Irving v. Lipstadt

 1MR IRVING:    My Lord, finally, I come to the little bundle of
 2documents. It is a rather arcane matter, but again
 3I believe the Defence rely heavily on my choice of
 4language. Your Lordship will remember the rather heated
 5remarks I made about certain Jewish fraudsters and
 6racketeer in the United States, Ivan Boesky, Michael
 7Milken, and so on. I suggested they were hiding behind,
 8they were insulating themselves from public criticism by
 9the use of the Holocaust. This is what is now
10scientifically or academically referred to as the
11instrumentalisation of the Holocaust. This is one
12particular example which came to our attention. Mr Melvin
13Murmelstein, who may well be mentioned later on in the
14case, started a claim against the Hertford Insurance
15Company. His lawyers warned the insurance company that,
16as a survivor of Nazi concentration camps during World War
17II, this matter is extremely important to Mr Murmelstein.
18That is page 2, my Lord. On page 6, the insurance
19company's own lawyers warned them, warned the insurance
20company, to settle the $100,000 being claimed, saying,
21 "The lawyer argues that a jury will be sympathetic to a
22man who has survived a Nazi concentration camp", and so
23on. So this is the kind ----
24MR JUSTICE GRAY:    It is not quite the same point, is it? The
25point that I think you were making in that talk that we
26looked at on Thursday was that Jews who get up to some

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 1sort of financial or other misconduct then used the
 2Holocaust as a kind of shield against their own
 3criminality.
 4MR IRVING:    My Lord, it may well be that I shall lead ----
 5MR JUSTICE GRAY:    This is a slightly use or instrumentalization
 6of the Holocaust.
 7MR IRVING:    It is an insulation which goes on. Perhaps it is
 8automatic -- we all have the utmost sympathy with victims
 9of the Holocaust, and that includes myself, and I want
10to say that here; but I want to get this one instance in
11now because of the rather ugly note we closed on on
12Thursday evening, and it may well be I will lead further
13evidence which will go more closely to the matter actually
14raised. With that, I end my submission, my Lord.
15MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I will put these into, just so we know where
16they are going, J. I think we have got to 8, but there is
17a problem with these loose documents.
18    So that completes what you wanted to say about
19that, Mr Irving.
20MR IRVING:    I have completed my submission, my Lord.
21MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Mr Rampton, you do not want to say anything
22about this matter?
23MR RAMPTON:    No, I do not want to say anything about any of
24them at the moment. I may have to come back to some of
25them in due course, but certainly not today. J8, my Lord,
26says Miss Rogers.

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 1MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Could I mention something that I would like
 2to do, I think probably first thing tomorrow morning, if
 3that is convenient, and that is to have a look and see
 4what the future timetable is looking like, as far as one
 5can judge it. I would appreciate there are witnesses to
 6be accommodated. We might need to discuss what topics
 7need to be cross-examined to and possibly some do not need
 8to be.
 9MR RAMPTON:    I agree.
10MR JUSTICE GRAY:    And timing generally.
11MR RAMPTON:    I mean, I quite agree with that. One reason, if
12I may respectfully say so, I would say it was a good idea
13to do it tomorrow is that today is a bit uncharted, I am
14chartered, but I do not know where my charts will lead me
15today. But there is also the very good question your
16Lordship has raised on how much more of Evans do I have to
17do? Of course, essentially, that is a question for me,
18subject to being told not to. There are only, I think,
19two big topics left in Evans, that is ReichsKristallnacht
20 -- three, ReichKristallnacht early anti-Semitism of
21Hitler with the Nuremberg rules and Dresden.
22MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I think there is another heading post
23Kirstallnacht, is there not?
24MR RAMPTON:    Yes, but that is all part of the same subject.
25MR JUSTICE GRAY:    All right.
26MR RAMPTON:    My Lord, can I mention something which I think

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 1I have mentioned before, which is this, that it would be
 2convenient to us if we could have our reading day on
 3Thursday rather than Friday of this week for the reason
 4that Professor van Pelt has to go to Stockholm on
 5Thursday.
 6MR JUSTICE GRAY:    For a day or for a weekend?
 7MR RAMPTON:    Only for a day. He is going in the morning and
 8coming back in the afternoon, but there is a conference
 9that he has been asked to attend and thinks that he
10should. So if we could possibly have ----
11MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I do not see any problem with that. Does
12that cause you any difficulty, Mr Irving?
13MR IRVING:    My Lord, we were going to call Dr John Fox as our
14expert witness on that day, but I can easily postpone him.
15MR JUSTICE GRAY:    That is very accommodating. Thank you. We
16will do that first thing Thursday morning, if that is all
17right with both of you? So we can now press on with
18cross-examination.
19MR IRVING:    My Lord, I am calling Mr Peter Miller as a witness
20tomorrow, but he will be relatively brief, I think, on the
21events in Moscow.
22MR JUSTICE GRAY:    That raises a question that I have canvassed
23before. To what extent are we going to have to go through
24quite voluminous evidence on the Goebbels' diaries? To
25some extent I am in both of your hands. I have made no
26secret of the fact that whilst I understand, Mr Irving,

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 1your complaint about it, and I have seen the way the
 2Defence is put, in the end is it a topic that we benefit
 3by spending a very great deal of time on?
 4MR IRVING:    On the Goebbels' diaries.
 5MR JUSTICE GRAY:    On the Goebbels' diaries and the breach of
 6the agreement or whatever it was.
 7MR IRVING:    My Lord, I am accused of having breached agreements
 8in Moscow. This is what I will certainly ask Peter Miller
 9to evidence on.
10MR JUSTICE GRAY:    This is really in a way addressed to
11Mr Rampton as he will understand.
12MR RAMPTON:    There are really only two points left in Moscow.
13There is an admission that plates were removed without
14permission. The question, was there any significant risk
15they might be damaged? Second, how many plates? Now,
16whether that is more than about half an hour's
17cross-examination -- nothing more than that, I doubt.
18MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Well, well and good. That is, I think, all
19it really merits, frankly.
20MR RAMPTON:    That is how I see it. There is the additional
21point, of course, that Moscow would be, if it fell
22anywhere in the case, a section 5 question.
23MR JUSTICE GRAY:    That is what you say.
24MR RAMPTON:    That is what I believe, and it may be against
25everything else I will take a view (and it will be my
26decision) that it pales into insignificance.

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