”; the genocide was not

    .           P-92


      1  connected with the war economy, but the looting of the
      2  corpses was, was it not?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — it was not the looting of the corpses, because the
      4  looting of the corpses themselves was almost
      5  insignificant; what was important, ultimately, was when
      6  people were taken off the trains their luggage remained in
      7  the trains. Now ultimately that luggage, that stuff, was
      8  the important stuff which was being transferred to Canada
      9  No. 1. It was the vast bulk of the stuff. Not the stuff
    10  which was actually found on the corpses.
    11  Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you not rely on the witness, Dr Bendel, as an
    12  eyewitness?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, no, this is —
    14  Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you answer my question, please.
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — no, I am not.
    16  Q. [Mr Irving]: You have not relied —
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: For this particular statement?
    18  Q. [Mr Irving]: — no. You will understand the reason why I ask this
    19  question: have you relied on the witness, Dr Bendel?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: In my book Bendel is only mentioned one, with a
    21  description of bunker No. 2.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware that Dr Bendel has testified under oath that
    23  the Nazis extracted 17 tonnes of gold in teeth from their
    24  victims? Whatever you make of that figure, would that not
    25  be a contribution to the war economy?
    26  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What happened to it?

    .           P-93


      1  MR IRVING:  My Lord, I respectfully submit that is not material
      2  to this issue, the whole point is we are trying to work
      3  out what the Germans were ashamed of and what they did not
      4  want the outside world to know.
      5  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well —
      6  MR IRVING:  And if it is something that is a contribution —
      7  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am not sure I agree with that; was it
      8  still there when the Russians arrived?
      9  MR IRVING:  No, of course, not, my Lord. Whatever the quantity
    10  was, it went initially to the SS, as part of operation
    11  Reinhardt, and we will be introducing the documents to
    12  substantiate that along with all the other pathetic,
    13  personal effects of the victims; the watches, the fountain
    14  pens the spectacles. Everything else was recycled and
    15  turned into a mass cash spinning operation by Heinreich
    16  Himmler. The gold was a major part of it. Hence that room
    17  set aside which you, yourself, showed us drawn on the maps
    18  that they want to keep secret, showing a gold working room
    19  with the smelting furnace in the corner.
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: If this is a question, my Lord, I am happy to answer.
    21  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, it is a question.
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think that given the amount of investment being done in
    23  building the crematoria and the labour being expended and
    24  money being expended and especially the material in the
    25  war, in a war economy and a possible yield of that in
    26  terms of dental gold, I think that the Germans were, to

    .           P-94


      1  say the least, not very smart in economic sense.
      2  MR IRVING:  I have only one final question on this document
      3  then; in that case, Professor, will you please tell the
      4  court what were the jobs connected with the war economy
      5  which had to be kept secret which were connected with the
      6  crematorium then? If it was not the genocide and it was
      7  not the gold?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I mean the question of course we have to face here is, if
      9  he means — if they mean literally war economy. If they
    10  mean literally war economy, in 1943 the SS wanted — they
    11  were building a plant right next to Auschwitz No. 1.
    12  Q. [Mr Irving]: That was not in the crematorium, was it?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That was not in the crematorium.
    14  Q. [Mr Irving]: This paragraph is purely concerned with the plans of the
    15  crematorium, which they are trying to keep away from
    16  prying eyes for some reason which they indicate, in my
    17  submission, by the use of words “vital to the war economy”
    18  or “important to the war economy”. My Lord, I have no
    19  further questions on this document.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  The only question I was going to ask you,
    21  I think you may in a way have answered; it is the dating
    22  of it is slightly odd, is it not, in a way if this sort of
    23  instruction is going to go out, you rather expect it to go
    24  out when they are deciding they are going to convert
    25  crematorium No. 2 to genocidal use?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, I would say that — you see I do not think they think

    .           P-95


      1  of everything in advance. What happens is that in March
      2  you get the first, the first trial gassing in crematorium
      3  No. 2; by May 1943 all of the buildings except crematorium
      4  3 are in operation. I think it is quite likely that
      5  somebody — that at that moment somebody said “we have a
      6  problem”. I think that the whole history of (German
      7  spoken) and the history of architecture in Auschwitz,
      8  construction of Auschwitz, the Germans do not think of
      9  everything ahead.
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, Mr Irving.
    11  MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, could I — it might save my having to
    12  come back to it in re-examination — just draw your
    13  Lordship’s attention to the first paragraph of that
    14  letter, which I think has escaped your Lordship and the
    15  witness’s.
    16  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, even that date is a bit odd too if you
    17  think about it, because Himmler was not there until July.
    18  MR RAMPTON:  That is why I thought your Lordship might want to
    19  pursue the enquiry by reference to 19th June 1942.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, but that is a little earlier than you
    21  would expect.
    22  MR RAMPTON:  Exactly.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  So it is double edged, really.
    24  MR IRVING:  Well, I am indebted to Mr Rampton for pointing that
    25  out then.
    26  (To the witness) Just one more question in that

    .           P-96


      1  relationship, and that is; have you seen documents under
      2  which any SS member involved in operation Reinhardt, or in
      3  whatever was happening at Auschwitz, was obliged to keep
      4  secret, under pain of death, a number of matters,
      5  including — have you seen such a document?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have not seen a document. I know it from testimony,
      7  from… who was it? Was it Hans Stark? I think Hans
      8  Stark gave testimony that he had to sign such a document
      9  when he came to Auschwitz and that the first thing he did
    10  was he was brought to the Political Department and asked
    11  to sign such a document, the general rule to remain
    12  completely secret. It also came up in the Jacob Ertl
    13  trial, when Ertl started talking in mid-1942, he got in
    14  trouble over that. He mentioned it.
    15  Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you take it from me, Professor, that there is such a
    16  document in Berlin documents relating to a man called
    17  Weiss (?). I believe he is a low ranking SS NCO. I have
    18  seen this document, and that he was required to sign such
    19  a security undertaking.
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I trust you on that matter.
    21  Q. [Mr Irving]: In that case I cannot ask you details as to what they were
    22  obliged to keep secret because if you have not seen the
    23  document you cannot tell the court. But I will ask the
    24  other witnesses when they come.
    25  Having, I think, disposed of this document, my
    26  Lord, we can now resume questioning based on the pictures

    .           P-97


      1  that we have seen.
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, dealt with it, anyway.
      3  MR IRVING:  Well, not — I would have said “disposed” actually.
      4  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You can say that at the end of the case.
      5  MR IRVING:  Yes. In my famous closing speech.
      6  (To the witness) How often did Himmler visit
      7  Auschwitz? Did he visit Auschwitz again after July 19th
      8  or whenever it was, 1942?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Now, there is an account by Vrba that he did.
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: By Vrba, who is one of the eyewitnesses on whom you rely?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: On Rudolf Vrba. I have used Rudolf Vrba in the book
    12  twice, yes. He is, of course, very important in the
    13  history of Auschwitz, because he was one of two escapees,
    14  three escapees, however, you want to count it, who brought
    15  news of the killing of the Hungarian Jews to the outside
    16  world in the spring of 1944.
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: When did Vrba suggest that Himmler visited Auschwitz on a
    18  second or further occasion?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The third one.
    20  Q. [Mr Irving]: The third occasion; was this 1943 or 1942?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, he talked about it in his account I Cannot Forgive.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: This would be 1943?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That is —
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: The visit?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — yes, there is a visit. He says 1943. He actually
    26  says — he remembers it as January 1943 and then says that

    .           P-98


      1  he — Himmler came to the opening of the crematorium and
      2  he said would have been January 1943. In any case, we
      3  know he was confused on the date because it would have
      4  been March 1943.
      5  Q. [Mr Irving]: Vrba, in fact, am I right in saying this; concertinaed a
      6  number of different events and different buildings into
      7  one event and one building, did he not, when he wrote his
      8  report up from memory?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We are talking about the Vrba-Wetzlar Report right now?
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: No, the original one that he wrote when he came out and he
    11  dealt I think with a Slovakian Jewish organization who
    12  then reedited the report for consumption and a lot of
    13  details got concertinaed, did they not?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Now, the question is I want to know exactly what your
    15  question with the verb “concertinaed” because it is a word
    16  I normally do not use, so I want to know exactly what you
    17  mean.
    18  Q. [Mr Irving]: Sometimes when a person visits a place two or three times
    19  in later memory it becomes just either one or two visits
    20  and the events of three visits are then concertinaed into
    21  one or two. But Vrba was not very precise about dates and
    22  times and places, was he?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I mean Vrba wrote, certainly his first report, under
    24  incredible stress. The Hungarian action was going on. Tens
    25  of thousands of Jews per week were shipped to Auschwitz,
    26  and he wanted to warn the Hungarian Jewish community that

    .           P-99


      1  what was happening in Auschwitz, what was awaiting them,
      2  he had escaped from having been an inmate in Auschwitz for
      3  two years, a little over two years, and was recalling from
      4  memory his — you know, tried to make a case that this was
      5  a very serious thing and tried to describe the camp as
      6  good as he could. Also even tried to describe the
      7  crematoria.
      8  Q. [Mr Irving]: But his report is flawed, is it not? A lot of it is bunk?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, I would like — I mean, if you make a challenge like
    10  that I will be willing to go with you over the report in
    11  detail. Certainly, the report is not more flawed, and in
    12  general terms I would want to say that if I had been Vrba
    13  coming out of the situation I am, going to then at a
    14  certain moment be, as you said, he was interviewed. He
    15  was interviewed by people in Bratislava.
    16  Q. [Mr Irving]: A Jewish community, was it not?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: These were people of the Jewish community —
    18  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, who advised him to rewrite what he had written.
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — Mr Vrba had no document when he came out of Auschwitz.
    20  He did not carry with him a document. There was no
    21  document.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: He prepared a report for them and then they rewrote it
    23  with him?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not exactly know how he was interviewed there, and on
    25  the basis of these interviews they made a report. I do
    26  not know exactly who wrote and who rewrote. I know that

    .           P-100


      1  the papal nuncio in Bratislava was very closely involved.
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you read the records of the War Refugee Record in the
      3  Roosevelt archives?
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Which ones? I have read the records as they were printed
      5  in —
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: You have not read the original telegrams that came from
      7  McClelland in Bern?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: From McClelland, I think a number of them I have quoted in
      9  my expert report, yes. So I mean they were reprinted in
    10  facsimile by David Wyman (?) in his book, Serious About
    11  American Reaction to the Holocaust, his documentary
    12  collection. So I have looked at those, yes.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: — and you did not notice that the telegrams from
    14  McClelland make quite plain that the Vrba Report had been
    15  heavily edited or altered by this external committee of
    16  Slovakian Jews, for whatever reason? You did not notice
    17  that?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I remember — I mean I do not dispute the fact that this
    19  report, that this report, the origin of this report, is in
    20  Bratislava in 1944 and that members of the Jewish
    21  community were involved in that. I do not exactly know
    22  what Mr McClelland said again. We can look at the
    23  document.
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: We are in a slightly difficult position with Vrba, are we
    25  not, because you rely on him to a certain extent; is that
    26  right?

    .           P-101


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: In extent to what?
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: As an eyewitness, one of the most important, he was one of
      3  the first one?
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Vrba is very important. Vrba is very important because he
      5  is the first one who brings a substantial account of the
      6  use of Auschwitz as a place where Jews are being killed
      7  en masse.
      8  Q. [Mr Irving]: He is now Professor at a university in Vancouver, is he
      9  not?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think he is retired now.
    11  Q. [Mr Irving]: Would it be fair to say that great harm was done to his
    12  testimony under cross-examination during the Zundel trial?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not think that great harm was done. I think that
    14  Christie got under his skin all right. But I think the
    15  attorney for Mr Zundel got under the skin of many people.
    16  Q. [Mr Irving]: I hope I am not getting under your skin if I continue this
    17  line of investigation and say would it be fair to say that
    18  Vrba finally admitted that he had never been inside one of
    19  these gas chamber buildings?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I think that he had never been inside. He relied on
    21  reports of others.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: So in this respect of course his eyewitness testimony is
    23  worthless, then, is it not?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is you know at a certain moment to me, you work as the
    25  best you can, and, of course, I know that there was a —
    26  that one of the major challenges during the Zundel trial

    .           P-102


      1  was actually on the diagrams being produced of the — he
      2  produces a diagram of a crematorium, with the gas chamber,
      3  and unlike the diagrams of the camp site itself, which are
      4  quite correct, in the archeological sense, there are some
      5  problems with the diagram he has of the crematorium and he
      6  assumes that crematoria 2, 3, 4 and 5 in some way, he
      7  collapses then into one proposition.
      8  However, if you want to understand — I can draw
      9  the diagram by heart if your Lordship wants that, but if
    10  you understand actually how information which had been
    11  transmitted to him from people again who are not
    12  experienced in describing buildings and I today needed,
    13  you know, all the blueprints and all these reconstructions
    14  in order to make some points. So now we have some
    15  “sondercommando” who in one way or another get
    16  information to him, and he sees these building at a
    17  distance and he knows something is going on there and he
    18  knows about an underground space and tries to put this
    19  together at a certain moment in Bratislava. I think that
    20  ultimately while it is not ideologically correct, as
    21  Mr Song also noticed, it is understandable how the
    22  mistakes were generated.
    23  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: In the actual plan. So I must say that Vrba, while
    25  I would not say that he is like Olare in this case, a
    26  perfect kind of — visually perfect kind of eyewitness,

    .           P-103


      1  I think that he, given the situation he had been in, did a
      2  job which was as good as one can expect at the moment.
      3  Q. [Mr Irving]: You mentioned Olare. My Lord, Olare was the artist, you
      4  will remember.
      5  (To the witness) You will remember, Professor,
      6  will you not, that I asked you the length that the flame
      7  has to travel from the furnace to the mouth of the
      8  chimney?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: We reached a figure of 90 feet or so, did we not?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    12  Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you ever seen flames that are 90 feet long?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No.
    14  Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you take it from me that any furnace engineer would
    15  say that you never get flames from a chimney that is as
    16  long as that, or route that is as long as that?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I am happy to accept what your engineer says. I am happy
    18  also to accept what another engineer has said. I have not
    19  consulted engineers on this.
    20  Q. [Mr Irving]: Regardless of what is being burned, even if it was trash
    21  from the incinerator or whatever they would not have
    22  flames emerging from the mouth of the chimney.
    23  Will you also accept that the Germans, being
    24  very good design engineers, have also made adequate
    25  provision to ensure that no smoke would have come from the
    26  chimney either?

    .           P-104


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No smoke?
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: No smoke would come from the chimney. That is the purpose
      3  of the design of chimney roof.
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Okay, it may be so or it may be not so, I cannot
      5  comment —
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: Regardless, if you concentrate just on the flames will you
      7  agree that Olare in one of his drawings which you
      8  described as being very good of the outside of the
      9  crematorium shows flames and smoke luridly belching from
    10  the — not just trickling out —
    11  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, do not bother, it does.
    12  MR IRVING:  I am sure you know which picture I am referring
    13  to.
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — yes, it is tab No. 3.
    15  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  And it either is or is not intended to be an
    16  accurate reproduction of what actually was visible.
    17  MR IRVING:  If you have read Pressac, Professor, do you
    18  remember the passage where Olare states that the SS turned
    19  bodies into sausages?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not remember that, I am sorry.
    21  Q. [Mr Irving]: I think it is on page 255, I will look for it in the lunch
    22  break. My Lord, I will only have about one hour to do
    23  with this witness after lunch if it is a useful guide.
    24  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is very helpful to know, but do not feel
    25  under any pressure, obviously.
    26  MR IRVING:  We saw in the slides that you showed to us the

    .           P-105


      1  concrete being poured, if I can put it that way, on the
      2  roof of — not this building, not the alleged mass gas
      3  chamber, but the crematorium No. 2, the mortuary No. 2; is
      4  that right?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, it is this building, but it is mortuary No. 2.
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: It is the different one?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      8  Q. [Mr Irving]: I must say that took me back 30 years when I saw concrete
      9  being poured, because I know what it means. I know that
    10  the reinforcing wires and the bars and everything, how
    11  they are all put in. There were no drawings made, were
    12  there, of those bars? You yourself said that you could
    13  not produce the drawings of the actual —
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have not seen the drawings. I do not know if drawings
    15  were made. Generally I do not think that actually that
    16  much of this, as far as I know, runs on more or less kind
    17  of, you know, accepted kind of procedures.
    18  Q. [Mr Irving]: — rule of thumb, yes.
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. So that it is unlikely to find — I have not seen
    20  any drawings in the Auschwitz archive of any reinforcing
    21  or any particular concrete construction.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: When I worked with John Laing the position of every bar
    23  was drawn on a drawing, but you say there are no such
    24  drawings and under wartime conditions presumably there
    25  were not.
    26  We are now switching from the one we saw in the

    .           P-106


      1  picture, to the alleged factory of death, this gas chamber
      2  here where you say 500,000 people were killed; we are back
      3  on the question of roof again. We do not have pictures of
      4  that roof being poured, but it would be fair to assume
      5  that there would be the same kind of reinforcing that went
      6  that room, steel bars?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I mean there are fragments when the whole — the
      8  pillar No. 2, there are reinforcing bars right there.
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Which are bent, which have been bent.
    11  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Was the thickness the shame on Leichenkeller
    12  No. 1?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The strange thing is we do not have any section of morgue
    14  No. 2, but we have the section of morgue No. 1 because it
    15  was such a particular, complex section. So I assume from
    16  the ruins it looks that whatever is there that the
    17  thickness was the same and I also would have assumed that.
    18  MR IRVING:  My Lord, can I refer to you the little bundle of
    19  pictures that I provided to you this morning, which is
    20  numbered Claimant’s bundle D, photographs.
    21  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, thank you very much, which I have not
    22  looked at all.
    23  MR IRVING:  I am sure you have not, my Lord. This was finally
    24  finalized at 4 o’clock this morning. But it is going to
    25  be useful nonetheless I think, on the sense one picture is
    26  often worth a thousand words. This answers many of our

    .           P-107


      1  questions.
      2  MR RAMPTON:  Well, my Lord, I have some reservation about
      3  this. I am not being technical about this. This little
      4  bundle seems to be a mixture of drawings, reconstructions
      5  by an unknown hand, and commentary by an unknown author.
      6  It is quite different if the Professor in the witness box
      7  gives a demonstration and offers his opinion. I am not
      8  very impressed, I have to say.
      9  MR IRVING:  I am sorry, you have commentary.
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where is the commentary, I was wondering
    11  about that.
    12  MR IRVING:  On page 18 are you referring?
    13  MR RAMPTON:  Well, I do not know, I thought I saw some red
    14  commentary, I have only glanced at it.
    15  MR IRVING:  I think the red commentary, it is actually linked
    16  to other pages.
    17  MR RAMPTON:  Yes, but there is red commentary on page something
    18  or other.
    19  MR IRVING:  We can rip that page out.
    20  MR RAMPTON:  No, it is this; there is a lot of red commentary,
    21  actually. Then there are some very pretty drawings like a
    22  child’s picture book in different colours.
    23  MR IRVING:  We have had some pretty drawings thrown on the
    24  screen this morning.
    25  MR RAMPTON:  I know not by whom they were done, Mr Irving might
    26  perhaps be better off listening to what I have to say than

    .           P-108


      1  interrupting. The reason I am troubled by this is so far
      2  as I know the person who made these drawings and that
      3  commentary is not going to be a witness.

    Section 109.4 to 125.24

      4  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, I hear what you say, Mr Rampton, and
      5  I understand the force of it, but what I think going to
      6  let Mr Irving do is make what use he wishes of these
      7  photographs and if we come to a particularly problematic
      8  one then maybe it is going to be right to stop it.
      9  MR RAMPTON:  I follow that. I want to be sure that I am right
    10  though, this is not expert evidence from anybody so far as
    11  I know.
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is not an illegitimate cross-examination
    13  technique in the end do not I think, so take your course.
    14  MR IRVING:  My Lord, thank you. The drawings, of course, that
    15  we were shown on the screen were made not by the expert
    16  witness, but by one of his students.
    17  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  A slightly different situation.
    18  MR IRVING:  My Lord, you get a rough idea of the thickness of
    19  the concrete from pictures No. 22 and 23 and you can see
    20  the reinforcing bars that go through the roof.
    21  (To the witness) Would you agree that these are
    22  the holes that exist at present in mortuary No. 2, these
    23  holes were cut through the roof after the war to obtain
    24  access to the underside of the flap?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I cannot judge the picture of No. 22. I do think that
    26  No. 23 looks like what I have seen at that particular one.

    .           P-109


      1  Q. [Mr Irving]: Very well, we will disregard 22, but if you stay on page
      2  23, picture 23, you can see that there is a hole cut
      3  through the concrete into darkness underneath and you can
      4  see reinforcing bars there, and the concrete there — well
      5  you said 20 centimetres thick, did you not?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I thought afterwards I thought 18 centimetres.
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: In real terms 18 centimetres is?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Six inches.
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: Six inches?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    11  Q. [Mr Irving]: Can we go back to the picture that you showed the court on
    12  Thursday of the locomotive and which we saw briefly on the
    13  screen again today, which I have reproduced for the sake
    14  of convenience, on page 16, my Lord, purely just as a
    15  visual remainder of what we are now arguing about, or
    16  talking about. This is the locomotive going past the
    17  roof which is clearly under construction still. It has
    18  not been banked up around. It has not had earth heaped
    19  over it and it has some protuberances on top. My Lord,
    20  I did refer, you will remember. I asked the witness if he
    21  had said a photograph with that same roof with snow
    22  covering?
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I remember that.
    24  MR IRVING:  Witness, will you please turn to page 17; is this a
    25  photograph that you recognize?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, and I actually kind of slightly stupidly commented on

    .           P-110


      1  it without having it in front of me, because yesterday
      2  coming back from Stockholm I thought there was a detail in
      3  the roof, two details, and that, you know, which I
      4  remembered, which was the detail of the roof was still
      5  being constructed on the left, and that that makes it one
      6  earlier than the one with the little locomotive in it.
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: This is quite obvious, is it not; the whole building is
      8  still under construction at an earlier stage than the
      9  locomotive picture?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    11  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  This is December 1942 or thereabouts?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Whatever, yes, I mean it is obviously maybe after the time
    13  that these people have been closing the roof, which we saw
    14  in the picture on top of morgue No. 1. But, yes, it
    15  looks — I would date it probably somewhere December.
    16  There is still a lot of work to be done on the dormers.
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: Again, we can see quite clearly in somewhat more detail
    18  now the flat roof of mortuary No. 1, this is the flat
    19  white line which goes across from the centre of the page
    20  to the right; do you see that, my Lord?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I see, yes.
    23  MR IRVING:  That is the flat roof with the snow on the top.
    24  (To the witness) Can you see any kind of
    25  disturbance of that snow line whatsoever that would
    26  indicate that there was either a hole or a plank or a

    .           P-111


      1  cover or a chimney, let alone three? Can you see any kind
      2  of disturbances at that time?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, you cannot see anything, but the question if there
      4  would be a plank on this and there is a snow cover on it
      5  then of course the snow would have covered the planks.
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: It would be satisfactory just to put a plank across there
      7  and no kind of water would get in through the hole
      8  underneath the plank if there was a hole underneath that
      9  plank?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: In a building under construction one has very temporary
    11  measures to close thing up.
    12  Q. [Mr Irving]: But you cannot point to any kind of disturbance of that
    13  snow corresponding with the position of the three
    14  protuberances on the previous photograph on page 16, can
    15  you?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I am looking at a 2 millimetre, 3 millimetre wide white
    17  line which is delicately reproduced, and it is very
    18  difficult to say anything about what actually happens in
    19  that snow right there. There may be planks covered
    20  by snow. There may be not, it may be disturbed one way or
    21  another, but it is very difficult to draw any
    22  conclusions —
    23  Q. [Mr Irving]: It is very weak evidence, is it not —
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Sorry?
    25  Q. [Mr Irving]: This photograph, No. 17, is it not?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — weak evidence of what?

    .           P-112


      1  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Of what?
      2  MR IRVING:  Of any inference I might seek to draw from it. You
      3  say this is just one rather smudgy white line and what can
      4  one say? You cannot draw conclusions; is that what you are
      5  saying?
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is a straw in the wind, in the sense that
      7  there would inevitably be a stage when there would the
      8  roof in place but nothing sticking through it because they
      9  had not got round to sticking anything through it.
    10  MR IRVING:  We are coming to all this in two or three minutes,
    11  my Lord.
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Very sorry.
    13  MR IRVING:  (To the witness) But I just want to establish you
    14  say we cannot draw conclusions just on the basis of this
    15  rather smudgy photograph?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: It is ten inches across, but you cannot draw conclusions?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    19  Q. [Mr Irving]: But can you draw conclusions from the previous photograph,
    20  which is even smudgier; is this what you are saying?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, because there is something to see there. I mean this
    22  one is pretty smudgy, but in the original you actually see
    23  those box like structures above morgue No. 1.
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: Very well, but there is no indication whatsoever on
    25  picture No. 17 of any provision made for them, no
    26  coverings; we cannot see any planks or scaffolding boards

    .           P-113


      1  or anything covering the whole there? It is just one
      2  smooth snow line across the top?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Covering whatever is below it, either the roof of morgue
      4  No. 1, or the openings which have been temporarily closed
      5  with pieces of wood, or pieces of board.
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: Now in your evidence you drew attention, did you not, to
      7  the photographs which I reproduced again on page 6.
      8  Mr Rampton may prefer that we look at the original bundle
      9  rather than — this is the same photograph, is it not?
    10  The one with the smudges on the roof, the four smudges?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Page No. 6.
    12  Q. [Mr Irving]: Of my bundle, yes. There are two photographs there. I
    13  would only draw attention to the bottom photograph, which
    14  is the one which has not been touched. This is the one
    15  you showed, is it not, showing four smudges?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, may — what do you mean was touched?
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: We just marked on the upper photograph with red dots the
    18  position of the holes as they are on the roof now.
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: OK.
    20  Q. [Mr Irving]: This roof you appreciate is still there, and the two holes
    21  marked in red are visible on that roof now?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    23  Q. [Mr Irving]: Just for the sake so there is no confusion at all, we have
    24  marked in the position on that roof of where those two
    25  present day holes are, which is what one can clamber
    26  through, the one shown in the photograph —

    .           P-114


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, I do not think you are right on that, and I am not
      2  going to — I think we should have maybe a survey, but the
      3  thing is that the hole, which is very close to the second
      4  column, of the — you see, one of the big problems is that
      5  the white smudge, which in some way you interpret as the
      6  top of — as the roof, actually, it is not only the roof
      7  of the gas chamber, but it is also the slope. The earth
      8  is sloped up to it. So, in fact, that smudge is larger
      9  than the actual roof. We can go back to my
    10  reconstruction, yes.
    11  Q. [Mr Irving]: — I am afraid I do not get what you are saying there at
    12  all.
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: OK, maybe I can point it out on this. If, indeed, this —
    14  if this is the exact size of the original morgue No. 1, in
    15  fact, the earth was sloped up to the roof and then covered
    16  the roof and sloped down. So the actual line, what you
    17  see here, there is the big white smudge actually takes a
    18  larger area than the actual roof area. If you then start
    19  looking at the dots, then the dots clearly start to be
    20  much more — because otherwise the dots are not actually
    21  in a pattern. We have seven columns at regular intervals
    22  between the end wall and then we get seven columns and
    23  then we get basically the wall of the crematorium.
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: So you are still submitting to the court that these
    25  smudges represent the position of holes through the roof
    26  through which the SS officers poured the cyanide pellets?

    .           P-115


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That the smudges were caused by the holes. It is very
      2  difficult at this…
      3  Q. [Mr Irving]: Magnification.
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: At this magnification to determine exactly what is
      5  happening there. I do not know exactly — we know from
      6  the Bryant investigation that at a certain moment objects
      7  the size of a head would — was the size of a grain in the
      8  negative and that all kind of moray (?) effects started to
      9  happen, so we are talking here about what is happening on
    10  size of a grain in the negative.
    11  Q. [Mr Irving]: When was this photograph taken, Professor? The one we are
    12  looking at, August 1944?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not know if this is August 1st or May 1st or it was
    14  even possibly a September one.
    15  Q. [Mr Irving]: Were all the photographs with which we are familiar taken
    16  in 1944?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    18  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, I am sorry, I think I am a bit
    19  confused; is this Leichenkeller No. One.
    20  THE WITNESS:[Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    21  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You said a moment ago that the holes were
    22  still there, or two of them are.
    23  MR IRVING:  Two holes have been made after the war, my Lord.
    24  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Oh, I see, made after the war.
    25  MR IRVING:  In positions indicated by the little red dots by
    26  whom knows whom out of curiosity to find —

    .           P-116


      1  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Experimentally.
      2  MR IRVING:  To find out what is underneath.
      3  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I thought you meant that we could see the
      4  holes that were originally there.
      5  MR IRVING:  We have seen the photograph of one of the holes, my
      6  Lord, with the metal reinforcing bars twisted up to obtain
      7  access.
      8  THE WITNESS:[Professor Van Pelt]: But, my Lord, I do challenge the position of the
      9  red dots on that mark No. 3. I challenge that these
    10  actually, the location of the holes right now in the roof.
    11  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not quite see why it matters.
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: OK. But in any case because I think maybe there was
    13  confusion about that.
    14  MR IRVING:  Well, are you suggesting to the court that the
    15  holes we have seen photographs of, the one with the
    16  reinforcing bars twisted up is one of the holes on which
    17  you relying?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No.
    19  Q. [Mr Irving]: In other words, whether you challenge it or not is neither
    20  here nor there?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: OK, neither here nor there.
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You say if we are wrong, but it does not
    23  appear to me to be significant.
    24  MR IRVING:  No.
    25  Witness, I have here a number of original
    26  photographs from the National Archives Cardographic

    .           P-117


      1  Branch. These are original prints taken from the original
      2  negatives that were over Auschwitz in 1944, as you say.
      3  I have five of them, which show these buildings. I am not
      4  going to ask you now, witness, to examine them in detail,
      5  because clearly that would disrupt the proceedings of the
      6  court. But I have produced for the court’s interest in
      7  large sections of those photographs, and they begin, my
      8  Lord, on page 7; 7, 8, 8 and 10, which is where my
      9  computer crashed, so I will not rely on the fifth
    10  photograph. But I would ask the witness to comment on
    11  these enlarged sections of the original photographs which
    12  he can scrutinize, I would suggest, during the lunch
    13  adjournment and say if he can see the slightest sign of
    14  dots on the roof of this building; the mortuary No. 1 in
    15  crematorium No. 2, “The Factory of Death”, on which his
    16  entire case, that this was a factory of death relies.
    17  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I imagine he would probably say
    18  straightaway.
    19  THE WITNESS:[Professor Van Pelt]: I can say that. Picture No. 7 seems to depict
    20  the building after the destruction had started. I do not
    21  know how far it is. I think maybe it is not even an
    22  American but a German photo.
    23  MR IRVING:  No, the German photograph is picture No. 9 that
    24  was —
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. 9 —
    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: That was taken on February 19th 1945 —

    .           P-118


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So there the buildings are completely destroyed. So the
      2  issue of dots is irrelevant there, yes?
      3  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: At picture No. 7, whatever the date — there already seems
      5  to be in the picture No. 7, is that there is — certainly
      6  there is — I can see, but it is kind of useless for me to
      7  argue. I could say I see two dots on morgue No. 1 —
      8  Q. [Mr Irving]: But you cannot see the same four smudges in any of the
      9  photographs?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — but I said I certainly see four smudges in photograph
    11  No. 8 behind crematorium No. 3.
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can you point them out to me?
    13  MR IRVING:  That is correct?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. 8 I see four smudges right there.
    15  MR IRVING:  Four smudges on 3, but not on 2?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: But on No. 2 I do not know what — if they had made…
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: Did they —
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The smudges are on others, I do not know exactly what were
    19  the conditions — it seems to be that there is a line of
    20  smudges.
    21  MR RAMPTON:  Yes —
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — a line of smudges.
    23  MR IRVING:  Mr Rampton has objections to make.
    24  MR RAMPTON:  I do not have an objection, I have an observation
    25  to make. It is perhaps not valuable to ask the witness
    26  what he can see. We can all look at them. I could give

    .           P-119


      1  evidence what I can see in these photographs.
      2  MR IRVING:  But the court needs to hear it.
      3  MR RAMPTON:  I happen to agree with the Professor that one can
      4  see the smudges very clearly, but it is a matter for your
      5  Lordship.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, that may be but since we have had a lot
      7  of evidence about smudges I do not see there is any harm
      8  in Professor van Pelt being asked what he thinks one can
      9  see.
    10  MR RAMPTON:  All I am suggesting is it makes not in the end
    11  any difference what this witness can see in these
    12  photographs.
    13  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  He might suddenly say; “gosh, I cannot see
    14  any smudges at all, I must be wrong”.
    15  MR RAMPTON:  It would not matter if he did say that, if I can
    16  see them and your Lordship can see them.
    17  MR IRVING:  I appreciate the tactical reason for such
    18  interruptions but I would be grateful if you left them
    19  until the end of the —
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, it has not succeeded.
    21  MR IRVING:  Professor, you suggested that the building on the
    22  left in picture No. 8 might have already been partially
    23  dismantled?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — no, No. 7 I said, this was about in No. 7 but —
    25  Q. [Mr Irving]: Very well.
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — it is difficult exactly to see again, we are looking

    .           P-120


      1  here at dots, you know, this is reproduced.
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: We have gone on to No. 8 now. You can see the dots on the
      3  right one, which suggests that the definition of the
      4  picture would be adequate to see dots on crematorium No. 2
      5  and yet there are no such dots visible?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: There is a whole line visible.
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: Not on crematorium No. 2?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I am sorry?
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: Not on crematorium No. 2.
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: On crematorium No. 2 there seem to be — I do not exactly
    11  know if that is the line which is the edge of the gas
    12  chamber or a line on top, you know, if that is — if the
    13  two parallel lines are the edges of the kind of earth bank
    14  on top of the gas chamber — I do not know there are some
    15  white smudges in the middle there. I mean, his Lordship
    16  can see that as well, I presume.
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I suggest you now move on to No. 10. No. 9, my Lord,
    18  is a photograph taken by the German Air Force after the
    19  Russians occupied Auschwitz.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No. 9 or 10?
    21  MR IRVING:  No. 9 is a photograph. I have included it purely
    22  for historical interest. It shows the buildings
    23  demolished or partly blown up by somebody before February
    24  19th 1945.
    25  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  And the same is true of ten.
    26  THE WITNESS:[Professor Van Pelt]: No, 10, the buildings are still standing.

    .           P-121


      1  MR IRVING:  The photographs are not in sequence, my Lord.
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I cannot make anything of 10 at all.
      3  MR IRVING:  If you look, my Lord, the original is very faded,
      4  but you can clearly make out the outlines of crematorium
      5  No. 2. You can clearly make out the outlines going off
      6  horizontally to the left of the Leichenkeller No. 1 and
      7  once again there is no kind of markings whatsoever on the
      8  roof, that is my submission.
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I would like to comment on that, that first of all the
    10  image is so bad that the whole chimney and the whole
    11  projection of crematorium 2 in image No. 10 has become one
    12  big blurry — the building would have half been destroyed
    13  in this one, and that if one wants there is very little to
    14  see one way or another, but I actually think there are —
    15  at least I think that I see three dots on top of that, on
    16  top of that morgue, but that can also be simply some kind
    17  of —
    18  Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I ask you to take five-minutes during the lunch
    19  adjournment to have look at the original photographs,
    20  which are substantially better quality, and tell me
    21  honestly under oath whether you still say the same,
    22  because my submission is that there are no dots visible on
    23  any of the photographs apart from that August 1944 one.
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — I hope you have magnifying glasses because I have now
    25  reached the age I need reading glasses and I do not have
    26  them with me. I did not expect this kind of challenge.

    .           P-122


      1  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, a magnifying glass would be quite a
      2  good idea, would it not.
      3  MR IRVING:  I will try and obtain one, my Lord, in the
      4  interval. (To the witness) While, we have the bundle in
      5  front of us, will you please pass to page 14, which I hope
      6  will be in your bundle, Professor.
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Page 14?
      8  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, it shows two photographs side by side. I would ask
      9  you only to look at the photographs; disregard the text.
    10  The left hand photograph, would you agree, have you seen
    11  it before —
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: — it show Hungarian prisoners arriving in May 1944 at
    14  Auschwitz.
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    16  Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there any smoke visible on that photograph?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No.
    18  Q. [Mr Irving]: The right hand photograph is the identical photograph
    19  apart for one thing.
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: There is some grey blood.
    21  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, does it appear to be smoke in the sky above some
    22  chimney in the background?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not know if it is a chimney. It is a pole. It is a
    24  kind of electricity pole.
    25  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, but it is not on the photograph on the left which is
    26  the original one as published by the Behalteklasse

    .           P-123


      1  Foundation?
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I agree.
      3  Q. [Mr Irving]: So, do you agree that one has to have heightened alertness
      4  when one is looking at photographs that have been
      5  published by whoever? One has to be aware constantly that
      6  people sometimes…
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, but I may point out that at least with the photos of
      8  the Hungarian action in the Auschwitz album I have seen
      9  the originals and inspected the originals and worked with
    10  the originals.
    11  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  The originals show what? Smoke or no smoke?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I mean whatever the claim is being made here, I certainly,
    13  you know, it seems to be that the Weisenthal Centre on
    14  their website has prettied up this picture one way or
    15  another. But certainly that is not my source of
    16  information for whatever material.
    17  MR IRVING:  Are you surprised to hear, Professor, that last
    18  night when I tried to go to their website this picture
    19  showing the smoke has been removed?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I presume they are following this trial on your website.
    21  Q. [Mr Irving]: Professor, will you now turn to the last page of the
    22  bundle of photographs?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The last page?
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: The very last page.
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: 24?
    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: That is right, should be a coloured diagram showing a wire

    .           P-124


      1  mesh column.
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      3  Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you agree that this is a reasonable interpretation
      4  by an artist operating for the Holocaust history project
      5  of what the wire mesh introduction devices looked like, on
      6  the basis of eyewitness evidence?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, I think it is wrong.
      8  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Who is Mark van Elstein?
      9  MR IRVING:  He is some artist employed by the Holocaust History
    10  Project, which is a non-revisionist, if I can put it that
    11  way, website.
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think he is wrong.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: In what degree do you think this differs from the real,
    14  from reality?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think that, first of all, I think there were three
    16  concentric tubes, and there are only two shown here.
    17  I think the second one, which is really problematic is
    18  that he shows that the whole width of the column goes into
    19  the slab. There was no reason for that, actually it would
    20  be counterproductive because the column, the idea of the
    21  column was to allow for the even dispersion of hydrogen
    22  cyanide in the room, not into the slab. So to weaken the
    23  slab in that way, allowing for that disbursing mechanism
    24  to go into the slab is absolutely nonsense.

    Section 125.25 to 152.14

    25  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  This is the funnel point?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, the funnel — at the moment there is the underside of

    .           P-125


      1  L Keller one roof, it is pointed at, but what is Mr van
      2  Elstein has done is project that whole dispersion
      3  mechanism into the slab, and I cannot see why anyone would
      4  have designed the thing like that.
      5  MR IRVING:  Apart from that, you would say it is a useful
      6  diagram that will help both his Lordship and the court?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: To be very honest, I would not rely on it. I think this
      8  is such a fundamental mistake. We have only two — we
      9  have only two concentric columns. There were three as far
    10  as I remember, and the whole thing goes through the slab.
    11  This is an amazing difference between the actual thing as
    12  we know it, described by Kuhler, and what is drawn here.
    13  I can would not trust Mr van Elstein at all on this
    14  point. I like the drawing.
    15  MR IRVING:  It is a good drawing.
    16  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I can see why you suggest there would have
    17  been a funnel when you take it through the concrete roof;
    18  why broaden it out though lower down? Do you understand
    19  the question?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Why broaden —
    21  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: If it can be that narrow when it is going through the
    22  concrete roof; why does it not stay that narrow all the
    23  way down into the chamber?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — no, but may I draw this?
    25  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: What is the reason?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The reason is that this central pipe, let us call it a

    .           P-126


      1  pipe, has holes in it, perforated holes. In that pipe you
      2  throw the Zyklon-B, let us say 200 grammes or 500 grammes;
      3  the idea of this pipe is, is that there is actually on the
      4  bottom of this pipe is a tin, and the Zyklon-B goes into
      5  the tin. You drop it into the tin. Now one of problems
      6  with Zyklon-B is, and this what the column tries to
      7  address. It tries to address two things. First of all, it
      8  tries to address the issue of how actually is the gas
      9  going to be released into the space. Now if it simply
    10  came out of the holes of the thing.
    11  MR IRVING:  In a tightly packed gas chamber?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: In a tightly packed room it would be much more difficult
    13  so when it first starts filling up, these two remaining
    14  spaces around that central pipe, and from there it is
    15  going to be released. Yes? So it becomes much more
    16  difficult also to seal it up. Let us say, that in some
    17  way you create a zone in which people cannot intervene,
    18  which is that intermediate zone, intervene with basically
    19  the evaporation of the hydrogen cyanide.
    20  Q. [Mr Irving]: There is no trace on this picture of the basket, is there,
    21  which is lifted out afterwards?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, he did not — there was a basket in there, and I do
    23  not know if you want to go into the reason.
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: No, not really. I am just looking at dimensions now. You
    25  see where it says on the right-hand side “240 centimetres
    26  from floor to ceiling”; that was the height of this

    .           P-127


      1  mortuary, was it not?
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      3  Q. [Mr Irving]: What is 240 centimetres in real terms; 8 feet?
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: A little less than 8 feet.
      5  Q. [Mr Irving]: So if Tauber, your eyewitness on whom you place such
      6  reliance, says that it was so low down the ceiling that
      7  one had to stoop, he was mistaken, was he not?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: If you show me the passage I am happy to comment on it.
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let us have a look at the passage after the
    10  adjournment.
    11  MR IRVING:  I am very close to the end of this matter.
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am not rushing you. Are you going to
    13  finish this little clip of photographs?
    14  MR IRVING:  I beg your pardon?
    15  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Are you going to finish the clip of
    16  photographs in the next two or three minutes? If you are,
    17  carry on.
    18  MR IRVING:  I will just have a quick scan. You see
    19  this illustration suggests that the hole through the roof
    20  was 70 centimetres across which is about 2 feet, and you
    21  think it was smaller?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: As I said, there was no reason at all to have the whole
    23  hydrogen cyanide release mechanism go into a roof.
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: If you were the architect who had designed this roof and
    25  indeed this entire building, this very expensive building,
    26  and you heard that some SS officer was hacking holes

    .           P-128


      1  through the reinforcing of a roof near the load bearing
      2  column, near the load bearing girder, the binder that goes
      3  across the roof, would you not be rather angry with the SS
      4  people who are tampering with your design? And indeed
      5  endangering the whole roof?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: But I do not see why they would have hacked through the
      7  roof. We know that the modifications, at least from the
      8  plan we saw there, the modifications of the design were
      9  decided — I mean certainly for the hanging of the door in
    10  that new staircase was in December the building had
    11  been — that the genocidal programme in Auschwitz had been
    12  adopted in August, the roof was probably being finished in
    13  December, so there was no reason to hack through the
    14  roof. They could immediately have made the holes in the
    15  roof as they were constructing it.
    16  Q. [Mr Irving]: They could have made provision for them as they went
    17  along —
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    19  Q. [Mr Irving]: — they could have designed space with no reinforcing bars
    20  going across?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: And they could put that in there?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: But of course there are no such drawings, are there?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: But we have established before that there no drawings of
    26  the production of these concrete roofs at all.

    .           P-129


      1  Q. [Mr Irving]: So that is where your convergence of evidence halts? It
      2  converges there and it comes up against, not a brick wall,
      3  but a concrete roof; the fact that there is not a single
      4  design blueprint showing the modifications to include
      5  those holes? They are so angry — do you remember there
      6  is one document, Professor, in January 1943, where
      7  somebody is having strips torn off him because he did not
      8  put the anti-frost agent in the concrete of this very
      9  roof? And yet it has not occurred to anybody to complain,
    10  has it, that they had not made provision for the holes in
    11  the roof?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not really know to how answer this right now.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: Let us take it in two parts; have you seen a document
    14  where somebody is being reprimanded for not putting
    15  anti-frost liquid in the concrete as it is poured?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not remember that document.
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: Very well.
    18  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think, Mr Irving, you had better come back
    19  to this.
    20  MR IRVING:  We are right at the end, my Lord. And I will just
    21  say, another 20 seconds and then we can adjourn.
    22  (To the witness) You have not seen any holes in
    23  the roof, have you, in the — when you went there? You
    24  have not found any holes?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have not seen the holes for the columns, no.
    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: Not for the introduction of the cyanide?

    .           P-130


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No.
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: May I say that if the Auschwitz authorities were now to
      3  agree to clean off that rubble off the top of that
      4  concrete slab and find the holes I would tomorrow halt
      5  this case and abandon my action.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Right, on that note we will adjourn until 2
      7  o’clock.
      8  (Luncheon Adjournment)
      9  (2.00 p.m.)
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, just so we know what we are doing
    11  with this bundle which I think you have finished with now,
    12  have you not?
    13  MR IRVING:  I have, my Lord, yes. I may, of course, wish to
    14  come back to it later on.
    15  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Of course, but then we will know where it is.
    16  MR IRVING:  In J, I believe.
    17  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  J13?
    18  MR RAMPTON:  13, my Lord.
    19  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
    20  MR IRVING(To the witness): Before we adjourned for lunch
    21  I asked you about whether you were able to see certain
    22  smudges on certain photographs, and I also invited you to
    23  spend a few minutes in the adjournment looking at the
    24  original photographs. Did you have a chance to do that?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I just went very quickly over them, yes.
    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: Did you see anything on those photographs that would

    .           P-131


      1  indicate there were still smudges on these 1944
      2  photographs of this roof?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I am very sorry. I cannot see it, but the problem is that
      4  it is so small. You know, yours are really enlarged in
      5  the ones you showed, so I find it really difficult to see
      6  anything on these photographs right now.
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: But you were capable, you told the court, of seeing the
      8  smudges on the four blown up photographs that I showed to
      9  the court; you thought you saw smudges on them?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I did not put those right next to these ones since I do
    11  not know which one belonged to these I just looked in
    12  general at them, and it seemed that these came from those,
    13  that is what I could say, but these ones are three times
    14  larger, four times larger, than those. So, without a
    15  magnifying glass, I cannot come to any conclusion.
    16  Q. [Mr Irving]: But you accept that all these photographs were taken in
    17  1944? None of them were taken before the construction of
    18  that particular roof or before the holes were put in the
    19  roof?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, they are ’44 except that the German one is ’45.
    21  Q. [Mr Irving]: The German one was taken in February 1945 after the
    22  building was demolished, yes. So, really, the holes you
    23  are talking about should have been visible in the roof if
    24  they were of any substantial size?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not know. I mean, first of all, one of the things
    26  I looked at was that, in fact, there are many smudges on

    .           P-132


      1  these negatives anyway, one way or another. It seems that
      2  there is a lot of, I mean, these are not clean negatives.
      3  There are black things on it also which can come from
      4  another source, not from the crematoria, but from other
      5  places.
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: But you accept that these are the original prints, maximum
      7  magnification, produced from the original film in the
      8  national archives in America?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: When you say that, I accept that.
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: It has the national archive stamp on the back?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, but, I mean, I cannot really see one way or another
    12  what is on that roof.
    13  Q. [Mr Irving]: Professor van Pelt, you have been to Auschwitz in
    14  connection with your researches how many times? Once or
    15  twice?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. I have been there yearly since 1990. I have
    17  sometimes twice or three times yearly.
    18  Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you frequently visited this roof of the alleged
    19  factory of death, the mortuary No. —-
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I have been there, yes.
    21  Q. [Mr Irving]: — 1?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Certainly every trip I go there.
    23  Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you never felt the urge to go and start scraping just
    24  where you know those holes would have been because you
    25  know approximately where, like a two or three foot patch
    26  of gravel to scrap away?

    .           P-133


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have authored the report already in 1933 for the Poles
      2  in which I actually argued that they needed very, very
      3  strict preservation standards; and the last thing I would
      4  ever have ever done is start scraping away at the roof
      5  without any general plan of archeological investigations.
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: But now that these serious doubts have been raised as to
      7  the integrity of the gas chamber notion, and now that
      8  neo-Nazis around the world are benefiting from these
      9  doubts, would it not be in everybody’s interests if this
    10  last element of uncertainty should be so easily removed,
    11  that the gravel there should be scraped off the
    12  virgin concrete slab beneath to see if those holes were
    13  there?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: With all respect, I do not think you are going to get a
    15  virgin concrete slab there. This concrete slab has been
    16  — water has been seeping through it. I mean, a concrete
    17  road — I mean, I have been travelling a lot through
    18  Germany where they still have the concrete roads created
    19  in the 1930s, the concrete autobahn.
    20  Q. [Mr Irving]: Are those concretes roads made of reinforced steel
    21  concrete.
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    23  Q. [Mr Irving]: Are there reinforcing bars in those roads?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not know if they are reinforced, but, I mean, but
    25  things are growing through the concrete, so…
    26  Q. [Mr Irving]: But my experience of roads is that they have no

    .           P-134


      1  reinforcing bars in them, do they?
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: But the thing is that I do not think, and maybe I can be
      3  completely wrong, that if you go under all the top layer,
      4  if you remove the top layer of that concrete, you would
      5  have to remove a top layer, that you are going to get a
      6  piece that is in tact because the roof itself already is
      7  terribly fragmented.
      8  Q. [Mr Irving]: Would I be right in suspecting that the Defence in this
      9  case has spent a substantial sum of money in trying to
    10  establish the rights and wrongs of this particular
    11  allegation about the factory of death?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: You will have to ask someone else. I do not know what the
    13  Defence has spent on money.
    14  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What do you mean by “this particular
    15  allegation”? The roof?
    16  MR IRVING:  Well, if they could have proved that I was wrong on
    17  this particular matter, this would really knock out the
    18  pillars from beneath my case.
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Mr Irving, you did the four holes —-
    20  MR RAMPTON:  No, I can speak about that. I happen to know the
    21  truth of it. Goodness knows how much money has been spent
    22  on the case as a whole, but the roof has cost practically
    23  nothing, except a little bit of my thinking time recently,
    24  because it has only just cropped up.
    25  MR IRVING:  Professor van Pelt, approximately how much is an
    26  air —-

    .           P-135


      1  MR RAMPTON:  The roof came up about two days ago for the first
      2  time.
      3  MR IRVING:  Approximately how much does an air ticket to Warsaw
      4  cost or Cracau? £100, £200?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: What, from Canada?
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, from London or from Canada?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have no idea.
      8  Q. [Mr Irving]: It is an infinitesimal amount compared with the expenses
      9  so far expended on this case?
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, if Mr Rampton is right in what he just
    11  said, then really these questions get nowhere, do they,
    12  because if it was not raised as an issue until two days
    13  ago, how much money has been spent on it is really an
    14  irrelevant consideration.
    15  MR IRVING:  If this matter had not occurred to the Defence, my
    16  Lord, then might I suggest with the utmost respect it
    17  ought to have occurred to the Defence. They have been
    18  negligent to that degree, that they could have gone and
    19  knocked the pillar out from underneath me by going and
    20  persuading the local Auschwitz authorities who, by all
    21  accounts, have been very compliant with them — the very
    22  opposite of their attitude to me — to have a look at just
    23  one of the sites where the holes should have been. We
    24  know what the underside of that slab looks like, my Lord.
    25  Your Lordship has seen the photograph.
    26  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am looking at the photograph now. The

    .           P-136


      1  difficulty I have with that — I do not know whether you
      2  can help, Professor — is that I cannot — it is this
      3  one. I have no idea where you have it because I have it
      4  floating free.
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is probably floating around. I have it right here.
      6  Q. [Mr Irving]: What I simply cannot work out at all is how much of the
      7  roof one is actually seeing. I just have not a clue,
      8  whether it is a quarter of it —-
      9  MR IRVING:  Indeed, my Lord —-
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  — half of it.
    11  MR IRVING:  — but an examination of the top surface of the
    12  roof would, undoubtedly, have provided the answers because
    13  I think it is common sense, and certainly any engineer
    14  would back this up, would they not, Professor van Pelt,
    15  that if the roof is going to fragment and splinter in any
    16  way as a result of a demolition, the fractures would have
    17  started at the holes where the roof had been weakened by
    18  the holes being placed —-
    19  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I should have thought that was very
    20  speculative.
    21  MR IRVING:  I beg your pardon?
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What is the answer? Would he have a clue
    23  about that?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Where the fracture would have started?
    25  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: The suggestion is that if there were holes, the fracture
    26  would have started around the holes —-

    .           P-137


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have no idea.
      2  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: — because it would be a weak point.
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is beyond my competence.
      4  MR IRVING:  Well, my Lord, it is like a pane of glass; if you
      5  put a hole in a plane of glass, a bullet hole or
      6  something, that is going to be the place where the cracks
      7  start.
      8  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, whether that is true of reinforced
      9  concrete, I think neither of you can really say at the
    10  moment.
    11  MR IRVING:  I will not press the matter further, my Lord. On
    12  that issue I will abandon (and I am sure the Defence will
    13  be grateful) the question of the holes in the roof which
    14  are central to my case.
    15  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  How do you mean, you are going to abandon
    16  them?
    17  MR IRVING:  I will abandon the discussion on the holes in the
    18  roof point, my Lord.
    19  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I see. Bring it to an end.
    20  MR RAMPTON:  Can I understand what Mr Irving means when he says
    21  the holes in the roof were central to his case? I ask the
    22  question rhetorically, what case? This is a case about
    23  Mr Irving’s state of mind at the time when he made certain
    24  utterances s. If the roofs are a new feature of the case
    25  in the last five or 10 days, they have really got very
    26  little to do with the case which your Lordship is trying

    .           P-138


      1  which is not the question, were these gas chambers?
      2  MR IRVING:  So suddenly once again the Defence is shifting its
      3  ground and suddenly what actually happened is of less
      4  moment.
      5  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, I think you are not doing justice to the
      6  point Mr Rampton is making. He is really making what is,
      7  I suppose, in a way an historical point. The case against
      8  you is that, historically, you have not approached the
      9  issue of the gas chambers in an honest, conscientious way
    10  as an historian. That is either right or wrong, looking
    11  at the history, but this holes in the roof point seems to
    12  have cropped up terribly recently and, although I might be
    13  entitled to draw inferences perhaps —-
    14  MR IRVING:  My Lord, it has not cropped up recently.
    15  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  — about your approach from the way you are
    16  dealing with it, Mr Rampton is right, is he not?
    17  MR IRVING:  My Lord, the Defence has been aware of this
    18  particular difficulty, shall I put it, with this story for
    19  many, many years —-
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But if you were not —-
    21  MR IRVING:  — that there were no holes in that roof.
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If you were not, it cannot have coloured your
    23  thinking.
    24  MR IRVING:  I have long been familiar with this particular
    25  argument, my Lord.
    26  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Oh, have you?

    .           P-139


      1  MR IRVING:  The fact that I only raised it five or six days
      2  into the case during the cross-examination of this witness
      3  does not mean to say that I did not have a reason for
      4  delaying it. It is plain that I have been aware of this
      5  holes in the roof problem for a very long time.
      6  If I can just summarize in two lines what my
      7  position was and always has been? I have never argued
      8  that there were probably gassings at Auschwitz — I have
      9  never disputed that, rather, that there were probably
    10  gassings on some scale or other, probably a limited scale
    11  at Auschwitz. What —-
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  A limited experimental basis, I think.
    13  MR IRVING:  Well, I hesitate to use those words. I was going
    14  to concede to the second part of the sentence which is to
    15  say that what I have disputed is that there were factories
    16  of death, that it was a factory of death and that we heard
    17  at the beginning of this witness’s evidence that, in his
    18  view, most of the killing — today he said half the
    19  killing which was a reduction — 500,000 people in this
    20  one room; and my contention would be that if I can knock
    21  holes in that, then I do not really have to look at the
    22  rest of the allegations because I have never disputed the
    23  rest, my Lord, although we will very briefly look at
    24  Auschwitz 1 this afternoon before I cease this
    25  cross-examination.
    26  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Just so that again I am clear because my

    .           P-140


      1  recollection is that you said something a little bit
      2  different maybe earlier on, you accept that there were
      3  gassings of humans —-
      4  MR IRVING:  Yes.
      5  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  — at Auschwitz —-
      6  MR IRVING:  Yes.
      7  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  — on a limited basis and not involving gas
      8  vans or anything of that kind?
      9  MR IRVING:  Not involving gas vans, no, my Lord.
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Right. That is clear. Thank you very much.
    11  MR IRVING:  I do not think that it can be said that I have
    12  disputed that within any material time that is material to
    13  this action, but what I have most strenuously disputed is
    14  the notion that Auschwitz was a factory of death which we
    15  have narrowed down, as far as I am concerned, to this one
    16  building because this witness, as the outstanding expert
    17  on Auschwitz and the Holocaust, has said that most of it
    18  happened in this one building, 500,000 people. This is
    19  the Holiest of Holy sites. This is the geocentre of the
    20  atlas of the atrocities.
    21  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is all a bit of an incursion into the
    22  cross-examination. It has not done any harm, I think,
    23  but —-
    24  MR IRVING:  Well, we have Mr Rampton to thank for that disloquy
    25  on my part.
    26  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, no, I am not blaming anybody. I think it

    .           P-141


      1  is quite helpful to have had it, but I think, perhaps, we
      2  ought to resume with Professor van Pelt.
      3  MR IRVING:  Now we continue very briefly with a few remaining
      4  matters. To what degree have you relied on the Soviet
      5  Commission Report, the USSR 008?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: For my book or for my expert report?
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: For your expert report.
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: In my expert report, I have just given the Soviet Report
      9  as an instance again of the emergence of knowledge about
    10  Auschwitz. So it is —-
    11  MR IRVING:  My Lord, it is on page 162 of the expert report of
    12  this witness onwards, beginning at page 162.
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So it is for me not so important as a basis for my own
    14  investigations to come to a conclusion about the use and
    15  design and transformation of crematorium (ii) to (v).
    16  Q. [Mr Irving]: My Lord, you will have observed I am not attacking the
    17  integrity of all his eyewitnesses and all his sources
    18  because that would take us from here until next
    19  Christmas. I am just picking on certain elements. This
    20  is one of the reports. Is it not true —-
    21  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think, if I may say so, that is an entirely
    22  reasonable attitude to adopt. I think it would just
    23  prolong this case absurdly if we are going through every
    24  individual account.
    25  MR IRVING:  That is also why I am not going to look at every
    26  single building, unless your Lordship would wish it

    .           P-142


      1  otherwise, on the basis of what I said previously about
      2  what my contention was. (To the witness): Is it not so
      3  that the Soviet Report is the source of the original 4
      4  million figure?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think it is the first time, yes, that it is in an
      6  official report, yes.
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: Four million people gassed or killed at Auschwitz?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: Which figure, of course, is inaccurate now, is no longer
    10  believed in?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That you are right, yes.
    12  Q. [Mr Irving]: I have only one other question on this particular report.
    13  Do you know the names of any of the signatures on the
    14  Soviet Report, any of the experts who signed it?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I know that, I think that Dawidowski that was actually
    16  involved in, he was actually included at some time at the
    17  one, at the thing. I think the major signatory is that of
    18  the chief prosecutor of the, whatever, 2nd Ukrainian or
    19  Yellow Russian Army who actually commissioned report.
    20  Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you familiar with the name Bordenko?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, I am not.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: Nikolai?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, I am not.
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: As two of the signatures of that Report?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is in my file. The whole report is in my file, so I am
    26  happy to look at it, but…

    .           P-143


      1  Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you accept it from me that these two people were also
      2  signatories of the Soviet investigation of Kateen, the
      3  Kateen forest massacre, which resulted in the execution of
      4  a number of German officers for their role in that
      5  atrocity?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: If you say so, I am perfectly happy to accept it.
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you familiar with the name “Lysenko”?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, I am not.
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: As one of the signatures of the Soviet report,
    10  L-Y-S-E-N-K-O?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I am not, no.
    12  Q. [Mr Irving]: You are not, no. If I described him as being a biological
    13  charlatan or “quack” who has long since been disowned by
    14  his peers, would that surprise you?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Since I only heard this name right now, it does not
    16  surprise me one way or another way.
    17  Q. [Mr Irving]: When you read a report or a source of this importance, do
    18  you bother to consider who has written it or what their
    19  political motivations might be?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think we come back to the other Bimko argument. I have
    21  never used this report in order to write my history of
    22  Auschwitz. This report I have just mentioned as a bit of
    23  the history of our knowledge of Auschwitz was brought into
    24  the world. That is the purpose of —-
    25  Q. [Mr Irving]: About four pages of your report are based on the Soviet
    26  commissioning?

    .           P-144


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: And because the Soviet Report made an impression at the
      2  time, but I also argue very clearly in the report that the
      3  important investigations which were done in 1945 were not
      4  done by the Soviets, but by the Poles. It was only after
      5  the publication of the Soviet Report that Jan Sehn really
      6  got working on this, interviewed the sonderkommandos and
      7  so on. So that if we want to look at — and I spent an
      8  incredible amount of space, time and energy to actually
      9  reconstruct what the Poles did. I have given significant
    10  parts of that Dawidowski’s argument in the Polish report.
    11  So, I mean, I am happy to answer further questions about a
    12  Soviet report, but, in general, I do not think that the
    13  Soviet Report is historiographically so important, except
    14  the fact that it was issued with the endorsement of the
    15  Soviet Embassy in Washington and London, and so on.
    16  Q. [Mr Irving]: But do you not recognize a pattern developing here,
    17  Professor, that every time I bring up a source or an
    18  eyewitness and we, I will not say demolish that man’s
    19  integrity or reliability, but we chip away at it, you say,
    20  “Well, he was not important either” and “he was not
    21  important either”, and here is the entire Soviet Union
    22  Report and you saying, “That is not important either”.
    23  There is a pattern developing here of a reckless attitude
    24  towards the use of sources.
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: But I think that I have given this morning, I think, a
    26  quite clear presentation of the kind of sources I use and

    .           P-145


      1  the kind of approach I use to those sources.
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, that is the drawings we are talking at present about
      3  the eyewitnesses or about source material based on
      4  eyewitnesses which, effectively, the Soviet Report was.
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: But the Soviet Report does not give any eyewitness
      6  testimony. It gives a certain amount of the declaration
      7  by a number of inmates in Auschwitz who make a declaration
      8  that this should never happen again, but there is no way
      9  any more to establish how the Soviet Report was done. As
    10  far as I know, no draft exists of it. We do not have the
    11  interrogations the Soviets did in February 1945 of the
    12  inmates they found when they liberated the camp. So that
    13  is one of the reasons that the Soviet Report for historian
    14  is only interested in so far as it allows us to
    15  reconstruct the historiography of our knowledge about
    16  Auschwitz after the war.
    17  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But the Soviets placed themselves, did they
    18  not, on, for example, Dragon and Tauber?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think Dragon at the last thing he came in, I think, he
    20  probably was one of the sources of the 4 million.
    21  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Yes, and Tauber also?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: But in the systematic investigation — I think maybe
    23  Tauber, yes or no, I am not sure — but the systematic
    24  investigation or the systematic examination of these
    25  people only took place later. In the Soviet Report
    26  itself, there is, I think, except maybe for the figure of

    .           P-146


      1  4 million which was maintained by the sonderkommando,
      2  there is no discussion of either Dragon or Tauber or their
      3  testimony.
      4  MR IRVING:  But the Soviet Report talks about things like
      5  electrocutions, is that right?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That is, I think — I probably would have it…
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: Let us move on from there rather than waste the court’s
      8  time. I just say, in general, how many survivors were
      9  there from Auschwitz or from Birkenhau — from the entire
    10  complex at the end of war?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: May I consult my book?
    12  Q. [Mr Irving]: Just in round figures. Are you talking about hundreds or
    13  thousands?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No less than 10,000. So there were some —-
    15  Q. [Mr Irving]: 10,000 people had been within the barbed wired encampment
    16  of this site, yet it is always the same names who crop up
    17  as the sources, is it not? It is always Pery Broad,
    18  Philip Millar, Vurvah, Vetzler, Ada Bimko; it is always
    19  the same old gang who come forward and give the evidence.
    20  Nobody goes to the other, 10,000 do, they really? Why is
    21  this?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I adjust the figure — may I just correct my last
    23  statement? We are talking about 6,000, 1200 people in
    24  Auschwitz and 5,80 in Birkenhau.
    25  Q. [Mr Irving]: You appreciate the point I am trying to make, do you not?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, but I think —-

    .           P-147


      1  Q. [Mr Irving]: It is an enormous reservoir of eyewitnesses. Why is it
      2  always the same names?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Eyewitnesses of what? We have the importance of the
      4  sonderkommandos in this case, Dragon and Tauber, is that
      5  they actually were in the crematoria and they worked in
      6  the crematoria.
      7  Q. [Mr Irving]: But the evidence of Tauber, am I not right in saying, is
      8  highly suspect because he describes, for example, the gas
      9  chamber as being so low that you had to stoop, and yet it
    10  turns out to have been nearly eight feet from floor to
    11  ceiling? I mean, just to give one instance.
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where is that passage? Can we find it?
    13  MR IRVING:  I beg your pardon?
    14  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You have put that passage before and I think
    15  we were going to have a look at it from Mr Tauber. I do
    16  not know whether it is quoted in —-
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It should be around 183, if it is anywhere, because he
    18  describes at 183 and 182, and there are all these pictures
    19  in between, there is the description of the gas chamber.
    20  So page 182.
    21  MR IRVING:  This is the witness, is it not, who said he was
    22  able to burn up to eight corpses at once in one furnace;
    23  that he could light the corpses with a small fire in the
    24  ash container, that they would burn by themselves, that
    25  thick dark smoke rose out of the crematorium chimneys, and
    26  that fat was collected during open air cremations from the

    .           P-148


      1  burning bodies? He also describes —-
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where is the bit about bending over in the
      3  gas chamber?
      4  MR IRVING:  It is a very long —-
      5  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You put it, you see, and I think Professor
      6  van Pelt said, “Well, show it to me”, and that is fair and
      7  I cannot find it.
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: 182, he describes the gas chamber.
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, I know, but I cannot find the bit about bending
    10  down. Do you remember where you saw it, Mr Irving?
    11  MR IRVING:  My mind is a blur over the last few days, my Lord.
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, I quite understand that.
    13  MR IRVING:  Let me just rely on the other passages that I put
    14  to you just now, the bit about collecting the fact and so
    15  on. Pauber is an emotional and unreliable witness, is he
    16  not?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I disagree with that. I think he is a very unemotionally,
    18  I mean, remarkably unemotional and very reliable witness.
    19  Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you rely to any degree on Dr Bendal?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have told you once, I have given, I have used Bendal
    21  once which is in a description of bunker No. 2.
    22  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. So the eyewitness basis anyway is scattered, skimpy
    23  and, in my view, questionable. The drawings which you
    24  have shown us only make sense taken in conjunction with
    25  the eyewitnesses. As soon as one starts looking for holes
    26  in the roof — I am not going to labour that point — one

    .           P-149


      1  runs into difficulties, namely, the fact that there are no
      2  holes in the roof to be seen now. Taking an overall view
      3  of eyewitnesses, what is your opinion about the
      4  reliability of eyewitnesses in cases like this? Suppose
      5  your name was Jean De Manjiok and not Professor Robert van
      6  Pelt, what would you think about eyewitnesses?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I cannot comment on that. I mean, I can only comment on
      8  myself.
      9  Q. [Mr Irving]: You know that all these eyewitnesses fingered him and he
    10  was on his way to the gallows until the brave Israeli
    11  judges decided that he had been railroaded and ordered his
    12  release, that the eyewitnesses had lied in that case to
    13  one man, a dozen of them had lied?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: One of the reasons that I limited in my expert report only
    15  reports about eyewitnesses who gave testimony immediately
    16  after the war is that I exactly wanted to prevent the
    17  charge being raised that late — people who later come
    18  forward would have been confused because of the time that
    19  had lapsed. That is why I, for example, did not use
    20  Philip Muller because Philip Muller only published really
    21  a full account of what happened in, of his account in the
    22  gas chambers in the 1960s. So that was too late for me
    23  and then I can even —-
    24  Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you agree that there was a reason to suspect he may
    25  have been motivated by commercial considerations?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not know what or not, what commercial or not

    .           P-150


      1  consideration or not may have brought Mr Muller to write
      2  at that moment. He gave testimony in 1946 which was
      3  included in the Kraus and Kulgar book, but it cannot be
      4  identified in that book as being Philip Muller’s. So it
      5  is very difficult to exactly say what is Philip Muller’s
      6  in that book, but he already did it, and, you know, in the
      7  1960s, I do not know. Maybe there were commercial
      8  reasons, maybe not; maybe he wanted really to testify and
      9  bear witness to what happened in the crematoria.
    10  Q. [Mr Irving]: And you do accept, do you not, that if you were to go to
    11  Auschwitz the day after tomorrow with a trowel and clean
    12  away the gravel and find a reinforced concrete hole where
    13  we anticipate it would be from your drawings, this would
    14  make an open and shut case and I would happily abandon my
    15  action immediately?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I think I cannot comment on this. I am an expert on
    17  Auschwitz and not on the way you want to run your case.
    18  Q. [Mr Irving]: There is my offer. I would say that that would drive such
    19  a hole through my case that I would have no possible
    20  chance of defending it any further.
    21  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is not really a question, is it?
    22  MR IRVING:  Well, I am asking, the point I am making, my Lord,
    23  is that he has been to Auschwitz once a year for a number
    24  of years. The temptation must have occurred to him to go
    25  there with a trowel and scrape away the gravel and look
    26  for the hole, not just one but three of them, and he

    .           P-151


      1  assures us that they were built in holes, not just casual
      2  holes.
      3  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think if he had been digging around with a
      4  trowel he would have got into trouble with the
      5  authorities, would he not?
      6  MR IRVING:  It has been done by others, my Lord, I understand.
      7  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, with their permission. I do not think
      8  that is really a question in a way. You have made the
      9  point and I understand it, that nobody has actually done
    10  the excavation work or whatever you like to call it.
    11  MR IRVING:  This is, obviously, not the time to make
    12  submissions, so I will not, my Lord, and with that I will
    13  end my cross-examination of this witness with my many
    14  thanks. I wish you a pleasant flight home.

    Part III: Re-Examination of Professor Van Pelt by Richard Rampton (152.15-205.26)

    Section 152.15 to 179.26

    15  < Re-examined by MR RAMPTON, QC.
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: My Lord and Professor van Pelt, page 182 of your report
    17  contains, as you have noticed, a lengthy extract from
    18  Tauber’s evidence as reported in Pressac, is that not
    19  right?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    21  Q. [Mr Rampton]: It goes over on to 183. You notice — this is on the
    22  question of whether you had to crouch to get into or
    23  whether Tauber ever said that you had to crouch to get
    24  into the gas chamber — almost at the beginning of the
    25  last quarter of the page is a sentence which in your
    26  report starts at the end of the line “At about”, do you

    .           P-152


      1  see that? There is a line which says: “The door and the
      2  rabbets of the frame were also fitted with ceiling strips
      3  of felt”?
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I see it.
      5  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Then there is this sentence: “At about head height for an
      6  average man this door had a round glass peephole”. How
      7  far from the roof or ceiling of the chamber do you
      8  estimate that the peephole will have been?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: How far from the ceiling?
    10  Q. [Mr Rampton]: You have a man of average height — that is me — looking
    11  through a peephole?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That would be 5 foot 6.
    13  Q. [Mr Rampton]: How much above me is the ceiling?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We know that the height of the building was, the height of
    15  the room was 8 feet. So there would be another two and a
    16  half feet.
    17  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Thank you very much. Now, I am afraid I have some
    18  questions, Professor. They are naturally somewhat
    19  disorderly in the sense they follow the track of the
    20  cross-examination. That is no criticism of Mr Irving;
    21  that is just the way things turn out. Have you got the
    22  file K2, the second Auschwitz file, there?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Which — is that the pictures?
    24  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes, the pictures and the correspondence?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    26  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Can you turn to divider 4?

    .           P-153


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I am there.
      2  Q. [Mr Rampton]: To save moving around, I am going to ask you questions
      3  about a couple of documents in here — three of them, in
      4  fact. At page 49 —-
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. 9?
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  49.
      7  MR RAMPTON:  49 in tab 4?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: 49, yes.
      9  Q. [Mr Rampton]: You see the letter of 28th June 1943?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    11  Q. [Mr Rampton]: With Jahrling’s name at the bottom in handwriting, do you
    12  see that?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    14  Q. [Mr Rampton]: The bottom left-hand corner? Mr Irving does not like this
    15  document. Professor, do you see any reason to doubt the
    16  authenticity of this document?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not see any reason to doubt the authenticity of the
    18  letter of 28th June 1943.
    19  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Remind me because I have forgotten, where does it come
    20  from?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This one, this particular comes from Moscow.
    22  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Moscow. Thank you. Can you turn then right to the front
    23  of this section of the file?
    24  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  And dates back to 1950, I think, does it not?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I am sorry?
    26  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: It dates back to 1950 in the sense that is when it first

    .           P-154


      1  surfaced? That is what Mr Irving said.
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The copy which surfaced came from Dumburg, as far as I
      3  know, from Dumberg, an archive in the DDR. But it was a
      4  different sheet, it was not this actual, this actual
      5  copy.
      6  MR RAMPTON:  Right at the front of the file, I have put them in
      7  the front, my Lord. I do not know where your Lordship has
      8  put them? Those recent documents have been produced by
      9  Mr Irving and then some by us by Entwesungsanlage.
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not have that in this file.
    11  Q. [Mr Rampton]: I have a spare here.
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  This is the problem, is it not?
    13  MR RAMPTON:  I know.
    14  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We have to keep track of these.
    15  MR RAMPTON:  I know, it is awful. They should have gone into
    16  this part of the file.
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have the Vedag here.
    18  Q. [Mr Rampton]: But you need the document of 13th April 1943. You only
    19  need two documents.
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have the 13th April, yes.
    21  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Does your Lordship have it? Let me pass those up. My
    22  Lord, I have not put mine yet in chronological order. We
    23  will do that in due course. Can I take, first of all, in
    24  reverse chronological order, the document of 20th August
    25  1943, which is the long invoice?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.

    .           P-155


      1  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Addressed by Topf to the central building people at
      2  Auschwitz. On the second page of that, the penultimate
      3  entry 43/204/1, it reads: “Entwesungsanlage”, does it not?
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      5  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Whatever it is that it was going to cost has been
      6  scratched out by somebody. That matters not. Can you
      7  then turn back to the first document which is dated 13th
      8  April 1943?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    10  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Look at the penultimate item in that. What is
    11  “aufstellung”?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Aufstellung?
    13  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes. This document is called an “aufstellung”.
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Aufstellung means to actually erect, so this particular
    15  use, I think it means quite literally it is a list.
    16  I would interpret it like that, but it also could be the
    17  aufstellung means things that have been erected or that
    18  are to be erected.
    19  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Then the penultimate item reads: “To Topf
    20  Entwesungsofen”. What are “Entwesungsofen”?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: “Entwesungsofen” are disinfestation ovens or vessels.
    22  They are like autoclaves really.
    23  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Using what substance or material to achieve the Entwesung?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Hot air or hot steam.
    25  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Is there a copy of the Leuchter report anywhere up there?
    26  Has anybody got one? I am doing this from memory because

    .           P-156


      1  I gave mine up to somebody. Do you see the front cover
      2  there?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      4  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Can you hold it up so that I can see? I cannot see from
      5  here.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Bottom right.
      7  MR RAMPTON:  No, it is not. That I think is an oven for
      8  burning corpses.
      9  MR IRVING:  The contents are the same.
    10  MR RAMPTON:  It does not matter. Forget it. The cover is
    11  different from mine. Forget it, Professor van Pelt. It
    12  was only going to be an illustration. Do you say that an
    13  Entwesungsofen would not be a Zyklon-B piece of equipment?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. The Zyklon-B, they did not have an ofen for that,
    15  first of all. They were called Kammer and they are
    16  larger, and they would be called gas Kammer. So there is
    17  a very specific product. A Topf Entwesungsofen is a very
    18  specific product they sell. They manufacture it in Erfurt
    19  and they sell as a single piece. So, yes, this would not
    20  have been a Zyklon installation.
    21  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Is it in any sense permissible, sensible or clever to try
    22  to translate “Entwesungsofen” into “Vergasungskeller”?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. They have nothing to do with each other.
    24  Q. [Mr Rampton]: So do you have an estimate of what these two hot air or
    25  steam autoclaves were for at crematorium 2?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The interesting thing, of course — I can speculate one

    .           P-157


      1  way and I can base myself —-
      2  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Offer your best guess.
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I give two best guesses. One is that since the
      4  sonderkommando were going to live there and they lived in
      5  an enclosed compound there, they would need to have some
      6  kind of disinfestation installation. It is a first guess,
      7  but the problem is that we do not have really any other
      8  documentation except these two things. The more likely
      9  guess, however, is that these were actually going to be
    10  the Entwesungsofen which were going to be installed in the
    11  Zentralzaume (?). What was happening is that since
    12  December 1942, right between crematorium 3 and crematorium
    13  4, the SS was first planning, and then from mid 1943
    14  onwards they were constructing, a large new delousing
    15  installation which did not use Zyklon, but only used the
    16  Topfentwesungsofen and autoclaves. So, when one actually
    17  starts to look at these documents and also at the Wedach
    18  document which was introduced by Mr Irving, we are
    19  actually dealing, I mean the Wedach document, we are
    20  clearly with activity that is going on for the
    21  Zentralzaune. So the problem, of course, in the document
    22  on 13th April is that it mentions crematorium No. 2 right
    23  in that sentence, and I have no explanation, I have no
    24  other documentation to either confirm that they were at
    25  that time creating these two entwesungs ofen or had
    26  ordered it for the crematorium. At the same time I know

    .           P-158


      1  that a lot of that ordering is being done for the
      2  Zentralzaune which is being constructed right next door,
      3  and that is where I would like to leave it.
      4  MR IRVING:  If you look at the last page, my Lord, on that you
      5  will see there is a further reference to disinfestation
      6  equipment for crematorium No. 2 in August.
      7  MR RAMPTON:  Yes, that is right. Absolutely right. That is
      8  where I started as a matter of fact.
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, that is what I thought. Why do you get
    10  August, because that is the date of the document?
    11  MR RAMPTON:  That is the date. It is 20th August, the
    12  document. The top right-hand corner, my Lord.
    13  Do you see any reason, Professor van Pelt, to
    14  disassociate the August invoice relating to
    15  Entwesungslager for crematorium, it does not say there,
    16  crematoria 2 and 3, from the piece of paper relating to
    17  the two Topf Entwesungsofen for crematorium 2?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, they seem to belong together, but, you know —-
    19  Q. [Mr Rampton]: In this same part of the folder, I warned you this would
    20  be disorderly, we find at page 6, this is written on the
    21  bottom right-hand corner I hope in red ink, we find what
    22  I think is the Topf patent application for its
    23  multi-muffle furnace, do we not?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    25  Q. [Mr Rampton]: I would not dream of asking you to read it out or anything
    26  like that. I am told that I got this in a muddle when

    .           P-159


      1  I was cross-examining Mr Irving. Would you just explain
      2  what this is and how it relates to what you have told us?
      3  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can you give my the reference again,
      4  Mr Rampton?
      5  MR RAMPTON:  Yes, it is in tab 4 of K 2 and it is page 6. It
      6  is a long document, ending up with a drawing on page 18.
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Shall I explain, shall I go paragraph by paragraph and
      8  give a summary of the paragraph?
      9  Q. [Mr Rampton]: No, nothing like that. I would just like you to summarize
    10  what the effect of the patent application is on your
    11  judgment about how the incineration was in fact carried
    12  out, according to the accounts of the eyewitnesses, in the
    13  big crematorium at Auschwitz.
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This patent application is based on, the proposal for this
    15  patent application is to create a furnace in which one
    16  continuously feeds corpses at the top, and which by their
    17  own weight, so to speak, these corpses fall through a
    18  number of shelves, so to speak, and in that process are
    19  being reduced to ashes. It refers back to the experience
    20  with mutli-muffle ovens which is at the end of page 1 and
    21  No. 2, that that one wants to make something which is even
    22  working even faster. I just want to go very, very quickly
    23  through this, because the important thing here, of course,
    24  would be also —-
    25  Q. [Mr Rampton]: It may be quicker, Professor van Pelt, rather than your
    26  scanning that long and no doubt extremely boring document,

    .           P-160


      1  if we turn to one which is not nearly so boring, although
      2  it is much longer, which is your report at page 538.
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: OK.
      4  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am afraid I have completely forgotten what
      5  is supposed to be the significance of the patent
      6  application one way or the other.
      7  MR RAMPTON:  I could tell your Lordship but then I would be
      8  giving evidence and I cannot do that.
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am simply asking what case is sought to be
    10  made, but perhaps it is better elicited from Professor van
    11  Pelt.
    12  MR RAMPTON:  The case sought to be made is that it explains how
    13  it was that they were able to incinerate as many corpses
    14  as they could, and also how they managed to use as little
    15  fuel a these were able to do.
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I was looking for that particular sentence, because
    17  I did not want to quote the sentence from memory.
    18  Q. [Mr Rampton]: I think you will find it in translation on pages 538, 539.
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is what it says here at page 540, it says:
    20  “Pre-heating of such an oven should take at least two
    21  days. After this pre-heating the oven will not need any
    22  more fuel due to the heat produced by the corpses.”
    23  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Read on, will you.
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: “It will be able to maintain its necessary high
    25  temperature through self-heating”.
    26  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Carry on.

    .           P-161


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: “But to allow it to main a constant temperature it would
      2  have become necessary to introduce at the same time
      3  so-called well fat and so-called emaciated corpses,
      4  because one can only guarantee continuous high
      5  temperatures through the emission of human fat. When only
      6  emaciated corpses are incinerated, it will be necessary to
      7  add heat continuously. The result of this will be that
      8  insulation could be damaged because of the dust created
      9  temperatures and one would expect shorter or longer break
    10  downs”.
    11  Q. [Mr Rampton]: That document, Professor, is this right, is in its origin
    12  quite unrelated to what went on at Birkenhau?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is quite unrelated you say?
    14  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Unrelated.
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, its origin is of the fall of 1942 and the ovens in
    16  crematoria 2 and 3 only came into operation in April
    17  1943. However, the multi-muffle ovens were already used
    18  in crematorium No. 1 since August 1940. So the principle
    19  is the same in the ovens in crematorium 1. So clearly
    20  they are using the principle which has been the experience
    21  that has been gained in crematorium 1 in creating this
    22  patent application.
    23  Q. [Mr Rampton]: I am grateful. There is no doubt about the authenticity
    24  of this, is there, as an original German document written
    25  by Topf for their patent agents?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, it is registered in whatever the patent —-

    .           P-162


      1  Q. [Mr Rampton]: How well does that document what we see here on page 540,
      2  I do not need you to look at them, how well from memory
      3  does that chime with the descriptions given by the
      4  eyewitnesses, including Hirst, of how this procedure was
      5  carried out in practice?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: What is very important in the descriptions of the
      7  sonderkommandos is that they talk about, with a certain
      8  kind of care, they would bring corpses of people of
      9  different sizes into the muffles, exactly to — no,
    10  I cannot say that because they do not actually give that
    11  explanation. But here actually is given an explanation, a
    12  thermodynamical explanation why that would have been done.
    13  Q. [Mr Rampton]: I think Tauber was quite specific about it, was he not,
    14  about using fat corpses?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Indeed on the trial run I think they were given fat
    17  corpses, says Tauber, in March 1943, were they not?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I would like to see that thing.
    19  Q. [Mr Rampton]: We can look at it later.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What you quote in your report does not read
    21  like a patent application. Is it a quote from the patent
    22  application?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We go to 808 —-
    24  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: I think you are quoting another author, are you not?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, this is the comment. Sorry.
    26  MR RAMPTON:  This is the interpretation.

    .           P-163


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is the comment written by a number of engineers.
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It probably does not affect the point.
      3  MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, one can see how they have dealt with it,
      4  how Topf dealt with in the last paragraph of the quote on
      5  page 539.
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, one of the important lines in that thing, of course,
      7  is they are actually not incinerating any more, but they
      8  are literally burning corpses.
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
    10  MR RAMPTON:  The passage from Tauber’s evidence or testimony,
    11  call it what you like, is on page 535. At the top: “The
    12  corpses of wasted people with no fat burned rapidly in the
    13  side muffles and slowly in the centre one. Conversely,
    14  the corpses of people gassed directly on arrival not being
    15  wasted burnt better in the centre muffle. During the
    16  incineration of such corpses we used the coke only to
    17  light the fire of the furnace initially, for fatty corpses
    18  burn of their own accord thanks to the combustion of body
    19  fat”. It is the same opposite on the previous page in
    20  relation to crematorium 1.
    21  He actually says in relation to crematorium 2
    22  and 3: “I know from the experienced gained by observing
    23  cremation in crematoria 2 and 3 that the bodies of fat
    24  people burned very much faster. The process of
    25  incineration is accelerated by the combustion of human fat
    26  which thus produces additional heat.”

    .           P-164


      1  While we are on Tauber, as a matter of fact,
      2  Professor van Pelt, I think Mr Irving said he was
      3  emotional or something of that kind. Do you remember that
      4  question?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Emotional?
      6  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes, emotional or unreliable because he was
      7  over-emotional.
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, vaguely.
      9  Q. [Mr Rampton]: I do not know what it was. You have never interviewed
    10  Mr Tauber, yourself I take it?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No.
    12  Q. [Mr Rampton]: He is not still alive I suppose?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No.
    14  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Do you know Jean-Claude Pressac ever met him?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No.
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Are you familiar with the introduction to the Tauber
    17  chapter in Pressac’s book?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I remember vaguely.
    19  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Would you like to have a look at it? It should be in H2
    20  (vi) I think, at tab 5. I am using my own copy of
    21  Pressac. You use yours as well, if you like.
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Do I need to look at this?
    23  MR RAMPTON:  Yes, I think so. I am not going to read it out.
    24  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Every time Pressac is mentioned I mean to ask
    25  who he is?
    26  MR RAMPTON:  He is a Frenchman.

    .           P-165


      1  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Could you be a little bit more helpful than
      2  that?
      3  MR RAMPTON:  I think I better defer to the witness.
      4  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Professor van Pelt, I should know and I just
      5  do not. Who is Pressac?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: He is a pharmacist in the town of Ville de Bois or the
      7  village of Ville de Bois south of Paris, 20 miles south of
      8  Paris.
      9  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: He his an historian?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: He is a self-taught historian. He seems to have come from
    11  the circles of Faurisson originally. It is not exactly
    12  clear what his relationship was to Faurisson. Then he
    13  went to Auschwitz in the early 80s and saw the building
    14  material, the building archive material, and was convinced
    15  that Faurisson was wrong and started publishing about it
    16  in 1983.
    17  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Now you say that I remember. Yes. Thank you very much.
    18  MR RAMPTON:  I think that Pressac’s book must originally have
    19  been in French, was it?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. This is the only edition.
    21  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Did he write it in English or did someone translate it for
    22  him?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It translated by Behalteklasse Foundation.
    24  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Have you got the introduction to chapter 3?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Part 3, chapter 3, yes.
    26  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Can you read that to yourself. We will all read it at the

    .           P-166


      1  same time to ourselves. Then I will ask you —-
      2  MR IRVING:  Could you give me a page number, please?
      3  MR RAMPTON:  I am sorry, it is 481 of Pressac.
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Introduction?
      5  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Introduction. Just read the introduction to yourself.
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: “The testimony by Henrich Tauber …”
      7  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Not out loud. Just read it to yourself.
      8  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It does not really matter.
      9  MR RAMPTON:  Tell us when you have finished.
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have read it.
    11  Q. [Mr Rampton]: You have read it?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    13  Q. [Mr Rampton]: That, if I may summarize it, is Mr Pressac’s on view of
    14  Tauber as it comes off the written page, is it not?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Is it an assessment with which you agree or disagree?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I agree with that.
    18  Q. [Mr Rampton]: If I may summarize, the effect is that Tauber is a modest,
    19  sober and careful witness, is that right?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    21  Q. [Mr Rampton]: You have to say yes because otherwise the tape cannot read
    22  your mind. At the bottom he says: “Henrich Tauber’s
    23  deposition enabled me at the last moment to authenticate
    24  the testimony of Dr Paul Bendal that I was on the point of
    25  invalidating.” Do you see right at the bottom of the
    26  introduction? Do you have that?

    .           P-167


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      2  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Do you know what it was in the testimony of Dr Paul Bendal
      3  that Pressac was on the point of invalidating and that
      4  Tauber validates?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not remember any more. It is sometime since I read
      6  Pressac.
      7  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Right. Another piece of disorder I am afraid, Professor.
      8  Can you turn to pages 110, 111?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Of what?
    10  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Of your report.
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I am there.
    12  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Towards the top of page 110 you are writing about a number
    13  of people who are known to have died at certain times from
    14  disease at Auschwitz?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Then you say this: “It must be remembered, however, that
    17  the mortality figures which the concentration camps sent
    18  to Berlin only apply to the deaths of registered
    19  prisoners”, and you have already told us that. Then you
    20  make reference to the evidence of SS, he was a General was
    21  he not, Oswald Pohl?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, he was I think Obergruppenfuhrer by that time.
    23  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Whatever, he was in charge of the concentration camp
    24  system as a whole, is that right?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, he was the kind of — officially he was called the
    26  Economic Director, so some way off the SS, and that really

    .           P-168


      1  ran the concentration camps. He was not the inspector of
      2  the concentration camps. As a business adventure, yes.
      3  By a business venture he was.
      4  MR IRVING:  My Lord, this of course is not matter that was
      5  raised in the cross-examination. So I am puzzled.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It may turn out to be. That is the problem.
      7  You never know where —-
      8  MR IRVING:  As long as your Lordship is alert to that.
      9  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  — it is going.
    10  MR RAMPTON:  I had understood that Mr Irving relied on the
    11  death books and the decrypts as showing that the number of
    12  people who died at Auschwitz was very small.
    13  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes. I think that is right, although there
    14  was not any cross-examination on that.
    15  MR RAMPTON:  I know, but it may be convenient.
    16  MR IRVING:  The only mention of the death books is when I was
    17  querying the character of the deaths, the age spectrum,
    18  rather than statistics.
    19  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is part of your case, is it not, that the
    20  death books give a very different picture from the sort of
    21  figures that Professor van Pelt speaks of?
    22  MR IRVING:  It is a subtly different picture on the question of
    23  the killing of the old and sick.
    24  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If it is part of your case, and I do not
    25  criticise you for not cross-examining to it, I think it is
    26  for Mr Rampton to be able to put these questions.

    .           P-169


      1  MR IRVING:  This specific document of course is not one that
      2  I —-
      3  MR RAMPTON:  Anyhow, it does arise indirectly and quite
      4  immediately out of the questions which were put about
      5  selection to which I am immediately coming after this.
      6  Did in fact the head of this system General Pohl
      7  say at his trial in Nuremberg that the people who were
      8  directly exterminated were never registered?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: He says that no information about it has been transmitted
    10  to Berlin.
    11  Q. [Mr Rampton]: His subordinate was Dr Lolling?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    13  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Who was in charge of the inspectorate presumably. He
    14  said, the last answer at the top of page 111, in answer to
    15  his own counsel, his own attorney: “The figures about
    16  exterminations were not reported to the inspectorate at
    17  all, and constantly Dr Rolling could not evaluate them for
    18  his statistics.”
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That is true.
    20  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Thank you. Now I want to —-
    21  MR IRVING:  My Lord, that was very definitely not a matter
    22  which I raised in cross-examination of this witness.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I tried to explain why I think it is
    24  legitimate. In a way we are having to take short cuts in
    25  this case. You have lots of points which, in a perfect
    26  world, I would have said to you, Mr Irving, you must put

    .           P-170


      1  that point to Professor van Pelt, but we be would here to
      2  Christmas and beyond if we did that. So we are not
      3  requiring you to put all those points. But it does not
      4  mean Mr Rampton cannot get evidence from this witness,
      5  especially if it is in his report, which bears on the
      6  point that you are going to take, although you have not
      7  cross-examined to it.
      8  MR IRVING:  My understanding was re-examination is only
      9  permitted on matters that I cross-examined on.
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  In a normal case that is true. I am not
    11  bending the rules in Mr Rampton’s favour. I am in fact
    12  bending them in your favour, because I have not required
    13  you to cross-examine on this point, do you follow me?
    14  MR IRVING:  Very well.
    15  MR RAMPTON:  Normally in the old days, and I thank goodness we
    16  are not in the old days any more, if the point had not
    17  been taken in cross-examination, I would have to say to
    18  the Judge: Well, I am afraid it cannot be taken in
    19  closing.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is what I mean by taking short cuts in
    21  this case.
    22  MR RAMPTON:  I do not say that.
    23  Does that evidence of General Pohl reflect upon
    24  the death books figures so-called that have emerged from
    25  Moscow?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. It suggests, I mean Pohl only talks about of course

    .           P-171


      1  information being transmitted to Berlin, but certainly the
      2  question is how would information be gathered in
      3  Auschwitz, and then of course we get other corroborating
      4  information like, for example, that of Pery Broad who
      5  worked in the political department who said that there was
      6  no registration of people who were not admitted to the
      7  camp. That is information that once the transport had
      8  arrived, and once basically the people had been sent to
      9  the gas chamber, all records, all traces of these people
    10  also in the records were removed, or at least, you know,
    11  there was maybe some record about a number of people that
    12  had arrived but they were not registered.
    13  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Does it also reflect, tell me if it does not, on the
    14  so-called Hinsley decrypt question?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: In the way it has been posed by Mr Irving, yes.
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes. To put it another way, would you expect to find
    17  references to the extermination of unregistered prisoners
    18  in decrypts going from Auschwitz to Berlin?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is the same point, is it not? The Hinsley
    21  decrypt point is the same point about non-registration of
    22  those who were going allegedly to be exterminated.
    23  MR RAMPTON:  You told us some time ago, Professor, last week,
    24  that upon arrival to begin with the transports were
    25  divided up for selection at the old Judenamter which was
    26  between the two camps?

    .           P-172


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      2  Q. [Mr Rampton]: But that by the time of the Hungarian action in 1944, the
      3  Summer of 1944, they had built one spare right up through
      4  Birkenhau towards the two crematoria 2 and 3?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. The spare had been in construction for a longer
      6  time, but it was completed in I think March, March 1944.
      7  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes.
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Late March, maybe early April.
      9  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Could you take that file H2 (vi) again, please?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: H2(vi), where is that?
    11  Q. [Mr Rampton]: In tab 4 we find something called the “Auschwitz Album”.
    12  That is not its official title in any sense. Can you say
    13  briefly what this Auschwitz album actually is? I will ask
    14  you about the photographs in a moment, but if you could
    15  tell us what the book is?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is a book which was found on the evacuation of the
    17  camp by a person called Lily Meyer as the camp was being
    18  evacuated. It is a picture book made either for an
    19  individual SS man or maybe for the Auschwitz SS, recording
    20  a couple of arrivals and subsequent kind of delousing
    21  registration into the camp, and also the fate of other
    22  people, at least until any come to the crematorium, of
    23  Hungarian Jews.
    24  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Right. So the photographs which we find inside are,
    25  therefore, of what date?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They are of the Summer 1944.

    .           P-173


      1  Q. [Mr Rampton]: By whom were they taken?
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They were taken by an SS man.
      3  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  How do you know they are the Summer of 1944?
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Because that is when the Hungarian action occurred.
      5  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: That is circular, is it not?
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: But the book itself identifies this. It identifies the
      7  action as a Hungarian action.
      8  MR IRVING:  That was surely May 1944.
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: May 1944, whatever, yes.
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, it may not matter.
    11  MR RAMPTON:  It does not sound as though it is controversial.
    12  It is in fact quite a well-known book. These photographs
    13  have been known about for a very long time?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, apart from — there are three basically sources of
    15  photographs, at least from Birkenhau, which is the
    16  Bauleitung photographs we saw today a few of, showing the
    17  construction, showing the construction of the buildings in
    18  Birkenhau. Then we have a number of photos, a small
    19  number of photos which would have been made illegally by
    20  prisoners, probably a sonderkommando who found a camera in
    21  what was left over in the undressing room. These are very
    22  shaky photographs where you see people running and you see
    23  some burning of bodies in a kind open pit. Then this one
    24  which is a large collection made by the SS, one does not
    25  really know for what reason, except —-
    26  MR IRVING:  Where is the second collection from, is it Moscow?

    .           P-174


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The second collection.
      2  Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: There are three or four photographs. I think they are the
      4  original negatives. No, there are no negatives. Original
      5  prints on Auschwitz.
      6  MR RAMPTON:  The particular pages that I want to refer to are a
      7  little bit difficult to find, because the bundle has not
      8  been paginated, but at the bottom of each photograph there
      9  is usually a printed number.
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    11  Q. [Mr Rampton]: If you turn the file sideways, I hope you can find a
    12  photograph which has a printed number 15 at the bottom?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: 15?
    14  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes.
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: 15.
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes, 15.
    17  MR IRVING:  My Lord, I am again nervous about this introduction
    18  of fresh evidence of the re-examination phase.
    19  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, this does arise of out
    20  cross-examination.
    21  MR RAMPTON:  This arises directly out of questions about
    22  selection.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Do you remember questions about where the
    24  selection process took place and how it changed from being
    25  on the railway platform, I think it was originally, and
    26  then they built the spare and it was sometimes done

    .           P-175


      1  there. Is that a fair summary of the evidence?
      2  MR RAMPTON:  There is a very direct and relevant point to be
      3  made at the end of this little exercise, if Mr Irving will
      4  be patient. Do you see that photograph, Professor?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I see.
      6  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Just tell me, I will make a suggestion and answer then
      7  I will ask for information. Am I looking northwards?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. You are looking towards the West.
      9  Q. [Mr Rampton]: That is my mistake. I see two chimneys. One is on the
    10  right of the picture. There are two large chimneys, one
    11  on the right and one on the left.
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The chimneys of crematorium (ii) to the left and (iii) to
    13  the left.
    14  Q. [Mr Rampton]: There is on the left of the picture, therefore, to the
    15  south, a hut or building. Do you see that?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    17  Q. [Mr Rampton]: And there is a line of what looks like concrete posts
    18  probably with wire on them. Is that right?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    20  Q. [Mr Rampton]: What is behind that wire?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Behind that wire is the women’s camp, what is the called
    22  women’s camp in 1944.
    23  Q. [Mr Rampton]: We see the people; they look as though they perhaps have
    24  just got out of the train. That is for reference because
    25  I now want you to look at, please, just for in passing, at
    26  page 22.

    .           P-176


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Should I keep this one out?
      2  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes, I think probably it is a good idea to keep it out.
      3  That is what I shall do; it makes it easier to know what
      4  one is looking at.
      5  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  22.
      6  MR RAMPTON:  22, my Lord, yes. This is just in passing. There
      7  we are looking — have you got 22?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      9  Q. [Mr Rampton]: There we are looking in the opposite direction towards the
    10  entrance to the camp, are we not?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We look eastwards, yes.
    12  Q. [Mr Rampton]: So from what you have just said, the women’s camp is on
    13  the right of this picture?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    15  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Is what we see there what you have described as selection
    16  into male and female?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is the moment just before the selection. It seems
    18  that the people who are still —-
    19  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Division, I mean.
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, the division between on the one side, men and older
    21  boys, and on the other side, women and children, has
    22  occurred.
    23  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes. Then, if you please, the last photograph I need you
    24  to look at, I am afraid you look in a different place now,
    25  you look in the bottom left-hand corner for a very small
    26  printed italic 32?

    .           P-177


      1  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Further on.
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I see.
      3  MR RAMPTON:  It is further on, my Lord. Yes, it is about — 15
      4  pages maybe. That is the one. Now, Professor — has your
      5  Lordship got it?
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
      7  MR RAMPTON:  Do you see the building, long low building behind
      8  the people in the half background?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I see.
    10  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Is that the same houses we were looking at earlier?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That is the block for the women’s camp.
    12  Q. [Mr Rampton]: And you see to the left there is a lorry?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    14  Q. [Mr Rampton]: A truck. Behind the truck is what appears to be a gate?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: And is the gate shut?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The gate is shut, yes.
    18  Q. [Mr Rampton]: The people in the line appear to be women and children, do
    19  they not?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They are women and children, yes.
    21  Q. [Mr Rampton]: On the right of the picture, apart one or two SS men in
    22  uniform, there is what looks like a uniform figure on the
    23  far right of the picture, but ignoring him, the women and
    24  children on the right of the picture are moving in what
    25  direction?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They walk along the railway track to the West.

    .           P-178


      1  Q. [Mr Rampton]: What lies at the end of the railway track to the West?
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Crematorium (ii) and crematorium (iii).
      3  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Is there any access to the women and children’s camp from
      4  this point onwards between —-
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No.
      6  Q. [Mr Rampton]: — here and crematorium (ii)?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: There is no access.
      8  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Is there any access from that point to the sauna building
      9  north, or whatever it is, west of Canada?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: At the moment there is, but not at that time.
    11  Q. [Mr Rampton]: That is what I mean. I meant here in May 1944?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes — no there was a gate, but the usual way to go to the
    13  central sauna was actually to take the lagerstrasse which
    14  is through the middle of the camp and then go up past
    15  crematorium (iv) and (v).
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Which means going in the opposite direction?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Going in the opposite direction.
    18  MR IRVING:  At the risk of testing your Lordship’s patience
    19  once again, this material was not in the expert report.
    20  It was not dealt with in cross-examination, and I really
    21  have to be lectured on how it can be introduced at this
    22  late stage.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, I am with you to the extent that it
    24  does not really seem to go quite to the selection process;
    25  more to what was going to happen after the selection
    26  process had taken place.

    .           P-179


    Section 180.1 to 205.26

      1  MR IRVING:  Precisely. One is being invited to draw a lot of
      2  inferences from pictures which one would like to have had
      3  spelt out explicitly either in the report or in
      4  cross-examination.
      5  MR RAMPTON:  Why do we not get Professor van Pelt to spell out
      6  the inference which do I do not really think needs doing.
      7  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is what Mr Irving is objecting to.
      8  MR RAMPTON:  I am quite willing, while he is still here, if
      9  Mr Irving then wants to ask a question about it for him to
    10  do so.
    11  MR IRVING:  This is not the way this thing should be done
    12  though.
    13  MR RAMPTON:  I do not agree with that, as a matter of fact.
    14  Professor van Pelt was cross-examined about selection. He
    15  explained what it was for and he explained what had
    16  happened to the people that were not selected to go into
    17  the camp to work. That being so, this is directly
    18  relevant. It has been in this file, in these bundles,
    19  ever since they were first composed.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes. I mean, having said that, I mean, the
    21  evidence is in now, I am sitting alone, so in a sense
    22  there is not so much harm, but I think one has to be a bit
    23  cautious when one has so much expert evidence about
    24  introducing what one might, I think, fairly describe as
    25  fresh points. This is evidence buttressing an existing
    26  point but it is —-

    .           P-180


      1  MR RAMPTON:  Yes, that is right.
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am only just really putting down a marker
      3  at the moment, but the inference does not need to be spelt
      4  out because I think it is obvious.
      5  MR RAMPTON:  No, I do not think the inference does need to be
      6  spelled out. I would much rather not spell it out.
      7  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, you have heard what I have said.
      8  That is how I am dealing with this.
      9  MR IRVING:  As long as your Lordship does not feel I am being
    10  tedious with these interruptions.
    11  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No. I do not want to stop you. If you feel
    12  something is going on that you do not like, say so and if
    13  I do not agree, I will say so.
    14  MR RAMPTON:  All right. (To the witness): Gas pillars, gas
    15  introduction, pellet introduction pillars, Professor? Can
    16  you take up that file K2 again? This time I want to look
    17  at some documents we have looked at before but in a
    18  slightly different way.
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Which is K2?
    20  Q. [Mr Rampton]: K2 is the second Auschwitz bundle.
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    22  Q. [Mr Rampton]: You should have it.
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I have.
    24  Q. [Mr Rampton]: I would like you to turn, first of all, please, to tab 3,
    25  which are David Olaire’s drawings, and to the first page
    26  in that tab. I think you told us that Mr Olaire probably

    .           P-181


      1  did this drawing in 1945 or 46. I cannot remember which?
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is dated 1945.
      3  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Where do I find that? It is. It is in the bottom
      4  right-hand corner in manuscript, is it not?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      6  Q. [Mr Rampton]: D. Olaire, 45. Yes, I have it. Where did he make this
      7  drawing, do you know?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Back in Paris.
      9  Q. [Mr Rampton]: In Paris. Do you know the circumstances in which he made
    10  these drawings?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, I do not know.
    12  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Then can we, please, turn back a tab, to tab 2, and page 5
    13  in that tab — no, first of all, take out, will you, the
    14  aerial photographs? That is the best way of doing it.
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: All of them?
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: No, just the one at page 5. Page 5 in handwriting.
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    18  Q. [Mr Rampton]: It is the clearest possibly although, funnily enough, it
    19  is not the largest. Can you go back to the Olaire drawing
    20  on page 1 of tab 3, please?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    22  Q. [Mr Rampton]: I want you to look at in a moment at the aerial
    23  photograph. Which crematorium is this that Olaire has
    24  drawn?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Crematorium No. (iii).
    26  Q. [Mr Rampton]: How do we know that?

    .           P-182


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: He was working in No. (iii).
      2  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Right.
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: And that also the plan itself is of No. (iii) because it
      4  is now reversed from crematorium No. (ii).
      5  Q. [Mr Rampton]: We see that at No. 10 in his key are the Zyklon-B
      6  introduction vents?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      8  Q. [Mr Rampton]: If you look at the drawing, you see them, the dotted lines
      9  run from the figure 10 to squares on the ground plan?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    11  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Do you notice the alignment of those squares?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I do.
    13  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Will you please look at the aerial photograph?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do.
    15  Q. [Mr Rampton]: K3 is on the right-hand side of the photograph, is it not?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. There is a lettering right next to it almost, 160.
    17  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes, that is right. How does the alignment of that
    18  photograph, those black dots, match what Olaire has drawn?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It seems identical.
    20  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Do you know of any reason to think that David Olaire was
    21  shown this photograph before he made that drawing?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This was not available until 1979.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where was it until 1979 — in Moscow?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, no. This is the American, this is the American.
    25  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: It is American bombing —-
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is American bombing photo.

    .           P-183


      1  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: — photos. I had not written that down.
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: So, yes, all declassified.
      3  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: The summer of ’44?
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: In the summer of ’44, yes.
      5  MR RAMPTON:  Now I want to ask you one or two questions,
      6  Professor, which I fear you may find rather foolish, but
      7  I am going to ask them just the same, if you do not mind?
      8  You will remember a time at which Mr Irving has proposed
      9  — I cannot remember quite when it was, perhaps several
    10  times — that the absence of holes in the present ruins of
    11  Leichenkeller 1 at crematorium (ii) means that it can
    12  never have been meant for gassing live human beings.
    13  He suggests as an alternative that it had a dual
    14  purpose as a room for delousing corpses or, alternatively,
    15  other sorts of objects. First of all, can you give us
    16  your opinion, if there were no holes in the roof, how do
    17  you think that the SS — sorry, the sonderkommando would
    18  have been able to put the pellets into the room?
    19  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Is there not a question before then, if you
    20  do not mind my saying so?
    21  MR RAMPTON:  You ask it, my Lord, please.
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Do you think there was any other way in which
    23  the Zyklon-B might have been inserted into the gas chamber
    24  into the morgue?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: One could have used the same way. There are two ways
    26  apart from these columns. I mean, there are obviously no

    .           P-184


      1  windows, so the way it was done in crematoria (iv) and (v)
      2  it would not have worked.
      3  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: What I was really asking is do you think it, in fact,
      4  happened in any other way? That was the question that I
      5  thought, perhaps, needed to be asked first.
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Sorry, my Lord. A way, when you delouse a building or
      7  even in a delousing room, sometimes you could just put the
      8  palettes right on the floor. So that is a possibility.
      9  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Sorry, Mr Rampton I thought I might have got a different
    10  answer to that question.
    11  MR RAMPTON:  No. Are there any contemporaneous documents (and
    12  it is a harmless procedure to disinfest corpses or
    13  clothes, there is nothing sinister about it) referring to
    14  such a procedure as this, the gassing of corpses?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have never seen or heard of a document like that.
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Are there any eyewitness accounts from either side or any
    17  side?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. There are no eyewitness accounts.
    19  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Can you think of a reason why you would need to have,
    20  leaving aside the air raid question, we will come back to
    21  that, a double 8 millimetre thick glass spy hole to
    22  observe the gassing of corpses or clothes?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I cannot think of any reason.
    24  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Can you think of any reason why that door with the
    25  luckloch should have a metal grille on the inside of it?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No. I cannot think of any reason.

    .           P-185


      1  Q. [Mr Rampton]: If it were an air raid shelter, can you think of any
      2  reason why the metal grilles should be on the inside?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, I cannot think of any reason.
      4  Q. [Mr Rampton]: We will just have a look at the pictures in Pressac in a
      5  moment. You answered me this morning, I know, but I will
      6  repeat the question because it is connected. Are there
      7  any contemporaneous documents referring to the provision
      8  of gas stores or any similar equipment for Leichenkeller
      9  2?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No, there are no documents.
    11  Q. [Mr Rampton]: What is the size of Leichenkeller 2, the auskleiderkeller,
    12  as I call it, as compared with Leichenkeller 1?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The one-third larger or maybe one-half larger than
    14  Leichenkeller 1.
    15  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Suppose Mr Irving’s thesis is right, the corpses must have
    16  been undressed in the auskleiderkeller and then dragged
    17  through to Leichenkeller 1 to be disinfested, yes?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: If he accepts it was an auskleiderkeller, yes.
    19  Q. [Mr Rampton]: We can see it was from the documents. We do not have to
    20  argue about that. How would the clothes which had been
    21  removed from the corpses have been deloused in
    22  Leichenkeller 2?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The only thing, I think, is to bring them also in
    24  Leichenkeller 1, to undress the corpses or maybe have the
    25  corpses dressed, deloused and then everything is deloused
    26  together, I do not know. The procedure seems to me so

    .           P-186


      1  absurd to start with that —-
      2  Q. [Mr Rampton]: I know. We just have to dot i’s and cross t’s sometimes.
      3  That is all. I said you would find these questions a bit
      4  silly, I am sure. The preheating letter of 6th March
      5  1943: You told us, I think this morning — I think you
      6  said this — there is no provision for that in any of the
      7  plans, so you have drawn it in?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes — no, in the blueprints there is no trace of such a
      9  preheating installation.
    10  Q. [Mr Rampton]: No. Was there a provision for ventilation from the
    11  beginning?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Ventilation —-
    13  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Ventilation.
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — in morgue No. 1, yes.
    15  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Was there any preheating provision for Leichenkeller 2?
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No.
    17  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Then the lift capacity. Tell me if I have the figures
    18  right. I think you said it could take 1500 kilograms?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They were expanding — the original one was 750 kilograms
    20  and they were ordering reinforcement of the cables so that
    21  it could take 1500 kilos.
    22  Q. [Mr Rampton]: I am talking about their intentions.
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    24  Q. [Mr Rampton]: This is all what I call intentional material. If the
    25  average corpse, balancing between young children and fat
    26  men, if you like, is, say, 60 kilograms, yes?

    .           P-187


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      2  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Is that fair? I do not think in kilogrammes, you see, so
      3  I have to have your help.
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      5  Q. [Mr Rampton]: 60 kilograms, then the capacity for each hoist, each
      6  journey, would be about 25 corpses, would it not?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      8  Q. [Mr Rampton]: The incineration capacity given in the letter of 28th June
      9  for all five crematoria, but for this one in particular,
    10  is 1440 corpses per 24 hours, is it not?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    12  Q. [Mr Rampton]: That is, roughly speaking, if you take a 16 hour rather
    13  than a 24-hour period, about 90 corpses an hour, is it
    14  not?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: If it is 90 corpses an hour, then the lift can do more
    17  than that 90 in 15 minutes? If it can do 25 corpses a
    18  load?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    20  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Then in an hour—-
    21  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  More than four loads an hour?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Certainly, sir, yes.
    23  MR RAMPTON:  That is 50, roughly speaking, and you get to 90
    24  before you got to the end of the hour?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    26  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Does that seem to you feasible?

    .           P-188


      1  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. It seems feasible to — certainly I think the
      2  elevator could keep up with the ovens.
      3  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes. That is much more neatly put than I could have put
      4  it. Thank you. There is a document up there which I am
      5  going to ask you about at the end of this re-examination,
      6  Professor van Pelt. I warned Mr Irving that I might.
      7  First of all, I want to ask one or two tiny little
      8  questions about this air raid shelter thesis. This is,
      9  according to Mr Irving, the alternative use for
    10  Leichenkeller 1, hence the spy hole and the gas tight door
    11  and all that kind of thing. How far are K2 and K3 from
    12  the SS barracks?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: We can see it in the air photo, No. 5 in tab 2 which we
    14  just took out —-
    15  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes.
    16  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — the SS barracks, basically, is in the compound marked
    17  with “north”. So I would say that since you cannot run
    18  diagonally or walk diagonally through the camps of BA2
    19  which is building section 2, you have to go one way or the
    20  other around it, so it would be around a mile and a half.
    21  Q. [Mr Rampton]: A mile and a half?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Mile and a half.
    23  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Sorry, help me again about that. Where are the SS
    24  barracks?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They are at the bottom in the square thing. They are at
    26  the bottom right-hand corner and they show a kind of

    .           P-189


      1  garden design. There is a kind of a little fountain in
      2  the middle with a cross, behind what became the Birkenhau
      3  Kommandanttur.
      4  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But we are on air raid shelters, are we now?
      5  MR RAMPTON:  Yes. I am just wondering how practical the
      6  Professor thought it was as a site for an air raid
      7  shelter, considering it is not big enough to hold the
      8  whole of the camp population, how practical it was as a
      9  proposition for the people in the SS barracks?
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is not practical at all — neither in distance nor also
    11  for other reasons.
    12  Q. [Mr Rampton]: I think you told us also that there was provision for an
    13  air raid shelter in due course at Auschwitz 1?
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: There are many — I mean, at a certain moment one gets
    15  small air raid shelters and one gets in the crematorium in
    16  Auschwitz 1, you get a specific air raid shelter to serve
    17  the SS hospital which is right next door.
    18  Q. [Mr Rampton]: When was that air raid shelter first planned?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: In the fall of 1944.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  So afterwards?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Sorry? Afterwards. Long afterwards.
    22  MR RAMPTON:  Yes. Can we now just have a look, really so as to
    23  finish with air raid shelters, at the photographs in
    24  Pressac because I have been going on about a door with a
    25  glass spy hole and a metal grille. It is as well to look
    26  at them. My Lord, they are at the back of H2(vi). If you

    .           P-190


      1  want to use your own Pressac, Professor, please do.
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Which page?
      3  Q. [Mr Rampton]: That is the trouble. I am sorry, my Lord. They are in
      4  K. They are very bad copies. So if your Lordship would
      5  like, I will lend you my much better copy. Have you got
      6  your own Pressac?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I have Pressac if you give me the page number.
      8  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Look at your own Pressac. It is page 486. Tab 6, my
      9  Lord. Page 8 stamped.
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  K2?
    11  MR RAMPTON:  K2, tab 6. I think it is K1.
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes. I do not think it is K2.
    13  MR RAMPTON:  No, it is not. It is K2. It is a fold out sheet,
    14  my Lord. 8 stamped in the right-hand corner.
    15  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I have it. Thank you.
    16  MR RAMPTON:  Some questions, just a very few, about these
    17  photographs, Professor. Do you know when and by whom they
    18  were taken?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They were taken by, I think, the Dawidowski Commission,
    20  the Jan Sehn and Dawidowski.
    21  Q. [Mr Rampton]: As you told the court, the 30 by 40 centimetre gas type
    22  shutters, some of them have been preserved, have they not?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    24  Q. [Mr Rampton]: These not, however, is that right?
    25  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: They are not. I have looked for them. I have never seen
    26  them. Nobody ever could tell me where they were.

    .           P-191


      1  Q. [Mr Rampton]: In the photograph on the right, headed “Document 13”, we
      2  see the metal grille over the spy hole, do we not?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      4  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  This came from where, do we know?
      5  MR RAMPTON:  Well, I think it says Dawidowski and in this sense
      6  this says Warsaw Central Commission archives.
      7  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, what I really meant was is the contention
      8  this is Leichenkeller 1 in crematorium (ii)?
      9  MR RAMPTON:  Yes, these are thought to be the gas type doors
    10  referred to in the correspondence — what is it gasturm 8
    11  millimetre —-
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, gastur.
    13  MR IRVING:  With respect, I think his Lordship is asking do
    14  they come from Auschwitz or Birkenhau.
    15  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I was asking, yes, I suppose, in effect, it
    16  come to that. I mean, this is Leichenkeller 1 in
    17  crematoria (ii), you say?
    18  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The thing is these doors — it is the problem is we do not
    19  have measurements of the doors in the photos. What we
    20  know is that when the Leichenkeller 1 gas chamber was
    21  taken apart in late 1945, materials were stored at the
    22  Bauhoff. The Bauhoff was, basically, a large yard where
    23  they kept building materials and also things of buildings
    24  they had used and thought of reusing in the future again,
    25  or where they thought of shipping somewhere else. So
    26  these doors were found at the Bauhoff. There was no label

    .           P-192


      1  attached to the doors and there was also no measurement in
      2  here. So the original door is 100 centimetres wide and
      3  192 centimetres high. So, unlike the gas type shutters
      4  which are still available for inspection, and which,
      5  indeed, are 30 by 40 centimetres, you know, it is
      6  possible, it is likely, probable, but cannot be absolutely
      7  certain about it, no.
      8  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where has the physical door gone?
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The physical door?
    10  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: The door of which one is looking at the photograph?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I do not know. I have asked people.
    12  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: It has disappeared?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    14  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: I see. Anyway, you say it is probably —-
    15  MR RAMPTON:  I was going just —-
    16  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  — Leichenkeller 1.
    17  MR RAMPTON:  — to build that up a little bit further because
    18  there is a letter — can you remind of the date when
    19  Bischoff is writing to the internal manufacturer, or the
    20  Auschwitz manufacturer, that he wants a gas type door
    21  exactly the same as the one — do you know the one I mean?
    22  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I know the letter. I just —–
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I have it, it is page 44.
    24  MR RAMPTON:  I am most grateful.
    25  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Tab 4.
    26  MR RAMPTON:  It is tab?

    .           P-193


      1  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Tab 4.
      2  MR RAMPTON:  Tab 4, Professor.
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I am here.
      4  Q. [Mr Rampton]: On 31st March 1943, Bischoff writes to the manufacturer
      5  and he says in the second paragraph that he wants a gas
      6  door 100 by 192 centimetres for Leichenkeller 1 at
      7  crematorium (iii) BW30A, the same design, and what is
      8  “mass”, size —-
      9  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: “Size”, yes.
    10  Q. [Mr Rampton]: — as the keller door of the opposite crematorium (ii)
    11  with a spy hole from double 8 millimetre glass with a
    12  sealing, a gasket — “gummidichtunng” be rubber sealing?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    14  Q. [Mr Rampton]: A rubber sealing. What is a beschlag?
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That would be some kind of metal edge or ring. It is
    16  mostly metal work which you apply to something else. In
    17  this case to wood.
    18  Q. [Mr Rampton]: So it follows, does it not, as night follows from day,
    19  that both Leichenkellers in crematoria (ii) and (iii) had
    20  a gas type door of this description?
    21  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    22  Q. [Mr Rampton]: The description in the letter?
    23  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    24  Q. [Mr Rampton]: We know also, do we not, that Tauber described just such a
    25  door in his testimony?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.

    .           P-194


      1  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Does this picture correspond with the description in this
      2  letter and the description given by Tauber?
      3  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It does correspond with it. I would like to make one
      4  caveat.
      5  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes.
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is of course always possible that these were doors for
      7  crematoria 4 and 5, because we do not have the final
      8  measurements, but I presume that they would have been
      9  designed in the same way.
    10  Q. [Mr Rampton]: If you look at the picture on the left, document 11, yes,
    11  that is necessarily — sorry, I will not say. That has
    12  not got the metal grill on the spy hole, has it?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It does not because we are looking at the outside.
    14  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Please let me take it in stages.
    15  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    16  Q. [Mr Rampton]: It does not have the metal grill?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It does not have the metal grill.
    18  Q. [Mr Rampton]: It does have, I do not know what you call the thing, it is
    19  a sort of a bolt?
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    21  Q. [Mr Rampton]: And probably the bolt, although it is impossible to tell
    22  from the picture precisely, goes in that direction, so
    23  that one can imagine that it is going to do that?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    25  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Fit into a slot or arm?
    26  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.

    .           P-195


      1  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Look at the hinges.
      2  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: I see the hinges.
      3  Q. [Mr Rampton]: You see the hinges. Does the shape of the hinges tell you
      4  anything about the direction in which the door will open?
      5  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The door opens outwards.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Why do you say that from the hinges?
      7  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Because the hinges seem to come forward, the hinges on the
      8  right side seem to come forward which means that —-
      9  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: I must say I cannot really see that.
    10  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Can I draw it?
    11  Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: I know what you are saying, but I just do not see it on
    12  the photograph.
    13  MR IRVING:  It depends which side the hinges are, surely..
    14  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is very clearly on the top, on the top hinge. There
    15  are two hinges, and the top hinge.
    16  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I cannot see the top hinge.
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: It is right where the roof line is. The roof line. We
    18  are looking at document 11? You can see it. It is
    19  confirmed, it is confirmed by the next photo.
    20  MR RAMPTON:  I think, my Lord, your problem is you have not got
    21  a good photograph.
    22  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Have I not the same as everybody else?
    23  MR RAMPTON:  No, I have a much better one and so has the
    24  witness. Let the Judge see the original.
    25  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can I borrow?
    26  MR IRVING:  My Lord, that door could be mounted either way. It

    .           P-196


      1  entirely depends whether it is mounted inside or outside.
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Thank you very much.
      3  MR RAMPTON:  Professor, taking that, if you like, with
      4  Mr Tauber’s description, but, if you like, leave Mr Tauber
      5  out, to what side of the door does it seem to you that we
      6  are looking in this photograph on the left-hand side of
      7  the page?
      8  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The photograph on the left hand is the outside of the
      9  door.
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  So if one were looking through the peephole,
    11  as it were from where the photographer is, you would see
    12  inside the gas chamber?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: That is the — the peephole is there where people on the
    14  outside of the door would have stood.
    15  MR RAMPTON:  And your view would be somewhat, but not much, of
    16  that focal length obstructed by this grille?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Which is shown in the next picture, where the grille is.
    18  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes. It is in the next picture, not very clear, but it
    19  is. That is quite right. If Leichenkeller 1 in
    20  crematoria (ii) and (iii) had been intended for use as
    21  disinfestation rooms, do you see any reason why Dejaco
    22  should have changed the way in which the doors opened from
    23  inwards to outwards?
    24  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: No.
    25  Q. [Mr Rampton]: You spoke of the gas type shutters at bunkers 1 and 2, and
    26  this is in connection with what you were saying about K4

    .           P-197


      1  and K5, and you mentioned Dragon’s testimony. If you have
      2  that little bigger file, not very big file, K2, could you
      3  turn to tab 3 and look at one of David Olaire’s drawings?
      4  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: From No. 3?
      5  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes, probably. You know them better than I.
      6  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
      7  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Drawing No. 3, which is said to be a drawing from memory
      8  done in 1945 of bunker 2 which has the macabre sign over
      9  the door “Disinfektion”, and do you see a window he has
    10  drawn?
    11  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    12  Q. [Mr Rampton]: What do you take that block on the window to be?
    13  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: This is one of these gas type shutters.
    14  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Does it correspond in size and appearance to what we can
    15  see if we go to Auschwitz now, those wooden gas type
    16  shutters?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: The wooden gas type shutters which are in the —-
    18  Q. [Mr Rampton]: There are photographs in Pressac we need not look at?
    19  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: — in crematorium (i).
    20  MR IRVING:  My Lord, once again we are now introducing fresh
    21  pictures, fresh evidence. Had this been introduced
    22  originally, I would have brought photographs showing
    23  exactly the same gas type shutters with an entirely
    24  harmless use.
    25  MR RAMPTON:  This drawing has been in Professor van Pelt’s
    26  report since the very beginning of this case, ever since

    .           P-198


      1  he did it.
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, but not perhaps specifically pointing
      3  out that window as being —-
      4  MR RAMPTON:  Oh, yes.
      5  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Oh, it is, is it? Good.
      6  MR RAMPTON:  There is a whole section on Olaire’s drawings and
      7  this window, this particular drawing of this window. In
      8  fact, there is another one on the next page, outside K5,
      9  right at the end of the building behind the shoulder of
    10  the SS person in the end of the building. (To the
    11  witness): Is that right, Professor?
    12  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes. That one — that is the reason I included that
    13  drawing inside the expert report.
    14  Q. [Mr Rampton]: I understand that. You remember I asked you to look, this
    15  morning, at the document which spoke of keeping a plan
    16  secret?
    17  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes.
    18  Q. [Mr Rampton]: There should have been attached to that another three
    19  pages.
    20  A. [Professor Van Pelt]: Yes, I have this.
    21  Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes, dated 16th December 1942; it is a report from
    22  somebody called Heinrich Kinner who is an SS
    23  Untersturmfuhrer. My Lord, before I turn to this
    24  document, I will explain the reason I introduce you to the
    25  re-examination. The whole of Mr Irving’s thesis may or
    26  may not be a relevant thesis, but the whole thesis is that

    .           P-199


      1  there were no systematic homicidal gassings or killings,
      2  for that matter, at Auschwitz. If this be a genuine
      3  document, it is of direct relevance to everything he has
      4  put to the Professor in cross-examination.
      5  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Right.
      6  MR RAMPTON:  You will see a translation.
      7  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I have not read it, Mr Rampton, so I cannot
      8  tell you about that, but that is the way it is put.
      9  MR RAMPTON:  You will see a translation on the next two pages,
    10  Professor. Can we use the translation?
    11  MR IRVING:  Before using translations, can I just once again
    12  object to the introduction of material like this which was
    13  supplied to me at 1 p.m. yesterday afternoon? It is now
    14  used in re-examination. This is not the way to deduce
    15  documents like this.
    16  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where did it come from?
    17  MR RAMPTON:  I cannot tell, your Lordship, the source; the
    18  source wishes to remain anonymous for personal reasons.
    19  However, it is not a document that I have ever seen
    20  before nor anyone on my side. It even surprised my
    21  scholars. I do not know whether Professor van Pelt
    22  has seen it, because I have not been talking to him.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, I think you will have to lay the
    24  foundation, given that you tell me the provenance of it.
    25  MR RAMPTON:  Well, as an anonymous provenance.
    26  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It may be that he has seen it before, in

    .           P-200


      1  which case, no problem, but otherwise, I think there has
      2  to be a limit on what one can introduce. I have not
      3  actually got the German, so maybe I am doing it less than
      4  justice.
      5  MR RAMPTON:  I think we have the original German.
      6  MR IRVING:  If the court is to establish a direct between
      7  Himmler and the killings of Jews somewhere.
      8  MR RAMPTON:  No, that is not why I want to use the document at
      9  all. I want to use the document because it demonstrates
    10  what was happening to Jews at Auschwitz. That is of
    11  direct relevance to the cross-examination.
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Given what you tell me about where it comes
    13  from, I think one needs to establish that it is on the
    14  face of it to be taken to be an authentic document.
    15  MR RAMPTON:  Mr Irving has had it since yesterday. If he tells
    16  me he disputes its authenticity, then I —-
    17  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Are you saying that, Mr Irving?
    18  MR IRVING:  My Lord, I do not know how long it takes the
    19  Defence experts to look at a document and establish its
    20  context and find out where it came from, and its pedigree
    21  and hybrid. In this particular case, given the importance
    22  of the document, I would have no objection at all to it
    23  being introduced in three or four weeks time after I have
    24  had time to chew it over. To have it sprung on me and to
    25  be sand bagged like this with a document of this
    26  importance — unless they are going to rest their entire

    .           P-201


      1  case on this kind of tactic, I think it is very dubious
      2  and I think this is a very proper case for your Lordship
      3  to say, well, disregarding merits or otherwise of this
      4  document, this is not the way to do this; Mr Irving is
      5  appearing here in person. He does not have the
      6  resources. He does not have anonymous people —-
      7  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not think it has anything to do with
      8  resources. I have some sympathy with the fact you really
      9  have not had very much time to consider this.
    10  MR IRVING:  That is the main point.
    11  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What I am wondering, Mr Rampton, because
    12  obviously we are near the end of Professor van Pelt, do
    13  you actually have to put this document in through him?
    14  MR RAMPTON:  No, I do not. I will use it cross-examination
    15  when I get back to Mr Irving. I have already told him
    16  that.
    17  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Then I think I would prefer you did that.
    18  I think there is some force in what Mr Irving says.
    19  MR RAMPTON:  Our side takes absolutely no blame for this. We
    20  have been, as your Lordship may imagine with a case of
    21  this high profile, showered with material from all
    22  quarters of the world. This came yesterday, no, I am
    23  wrong, Wednesday evening out of the blue.
    24  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes. In a case of this kind, as you say,
    25  that is bound to happen, but I do not think it means that
    26  anything can come in, you know, without any real

    .           P-202


      1  examination or opportunity for Mr Irving to examine.
      2  MR RAMPTON:  No. If Mr Irving wants more time to think about
      3  it, that is fine. Meanwhile I am not going to say
      4  anything about the person we got this from, but what its
      5  original source is, which archive it was in.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It has obviously comes from something, as you
      7  can see from document 6.
      8  MR RAMPTON:  Yes, I am told that is a collection of documents
      9  I think in Walsall.
    10  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  There we are, Mr Irving. So far, as it were,
    11  I am with you. I am certainly going to give you time to
    12  think about it.
    13  MR IRVING:  Thank you, my Lord.
    14  MR RAMPTON:  I have finished my re-examination, my Lord. It is
    15  25 to 4.
    16  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I have no questions myself, Professor van
    17  Pelt. You thank you very much indeed.
    18  MR RAMPTON:  If it is necessary to release him, my Lord, could
    19  he be released?
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes. Are you released. I am sure it will
    21  not happen, but if it were to happen we will let you know
    22  if we would like you to come back. I have no reason to
    23  suppose that is going to happen.
    24  I was going to possible ask Professor van Pelt
    25  about this, but I think it may be better done another
    26  way. Would it be possible for either of you, but I think

    .           P-203


      1  the Defendants really are in a better position to, to just
      2  give me on perhaps a single piece of paper a description
      3  of how Auschwitz divides up between Auschwitz 1 and
      4  Auschwitz 2, Birkenhau? I do not really have the basic
      5  geography in my mind. I have looked at Professor van
      6  Pelt’s helpful report. It does not really tackle that,
      7  because perhaps because it is so elementary. So would you
      8  mind producing a document?
      9  MR RAMPTON:  He is the expert. I could do a diagram now but it
    10  would be wrong. Before he goes, I do not know if he is
    11  going until the weekend or beyond.
    12  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is why I think it is better not to do it
    13  in evidence.
    14  MR RAMPTON:  No. Let him produce a plan and we can agree it
    15  and use it.
    16  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let Mr Irving see it obviously.
    17  MR RAMPTON:  Of course. I will give him a copy.
    18  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is all basic stuff.
    19  MR IRVING:  It should very much be an agreed plan.
    20  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, ideally.
    21  MR RAMPTON:  There is one in Leuchter but it is so hopeless
    22  that I think we ought not to use it.
    23  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Right. Well, I do not think there is any
    24  sense at all in recommencing your cross-examination. So
    25  we will adjourn now. Is there anything else that needs to
    26  be dealt with at this stage?

    .           P-204


      1  MR RAMPTON:  I do not think there is.
      2  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Monday we are having Professor McDonald.
      3  MR IRVING:  Professor McDonald, my Lord.
      4  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Straight off at 10.30?
      5  MR IRVING:  Straight off at 10.30.
      6  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is agreed between you both?
      7  MR RAMPTON:  Yes, that fine.
      8  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  After that cross-examination resumes.
      9  MR RAMPTON:  If cross-examination is to continue, I will say it
    10  now so that Mr Irving can think about, I am going to go to
    11  the meeting between Hitler and Admiral Hurty at Klessheim
    12  in April 1943. I am then probably going to go Dresden.
    13  Then I am going to go back to Reichskrissallnacht. That
    14  is as far as I have got in my planning at the moment.
    15  MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Good. 10.30 on Monday then.
    16  < (The witness withdrew)
    17  (The Court adjourned until Monday, 31st January 2000).
    18
    19
    20
    21
    22
    23
    24
    25
    26

    .           P-205