The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.09

Last-Modified: 2000/07/24

   Q.   And from that, you conclude that the evacuation of the
        Jews to Auschwitz is a homicidal meaning, is it?
   A.   I think this is quite clear from the document that the
        people were sent to Auschwitz and ordered to kill them
        there.  So the term evacuation then, particularly
        after 1941, could just mean the deportation to a point but
        it also could mean the deportation to this point plus the
        killings of the people there.  So, I think these two
        interpretations are possible after 1941.
   Q.   Yes.   I will come to this later on, either today or
        tomorrow, are you familiar with the Ahnert document, the
        deportation from France?
   A.   No.
   Q.   We will come to that when the time comes.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   But you are not saying that all the people deported to
        Auschwitz were killed.  You accept that some were used for
        slave labour?
   A.   I think we went through the history of the Auschwitz.  It
        was a combination of a slave labour camp and extermination camp.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But I do not think, Mr Irving, that you are
        suggesting that, when guidelines are issued on the
        evacuation of Jews to the East (Auschwitz concentration
        camp), you are not suggesting, are you, that evacuation
        has a wholly non-homicidal connotation there?

.          P-75

   MR IRVING:  It can be either, my Lord.  Here is one typical
        example where the context does not really help us.  I am
        trying to establish that, from what we know, we do not
        know whether they were killed on arrival or whether they
        were put to work as slave labour as very large numbers or
        what.  So that document does not really help us.
   A.   May I comment on that.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, of course.
   A.   I think that we know, not from the document, but, of
        course, we have enough information about Auschwitz to
        establish that, because these are guidelines; the general
        picture of what happens to Jews who were deported to
        Auschwitz after February 1943.  So I think we could
        establish the context if we want to do so, but the
        selections and about sending people to gas chambers
        I think we have this information, and from this, I would
        then take this information and say that actually this
        makes it, I think, almost clear that the term evacuation
        here could include the killing of the people.
   MR IRVING:  In fact, it means exactly what it says that has
        been evacuated to Auschwitz.
   A.   I think we could, in a way, extend our knowledge and go
        into this day of Auschwitz, and it is not that this is a
        dark area ----
   Q.   This is not the time or place for that.
   A.   So, we could do research and I think that, in the end, we

.          P-76

        could come to the conclusion that this, in general, meant
        the extermination of the people in the camp at Auschwitz.
   Q.   If I refer to the previous sentence beginning:  "A report
        of 26th December", in which the head of the police force
        Saliter reported in detail about his experiences
        accompanying and supervising the transport of 1,007 Jews
        from the Rheinland to Latvia, is an entire report on the
        of evacuation of Jews to Riga, is that right?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   In December 1941, what happened to these Jews who were
        deported to the Riga at that time?
   A.   At this time, the Jews were actually sent to ghettoes or to camps.
   Q.   To the Jungfernhof camp?
   A.   To the Jungfernhof camp or to the ----
   Q.   So they were not massacred on arrival, then?
   A.   Most of them were not massacred on arrival.
   Q.   What conclusion do you draw from the use of the word
        evacuation there, then?
   A.   Here, it says that the Jews -- I am trying to be cautious
         -- it says here that the Jews are going to be deported to
        Riga, and the document does not say that the Jews are
        exterminated on the spot.  There is actually one reference
        in the Saliter report, where Saliter says that the
        collaborators, if I may call them so, in Latvia were quite
        astonished to see the Jews here because they said that you

.          P-77

        can Ausrotten them yourself in Germany.  But I think they
        were probably a little bit ahead at this time and in this
        context, I could not say that the word evacuation would
        necessarily include the killing of the people who were
        sent to this place.
   Q.   Dr Longerich, we have actually seen a number of documents
        over the last weeks from this December 1941 period,
        indicating that these trainloads from the Reich to Germany
        carried provisions and equipment for their first weeks in
        there camp on arrival there.  So the evacuation here,
        would you accept, does actually mean evacuation then and
        not necessarily anything more sinister?
   A.   This is what we call the second wave of deportations.
        This was about 21 trains to Riga and about, I think, seven
        or eight trains to Minsk which happened between November
        1941 and February 1942, except the six trains where the
        people were shot on the spot in Kovno and in Riga, except
        these six trains where the majority of these people
        actually were not shot on the spot but they survived a
        couple of months, most of them, and they were provided
        with all kinds of things, with tools and so on, from the
        Jewish communities because they, some of them, maybe even
        the majority, I do not know, some of them may actually
        have thought that they were some sort of pioneers who were
        sent to the East.  So I think this idea to provide them
        with tools and so on also includes a moment of an element

.          P-78

        of deception, giving them the idea that they actually can
        start a new life somewhere in the East.
   Q.   Do you have any proof for that.  This is an important
        point, I think.  Do you have any proof that this was an
        element of deception in inviting them it take
        their appliances with them?
   A.   I think that the fact that 6,000 people were shot on the
        spot gives you an idea there was a kind of, you know, a
        kind of juxtaposition between the provision of these
        trains and actually what happened to those people.  If
        I can explain this.
   Q.   I do not want really get into the police decodes business
        here, my Lord, because I think we will stick to the
        meaning of the words.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  The cross-examination is notionally to do
        with the translation of words.
   MR IRVING:  It is, entirely.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  The trouble is you are chasing some of the
        uses.  I understand why, Mr Irving; it is not a criticism
        of you, but the result is that it is a little bit
        scattered this cross-examination, and it is not a criticism.
   MR IRVING:  I have two ways of doing it.  Either I can follow
        my own plan or I can follow his own very useful glossary
        which he has provided for us, and as we all have the
        glossary, I think it is more useful if I follow his

.          P-79

        paragraphing rather than introduce yet further confusion.
        But I am taking large leaps and bounds through it.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  You have been confronted with the
        glossary and I suppose you have to really to deal with it.
   MR IRVING:  Well I hope that is not implied criticism of my
        dealing with it.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is not a criticism at all of you, Mr
        Irving, no.
   MR IRVING:  But if the Defence does seek to rely on these
        meaning of these words, then I have to try to shoot them down.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I know.  Well, take your own course.
   MR IRVING:  Paragraph 3.3, the evacuation to the Lodz ghetto ----
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Which was referred to in the Gestapo report of June 9th.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   In fact, the stages of the evacuation make it quite plain
        that were not actually being evacuated to their death, so
        they were initially evacuated somewhere else.
   A.   Yes, but it is ----
   Q.   They were transported to the special command.
   A.   Yes, but it is clear from, if you look at the following
        document, it is clear that they were deported to the
        extermination camp Chelmno.  The Sonderkommando is the
        Sonderkammandolange which actually was responsible for the

.          P-80

        Chelmno extermination camp and the gas used there.
   Q.   Abschieben, which is No. 4, carries only the meaning of
        deport really, does it not, or does it ----?
   A.   This is the original meaning, I think.
   Q.   Yes.  Goebbels, for example, in his 27th March 1942 entry,
        talks about the Abgeschobene Juden, of whom 60 per cent
        would probably be liquidated.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Which implies that the Abschiebung, the deportation, was
        not the killing, that was just what they used what came first.
   A.   You might be right in this case, but it is clearly said in
        his document what happened, so I think one of the key
        documents as far as Holocaust is concerned.
   Q.   We are now on No. 5, which is Vernichtung.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   In other words, abschieben is not a very important word in
        this particular argument, would you agree?
   A.   I think that, in a kind of hierarchy, I would not put it
        on the top.
   Q.   Yes.  Vernichtung is, however, quite important, is it not?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   You have quoted in 5.1, the Langenscheidt version of the
        word, as destroy, annihilate or exterminate, presumably in
        that order.

.          P-81

   A.   Yes.
   Q.   It is really destroying a thing, is it not, or if you can
        regard a group of people as a thing, then it is destroying
        a group of people?
   A.   If you look at the group of people as a thing then, if you
        make this ----
   Q.   For example, Judentum is a body of Jews, a community of
        Jews, is it not?
   A.   Again, I think that we have enough examples to discuss it
        with reference to a document.  We do not have to speculate
        about the possible ways the terminology was used.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I quite agree.
   MR IRVING:  You refer to Klausewitz?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   As defeating the enemy, you destroy the enemy?
   A.   Yes.  He is referring to, I think, an enemy army.  So he
        is not referring just to people; he is referring, well, to
        an organization, and he is making it quite clear that the
        term "vernichtung" could mean, well, it could mean, as he
        said, annihilation of the enemy forces either by death or
        by injury or any other ways, either completely or merely
        to such an extent that the enemy no longer has the will to
        continue the fight.  So I am trying to illustrate here
        that if the term "vernichtung" refers to an organization,
        it can have the meaning, you know, following Klausewitz,
        to kill all of them, to kill part of them, but basically

.          P-82

        to make sure that the organization, as such, is not able
        to exist any more as an organization.
   Q.   You could bankrupt somebody and he would be destroyed,
        could you not?
   A.   Yes, you can make all other kinds of connotations.
   Q.   Take the army prisoner ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It all depends on the context.
   A.   Yes, you can make all kinds of combinations, but I think
        the most interesting, I mean if I may suggest that the
        most interesting case is of course when it refers to the
        vernichtung of people, not of an organization, of Judentum
        but of Jews, then I think it becomes clear what the term
        actually meant.
   MR IRVING:  You have referred to Adolf Hitler's speech of
        January 30th 1939 ----
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   --- in this context where he uses the word "vernichtung"?
   A.   Yes, 5.6, footnote.
   Q.   We do not have the exact quotation.
   A.   Unfortunately not.
   Q.   But the sense is, he said:  If international finance Jewry
        once more succeeds in launching a new world war, then it
        will end not with the destruction of the European people,
        but with the destruction of, is it Judentum?
   A.   Well, I have the quote in the first report.
   MS ROGERS:  38.

.          P-83

   A.   38.  Shall I read this again?
   MR IRVING:  I think it is an important passage.

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