Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day002.06
Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day002.06
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20
Q. -- media accounts, rather than the American
publishers?
A. This is true, my Lord, and it is very unsatisfactory
that
we are not going to be able, as I understand it, to
question Professor Lipstadt about what contact she may
have had.
If I may state at this point also, one would
have liked to have seen in her discovery, had her
. P-148
discovery been complete, and I am going to submit her
discovery was incomplete, any correspondence that she
might have had or any communications she might or
might
not have had with the publishers' concerns, St Martins
Press, or with the people who were putting pressure on
the
publishers, because the Second Defendant was certainly
instantly quoted as an authority on the reasons why
the
book should be suppressed.
Q. Yes, but you are entitled to make applications for
discovery, but let us focus on your evidence. If you
want
to make that application we can deal with that at the
beginning or the end of the day.
A. It is not an application, my Lord, it is an
allegation.
I was informed by the second Defendants' lawyers when
your
Lordship will have seen that I succeeded in obtaining
an
order that the Second Defendant should be required to
swear a list on affidavit. When that occurs, as your
Lordship is aware, I am not allowed to go behind the
affidavit until the trial of the action. I was
repeatedly
reminded of this by the defendants' solicitors, who
said
you will be able to cross-examine Professor Lipstadt
when
the time comes, on her affidavit, and, of course, now
we
will not.
Q. Yes.
A. That is not the last time I shall refer to that, my
Lord.
I find it an unfortunate state of affairs.
. P-149
So the book anyway in the United States did
not
appear. The just proceeds of that book not appearing
were
denied to me. But not only the just proceeds of that
book
but as it seems now all future books, because all the
publishers with whom I previously dealt in the United
States have pointed to that episode in grief and
terror
and said we cannot afford that to happen to us. The
chairman of the St Martin's Press was obliged to
resign
six weeks later over the scandal and nobody wanted to
go
through that again.
Q. Yes. So that is your evidence about the effect of
what
has been published by these Defendants. Now --
A. Specific details, yes, my Lord, of course, there is a
long-term effect in this country as well.
Q. -- describe that.
A. The book, which has been published by the First and
Second
Defendants has been not just sold through the normal
outlets, it has been placed on the Internet on two
different website locations. I have no way of knowing
whether they are active participants in that or not
because we cannot cross-examine them on that. I, the
Defendant, but the book has been made available in
other
words to 200 million Internet users. They can
download it
free, the entire book, and review probably regardless
of
whatever injunction your Lordship sees fit to make at
the
end of this trial that book will continue in
perpetuity in
. P-150
cyber space. The book has been donated to very large
numbers of university libraries around the world. One
of
my correspondents at the University of Durham has
found no
fewer than three copies in Durham University library
with
library plate gummed into the front saying "donated by
Friends of Durham University History Society". There
is
no such Society. So it has been actively propagated
by
who knows whom. The book is relied on as a source.
It is
an authoritative source by people who wish to attack
me
further. So it has an ongoing rolling effect far
beyond
the effect it has just on the one customer who picks
it up
at his local Barns & Noble or Waterstones bookshop, my
Lord.
Of course, the book is a very much more
serious
libel -- vehicle for a libel then a newspaper. When
newspapers have libeled me or defamed me in the past
and
people have come to me wringing their hands in grief
as
you will see from one of the speeches I made. I said,
fear
not because today is already Monday and what appeared
yesterday is already wrapping fish and chips or being
flushed down the drains in some paper processing
plant.
Whereas books go into libraries.
But simultaneously, as your Lordship will
have
seen from the witness statement of Professor Evans,
when
he went to the British Library and asked to obtain a
copy
of my book he was told that it had mysteriously been
put
. P-151
in the pornographic book section and was not freely
available. The book which I have on the desk in
front, my
book "Hitler's War".
It is quite ingenious campaign, my Lord, I
would
aver that on the one side my book is being suppressed
and
squirreled away, hidden out of sight so people cannot
see
what I actually wrote. Pressure is put on publishers
so
they do not publish my books and simultaneously a
campaign
is launched by very well qualified writers and very
gifted
writers, armed with ammunition from all around the
world
in an attempt to defame me which I then cannot answer.
Has your Lordship further questions on ----
Q. Not on that aspect, and I do not want to impose any
kind
of rigid pattern to your evidence if you do not want
it to
emerge in that way?
A. My Lord, I find it is very useful that you ask me
these
questions because it is like an examination in chief.
Q. I hoped you might. Yes, that is what it is really
intended
to be. What I was going to suggest you deal with now,
is
the plea of justification because that is obviously
the
main issue. If it is not inconvenient to you it would
be
most helpful to me if you were to deal perhaps quite
briefly with the various allegations that are put
against
you in the Defendant's summary of case, because I
think
everybody agrees that superseded the original defence,
we
discussed that at pretrial review?
. P-152
A. Yes.
Q. I think it is a convenient summary of the allegations
that
are made against you and can you deal with it briefly
or
at greater length. It is a matter for you. I have no
doubt you will be cross-examined about it anyway, but
would it be appropriate to go through --
A. If I can find it in this bundle.
Q. -- the topics. I have it in a separate file. I do
not
know whether if you have it in the same form I have,
the
Defendant's summary of case?
MR RAMPTON: We have it. Does your Lordship have it in a
separate file?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. That may be something I did and
have
forgotten about.
MR RAMPTON: It is in the pale green thing.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you got it?
A. I have the summary of the Defendants case, yes.
Q. Well, as you recall it is divided into sections, and
the
first section, which is quite a short one, is the
allegation that is made against you by the Defendants
that
you are what is called a "Holocaust denier".
A. My Lord, I think I led, or at any rate I gave my reply
to
that allegation in my opening statement yesterday at
some
length, and I am not sure there is very much more I
can
add to that in chief, so to speak. Perhaps the ----
Q. Can I just put a little bit of flesh on the bones of
that?
. P-153
A. Yes.
Q. The way the Defendants put their case is to quote
quite a
large number of, mostly speeches, that you have made?
A. Yes.
Q. Usually in North America, and to say that you have
denied
that there were any Jews killed in gas chambers at
Auschwitz and so on, and refer to Auschwitz in
dismissive
terms. The first question, I suppose, is to what
extent
you accept that you are accurately quoted. I am not
asking you to go into the detail of it, but do you
accept
that you have said that sort of thing, in general,
whether
the quotation is accurate?
A. In general, those quotations are accurate, my Lord.
Of
course, I am quite unhappy about the use of word
"holocaust" without having had it very closely
defined.
It is a very elastic expression.
Q. You state what you understand it to mean?
A. The Holocaust was the tragedy that befell the Jewish
people during World War II. I would set it as broadly
as
that. One could even set if more broadly and say the
Holocaust was whole of World War II and that the
people
who died and suffered in that Holocaust were not
necessarily confined to the Jewish religion, but any
number of innocents, whether gypsies, homosexuals, the
people in Coventry, the people in Hiroshima. I think
it
is otiose to try and define the Holocaust just the way
you
. P-154
wish to define it in order to snare somebody, which
appears to be what happens in a case like this. They
set
it as wide as they want when it is a concern, for
example,
of taking money from the Swiss banks. I will justify
that
statement in a moment, and they set it very narrowly
when
they then try to snare a writer who is dangerous to
them,
as they put it.
The reference to the Swiss Bank is justified
as
follows. I have in my files and I can produce it to
your
Lordship if you wish probably five or ten whole page
advertisements inserted in the newspapers around the
world, and your Lordship may well have seen them,
inviting
people in entitled to compensation for their suffering
in
the Holocaust to come forward, and for the purposes of
that advertisement those people are defined as any
person
who was persecuted in Germany during the periods of
the
Third Reich, or in Nazi occupied territories, by
virtue of
his religion or by virtue of being a minority. He did
not
have to be in a concentration camp. He did not have
do
work in a slave labour factory. The mere fact of
being
within the frontiers of those countries justified that
man
to Holocaust compensation. That, of course, is, in my
submission, an offensively wide description of the
word
and I think that the two line description I gave, the
Holocaust is -- I would prefer to see it defined for
the
purposes of this court, this trial, the Holocaust is
the
. P-155
tragedy that befell -- that undoubtedly befell the
Jewish
people during the Third Reich, not even just during
World
War II.
Q. Well, do not let us be too bothered about labels, but
can
I just ask you this; I understand what are you saying
about the Holocaust being a term you could apply to
the
World War II generally, but if you take it as meaning,
for
the purposes of this question anyway, a systematic
programme of exterminating Jews, conducted by the Nazi
regime --
A. My Lord, I think the difference --
Q. -- can I just ask you this, do you accept that there
was
any such programme first; leave aside the issue of gas
chambers?
A. -- no, I do not. I think this is the defect, with
respect, in your Lordship's definition. The
systematic
programme to exterminate the Jews is the cause,
whereas
the Holocaust, the word "Holocaust" as I would see it
is
the effect, the result, the tragedy that results.
When we
are looking at the Holocaust we are looking at the
victims. We are looking at the mass graves. We are
looking at the people being machine gunned into pits.
The
Holocaust in my submission is not the machinery which
produced the result, it is the suffering and not the
murderer, shall we say.
Q. So I want to be clear on this, because it is obviously
. P-156
important.
A. It is very important indeed, my Lord.
© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2008
