Q.   Let us approach from another angle then, Professor.  You
are aware of the fact that there are now substantial
claims being made against the Swiss and American and
German companies and so on for compensation?  Have you any
idea how many Holocaust survivors are now claiming
compensation, a figure?
A.   I do not know.  It depends what you mean by Holocaust
survivors as well.
Q.   Well, if I say that the number of claimants is 450,000 now
at the end of the 20th century, the beginning of the 21st
century?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not know where you get that figure
from.  I think Professor Evans is entitled to say, well,
on what basis are they claiming?  Are they claiming
because they were in Auschwitz, in some other camp, or
perhaps in no camp at all, they were dispossessed by
Nazis?
MR IRVING:  If they are Jewish Holocaust survivors, my
Lord,
and there is that number of them extant at the end of
20th century, then you can do actuarial calculations
backwards to work out roughly how many would have
survived, given certain obvious adjustments you have
make for age and so on, that the older ones would have
stayed behind, the younger ones would have emigrated,
you can come up with ball park figures.  But the
has not done this kind of calculations, so there is no
point asking him.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But your suggestion, therefore, is that
are 450,000 true Holocaust survivors in the sense that
they come from one death camp or another?
MR IRVING:  They were Jews who were subject to the
Holocaust as
I defined it, which is one more reason why my
is the right one, that they were Jews who were
subjected
to the Nazi atrocities during the period of the Third
Reich of whatever kind.
MR RAMPTON:  I am sorry, I simply do not understand this.
this is about claims against Swiss Banks who are
or have held property taken from victims of the
we might be talking about the great grandchildren of
people who survived who had a claim on the property.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is what was going through my mind.
MR IRVING:  And also the slave labourers, the great
grandchildren of the slave labourers cannot claim
compensation.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let us go back to where we started.  You
suggesting that the bulk, or a very large proportion,
the people in Auschwitz disappeared because they went
secretly to Israel and I think Professor Evans ----
MR IRVING:  My Lord, I have not said either the bulk or a
large portion.  I just said part.  This is what I was
trying to nail the witness down on when he says,
"Irving
claimed that the Jews who disappeared did not die",
he meant by the Jews.  Obviously it does not mean all
them.  He is meaning part of them.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Leave aside the exact number.  He is
that he does not accept that there was any evidence
that statement, and I have not got clear when you
saw this report you have talked about by the Haganah.
When did you first see that?
MR IRVING:  Seven or eight years ago my Lord.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Was that the source for your claim?
MR IRVING:  Yes, very definitely.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  And that says?  What is its conclusion in
terms of numbers?
MR IRVING:  The American Military Forces described how the
Haganah, operating in conjunction with the United
Rescue and Relief Agency, visited all the displaced
persons camps, very well organized, with walkie-talkie
radios and trucks picking up all the Jewish victims
those camps, loading them on board, and then they
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  My question was really about numbers.
many are we talking about?
MR IRVING:  The report, I would have to have another look
the report to give your Lordship a number, but it was
sufficiently important to have a 250-page report on it
written by the American Government Military
authorities.
I adduce this purely as one way in which one cannot
at pure figures, because there are leaks, if I can put
like that.
A.   Let me just make two points, if I may.  One is you are
presenting evidence of this report which I have not
seen,
I have not had the opportunity to see, so I do not
whether your account of what is in it is accurate or
and I really cannot comment on it.  The second is that
do not cite it when you gave this particular speech.
far as the numbers, again you plucked, you have
a number of what you describe as "Holocaust survivors"
have claims of one sort or another against banks and
so on
elsewhere, and I quote you have alleged that large
of so-called Holocaust survivors, as you have
described,
have made it up, put tattoos on their own arms and so
MR IRVING:  I shall have to turn the tables on you and say
that, if you are going to suggest that I said large
numbers have done that, then I would ask you to
any evidence for that assertion.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You said one lady and you said she was
atypical.
MR IRVING:  I said she may have very well have a genuine
on her name.  I think those were the precise words I
about Mrs Altemann, that may very well be a genuine
on your arm.  If I can now pick up the other point
that I did not provide a reference for this episode in
speech, one does not put footnotes in speeches.
A.   No, you but you say where you get the evidence from in
Q.   Can I now move on, in the spirit of his Lordship's
for progress, paragraph 21, you say that my
allegations of
this nature derive ultimately from the Holocaust
Paul Rassinier.
Q.   Have you any evidence at all that I have ever read the
works of Paul Rassinier?
A.   You did write an afterword to one of his books, which
I find it difficult to believe you wrote without
Q.   Professor, believe.  That is all I can say.  That fact
that I am invited to write an afterword on a
topic for a book which I then deliver without reading
book should not surprise anyone?
A.   It does not say very much for your responsibility as
historian, Mr Irving.
Q.   I have no responsibility at all whatsoever for the
of somebody's book if I am invited to write an
afterword on it and, if you know the content of that
afterword, you see that it no bore no resemblance or
relationship to what was in the book at all.  Do you
with that?
A.   You did have some very kind words to say about
Mr Rassinier in your afterword.  You have a rather
but very positive introductory paragraph talking about
work, and I find it quite extraordinary that you would
write such a thing without actually having read it.
Q.   Will you tell court what we know about Paul Rassinier?
Was he a right-wing extremist?
A.   It is in my report.  I have a few paragraphs about him
bit further on.
Q.   Was he a right-wing extremist?
A.   He was one of the earliest and most important
deniers.
A.   I am not sure about his politics.
Q.   Or was he in fact a communist, a left winger, who was
incarcerated in Auschwitz because of his political
views?
A.   Initially, yes.  I think that is why he went into
Auschwitz.  I do not think that is how he came out.
Q.   He is a kind of eyewitness with first hand experience,
he?
A.   Yes, he is a curious and interesting figure.
Q.   A curious and interesting figure?
A.   --- who seems to have been, I am trying to find my
references to it.  It is on page 192 of my report.
Rassinier was a Holocaust denier who published his
with Grabert Verlag, which is a well-known Holocaust
denial publishing house in Germany.
Q.   Everybody in your vocabulary is a Holocaust denier,
Holocaust denial, right-wing extremist?
A.   I did not say right-wing extremist.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let the witness finish his answer.
A.   This what this trial in part is about.
Q.   Is it more significance that in fact he was a left
who was incarcerated in Auschwitz because of his
A.   It seems that he was beaten up by a communist fellow
prisoner for having failed to pay his respects to the
former German communist leader Thalmann, who was in
camp, and that this seems to have turned him against
communist party, and that he seems to have been well
treated by the an SS guard.  Certainly after the war
defended the SS and started to deny the existence of
chambers, asserting that the Jews are mainly
for starting the second world war and so on.
Q.   Unlike yourself and myself, this was a man who had
been in
Auschwitz and so possibly his word deserves some kind
A.   I am not sure he was in Auschwitz.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Buchenwald, was he not?
A.   Buchenwald I think.
MR IRVING:  I think he was also in Auschwitz at some stage.
Anyway he was in the German concentration camp system
he wrote about it.
A.   That is why I consider it a curious case that he had
views that he had.
Q.   And I therefore did the wrong thing by writing an
afterword to his book?
A.   I certainly think you did the wrong thing in writing
afterword to his book without actually having read the
thing and making statements about the book in that
afterword.
Q.   Did I say in my afterword I have read this book and
it jolly good?
A.   I think one assumes it.  You said things about
Rassinier's
views in your afterword which makes me assume that you
familiar with them.
Q.   I am familiar with them to the extent that I have just
described them to the court.  He was a left winger who
sent to the concentration camp for his political
views.
A.   So you were familiar with his views then on the
Holocaust.
Q.   I have always known the fact that he has been a
doubter
and I see no reason at all why I should ----
A.   I find it difficult to know what we are disputing here
that case.
Q.   What we are disputing is on what basis you say that my
views derived from Paul Rassinier?
A.   I said ultimately.  I am quite prepared to accept that
there may have been intervening stages for his views.
example ----
Q.   If I have never read any of his books, how can my
views as
far as the death roll and anything else possibly have
derived from Mr Rassinier?  You now accept that this
just another of your wild and unsubstantiated
assertions,
is it not?
A.   No, because his views then became taken up into the
general discourse of this particular -- I do not want
keep using the words "Holocaust denial" but I suppose
is unavoidable -- that they were represented by a
of other people.
Q.   He just wanted to shoe horn his name in somehow, is
A.   The idea is in his book and in his work it is put
by you, the same view, and it seems therefore
to conclude that somehow it has found its way from him
you, since it has no evidential basis.
Q.   On page 120 now -- we will leave Mr Rassinier -- at
paragraph 24, you say what Irving did concede in his
speech was that there were some authorised mass
on the Eastern Front.
A.   Unauthorized.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What page?
MR IRVING:  Page 120, my Lord, of his report.  You say that
I conceded this in 1992.  Had I ever denied that there
been shootings on the Eastern Front?  Does not the
"concede" imply that I was now reversing a previously
held stand or conviction?
A.   No.  I did not mean it to.  I made it quite clear that you
say this repeatedly, that there were unauthorized mass
shootings of Jews behind the Eastern front.
Q.   In other words you have used the word "conceded" as just
another loaded word you can use to help put some spice in
the paragraph and flavour----
A.   I do not think it is that spicey, Mr Irving.