“ In excess of 500,000 Jews lost their lives there, more than in any other place on the planet. It is the Defendants’ case that the Zyklon-B pellets were fed into the chamber by means of wire mesh column which ran upwards through the roof of the chamber with the chimney protruding above roof level. The roof was made of reinforced concrete about 18-20cm in thickness with reinforcing bars within the concrete. If the chimney passed through the roof, argued Irving, the roof would to this day have five holes in it where the chimneys passed through the roof. ”

“ He gave an exceedingly detailed account of the operation of crematoria, making it clear what he accepted on the basis of his own observations and what he accepted as hearsay. He described dragging gassed corpses from the gas chamber and loading them five at a time onto trucks which ran on rails to the furnaces where they were off-loaded. He described the three, two-muffle furnaces and said that each muffle would take five corpses. The incineration took up to one and a half hours. He explained that thin people burned more slowly than fat people. ”

“ He pointed out that there is no reference to the Russians having discovered gas chambers when they liberated the camp in January 1945. Irving relied further on the absence of any reference in the reports sent in cypher from Auschwitz to Berlin (which were intercepted and decoded at Bletchley and commented upon by Professor Himsley) to the death of any inmate in a gas chamber at the camp. Deaths from typhus and other causes, including shooting, are faithfully recorded but there is never any reference to killing by gas. ”

“ SS Hauptsturmbannfuhrer Rudolf Hoss was installed as Camp Commandant of Auschwitz in May 1941 and continued in a leading capacity throughout the period when, on the Defendants’ case most of the gassings took place (with the exception of a period in 1943-4 when he was posted to Berlin to work in the Concentration Camp Inspectorate) . The camp was manned by the SS. But the assistance of Jewish inmates was enlisted to perform some of the more grisly tasks in the crematoria. They were called Sonderkommando. About 200 worked in each cremaorium. ”

“ The facilities are always damp and unheated, which conditions are unsuited to the use of Zyklon-B.
7.85 Leuchter considered the chambers to be too small physically to contain the number of occupants claimed. The doors open inwards, which would inhibit the removal of bodies. With the gas chambers fully packed with occupants, the hydrogen cyanide would not circulate within the room. If the gas did eventually fill the chamber, anyone feeding the pellets into the vents on the roof would die from exposure to the poisonous gas. ”

“ He described how large number of Jews of various nationalities arrived at the camp. About half of them were selected for gassing, including the old and infirm and the pregnant and children. He stated that those who were to be gassed were not given camp numbers or registered at the camp. His evidence was that the killing reached its zenith with the Hungarian Jews in about July 1944 when, he claimed, 18,000 were being killed per day. Jankowski reckoned that Crematoria 2 and 3 had a daily incineration capacity of 2,500 corpses while Crematoria 4 and 5 could incinerate 1,500. ”

“ The stairway has been redesigned in such a way that it would be extremely awkward to carry corpses down to the morgue on stretchers. Van Pelt concludes that the object of the redesign of the stairway was to enable living people to walk downstairs rather than for corpses to be carried down.
7.62 The drawings further provide for the ventilation of the supposed gas chamber in crematorium 2. Van Pelt infers that the purpose of the system for extracting air was to extract poisonous air and so speed up the removal of the corpses to the incinerators. ”

“ The evidence of many of them was the result of “cross-pollination” with the recollection of other supposed eye-witnesses or was influenced by their having been shown the blueprints for the alleged gas chambers (eg Tauber) . The evidence of a number of such witnesses (eg Kramer) can be explained by the fact that they were describing chambers which were used for fumigation purposes rather then killing. Irving gives as a reason for doubting the reliability of Olere’s sketches that he made the absurd claim to the historian Pressac that the SS made sausages in the crematoria. ”

“ It is also accepted by the Defendants that in certain respects the documentary evidence, including the photographic evidence, is capable of more than one interpretation. Nevertheless the Defendants argue that the different strands of evidence “converge”. For example the eye-witness evidence is corroborated by the drawings and vice-versa. There is a striking similarity in the accounts of the eye-witnesses. The similarities in their recollections vastly outweigh the discrepancies. ”

“ He had lived near Auschwitz before his incarceration. Kula gave evidence that, a year after his arrival at the camp in 1940, he observed the Nazis beginning to experiment with Zyklon B. He observed that the corpses turned greenish after exposure to the gas. Kula worked in the metal workshop at the camp and forged many of the metal pieces required for the crematoria. He also took part in the construction of trucks for conveying corpses into the ovens. ”

“ He expressed the opinion that crematoria 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 have an extremely poor and dangerous design if they were to have served as execution gas chambers. There is no provision for gasketed doors, windows or vents; the structures are not coated with tar or other sealant to prevent leakage or absorption of gas. The adjacent crematories create the potential for an explosion. The exposed porous brick and mortar would accumulate any hydrogen cyanide and render the facilities dangerous to humans for several years. ”

“ The initial drawings are dated August 1942, not long after the visit paid to the camp by Himmler, which the Defendants say marks the inception of the accelerated extermination programme. According to van Pelt the design of these crematoria incorporated undressing rooms (although not so designated on the drawings) and morgues which were to serve as gas chambers. The drawings of the morgues make provision for several windows measuring 30 x 40cms. The size of these windows corresponds with the size of windows referred to elsewhere in construction documents as being required to be gas proof. ”

“ The Defendants’ response to Irving’s argument in relation to the documentary evidence
7.127 The Defendants accept that there are few overt references to gas chambers at Auschwitz in contemporaneous documents but suggest that the absence is readily understandable. I have already alluded to the evidence of Ertl, the architect employed at the Auschwitz Central Construction Office, that he was told by Bischoff that no reference should be made to gassing and that such terms as “special action” or special measure” should be used instead. ”

“ She told them that she had been deported to Birkenau along with 1,500 Jews from Theresienstadt. She described how she was among the stronger ones who were selected to work in the camp. The rest of her family were taken off to be gassed. Weiss recalled her conversations with those who worked in the camps. She knew of the arrival of the Hungarian transports in 1944. She claimed that when transports arrived most of the Jews were selected to be gassed immediately. Having been told they were to have a shower, the victims undressed and went into the gas chamber. ”

“ Irving relied on the note as evidence that Auschwitz was essentially a work camp. But Longerich pointed out that Himmler had made provision that 10% of those deported did not need to be fit for work. Longerich inferred that they were to be killed on arrival. Irving contended that the 10% provision was for wives and children. Such documents are, Irving argued, wholly inconsistent with the Nazis having been engaged at the same time upon a programme of exterminating Jews in gas chambers at Auschwitz. ”

“ Broad gave evidence of how bodies were removed and burnt after they had been gassed. In addition Broad reported that the reason for building the four new crematoria in Birkenau was that the Nazis were finding it difficult to keep the killings at Bunkers 1 and 2 a secret. In the two underground gas chambers 4,000 people could be killed at a time. He described the layout of the new installation, including the ovens, each of which he said was equipped to hold four or five corpses. ”

“ The two features of the application on which the Defendants focus are, firstly, the method of employing fat corpses to speed promote the rate at which corpses can be burned and, secondly, the claim that no fuel is required after the initial two day pre-heating period, no more fuel will be required because of the amount of heat generated by the burning corpses. Van Pelt noted that both these features are reflected in the account given by Tauber of the way in which the corpses were incinerated. ”

“ He described how people were exterminated by methods including gas at Majdanek. He deposed that, within days of an English newspaper report being received at Hitler’s headquarters about gas chambers being used at Majdanek, Himmler ordered the cessation of gassing in Auschwitz and the dismantling of the extermination installations in the crematoria. ”

“ But, claimed Irving, they give varying accounts of the manner in which the pellets were introduced into the gas chamber and most of them (including Bimko and Bendel) have turned out to be liars. Irving claimed to have destroyed the credibility of all of them in his cross-examination of van Pelt. Olere’s drawings were probably influenced by what he was told by others and in any event he was a fantasist. The photograph taken in 1942 and relied on van Pelt does not show the chimneys. The smudges on which van Pelt relies were probably barrels of tar parked on the roof during building operations. ”

“ He emphasised that amongst the voluminous documentary material relating to Auschwitz, there is only one document which contains what might be regarded as a reference to the genocidal use of the crematoria. Irving argues that the lack of (as he put it) incriminating documents is extraordinary, if indeed gas chambers were in operation on the scale alleged by the Defendants. ”

“ In truth, it was suggested to him, it is the other way round: high levels of cyanide are required for delousing purposes whereas in the region of 300 ppm will suffice for the purpose of killing human beings. Irving responded by saying that this criticism of the Leuchter report has to be “taken on board” and that “probably concessions have to be made at both ends of this scale”. Irving observed that the report had the desirable consequence of promoting public debate. ”

“ He said that the gas chambers were capable of accommodating 2,000 people at one time. Dr Gustav Gilbert, the Nuremberg prison psychologist, recorded in his diary an account of a conversation with Hoss in which he confirmed that two and a half million people had been exterminated under his direction. ”

“ He said that he and fellow Sonderkommandos had scattered the teeth of the dead over a wide area so that they might be found by subsequent generations. Gradowski claimed that the Jewish nation had been destroyed in the camps. ”