Irving v. Lipstadt

 1A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     "Auszedlum" is another word they use. There is a whole
 2battery of euphemisms that they use.
 3Q. [Mr Irving]     Have you seen "auswandern" used before as a euphemism? I
 4do not want to hang too much importance on this.
 5A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Obviously not.
 6MR JUSTICE GRAY:    How would you translate "auswandern"?
 7A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Emigration.
 8MR IRVING:    Literally "emigration", wandering abroad, wandering
 9out. It is not one of the regular catalogue of euphemisms
10which with we have become familiar.
11A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     This again at the absolute height of the mass murders, the
12mass gassings, the mass shootings, all over this part of
13Europe, and it really I think beggars belief to think that
14they are simply talking some other nice kind of emigration
15somewhere to Madagascar or somewhere like that. I think
16this is talking about killing.
17Q. [Mr Irving]     It is a terrible problem, is it not, that we are faced
18with this tantalizing plate of crumbs and morsels of what
19should have provided the final smoking gun proof, and
20nowhere the whole way through the archives do we find even
21one item that we do not have interpret or read between the
22lines of, but we do have in the same chain of evidence
23documents which are quite clearly specifically shown
24Hitler intervening in the other sense?
25A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     No, I do not accept that at all. It is because you want
26to interpret euphemisms as being literal and that is what

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 1the whole problem is. Every time there is a euphemism,
 2Mr Irving, or a euphemistic or a camouflage piece of
 3statement or language about Madagascar, you want to treat
 4it as being the literal truth, because it serves your
 5purpose of trying exculpate Hitler. That is part of the
 6problem of the way in which you manipulate and distort the
 7documents.
 8MR IRVING:    We know I am a manipulator and distorter, we have
 9established that point.
10MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Can I just ask question? Am I right in
11thinking that at this time, which is, is it September
121942?
13A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
14Q. [Mr Justice Gray]     There was still what I think somebody described as
15deghettoization going on, namely Jews were being taken
16from cities in the East within the German jurisdiction and
17transported to concentration camps?
18A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     To be killed, yes. At this time there seem to have been
19about 300,000 Jews in the General Government left alive
20out of about 2.3 million of the original.
21Q. [Mr Justice Gray]     So that was still going on?
22A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     So this was going on right through this time. If one
23looks back in Dienskalendar to 18th July 1942, that is the
24point at which Himmler had given the original order to
25resettle ethnic German in the Lublin area, and he said to
26make room for them: "The Jews must finally disappear from

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 1the town", so the two processes are directly connected and
 2the disappearance there again is another not so
 3mealymouthed euphemism for sending them off to be gassed
 4or shooting them.
 5MR IRVING:    What makes you think that "Juden auswandern" refers
 6only to the generalgouvernenent? It might equally refer
 7to France or any of these countries where they were
 8carrying out these inhuman measures.
 9MR JUSTICE GRAY:    But they were not going westwards any of
10them, were they, at this time?
11MR IRVING:    It does not say. It just says emigrating.
12MR JUSTICE GRAY:    It is not your case that Jews were moving
13en bloc in a westerly direction?
14MR IRVING:    This is Himmler going to Hitler with that word
15written in his calendar saying: "Emigration of the Jews.
16How are we going to carry on? How are we going to proceed
17with this?"
18MR RAMPTON:    I am sorry to intervene, but this is all rather
19odd to my mind, the possibility of that the Jews were
20going to West to East, from France, Austria goodness knows
21where.
22MR IRVING:    We do not know where they are going.
23MR RAMPTON:    No, but if they are emigrating from, let us say,
24France to a death camp in Poland, it is perfectly logical.
25MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Was that happening at this time, Professor
26Evans?

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 1A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
 2Q. [Mr Irving]     European Jews?
 3A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
 4Q. [Mr Irving]     What one might call non-German European Jews?
 5A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     September 1942.
 6MR IRVING:    But it might perfectly well be somebody saying,
 7"Well, why don't we have them all sent to French North
 8Africa", because at that time that had not been invaded,
 9Operation Torch had not happened.
10A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     I find that somewhat unlikely, Mr Irving ----
11Q. [Mr Irving]     All that I am looking at ----
12A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     --- in view of the fact there is this mass extermination
13going on in the area, for which Globocnik was responsible
14at this very time. The fact it was discussed with
15Globocnik quite clearly means that this part of the
16package of things that was discussed, if have the man who
17is actually responsible for this involved.
18MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Was Globocnik involved in transportation as
19opposed to extermination?
20A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     He was the Police Chief for the area, so he was involved
21in all of these things.
22Q. [Mr Justice Gray]     So he was both.
23A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
24MR IRVING:    He was obviously involved in the resettlement of
25the Lublin district, as is shown by the reference in this
26connection.

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 1A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes, bringing these people in.
 2Q. [Mr Irving]     I will just ask the question once more. Have you seen the
 3word "auswandern" used anywhere as a euphemism where it is
 4clearly so, used as camouflage, on any other occasion?
 5A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     I do not recall it having been, that does not mean to say
 6it is not so used, but, as I say, they used a whole
 7variety of euphemisms.
 8Q. [Mr Irving]     We will very rapidly turn the page, and 10th December, we
 9now have the abshafen of the Jews from France.
10A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
11Q. [Mr Irving]     We have dealt with this. I am just going to look, not at
12the numbers here, but do you agree the figures of 600 to
13700,000 are not accurate for France as far as Jews are
14concerned?
15A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     No, because I think this probably included the French
16colonies.
17Q. [Mr Irving]     How would the Germans get their hands on the Jews in the
18French colonies?
19A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     You just said that they were thinking about sending Jews
20to Madagascar. That is one of them.
21Q. [Mr Irving]     Are you familiar with the fact that on 8th November 1942
22the first major Anglo-American amphibious invasion
23operation had taken place and that the French North of
24West Africa was the target of that, and so there had been
25a major change in the geographical situation before this
26conference took place?

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 1A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     That is right. Just before this conference, a few weeks
 2before South of France was occupied by axis troops. This
 3is at a point when the transports of Jews from France had
 4already begun. It began in the early Spring 1942 directly
 5to Auschwitz and carried on through the Summer. About
 613,000 Jews were arrested in Paris in July. Transports
 7then began from the Vichy region. The background to this
 8is the fact that they have now got control over the whole
 9of France and they are not reliant on the Vichy government
10any more. So in the following February more transports in
11considerable number began to Auschwitz and Sobibor.
12Q. [Mr Irving]     Very briefly, you will find on those two pages of December
1310th 1942 that two words were used for how the Jews were
14going be moved on disposed of: Abshafen on one document
15in Himmler's handwriting, and in the typed memorandum he
16then says they are going to be abtransportiered?
17A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
18Q. [Mr Irving]     Would you like to tell the court what your conclusions are
19from the use of those two words?
20A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     This first document is just Himmler's own private note, is
21that right?
22Q. [Mr Irving]     Yes.
23A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     The second one is a document for circulation.
24Q. [Mr Irving]     Is the typed version which then was generated after that?
25A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes. So he is, in other words, using a euphemism in the
26document that has to be circulated, and being more

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