Toronto, Ontario
--- Upon resuming on Thursday, October 16, 1997
at 10:07 a.m.
RESUMED: GARY DEAN PRIDEAUX
THE CHAIRPERSON: Good morning.
Mr. Christie, please.
MR. CHRISTIE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CROSS-EXAMINATION, Continued
MR. CHRISTIE:
Q. You referred at the second paragraph, under the heading "Tab 3. Jewish Soap," to the conclusion that it is pseudo-scholarly. That was your conclusion?
A. That is what my conclusion was, that is right.
Q. "-- in the sense that while it quotes
numerous individuals, documents, and even some books, it fails to provide specific citations and references to any sources, an absolute necessity in real scholarly research."
Is it your understanding that all scholarly research is published with its footnotes included?
A. If there are footnotes to it, yes, or end notes of a line. That is the normal procedure.
Q. Is the Internet a scholarly medium of exchange?
A. It can be.
Q. Not necessarily?
A. Not necessarily.
Q. What I was going to suggest to you -- I would like to show you "1991 Volume Eleven, Numbers 1 through 4 with index" of The Journal of Historical Review and the article entitled "Jewish Soap." Would you mind looking at that and just tell me if that is the same text that you analyzed or if the text that you analyzed is part of that.
THE CHAIRPERSON: What is this? Do you have extra copies?
MR. CHRISTIE: Yes, I do, sir.
MR. TAYLOR: I am sorry, what was your question?
MR. CHRISTIE: I just want him to compare the article entitled "Jewish Soap" to the article that he analyzed.
THE REGISTRAR: Would you like this filed as an exhibit, Mr. Christie?
MR. CHRISTIE: If I could, please.
THE REGISTRAR: The document entitled "The Journal of Historical Review, 1991, Volume Eleven," pages 216 to 227, will be filed as Respondent Exhibit R-1.
EXHIBIT NO. R-1: Document entitled "The Journal of Historical Review, 1991, Volume Eleven," pages 216 to 227
MR. CHRISTIE:
Q. What I was going to suggest to you, sir --
A. Can I just finish reading it?
Q. Sure.
A. Yes, Mr. Christie...?
Q. What I am asking you is: Is the article in The Journal of Historical Review the same article that is entitled "Jewish Soap" at tab 3 of the materials that you analyzed?
A. The text except for the footnotes is the same, it seems to me. That is what a quick glance would suggest.
Q. What I am suggesting is that, obviously, what has happened in the process of publishing this article is that the footnotes have been left off. Is that right?
A. The end notes are left off, and also, as far as I can see, there are no footnotes in the text either.
Q. End notes are what? Numbers?
A. No, the ones at the end of the text, at the end of your text.
Q. I see. You are saying that what is in the "Notes" portion of The Journal of Historical Review article are not footnotes; they are end notes?
A. Yes.
Q. Is there anything wrong in a scholarly work with putting end notes as opposed to footnotes?
A. Of course not.
Q. So, in essence, the context of your analysis, when you did not know that the article had been published elsewhere, was correct. Namely, it would appear that the document does not contain scholarly research. Perhaps, in order to know if it did, you would have to know the context of where else it might have been published. Is that a fair statement?
A. I suppose, although just to be real clear, the actual notes themselves are not specified -- that is, the numbers are not specified throughout the text, either, where the notes would have gone.
Q. I see. So, actually, the text does not include the numbers although the text in the --
A. The body of the text seems to be the same.
Q. If you look at the article from The Journal of Historical Review, it does have the numbers that attach to the end notes.
A. In this one, yes.
Q. So, in actual fact, had you known perhaps the whole context of the article -- and, by that, I mean where else it might have been published -- it might have affected your opinion.
A. In fact, on the fifth page of the materials under tab 3, there is an acknowledgement saying that the article was made available courtesy of the Institute for Historical Review. So, my assumption would be that this was the whole article.
Q. Does that affect your answer? My question was: Had you known the whole context -- that is, the history of the article, where else it had been published -- would you still maintain that it showed absolutely no scholarly research?
A. If I had it in this form, it would follow the usual canons of scholarly research in the sense of having citations and references. In this form it does not.
Q. To put this in the context of a thorough analysis, would you not, for example, make an inquiry of the author to see if it was published elsewhere in a different form?
A. Not if it is stated that this is the article. The statement in the acknowledgement is: Here it is. So I would assume that that was it, not an abridged form or a changed form or whatever.
Q. Therefore, if you were looking at it as a scholar, you would tend to disbelieve it because of its form.
A. I would want to know the sources, what is lacking. What are the references and where are they?
Q. But the impact upon you, at least as a scholar, would be less if it had no footnotes than if it did.
A. When assertions and quotes are made, that is right.
Q. Pardon?
A. In places where the footnotes are found -- let us take an example.
In the first paragraph, at the end of the second sentence is where the first footnote appears. There is no citation there of what the sources are. One, under normal scholarly activity, would say, "What are the sources?" This document provides sources; this one does not.
Q. So if you find a document that does not provide sources, you would be less inclined to believe it than one which did?
A. For crucial issues, right.
Q. Or on matters of fact, one would tend to need footnotes.
A. On some matters of fact, that is right.
Q. In your analysis you say:
"The writer implies that (a) the human soap story is a part of established history, --"
A. That is the quote.
Q. And it is your analysis that there was an implication that the human soap story is a part of established history?
A. In the quote that is cited on page 5, beginning "More recently, Jewish historian... 'denied established history'--", from that, I read that the author of the text is talking about something that was established history and then denied.
If the historian, Laqueur, states that the human soap story has no basis in reality, and others, as the author of this has argued, then it is not established history. But the use of "denied established history" invites the interpretation that it was.
Q. And you go on to say that the writer also subscribes to the claim that the story is false. That is what you derived from the passage.
A. Yes.
Q. Then you say:
"In order for the argument to go through, it is crucial to accept (a) --"
Is that right?
A. I am following you.
Q. What do you mean by "in order for the argument to go through?"
A. In order for the thesis that is being maintained here, that the Jewish Soap story was originally taken to be fact and then reputed.
Q. Don't you mean by "in order for the argument to go through," in order for the argument to be logically persuasive?
A. Yes.
Q. That is what I thought it meant. Naturally, you are saying that, in order for the argument to be logically persuasive, you have to know that the premises are true.
A. Yes.
Q. And the premise was that the human soap story was a part of established history.
A. That was the premise. That is my understanding of the premise.
Q. You are analyzing the sentence from the point of view of its logical construction and examining its premise.
A. That is what I attempted to do.
Q. In that circumstance, you then say:
"-- when in fact the story may well not be a part of history, in spite of the various claims and rumors about it."
What are you basing that on -- knowledge or experience or --
A. I am basing it on the text.
Q. No, it is not in the text. You are making a statement there: "-- when in fact the story may well not be a part of history." What makes you say that?
A. I am lifting this from the text, where the author says it is not a part of history. I am accepting his --
Q. No, he is implying, according to your analysis, that the human soap story is a part of established history. That is what you said in (a).
A. That is the scare quote interpretation.
Q. Right.
A. In other words, in order for the thesis to be, in my view, sensible --
Q. Logically persuasive.
MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Christie, don't -- Mr. Chairman, perhaps I could make my general objection
MR. CHRISTIE: He did say "logically persuasive."
THE CHAIRPERSON: One at a time.
MR. TAYLOR: We had this problem yesterday, and it seems like we are going to have it again today.
Dr. Prideaux is here to give evidence so that you can make a determination. He is here to give evidence to help you. If he is constantly being interrupted or if the record is not clear because two parties are speaking at the same time, then the purpose of his evidence has gone out the window.
A question can be asked -- Mr. Christie is a skilled counsel. He can ask the question. He can wait for the answer. He can listen to the answer, and then he can devise another question if he wants clarification.
To be fair to the witness and to be fair to you, the witness should be allowed to complete his answer and not be interrupted by counsel.
THE CHAIRPERSON: No one would quarrel with that, that he should be allowed to complete his answer. I am not concerned about the questions being asked. Mr. Christie is allowed considerable latitude in cross-examination.
Please proceed.
MR. TAYLOR: But, Mr. Chairman --
MR. CHRISTIE: I apologize. I understand my friend's concern. I am going to try harder not to interrupt.
MR. TAYLOR: Just to be clear, sir, I have no quarrel with his questions or the latitude. I want the information to come out as much as he does. That is not the issue.
The issue is, as you stated yesterday, that, if they are both talking at once, the record will not be clear and it will not be helpful.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I caution both the questioner and the responder to make an appropriate separation between their speeches. Let's try it again.
MR. CHRISTIE: Thank you.
Q. Am I correct in that I understand that you are saying that the premise that the human soap story is a part of established history is by implication from the scare quotes around "denied established history?"
A. Yes.
Q. In your statement -- and I am quoting from your opinion:
"-- when in fact the story may well not be a part of history, in spite of the various claims and rumors about it."
are you saying that that is the writer's view or yours?
A. That is my view.
Q. In expressing that view and questioning whether the soap story was a part of established history, were you relying on some expertise or just the process of questioning?
A. I was relying on the text for information.
Q. And you don't find the information in the text; therefore, you say that the text is lacking support for the premise. Is that a fair statement?
A. I don't find -- sorry...?
Q. You don't find support for the premise in the text and, therefore, you are questioning whether or not it is true.
A. I am saying that, if it is false -- sorry, we are talking about "when in fact." I am saying that it may or may not be true, despite its rumours.
Q. Of course, anything may or may not be true. Right?
A. That is what I said.
Q. So you are not saying that it is not true; you are just saying that there is no evidence to support it.
A. That is right.
Q. You are not claiming to say that there is any reason to doubt the premise; you are just saying that there isn't any support for it in the text itself.
A. I am saying that there is presentation for it -- that is, the author asserts things, and he also quotes from others suggesting that in the end of the analyses everyone seems to agree. That is my conclusion: everyone seems to agree that the story is false, even though there were rumours about it, dating back, as the author says, as early as before the Second World War.
Q. So you are suggesting in your analysis:
"If (a) is false, then there is no substance to its denial by either Laqueur or anyone else, since it is not informative to assert that an acknowledged piece of fiction is a piece of fiction --"
because, in effect, that asserts a tautology.
A. It does.
Q. By virtue of saying that, if your premise is false, your argument is a tautology, you are not advancing anyone's understanding of the meaning of that text, are you?
A. The meaning of the text, in my view, does not reside there. The thrust of the text resides elsewhere--
Q. I understand, but surely -- sorry, I interrupted you again.
A. That is fine.
Q. Surely, the reason you analyzed this portion of the text was because you concluded that it set out the premise.
A. The reason I analyzed this portion of the text, in fact the whole text, is because the article, in my view, without the last sentence simply is an attempt to confirm what others have confirmed. It adds no new information to the discourse.
Q. That is because you reject the premise.
A. I reject which premise?
Q. "The" premise that you identified as "the" premise, namely, that the human soap story is a part of established history.
A. I reject that premise on the basis of this material. In other words, it would appear to me that the human -- may I just lay this out?
It seems to me that the human soap story in this text was a rumour widely circulated, held as truth by individuals, but later argued not to be true, and that argument came from a variety of sources. At one time it might have been felt to be part of established history, but later became not to be a part of established history. That is it.
Q. But you don't know what is the truth about that.
A. I am arguing from the content of the text.
Q. Yes, you are arguing from the content of the text without any knowledge of the factual basis for the assertions.
A. Certainly not any knowledge from the supporting references, that is true.
Q. Do you have any opinions on the truth of the statement? Is that how you base your --
A. I don't really know if the statement is true or false.
Q. But it would not be a tautology if it is true.
A. To assert something that is true and is accepted to be true, to assert that bachelors are unmarried men, or whatever, is to add nothing new to the meaning of that expression.
Q. But this does not assert that bachelors are unmarried men; this asserts that the human soap story is a part of established history. That is the premise, isn't it?
A. That is the frame of reference of the story, certainly.
Q. We had it a few moments ago that you agreed that that was the premise.
A. That is the frame of reference of the story, in my view.
Q. You didn't say a few minutes ago that that was the premise?
A. I am saying it now.
Q. Are you saying it now or not, that it is the premise?
A. I am saying that it is the focus of the text, Mr. Christie.
Q. Well, I just want --
A. The reality of the -- sorry, I interrupted you.
Q. Go ahead.
A. The reality of the human soap story is the issue around which this text revolves. Its truth or falsity is what the text revolves around.
Q. So I can't get you to admit that a few moments ago you acknowledged that the statement that the human soap story is a part of established history was the premise. You don't recall saying that. Is that your evidence?
A. No, I recall saying that. May I amplify it?
Q. I just want to know if you said it and if it was true.
A. If I said it --
Q. And if it was true.
A. My interpretation of this -- am I allowed to give this interpretation?
Q. You are allowed to say anything you like, because I am not going to interrupt you.
A. My interpretation is that at one point in history, apparently from the text, which is the information I have, it was widely held that the human soap story was true, namely, a part of established history. At a later point it came to be held not to be true by lots of scholars. I have not read those scholars' works; I don't know what they said. So -- sorry, go ahead.
Q. My question was: Did you say that that was the premise and was it true to say that that was the premise -- not that the premise is true, but that in logic and in reasoned argument, was that the premise?
A. That is part of the premise; that is right.
Q. Is there any other part of the premise?
A. Yes. I just explained this, Mr. Chair.
Q. What is the rest of the premise?
A. The issue is whether or not the story is accepted to be part of established history at different times.
Q. Where is that stated as the premise?
A. I just stated it.
Q. I thought you had to rely on the text.
A. All right. In the footnote --
THE CHAIRPERSON: Excuse me, what is the difference between saying that it is the premise on the one hand and that it is the frame of reference?
THE WITNESS: The human soap story, in the larger sense, constitutes the thematic content of the passage. It is what the passage is about. Its authenticity is also what it is about, the authenticity of the story, the correctness of the story.
If at one point the view was held that this story was true, then at that point in history it would presumably be accepted as part of established history. If it later came to be found to be false, then it is no longer part of established history.
It was at one time assumed that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that was part of established history. Its truth was not the issue, but it was assumed to be part of the nature of things. It later was refuted, so we have a different view about that.
That is the distinction I am trying to draw.
MR. CHRISTIE:
Q. Isn't this author basically saying that at one time it was part of established history; it was a ridiculous story; it is like other ridiculous stories about the Holocaust?
A. That is right; he is saying that.
Q. If what he said was true, about being part of established history, then it would have some logical significance, would it not?
A. At that point.
Q. At that point. I agree with you that, as you say, what people believe at one time might not be the same as another and, therefore, if it is too removed in time, I suggest, the argument would break down.
A. That is possible.
Q. Is this footnote, which I realize you didn't have because you didn't have the article as published earlier, it says -- and now we are looking at the exhibit, The Journal of Historical Review, 1991, at page 224:
"During the First World War, the London Times was apparently the first Allied paper to report (in April 1917) that the Germans were boiling down the bodies of their dead soldiers to make soap and other products. See: Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty (New York: 1975), pp. 105-106. This story was quickly picked up by other papers and widely circulated in the British and American press. In 1925, British Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain admitted that the 'corpse factory' story had been a lie. See: Arthur Ponsonby, Falsehood in Wartime (New York: 1929), pp. 102, 111-112; Walter Laqueur, The Terrible Secret (Boston: 1988), pp. 8-9."
If that is provided as support for the statement, would it affect your perception of it as being, as you say, possibly false?
A. If I had this material with the footnotes, then I would take a different view toward the analysis, because I would have some documented evidence to support the claims, and the author has provided us with some documented evidence.
Q. Right. When you were asked to do your analysis of the writings that were provided to you by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, as a professional interested in an objective analysis of the text, would you think it appropriate to contact the purported author and find out if there is any support for the premises before you analyzed it?
A. Not if the text says that "this article is provided," et cetera. In other words, I assumed the truthfulness of the statement that this was the article.
Q. As we discussed yesterday, articles have to be taken in a larger context, don't they?
A. Explain. I don't understand.
Q. If it is in the context of a historical debate -- and these types of articles appear to be -- surely it would be necessary to know if these articles had been published elsewhere, if there were footnotes available, or even if there was extrinsic material which supported the factual claims.
A. I am taking the goodwill of the author, Mr. Christie, or whoever posted it:
"We wish to acknowledge that the above article was made available courtesy of the Institute for Historical Review."
I assume in that -- it does not say "part of the article," "some of the article." In my analysis of it, it says "the article." The notes are part of the article and the references are part of the article, in my view. This document does not have those components to it. That is what I was trying to make clear.
Q. You actually looked at the reference to the Institute of Historical Review, did you?
A. I looked at the note at the bottom of the document.
Q. I think I know what you mean.
A. I assumed, as one would assume if one says, "This article is reprinted from such and such and so and so or translated from such and such and so and so," that that is the article, not a part of it, not bits and pieces of it, not a reconstruction of it, but the article. That is my assumption. That is a normal assumption to make.
Q. Are footnotes necessarily part of an article, or are they just the support for it?
A. No, they are part of the article.
Q. In a scholarly work that would be crucial; is that right?
A. In a scholarly work that would be very crucial with respect to citing sources.
Q. So, what are we doing here? Criticizing the work for lack of scholarliness?
A. If it purports to be a scholarly article, and that is what I assume --
Q. Why are --
A. Let me finish, please.
If it purports to be a scholarly article, as it appears to be here, and that this is a representation of that article, it is not a representation of it. It is not the complete article.
If one looks at the footnote for No. 1 -- that was the first footnote we looked at -- and we look at the text here, we see:
"Although a similar charge...was exposed as a hoax almost immediately afterwards, it was nevertheless revived and widely believed during the Second.1"
Normally, one would say: Where was it? Just cite a reference so that somebody can check it. It is not here.
Q. It is not here in the article you were provided by the Canadian Human Rights Commission?
A. That is correct; it is not. Moreover --
Q. So -- you have not finished, I am sorry.
A. That is all right, Mr. Christie; go ahead.
Q. If there are no footnotes, why do you conclude that what you saw purported to be a scholarly article at all?
A. Because it says at the end of the text:
"We wish to acknowledge that the above article was made available courtesy of the Institute for Historical Review."
Q. So you assume that the Institute is scholarly, then?
A. I assume that the article is a scholarly article in the sense of its form. This is not that article.
Q. If I understand your analysis correctly, you conclude that it might be a tautology, which you say at the end of the penultimate paragraph. You would not say that if you saw the article as a whole.
A. I still think the article is simply re-establishing this information. I would read the article -- I don't think I would read the thrust of the article differently, but I would at least have sources to go to.
Q. Why wouldn't you read the thrust of the article differently?
A. Because the thrust of the article seems to me to say what the last sentence of the article says.
Q. Which is a conclusion.
A. Which is an invitation for a conclusion, yes.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I am sorry, I didn't hear you.
THE WITNESS: I am sorry.
MR. CHRISTIE: It's an invitation for a conclusion.
THE WITNESS: It is an invitation to a conclusion. Let me just go to that.
If you look at the last sentence in the article just above "About the Author" on the fifth page:
"That so many intelligent and otherwise thoughtful people could ever have seriously believed that the Germans distributed bars of soap brazenly labeled with letters indicating that they were manufactured from Jewish corpses shows how readily even the most absurd Holocaust fables can be -- and are -- accepted as fact."
It does not say "how the most absurd Holocaust fable," but it talks about "fables." That is, it invites the understanding of class of such stories.
MR. CHRISTIE:
Q. Are you saying there is no such class?
A. I don't know if there is a class of fables or not, but the invitation is provided.
Q. Maybe, as you put it, the argument goes through, then. If you don't know that the conclusion is false --
A. No, that is not the point, Mr. Christie.
Q. Oh, I see. Can you tell me what the point is?
A. The point is that the article is used as a token for a class stipulated to exist, namely, Holocaust fables, and the suggestion is that, if this particular Holocaust fable, absurd as it is, is false, then others may well be false as well.
Q. And you say there is a flaw to that reasoning, do you?
A. I say that the stipulation is that there are others of this absurdity.
Q. And are you saying that that is not true?
A. I am saying it is not evident.
Q. It is not proven?
A. That is right.
Q. Why is it not proven?
A. Because the argument is the argument from the part to the whole.
Q. Yes. Isn't that a valid argument at the time?
A. No, not necessarily. Of course not.
Q. Oh, I see. It is not a valid argument to argue that, because something happened in one instance, therefore, it could happen or did happen in other instances.
A. The argument from the part to the whole states that properties associated with the individual token, the part, apply across the board to all other members of the set. That is the argument of the part from the whole, the argument of metonymy.
Q. It is never a valid argument?
A. It may be, but it is not necessarily the case. It may well be the case, for example, that penguins do not have feathers, but that does not mean that all birds don not have feathers.
Q. You say penguins don't have feathers?
A. Penguins don't fly. Maybe penguins do have feathers for all I know.
Q. It does help to know the facts, doesn't it?
A. I would like to know whether penguins have feathers or not, but let us assume the case that penguins do not have feathers.
Q. Now --
A. Excuse me, Mr. Christie, does the argument from the part to the whole make sense?
Q. It is my submission to you that there is no way for you, as a linguist, to tell us whether the argument from the part to the whole makes sense or not. That is a matter of logic. It depends on the fact; it depends on the premises; and it depends on the similarities between the part and the whole, all of which is not something within the field of linguistics, but in the field of logic and in the field of common sense. Isn't that right?
A. Not necessarily, no.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Your analysis of this last phraseology in this article would fall within the category of metonymy?
THE WITNESS: That is right.
THE CHAIRPERSON: In other words, he is dealing with the soap story as fable.
THE WITNESS: Right.
THE CHAIRPERSON: And he pluralizes it.
THE WITNESS: Extrapolating it to other stories.
MR. CHRISTIE:
Q. In your reasoning to the conclusion that the premise might be false, you said:
"If (a) is false, there is no substance to its denial by either Laqueur or anyone else, since it is not informative to assert that an acknowledged piece of fiction is a piece of fiction."
You were simply analyzing that sentence that precedes that paragraph:
"More recently, Jewish historian Walter Laqueur 'denied established history' by acknowledging in his 1980 book, The Terrible Secret, that the human soap story has no basis in reality."
Is that right?
A. I am sorry, Mr. Christie, that was a long passage. Unpack it for me, please.
Q. I said: In your analysis, where you concluded that (a) is false, or if it is false, there is no substance to its denial by either Laqueur or anyone else, since it is not informative to assert that an acknowledged piece of fiction is a piece of fiction, you were analyzing merely the sentence previous that you were quoting.
A. In that instance, yes.
Q. Did you not look at the whole text of the "Jewish Soap" story?
A. Of course I did.
Q. Did it not point to other examples where, in 1941, it refers to U.S. Army Intelligence reports saying:
"The Germans have brought thousands of Polish teachers, priests and Jews there and after extracting the blood serum from their bodies, had thrown them in large pots and melted off grease to make soap --"
A. I read the article.
Q. So he was saying that that was a source of the story in 1941. Right?
A. He said that was a source of the story in 1941.
Q. Then he said:
"Macabre 'Jewish soap' jokes became popular in the ghettos and camps, and many non-Jews on the outside came to believe the story. When trains loaded with Jewish deportees stopped temporarily at rail stations, Poles reportedly would gleefully shout at them: 'Jews to soap!' Even British prisoners of war interned at Auschwitz in 1944 testified later about the wartime rumors that corpses of gassing victims were being turned into soap there."
Did you read that?
A. I read it all, Mr. Christie.
Q. All right. Did you also read that in 1942 Rabbi Stephen Wise, wartime head of the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Congress, publicly charged that Jewish corpses were being "processed into such war-vital commodities as soap, fats and fertilizer" by the Germans?
A. I am following you.
Q. Did you not take that into consideration in saying that there was no support for the premise?
A. I took that into consideration.
Q. So you must have disregarded that or said, "That is not true."
A. No, I took that into consideration.
Q. Why did you say there were no supporting reference points. He gives you the date, the speaker, the substance of the speech. Surely he has given you information that indicates that it was a widely-held view, and he identifies the time.
A. He does that.
Q. Thank you. He then says:
"In late 1942, the Congress Weekly, published by the American Jewish Congress, editorialized that the Germans were turning Jews 'by scientific methods of dissolution into fertilizer, soap and glue.'"
Did you read that?
A. I read it, Mr. Christie. I read the entire article.
Q. Do you still maintain that he was giving no points of reference?
A. I maintain that he was citing no sources.
Q. Reading farther on, skipping a couple of paragraphs:
"After the war the soap story was given important legitimacy at the main Nuremberg trial. L.N. Smirnov, Chief Counsellor of Justice for the USSR, declared to the Tribunal:
'...The same base, rationalized SS technical minds which created gas chambers and murder vans, began devising such methods of complete annihilation of human bodies, which would not only conceal the traces of their crimes, but also to serve in the manufacturing of certain products. In the Danzig Anatomical Institute, semi-industrial experiments in the production of soap from human bodies and the tanning of human skin for industrial purposes were carried out.'"
Doesn't that give you a reference?
A. No. It gives me a quotation; it does not give me a citation. It doesn't tell me where it is from.
Q. You don't know the reports of the main Nuremberg trial?
A. No, I don't.
Q. Do you know that there are books within 100 yards of here that contain that?
A. Mr. Christie, if I were wanting to --
Q. I just -- can you wait for my question? My last question was: Do you know that there are books within 100 yards of here that contain the transcripts of the main Nuremberg trial?
A. No, I didn't know that.
Q. So you call this not a point of reference when a person gives you the name of the speaker, the statement attributed to them and the place where it was alleged to be made. That is not a point of reference?
A. It is not a citation.
Q. It is not a citation; all right.
He then says:
"A human soap 'recipe,' allegedly prepared by Dr. Spanner (Nuremberg document USSR-196) --"
Is that a citation?
A. Where is it?
Q. Actually, he has referred to the main Nuremberg trial, and that is the number for the document.
A. There is no citation to me. Where is it? It is cited, you are right, as exhibit such-and-such.
Q. So is that a citation?
A. If I knew where to find it, it would be.
Q. What difference does it make whether you know where to find it? You might not know anything about where to find it. It's a citation.
A. The point of a citation, Mr. Christie, is to allow the reader to go to the original source and look at that original source, investigate it, do whatever one wants with it, including verifying it. That is the point.
Q. So you have to know what the source is and be able to find it.
A. Let's see if there is a source cited --
Q. Wait until I ask you a question. I am going to put it to you that that identifies the Nuremberg document. It tells you that it is part of the Nuremberg trial transcript and, if you had any knowledge, you could go and find it. Right?
A. Not necessarily, Mr. Christie.
Q. What do you mean, not necessarily? If you had knowledge of where to go and get the Nuremberg trial transcripts, you could find it.
A. I suppose, if I were to go to the library and begin a search for the Nuremberg trial exhibits, I could eventually find it.
One of the points of citations is to facilitate that for readers, so that they do not have to read the mind or whatever of the author. They have a pathway. Let's see if there is a pathway.
Q. Am I interrupting you?
A. No, go right ahead.
Q. You said: Let's see if there is a pathway. I am going to suggest to you that the pathway is identified as the trial transcript of the Nuremberg trials, and the exhibit number is provided: Nuremberg document USSR-196 submitted to the Nuremberg Tribunal.
"Finally, a sample of what was supposed to be a piece of 'human soap' was submitted to the Nuremberg Tribunal as exhibit USSR-393."
Is that a pathway for you, sir?
A. I am looking, if you will just give me a moment. I am looking for the quote in the new exhibit.
MR. TAYLOR: If I can help you, it is at page 219, Doctor.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
MR. CHRISTIE:
Q. To be fair to me, I am asking you to look at the exhibit without the footnotes because I am suggesting that actually, even without the footnotes and on what you looked at, there is a pathway. So, yes, you can look at 219 if you want, but I was going to ask you to tell me why that is not a pathway, why that is not a citation.
A. It is interesting that the preceding paragraph, the Smirnov paragraph, also cites a Nuremberg exhibit, and there is a footnote for it.
Q. At page 219 it says:
"Smirnov quoted at length from an affidavit by Sigmund Mazur, an Institute employee, which was accepted as Nuremberg exhibit USSR-197."
Where is the footnote?
A. At the end of the paragraph. Is that relevant?
Q. Probably to a different matter because there is a lot of sentences between it. If you want to go and look, go ahead.
A. I am looking, and it refers to the Smirnov statement of February 19, 1946. So I presume it is relevant to that paragraph. So the author saw fit to provide us with a footnote telling us where the documents were found and commenting on them in one instance, but not in the next.
Q. Let's say, for the sake of argument now, that you can find that footnotes would have assisted you to verify the content of the text.
A. That is correct.
Q. Let's assume that there is an error or there are no footnotes in the text, which is what you found.
A. I found no footnotes in the text for whatever reason.
Q. If, through content of the text, you could find the documents yourself, using common sense, what is the loss? Does it make the text untrue? Does it make the argument not go through?
A. It does in several instances. I can see that, with respect to the Nuremberg exhibit, with whatever time and effort I might want to engage in, I could perhaps find that. However, in other instances, where information is provided and is stated as fact and not cited with references, I could not find that. I would not have the foggiest idea where to go to get the content of footnote No. 1, for example. So it does not provide that pathway.
Q. All you are saying is that without footnotes it is not persuasive, even though it might be true?
A. No, I am not saying that.
Q. Isn't that what you are saying?
A. No, it is not what I am saying.
Q. Tell me what you are saying, then.
A. I am saying that in the instances where statements are made without citations that I can check as a scholar, that I can check as any academic would want to check, I have to assume that those are assertions, not citations.
Q. So I put it to you that assertions to a scholar are not as persuasive as citations.
A. Assertions of some sorts are not as persuasive if they are not cited.
For example, if we simply go to the example that I was mentioning. the second sentence of the text, the author's comments:
"Although a similar charge during the First World War was exposed as a hoax almost immediately afterwards, it was nevertheless revived --"
And so forth.
If I am reading this -- and I am assuming that the author, for example, provides me with pathways when he or she wants to, but just does not want to bother to give me any assistance in other cases, I am going to treat that with less kind of confidence, I suppose, than if in the contrary.
Q. With less kinds of confidence? Are those your words, "with less kinds of confidence?"
A. With less confidence.
Q. Less confidence?
A. Yes.
Q. Isn't that the same as saying that it is not as persuasive?
A. Not necessarily.
Q. When you say, "I have less confidence in you," doesn't that mean "You are not as persuasive as something else?"
A. I may have less confidence in you for a variety of reasons.
Q. And that results in your not being very persuasive. Right?
A. Not necessarily. It may be; it may not be.
Q. Not necessarily. I say that, logically and necessarily, that in which you have no confidence is not persuasive. Do you agree or disagree?
A. I think that is not a yes/no question.
Q. Can you find books when you get titles and authors? You are a scholar. Can you find books?
A. Can I find books?
Q. Yes. If I tell you the name of the author and the title -- I can find a book. Can't you? If I tell you William Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", I can find the book. Can you?
A. I can find that book. Under the assumption that it exists, I can find it. We share that assumption.
Q. Let's assume that is the case. You could quickly find out if it did not exist, couldn't you?
A. That is an interesting question.
Q. What is the interesting answer?
A. The interesting answer is that sometimes you can't find a book and you still think it exists, or you search for it and you can't find it.
Q. You can't prove a negative. I agree that there could be books that aren't listed --
A. No, I think --
Q. I agree with you. Some books can't be found, that even do exist.
If I was to tell you that William Shirer wrote a book called "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," and he is a supposedly reputable historian and that he has promoted the durable sub-story, you could find that out. That is a point of reference that is not hard to find. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. Have you ever heard of William Shirer and "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich?"
A. Yes.
Q. So, even without a footnote, you could find out if, at least as late as that book, the story was being accepted as --
A. Part of established history.
Q. Yes, part of established history. You could check that.
A. I could check that.
Q. If you, as a scholar, wanted to find out if Ilya Ehrenburg had actually written post-war memoirs, I suppose you could find that out?
A. Where is that, please?
Q. On the next page:
"Leading Soviet war propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg wrote in his postwar memoir: 'I have held in my hand a cake of soap stamped with the legend 'pure Jewish soap', prepared from the corpses of people who had been destroyed. But there is no need to speak of these things: thousands of books have been written about them.'"
If you wanted to find out if Ilya Ehrenburg had written wartime memories, could you not find that out?
A. I could try.
Q. Do you know who he was?
A. No.
Q. It says:
"A standard history studies textbook used in Canadian secondary schools, Canada: The Twentieth Century, told students that the Germans 'boiled' the corpses of their Jewish victims 'to make soap.' The Anatomy of Nazism, a booklet published and distributed by the Zionist 'Anti-Defamation League' of B'nai B'rith, stated: 'The process of brutalization did not end with the mass murders themselves. Large quantities of soap were manufactured from the corpses of those murdered.'"
If you wanted to find out about Canadian secondary school textbooks and whether that statement was true, would that be difficult? He gives you the name of the textbook --
A. I am sorry, I don't follow the passage. Can you just refer me to it, please.
Q. Okay.
"A standard history studies textbook used in Canadian secondary schools, --"
A. No, I am asking where it is.
THE CHAIRPERSON: He is asking for the page.
MR. CHRISTIE:
Q. I am sorry, it is the next page. I just turned the page of the text that I was given. It is apparently printed off at 10:27, I guess.
MR. TAYLOR: It is the third one from the end, if I can be helpful.
MR. CHRISTIE:
Q. It has the number in the lower right-hand corner, 10:27. I am looking now at the second paragraph from the top.
A. Thank you.
Q. As a scholar, it would be, I suggest, quite easy to find the book called "Canada: The Twentieth Century?"
A. Yes, it would.
Q. If there were references, they usually have an index in textbooks, and you could probably find any references to the Holocaust and look to see if that is true.
A. I could look and see if that is true.
Q. And you could contact the Anti-Defamation League to see if they had published a booklet called "The Anatomy of Naziism" and if it was in there?
A. Could I do that?
Q. Yes.
A. I suppose I could.
Q. So there is enough information there for you to check those statements?
A. There is enough information in the citations that you suggested to do that; that is correct.
Q. If that was true, that those statements were made, it would be true to say that this was a part of established history, wouldn't it?
A. At the time. People were asserting it at that point.
Q. So, as we get up to the present time, 1981, is that a relevant period of time for the statement that it is established history for you?
A. I don't know.
Q. What constitutes established history is anybody's guess, isn't it?
A. No, I think it is not anybody's guess.
Q. It would be a historian's guess.
A. A historian's guess.
Q. And there are many different historians. Right?
A. There is a whole lot of historians.
Q. It says:
"A detailed 1981 work, Hitler's Death Camps, repeated the soap story in lurid detail."
I agree that there is no author attributed there, but there are indexes of titles that you could check for that?
A. Yes.
Q. And it gives you the reference there that
"'some historians claim that the Nazi manufacture of soap from human fat is just a grim rumor'"
I guess it does give you the name of the author.
"Konnilyn Feig nevertheless accepted the story because 'most East European camp scholars ... validate the soap stories, and other kinds of bars made from humans are displayed in Eastern Europe -- I have seen many over the years.'"
You have the name of the author, the date of the publication and the title, and some quotes. That would give you enough to check, wouldn't it, without the footnote?
A. If I were to submit that paper or something like this with the title and author and quote and not cite the work, it would not be accepted.
Q. It would be a serious failure for any scholarly student.
A. That is right.
Q. Because professors don't like to have to check by research of their own.
A. No, that is not the reason.
Q. "New York Rabbi Arthur Schneier repeated
the tale at the opening ceremony of the largest Holocaust meeting in history. In his invocation to the 'American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors,' held in Washington in April 1983, the Rabbi solemnly declared: 'We remember the bars of soap with the initials RJF -- Rein jüdisches Fett, Pure Jewish Fat -- made from the bodies of our loved ones.'"
That is something you couldn't check. Right?
A. I could not check the source in which it was published; that's right. If it was a speech and not published, I could not check it. If it were published, I could.
Q. You would have to know where it was published in order to ascertain if that was true.
A. That is right. May I just inquire if that footnote is here?
Q. That is a good question. Go ahead.
Yes, it is footnote 26, so it gives you a footnote there in the published article from The Journal of Historical Review. It cites:
"This writer was present at the opening ceremony held at the Landover, MD., Capital Center, on Monday evening, April 11, 1983. Schneier was Rabbi at Park East Synagogue, New York City. The crowd of some 15,000 was later addressed by President Reagan."
So we couldn't really check that one, could we?
A. No, we could not.
Q. You have to take the author's word on that.
A. That is right.
Q. And that is supposed to be a Mr. Mark Weber. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. If you want to reach him, I suppose the implication of the article seems to be that you contact the Institute of Historical Review. Is that a fair inference?
A. Yes, if I wanted to contact him,
Q. Is that an inference that you would derive from --
A. No, I am just reading the business at the bottom, which says that he is the Editor of The Journal of Historical Review. I presume I would have access to him.
Q. In this reference to Walter Laqueur in the next paragraph, it says:
"More recently, Jewish historian Walter Laqueur 'denied established history' by acknowledging in his 1980 book, The Terrible Secret, that the human soap story has no basis in reality. Gitta Sereny, another Jewish historian, noted in her book Into That Darkness: 'The universally accepted story that the corpses were used to make soap and fertilizer is finally refuted by the generally very reliable Ludwigsburg Central Authority for Investigation into Nazi Crimes.'"
That gives you an identity for the denial of that story, does it not?
A. It gives me an identity?
Q. A point of reference, I guess, not a citation. You could find out if that is true. With the name of the author and the title of the book, you could find that quote, couldn't you?
A. Yes, if I could find the book, I could find the quote.
Q. It says:
"Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of modern Jewish history, similarly 'rewrote history' when she confirmed in 1981: 'The fact is that the Nazis never used the bodies of Jews, or for that matter anyone else, for the production of soap.'"
That clearly gives you the name of the person and the speaker, although it doesn't say where. Right?
A. That is correct.
Q. It says:
"In April 1990, professor Yehuda Bauer of Israel's Hebrew University, regarded as a leading Holocaust historian, as well as Shmuel Krakowski, archives director of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust center, confirmed that the human soap story is not true."
Of course, if you want to contact those institutions through the Internet, you could do it instantly, couldn't you?
A. I don't know if I could. I could try. I don't know if I would be successful.
Q. You could find out if it is true that Yehuda Bauer had alleged that the stories had been circulated by the Nazis. You could check that by speaking to him. You could find him. Right?
A. Perhaps I could; I don't know.
Q. He is identified as the professor of Israel's Hebrew University. Universities are in touch through the Internet, aren't they?
A. The point of the citation, of course, is to facilitate that.
Q. I understand. The difficulty with this article is that, without the footnotes, it is difficult to do the basic research as to whether there is a valid thesis or not.
A. That is right. That is why I presume. incidentally, that in this version the footnotes are included.
Q. Certainly. What is otherwise a scholarly work has been stripped of its scholarly authentication. Is that not correct?
A. Yes, it has.
Q. In analyzing the conclusion, which I suggest you do not accept or which you suggest is an invalid conclusion, that this demonstrates that other Holocaust fables have been too easily accepted -- that, I suggest, is the conclusion that you do not agree with.
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. Is it the case that, if the British government and others had circulated these stories, it would be official history at that time?
A. Sure.
Q. The time when the story was official history is identified in the article, isn't it?
A. Is it?
Q. Yes. I will tell you why and how it is identified. It is identified by virtue of the time when it is declared. I mean, most people in a frame of reference know when the Nuremberg trials happened, don't they, in our modern frame of reference?
A. About.
Q. It says:
"In 1948, for example, four such bars wrapped in a funeral shroud were ceremoniously buried according to Jewish religious ritual at the Haifa cemetery in Israel."
That tells you when. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. "[In] 1943, two prominent representatives
of the Moscow-based 'Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee' toured the United States and raised more than two million dollars for the Soviet war effort at a series of mass meetings. At each of these rallies, Soviet Jewish leader Solomon Mikhoels showed the crowd a bar of soap that he said was made from Jewish corpses."
At least, it tells you the time when these stories were circulated.
A. Yes, it does that.
Q. It goes on to say that around 1980 this story has been --
A. Questioned.
Q. Yes, questioned, although as late as 1983 rabbis were publicly declaring, according to this, that "we remember the bars of soap with the initials", et cetera, "made from the bodies of our loved ones."
A. At least one.
Q. Sorry...?
A. I said that one was, not rabbis in general.
Q. Not all rabbis; I don't suggest that it says that.
A. I understood you to say that, Mr. Christie. I just wanted to be clear.
Q. I hope I didn't say that. If I added an "s" to that, I apologize. I meant to say singular.
It does the give the details of 1981 books that published this story. They are fairly contemporary. It gives you at least the time.
A. So there is an overlap. I think you are suggesting that there is an overlap between the time that the stories were accepted and the time when they were starting to stop being accepted.
Q. Some overlap.
A. Yes.
Q. What I am suggesting is that it would not be a fair analysis of this article to say that it did not give you any point of reference when the story was current. It gives you the dates when these alleged repetitions of the story occurred.
A. It gives some.
Q. For example, it quotes in 1946, in 1948, up to 1981, and covers many dates in between.
A. It offers those. It does not cite them.
Q. I understand the criticism that it does not provide the method of verifying them. In that regard, it is a difficult thesis to verify. Is that a fair statement?
A. That is a fair statement, yes. It is a difficult thesis to verify. In fact, it is impossible to verify in a couple of cases, it seems to me.
Q. In an ordinary discourse people frequently assert what they believe to be the case without providing all of the methods of verification. Is that common parlance?
A. That is common parlance, if there is reason to believe that it is shared information, or whatever.
Q. A lot of our history and knowledge of these matters, such as the Holocaust, is shared knowledge, isn't it?
A. I don't know to what extent that is true. For example, I don't know the dates of the Nuremberg trials.
Q. But I suggest that most people understand that they happened shortly after the war.
A. Yes.
Q. And most people understand the term "Holocaust" and what it means, do they?
A. I assume so.
Q. If they don't, then nobody is particularly misled when the term "Holocaust fables" is used as opposed to "fable;" are they? If they don't understand what that means, there is no effect.
A. The effect is attributing fable status to the Holocaust.
Q. To some fables. They are qualified as the most absurd Holocaust fables. Are those not qualifying words, "even the most absurd Holocaust fables?"
A. Right. What are they?
Q. They are not identified, I agree with you, but, if they are not identified and nobody understands what that means, how can there be any effect?
A. The effect comes from the argument of the part to the whole.
Q. Wouldn't the Holocaust fables that are being presented as most absurd, in the mind of the logical reader, be similar to the soap story?
A. I don't know. I don't know anyone --
Q. Let's say you present a thesis and you use the example of the soap story as an absurd story, and you say that there are other absurd stories. Would it not be a logical inference for the ordinary person to derive, which would be linguistically justified, to assume that the Holocaust fables or other stories that are referred to are similar in nature to the soap story?
A. That is the assertion. That is the implication of the statement.
Q. But, logically, when someone who knows nothing about Holocaust stories, whatever they may be, receives this information, I suggest that they are going to assume, "He is talking about soap stories, and I take it that there are other similarly absurd stories."
A. That is right.
Q. But that does not necessarily apply to persecution of Jews, suffering of Jews. It doesn't necessarily invalidate --
A. It is an open variable, and we don't know what it applies to, do we?
Q. No, but there is a certain logical process when you use an example such as the soap story. I put it to you this way: The logical processes that most people would derive from this language is that he is talking about types of stories like soap stories.
A. Yes.
Q. So I don't necessarily take what he is saying to apply to the persecution of Jews, concentration camps --
A. I don't know. Perhaps one could or couldn't, depending upon what -- suppose I were an individual who knew nothing about this and was told about a variety of stories. I would have to make some judgment as to whether they were fables or not, wouldn't I, to be associated with this category?
Q. That's right. If you were relying on what this article said, he is not talking about a variety of stories; he is talking about one story that turned out to be absurd, and a grizzly, horrible story.
A. Yes.
Q. Would you, therefore, logically derive any suggestion or influence or persuasive impetus to apply that to things that are not absurd?
A. It may well be the case that some would and some would not. Some hearers would, and some hearers would not, depending upon --
Q. Let's take -- I am sorry.
A. Depending upon what the hearer's presuppositions and biases or lack of biases or whatever might be.
Q. I understand that. People can take things in a number of ways, depending on the predisposition. I understand that.
Let's take a logical, neutral person, a person without bias, for the sake of this argument. Is there any reason to believe that reading this article would cause them to infer that the most absurd Holocaust fables would be different in kind than soap stories?
A. No, but the invitation here is to treat them as the same in kind.
Q. Yes, to treat them as the same in kind. Therefore, the conclusion you draw about soap stories is applicable to other absurd stories.
A. That is the assertion, yes.
Q. And that invites a person, logically, to apply skepticism to their receipt of Holocaust stories.
A. That is right.
Q. It invites them to be skeptical and to apply common sense, does it not?
A. It invites them to view other Holocaust stories as fables.
Q. Not all other Holocaust stories, does it? It says "even the most absurd Holocaust stories."
A. The individual then would have to determine what he or she considered to be absurd.
Q. Right. The individual would then have to apply their judgment to assess whether a story is absurd or not.
A. That is right.
Q. So, in the end, that is the effect of this linguistic analysis or the propositions that are presented by this story.
A. Say it again, please.
Q. That is the end of the linguistic analysis of the proposition that is presented by this text.
A. Sorry, what is the "that," Mr. Christie?
Q. What we just stated, and I will repeat that.
A. Please.
Q. That is that the conclusion the reader is being invited to adopt is the conclusion of skepticism towards absurd Holocaust fables. Is that right?
A. The conclusion that the reader is invited to adopt is that Holocaust stories can be fables.
Q. Yes, that is right, can be fables. Is that a state which invites a reader to what I would call skepticism?
A. Yes.
Q. Of course, is it possible to assess how a person is going to receive a message without consideration for their psychological predisposition, their biases, their previous experience and all the many things that go to make up each of our mindsets? Generally, that is a given in linguistics?
A. It is a given in life.
Q. In life. If we were to take a reasonably unbiased, neutral source, who had no prior dispositions to belief or disbelief about the Holocaust, that would be the end result of what they are being told by this article.
A. "That" being...?
Q. To be skeptical that there can be Holocaust fables.
A. To treat Holocaust stories as if they were fables.
Q. I don't think that is fair. I think the last time we went around this you said that they could be fables. I think, in fairness -- we will go back, but I think, in fairness, it would be right to say that what the article speaks of is the most absurd Holocaust fables and, in doing so, it is not asserting that all Holocaust stories are fables.
A. That is right.
Q. It is not asserting that.
A. It is not asserting that.
Q. And the end result is to invite the reader to apply skepticism or to look with critical faculties on Holocaust stories.
A. The effect is to invite the reader to treat other Holocaust stories as possibly fables.
Q. Possibly as fables.
A. Yes.
Q. But that is an assertion -- not an assertion, but advice perhaps that it properly applied to all kinds of things that people receive, isn't it? Isn't that a proper state of mind for a person who is assessing history, for instance?
A. I don't know what you mean, Mr. Christie.
Q. A proper state of mind. I guess I can't ask you to answer that as a linguist, but isn't that what we all do as scholars?
A. I don't know what you are asking me, I am sorry.
Q. Do not all scholars who approach a subject with the appropriate scholarly attitude approach what information they are given skeptically?
A. Yes.
Q. We do not, if we are rational, intelligent scholars, accept at face value anything that we read, even if it is presented to us as a scholarly treatise.
A. Actually, we do accept many things that are presented to us in scholarly treatises --
Q. At face value?
A. In terms of whatever the current evidence is with respect to those issues.
Q. Okay.
A. For example, if one were reading a treatise on cosmology, and one referred to the "big bang" or something to that effect, which currently, I presume, is a widely-held view --
Q. Let's take it that it is perhaps.
A. Let's take it that it is perhaps. -- then we would not treat that necessarily with skepticism. We might, but it might not be an issue at all in the article.
Q. That applies to currently accepted views.
A. Yes.
Q. But if we are dealing with even that issue, the example you give, surely a scholar who is advancing any new theories or far-out ideas or absurd stories should be viewed skeptically.
A. That's right, and typically are.
THE CHAIRPERSON: We will take our morning break.
--- Short Recess at 11:29 a.m.
--- Upon resuming at 11:48 a.m.
MR. CHRISTIE:
Q. Before we move from this subject for a moment, in the last paragraph of this article entitled "Jewish Soap," it says:
"The 'human soap' story demonstrates anew the tremendous impact that a wartime rumor, no matter how fantastic, can have once it has taken hold, particularly when it is disseminated as a propaganda lie by influential individuals and powerful organizations."
Is that not the conclusion of the article, the logical conclusion?
A. If that were the conclusion, I think the next sentence would not be necessary.
Q. Would be what?
A. Would not be necessary.
Q. The next sentence, I suggest, is just a comment on the conclusion:
"That so many intelligent and otherwise thoughtful people could ever have seriously believed that the Germans distributed bars of soap brazenly labeled with letters indicating that they were manufactured from Jewish corpses shows how readily even the most absurd Holocaust fables can be -- and are -- accepted as fact."
Isn't that just a comment on the fantastic nature of propaganda?
A. I think it is more than that.
Q. You say that because of the "s" on "fables?"
A. Not exclusively.
Q. I suggest it would be correct to say that this must be the most absurd Holocaust fable. Wouldn't that be a fair statement?
A. I don't know if it is or not, Mr. Christie.
Q. That's a fair statement. But it represents an absurd story which has been refuted. Right?
A. It represents a story which has been refuted.
Q. So you don't accept the adjective "absurd?"
A. Not necessarily. The reason I do not is because it is conceivable, I presume, that such an atrocity could happen, even though it presumably did not in this case.
Q. So you do not agree with the author's conclusion that it is a fantastic story that Germans distributed bars of soap brazenly labeled with letters indicating that they were manufactured from Jewish corpses? That is not what would fit within the definition of "absurd?"
A. I am trying to follow you. "That so many--" Is that the paragraph?
Q. That is right.
A. What was your question, please?
Q. I am just trying to figure out why you would not consider that absurd. I guess you said it was because it was possible.
A. Some things that I presume we might consider absurd might be possible; that is right.
Q. So the fact that it is possible does not mean that it is not absurd. Lots of absurd things are possible.
A. Lots of absurd things are possible, correct.
Q. What I am suggesting is that in applying our usual faculties of discernment to the story on its face defines it as absurd, in common sense, doesn't it?
A. No, I don't think so.
Q. So it is not absurd, in your view, that Germans would make bars of soap out of human beings and label them as coming from Jewish corpses? That is not absurd?
A. I tried to explain why I thought that was not absurd. It is because --
Q. It is possible.
A. It is possible, distasteful as it is.
Q. I thought we decided that just because a thing is possible does not mean it is not absurd. In fact, we discern between what is possible and what is absurd using common sense. That is a faculty that you must accept as part of the normal reader.
A. The distinction between what is possible and what is absurd...?
Q. Is decided by people with common sense.
A. Clearly, that is not the case in the story because at some point apparently many people with common sense believed the truth of the story.
Q. And that is what amazes the author. Isn't that what he is saying?
"The 'human soap' story demonstrates anew the tremendous impact that a wartime rumor, no matter how fantastic, can have once it has taken hold, particularly when it is disseminated as a propaganda lie by influential individuals and powerful organizations."
Isn't he saying --
A. He is amazed.
Q. Yes, he is amazed. He says it is absurd and it is amazing that it was believed, but it indicates how credulous -- is that the right word, credulous?
A. I don't think so. Go ahead, sorry.
Q. How easily deluded people can be. Isn't that what he is saying?
A. That is what he is claiming, yes.
Q. Is it your position that the use of the term "fables" is a hint that implies that there is no reason to believe a lot of other stories, some good ones and some bad ones?
A. If they are brought into the set of fables--
Q. But they were not. In this article, never was anything brought into the set of fables other than soap stories. Right?
A. But the assertion is that there are other fables.
Q. That's right, and that these fables are still a current problem. Right? He seems to imply --
A. Does he say that? I don't think --
Q. No, I am wondering if you think that is what he is implying. It doesn't seem to imply that it is necessarily a modern phenomenon, does it?
A. No, that is true.
MR. CHRISTIE: I just want to ask you if you are familiar with this general subject of history -- and I am going to give copies to everybody that I can.
Could that be made the next exhibit, please.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Could I see it before we mark it?
MR. CHRISTIE: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRPERSON: This purports to be a copy of a publication in The Jerusalem Post. Is that what it purports to be?
MR. CHRISTIE: Yes, sir, May 5, 1990.
THE CHAIRPERSON: You are just using the document to cross-examine this witness?
MR. CHRISTIE: Yes. I am going to suggest that it demonstrates the context of historical debate, and I was going to suggest to the witness that he needs to know the nature of this controversy to assess the meaning of the words -- that it is part of the context. That is basically what I am trying to do.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Before we mark things as exhibits, I like to see what purpose the document has in the fabric of the evidence. We will decide later whether we will mark it.
MR. CHRISTIE: Very well.
Q. I have not given you a copy of this.
A. No.
Q. I am just giving you a copy of an article entitled "Nazis never made human-fat soap." It is May 5, 1990, in The Jerusalem Post. I have given copies to everybody.
Would you like to look at that for a moment before I ask you about it?
A. Am I allowed to do that?
Q. As far as I am concerned, you are, and I think you should be allowed to. I don't think anyone is going to object.
Have you read it?
A. Yes.
Q. In order to assess anything that purports to be historical analysis, do you need to know the historical context to determine if it is written with some sinister intent or whether it is part of an ongoing debate?
A. I suppose, but I am not a historian, Mr. Christie.
Q. No, I am not asking you as a historian. As a linguist, in order to assess the meaning and impact of any given text, do you have to see it in the context of the debate, if any, that may or may not be going on?
A. Not necessarily.
Q. To give you an example, if you have someone who is involved in debating with themselves as to whether the earth is flat today, it really would give you quite an insight into their state of mind and the impact, if any, of what they wrote because there are not too many people advancing that theory and it is not really seriously considered. In fact, it would be seen as a joke. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. But if there is an ongoing debate about some real historical controversy or there is some ongoing doubt about it or confusion, then the writer's statement is seen in that context perhaps from a more sincere or less frivolous context. Would that be a fair statement?
I should rephrase my question. In such a state, the text will be seen as having more likely serious impact. Would that be a fair statement?
A. I don't know, in general, if that is a fair statement or not. It may be.
Q. To put this writing that you have analyzed in context, would you need to know or would it have any bearing on your analysis of it to know that it is in a current context, that there are still circulated stories that purport to be history, claimed to be true, that say that the Germans made soap out of Jewish fat?
A. Would that help me to know that?
Q. Would it help you to know and to assess the impact and significance of any text that deals with that subject?
A. No.
Q. It wouldn't. You say, then, that it does not matter whether anybody is talking about the subject or even if it is a serious subject. It doesn't have any bearing.
A. Many subjects that are talked about I might not consider serious, and you might, or vice versa.
Q. I was just wondering whether you would have to know, to assess the impact, significance and effect of any writing, the social context in which it is communicated.
A. Not necessarily.
Q. Does it assist you?
A. It may or may not.
Q. If, for instance, there is an ongoing and current relevant debate about the subject, would it assist you to know the impact and effect of the writing?
A. If I knew that there were an ongoing and relevant debate about the subject, if I were looking at the subject historically or whatever --
Q. I am trying to ask this in a linguistic sense.
A. I think what I would do, if I were assessing something from a domain I know little about, like history, what I would do would be to look at the text I was asked to look at and apply the principles of analysis that I can to that text.
Q. Do you not need the context to ascertain effect and impact?
A. Not necessarily.
Q. Of course, there might be exceptions to the general rule, but surely, if you are to find the impact and effect, which you have been asked over and over again and which in this Tribunal is of some concern, you need to know the context of the whole debate, don't you?
A. Not necessarily.
Q. How can you accurately, fairly, reasonably assess the impact of statements taken in isolation from an ongoing, existing controversy or debate?
A. If I were to see a statement that says, for example, "Jews are criminals, parasites on society, exploiters of others, manipulators," et cetera, and I see that in isolation, that has an impact.
Q. If you see that in the context of being written by someone who has just received a bomb from groups that claim to be supporters of Jewish groups and allies of Jewish groups, would it not be necessary, to ascertain the impact, that you know that, so that you could say, "Well, this is a person who is expressing emotions that I can disregard because I know that this is Ernst Zundel who has had his house bombed or burned." Obviously, you don't take that too seriously. He is just upset.
Would you not need to know that context? Can you assess impact and meaning without that context?
A. Yes.
Q. Impact and meaning on who?
A. The issue, as I see it, is whether or not the statements that I provide an analysis for attribute to groups certain negative properties. If they attribute those negative properties to groups, they invite the reader to accept or reject those. Those statements like the one I just offered are statements regardless of their context as well.
Of course, things are contextualized; they always are.
Q. What we are concerned about is the impact on people in Canada, not people taken in isolation from the context of current events where these aspects of knowledge may be taken to exist.
A. I thought we were concerned about the documents.
Q. We were, but you have led us astray, and we are following a path. I was talking about soap stories. You talk about someone speaking about Jews in a particular way, so I followed your direction. Can you stick with it, or do you want to move back to the soap stories?
A. That's fine; let's stick with it. That was my example.
Q. Are you suggesting, then, that your answers to my learned friend and the example you gave had some relevance to this case? I think they did. Weren't they pointed at some part of the text farther on where you gave those answers?
A. Of course they were.
Q. Are you saying, then, that the expression of opinion you gave should be taken in isolation from all the surrounding circumstances that the average person in Toronto would know?
A. I am saying that the opinions I gave about the passages I wrote are my opinions about the possible effect of those passages.
Q. Possible effect or likely effect?
A. Likely effect.
Q. Why did you say "possible?"
A. Because on some people the effect may well be different. The point, though, is really that the statements are what were analyzed. I am not a historian. I did not go to the historical documents, even if I knew where to find them.
Q. But when you give statements as to the likely effects on the minds of readers, you are not a linguistic expert either; you are becoming a psychologist.
A. You are right, I am not talking about the minds of readers. I am talking about the invitation of readers to respond in various ways.
Q. The invitation of readers to respond in various ways will be affected, in the minds of those readers, by all the other circumstances -- biases, prejudices, presuppositions and prior knowledge they have about the speaker -- won't they?
A. They may be.
Q. You have to know that in order to assess whether they are.
A. You can look at the text and look at the arguments themselves.
Q. You can, but that does not give you the impact on the mind of a reader, does it?
A. It gives you an analysis of the text.
Q. That is a possible interpretation that the reader could make. Is that the best you can say?
A. Presumably in many cases there is more than one interpretation that would be available, like in ambiguous sentences, for example.
Q. And it is only a possible interpretation that a reader could make from the text without looking at the surrounding social circumstances.
A. It is possible to draw those kinds of conclusions. I attempted to do that.
Q. Yes. I am suggesting to you that, in relation to this soap story article, to get back to that, in order to assess whether this article has any impact, likely impact or possible impact, you would have to know whether it was in the mind of a reader in the context of an ongoing debate or not, wouldn't you?
A. I did not assess it in that way.
Q. No. You assessed it in isolation from any prior knowledge of the significance of the text itself.
A. I assessed it in isolation.
Q. But in order to assess the likely impact on any potential reader, you need to know the social context of this text, don't you?
A. Not necessarily. I think I have answered that.
Q. In what circumstance can you give a reasonable prediction of the outcome of this text on any reader without knowing the surrounding social circumstances?
A. If a particular statement or passage or text assembles a certain set of properties with respect to a group, in this instance the origin of the soap stories or the history, then one can draw conclusions from that kind of set of properties or propositions.
Q. One can draw conclusions from anything.
A. No, one cannot draw conclusions from anything.
Q. Are they valid conclusions?
A. They may be.
Q. They may be. Are they?
A. From the soap story?
Q. I didn't think that was what we were talking about.
A. I thought we were sticking with the situation.
Q. I asked you if, in order to assess the likely impact of the soap story on a reasonable or other reader, you would have to know the social context in which they received it. And you said what?
A. I said: Not necessarily.
Q. Then I said: In what circumstances can you predict the likely impact or effect of reading that article without knowing the social context in which the reader receives it?
A. It is conceivable to me that a reader might read the text, this text or any other text, not knowing the existence of such a controversy and, yet, could draw a conclusion from it, under the assumption that there was a conclusion to be drawn.
Q. But to determine if that is likely, you have to know something about the reader and their knowledge.
A. I just provided an example, I thought.
Q. What was that? I didn't hear that.
A. Suppose the reader comes to this situation with no knowledge of the historical facts here, as I would or as others would, or suppose some reader comes to it with some knowledge of the historical facts, the lay knowledge or whatever, or some reader comes to this with a certain set of presuppositions about whatever. Those kinds of conclusions might well be different, so that is why I said "possibly."
Q. Supposing they come with a certain set of presuppositions. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. Don't we need to know what, if any, those presuppositions are?
A. We really cannot know that.
Q. I realize that, but then we can't know the likely effect.
A. We can know the likely effect of asserting some properties about the people or facts. In the text here, for example, the discussion is that the story had a certain history, and that is the point of the story -- that is, the soap story was accepted as part of history and rejected as part of history, and then used as an example of other such fables.
I could draw that conclusion not knowing the history other than what I get from the text.
Q. But, until you accept the premises, it has no effect on you one way or another. In order to establish belief in a reader, you have to accept or reject the premises, don't you?
A. Not necessarily, Mr. Christie; you don't.
Q. Are you saying that, linguistically, you can acquire beliefs without accepting or rejecting premises?
A. People acquire beliefs, presumably, for various reasons.
Q. I suggest that the only reason that they acquire beliefs is because they accept the premises of certain arguments. That is logically necessary to have a belief, isn't it? To reach a conclusion, you must accept or reject the premise.
A. If the beliefs are arrived at through a logical process.
Q. Is it your assumption that people arrive at beliefs through any other process?
A. I think people do arrive at beliefs through other processes, but I am not competent to comment on that subject.
Q. In order to know what the likely effect in terms of belief are, if any, you would have to know whether they developed those beliefs through logic or some other means.
A. Actually, I think, if we look at the text that we analyzed, if I can talk about those, my task and my expertise does not come in terms of psychological beliefs at all.
Q. That is true, isn't it? Therefore, to assess the likely effects on the mind of a reader and their beliefs, we have to go beyond the scope of your expertise.
A. If you --
Q. Did you hear me? We would have to go beyond the scope of your expertise.
A. To talk about the beliefs in the minds of readers, yes, we would.
MR. CHRISTIE: Thank you.
To put this article in context, then, I would like to file that article.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I am sorry...?
MR. CHRISTIE: To put the questions I have asked and the answers given in context, I would like to file that article, if I may.
THE CHAIRPERSON: You can put the proposition to him. This is not evidence. You can put the propositions contained in the article, I suppose, but the article itself is not evidence.
MR. CHRISTIE:
Q. Would it assist you to know that as late as 1990 it was still necessary for Professor Yehuda Bauer to assert and republish that Yad Vashem had disavowed the story and to publicly state that the Nazis never made soap from Jews because they did not have such technology?
A. Would that help me in what, Mr. Christie?
Q. Was it not necessary for you to know that in order to make any assessment of the writing?
A. I did not know that.
Q. Would it have assisted you?
A. If it were part of the writing, it would have assisted me. I was not asked to do a historical assessment of this issue. This document, while it may be interesting, is not germane, as far as I can tell.
Q. Does the relevance of any publication have any effect on the manner in which it is received?
A. The relevance to...?
Q. To the reader.
A. I would presume it would, but I don't know that.
Q. Have any studies been done on whether any writing that is considered by people to be irrelevant has no impact?
A. I don't know that literature. or whether there is any literature.
Q. Is it part of linguistic analysis to determine the impact of writing at all?
A. It is the role of linguistic analysis to construct representations from discourse.
Q. And we have already established that to ask such persons as yourself to predict the effect on the mind of a reader is going beyond the scope of your expertise.
A. I don't think I claimed that.
Q. No, I didn't think you did. I just want to establish that. We all have bounds to our expertise, I think, unless we are super-human perhaps. Some people have greater expertise than others.
I was just wondering if you would accept the proposition that to assess the psychological impact of anything upon a reader is not really within the scope of the expertise of linguistic analysis.
A. It is not within the scope of my expertise. Other linguists may or may not work on such issues.
Q. So it really had no bearing to you, then, that individuals are still in 1997, as late as October 9, trying to sell bars of soap to Jewish organizations for burial. It doesn't mean a thing to you.
A. Not as a linguist.
Q. In relation to assessing this article, it doesn't have any bearing either?
A. Not as a linguist.
Q. Maybe as a historian it might put it in some relevant context. Would that be a fair statement?
A. I don't know. Not being a historian, I don't know.
Q. Dealing with the next item in your analysis, "66 Questions and Answers on the Holocaust" --
THE CHAIRPERSON: That is tab 2?
MR. CHRISTIE: It is tab 2, sir, yes.
Q. Your analysis starts, I think, with the words:
"This document is presented in style which invites the interpretation of factual questions and specific answers, again with a pseudo-scholarly tone."
Is there something wrong with having a pseudo-scholarly tone, or is that just an observation, not a value judgment?
A. It is an observation, yes.
Q. "Like all information seeking questions,
each of the questions presented here carries with it one or more presuppositions. If such presuppositions are not accepted by the reader, the sense (i.e. meaning) of the question and its answer are lost."
Am I to take that sentence to mean that, if the presuppositions are not accepted by the reader, then what follows loses any meaning?
A. That is my intent. That is what I intended to say. If a question is to be made sensible, then the presuppositions that might be associated with it --
Q. Have to be accepted.
A. -- have to be at least accepted or recognized.
Q. If the reader does not accept those presuppositions, the sentence becomes meaningless.
A. It loses its sense.
Q. I.e. its meaning.
A. Not necessarily, but its meaning in that context.
Q. That is what you said: "the sense (i.e. meaning) of the question and its answer are lost."
A. Yes.
Q. In order to assess the impact of even the question, "Can bodies be burned in pits?" we have to know whether the reader would accept that premise and the answer "No," or not.
A. I think we need to talk about presuppositions, if that is relevant to you.
Q. I am trying to get at the basis of your opinion, so yes.
A. Presuppositions are those states of affairs or facts or propositions that must be satisfied in order for the question in this instance to be sensible.
For example, if one says -- take the first sentence: "What proof exists that the Nazis killed six million Jews?" One of the presuppositions associated with that, of course, is that it is the case or it has been asserted that the Nazis killed six million Jews.
Q. So, if that is true, then the rest of the question might make sense. If it is not true -- I guess you don't concern yourself with truth or falsity; you concern yourself with whether the reader accepts the presupposition.
A. Yes.
Q. In this case the presupposition has to be based on common knowledge in society, because there is no information provided.
A. Actually, not necessarily. One can, through Sperber and Wilson's notion of relevance, construct such a presupposition in order to advance the question.
Q. But no one is necessarily going to accept such a presupposition unless their knowledge confirms it.
A. Not necessarily. That is one of the insights that Sperber and Wilson had.
Q. That we accept presuppositions without experience?
A. No, that we construct presuppositions in order to make them sensible.
Q. But we do so on the basis of our experience, don't we?
A. We may or we may not.
Q. Logical people don't create presuppositions without experience.
A. They may.
Q. Sane people?
A. Of course.
Q. Tell me one presupposition that anyone logical would create in a reasonable manner not based on experience.
A. Presuppositions having to do with analytical truth.
Q. Such as...?
A. Such as: Are all bachelors unmarried men?
Q. I suggest that has only sense because of experience.
A. No, it has only sense because of the meanings of "bachelor" and "unmarried men."
Q. And we acquire those meanings through experience.
A. We may.
Q. Sure we do. Dictionaries are just accumulations of experience, aren't they?
A. They may be.
Q. We have not created language without experience, have we? The word "bachelor" has meaning because of experience, doesn't it?
A. Actually, there are those who say that our experience is not what makes our language.
Q. Are they logical?
A. Chomsky is one.
Q. Is he? We will have to ask him.
Are you saying that this statement, "Can bodies be burned in pits? No. It is impossible for human bodies to be totally consumed by flames --" is a presupposition that people would accept or not accept?
A. The presupposition would be: Bodies can be burned in pits.
Q. Can they be?
A. In my mind, they can be.
Q. Where do you get this experience?
A. I imagine it. I have not seen bodies burned in pits.
Q. So it is basically based on imagination that you say that they can be. Right?
A. Sure. I construct that.
Q. You construct that. Do you do it on the basis of any knowledge or experience or just fantasy?
A. I construct it as, I presume, you might as well, on the basis of my knowledge of the notion "burned", "bodies" and "pits."
Q. So if the term was "Can bodies be cremated in pits?" you might have a different presupposition?
A. I might.
Q. So the choice of the word "burned", which could mean just singed, could mean consumed, is an ambiguous term and, because it is ambiguous, you can conceive of it.
A. Sorry, because it is ambiguous I can conceive of it?
Q. Can conceive of it.
A. I can conceive of its ambiguity, yes.
Q. You also said you could conceive of it because you could imagine it.
A. That is what I said, construct it.
Q. Right. But can you construct logically from any knowledge or experience that bodies could be cremated in pits?
A. I know the meaning, I think, of "cremate" and "body" and "pit," and I can put those together to a proposition.
Q. So, in essence, you are saying that you do not believe the premise that this argument presents. Is that it? What are you saying?
A. No, I am not saying that.
Q. Tell me what you are saying.
A. I say that in the answer to the question, "No," before the next sentence, "Can bodies be burned in pits?" the answer is "No, they can't." That is part one. That repeats that presupposition that bodies can be burned in pits, saying they cannot be burned in pits.
Secondly, "It is impossible for human bodies to be totally consumed by flames in this manner because of lack of oxygen" -- the presupposition associated with total consumption by flames is not part of the question.
Q. That is because you took "burned" in a different way than the questioner meant it. Isn't that obvious from the implication of the answer?
A. I have no idea what the questioner meant.
Q. What the questioner meant is explained and qualified in the answer by "It is impossible for human bodies to be totally consumed by flames --."
A. So, if the --
Q. I am putting it to you that any logical interpretation of those two sentences would clarify what the questioner meant by "burned." He meant "totally consumed by flames." There is no confusion there.
A. There is confusion there.
Q. Why?
A. Because "burned" is ambiguous. At the point of the question, "burned" does not necessarily hold the presupposition "consumption."
Q. I agree with you. If you take the question in isolation from the answer, it would be impossible to know exactly what the questioner meant. But I put to you that a logical, reasonable person is provided the answer as to what degree of burning was meant by the answer which says "total consumption by flames." Do you agree with that?
A. No, I don't. I don't see that that necessarily follows.
Q. It doesn't necessarily follow?
A. No.
Q. If you want to make logical sense of the term "burn," then the qualification for that term, the definition of it, or the speaker's sense of it is surely included in the answer. If he meant anything other than total consumption by flames, he would not have used those terms to define what he meant in his answer.
A. I think, if he had meant that in his question, he would have said, as you did earlier in paraphrasing it, "cremated" or something to that effect.
Q. Maybe he used an ambiguous term in his question, but I suggest to you that any logical person would understand from the answer what he meant by "burned."
A. No, I don't accept that.
Q. If you don't accept that, then you must accept that the question is not answered by the answer.
A. The question is answered by the first word of the answer. The answer is "No."
Q. Doesn't the "No" get explained in the next sentence: "It is impossible for human bodies to be totally consumed by flames in this manner because of lack of oxygen?" Doesn't that explain what he meant by "burned?"
A. I suppose one might put that interpretation on it. I certainly did not.
Q. A logical person who had any question about what he meant by "burned" would surely know what he meant by "burned" --
A. So, why -- sorry.
Q. -- when he finished reading the answer, wouldn't he or she?
A. Not necessarily.
Q. Not necessarily. What other meaning do you think a logical person could derive from the term "burned" when the answer includes the definition "totally consumed by flames?"
A. The answer does not define "burned" as totally consumed by flames.
Q. When it says "No" in answer to the question, and then says, "It is impossible for human bodies to be totally consumed by flames," I suggest that it clearly explains what he meant by "burned." Do you not agree?
A. No.
Q. What other meaning do you think any logical person could derive from the term "burned" than what was included in the words "totally consumed by flames?"
A. In the meaning of the word "burned," there is a wide range of possible senses, as you told us.
Q. What other sense do you think that a reasonable person could derive from the term "burned," having read the words "totally consumed by flames?"
A. I think that is not the point.
Q. Well, it is my point, so try to answer it. What other logical interpretation for the term "burned" could any reasonable person derive from the sentences there, having read the words "to be totally consumed by flames?"
A. The meaning that one might derive from that "totally consumed by flames" might be a definition of "burned."
Q. Yes, but I suggest --
A. A definition of "burned." Not a disambiguation of "burned," but a definition of "burned."
If this writer means "cremate", but says "burn," then I have to assume that the writer does not share that ambiguity with me.
Q. What other logical interpretation could anyone derive from reading that sentence -- there are actually three sentences -- than that what the speaker meant was to be totally consumed by flames when he used those words? What other meaning could a logical person derive?
A. I think I just tried to answer that, Mr. Christie.
Q. I don't agree, but I am not going to pursue it because I am sure I will be accused of pursuing it too far. I will leave it to the Tribunal.
You say:
"This question contains two crucial presuppositions: (1) someone claims that bodies can be burned in pits --"
Don't you need to know the context of the debate about the Holocaust to know that definitely some people do claim that bodies can be burned in pits?
A. If I look just at that question, the question and the answer, the question is isolated from the context of the Holocaust --
Q. Is it?
A. Quite irrelevant of the fact that it is here, the question is a question of generalization. It does not say, "Can such and such kinds of bodies be burned in pits?" It is asking a generic question, a general question: "Can bodies be burned in pits?"
The answer to that question is stipulated as: No, they cannot be. Then the answer goes on to say:
"It is impossible for human bodies to be totally consumed by flames in this manner because of lack of oxygen."
It is suggesting that, by being burned in pits, the presupposition is that bodies cannot be burned in pits unless they are totally consumed by flames.
Q. Do you remember my question?
A. I don't know that I do, quite frankly.
Q. My question was: In this question, don't you have to know whether in the Holocaust literature it is claimed that bodies were burned in pits?
A. No, you do not.
Q. You say that the question contains two crucial suppositions: Someone claims that bodies can be burned in pits. If that is a crucial supposition, don't you have to look at the context of the article in which the 41 questions appear --
A. No, you do not.
Q. -- before you can assess whether it is speaking about a subject in which that assertion is made?
A. No, you do not.
Q. I see. Is it true that someone claims that bodies can be burned in pits?
A. That is the presupposition, that someone does make that claim. The claim is made.
Q. To know whether that is a true or false claim, don't you have to know something about the Holocaust?
A. No, you need only to know that that is a presupposition.
Q. How does anyone derive meaning from this unless they know that?
A. They construct presuppositions.
Q. Who does?
A. People do. That is the point I was trying to suggest earlier.
The work of Grice and of Sperber and Wilson, extensive literature there on --
Q. What do they conclude, that people construct presuppositions without knowledge?
A. They do not conclude that people construct presuppositions without knowledge. They conclude that people construct presuppositions in order to try to make sense of a discourse.
Q. But before they accept or reject a discourse, they do logically, if they are reasonable, analyze the presuppositions to see if they are true or false, don't they?
A. Are we talking about Sperber and Wilson or--
Q. I am talking about you and what you just said.
A. No, I don't think we, in our ordinary conversation, ever go to the kind of conscious analysis that the logician might suggest. I think those are descriptions of what the processes might be, just as when we speak --
Q. How do you know that?
A. -- just as when we speak English. We do not analyze every sentence necessarily, as far as anyone has said, in terms of its grammatical structure, but we recognize when the structure is there or not, by whatever processes.
Q. You say:
"-- no reference is given for who makes such claims and no justification is given for the claims, if it exists, that such burning results in total consumption."
Those are questions that are not answered in the text. Right?
A. That is right.
Q. But, generally speaking, if you look at the previous 41 questions, they are answered in those, aren't they?
A. I don't know. I did not look at the previous 41 questions in analyzing that sentence. I looked--
Q. You did not look at the previous 41 questions to analyze if those presuppositions are answered or established in the previous questions. That was your answer?
A. That is correct.
Q. In order to have some significance to the fact that these are unanswered questions, you would have to look at a little bit more than that specific item if the questions are meant to be a train of reasoning. Do you know what I mean by "a train of reasoning?"
A. I know what you mean. I did not perceive the questions as a train of reasoning.
Q. You didn't perceive the questions as a train of reasoning; all right. Let me suggest that they are a train of reasoning. Of course, you understand, as I understand, that, logically, trains of reasoning can be broken if any of the chain links are missing or weak. Is that the way you think?
A. If links are missing or weak, we have choices other than to break the chain. We have the choice of making assumptions if the chain is viable.
Q. We could do many things, couldn't we, Doctor?
A. We could do that. What else we can do is not the issue.
Q. It is just one of many things that we could do, isn't it?
If we go back to the questions about the existence of a "Hitler order," you did not consider that?
A. I read it. I did not consider it.
Q. Did you look at the previous question, Question 40?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Did that endeavour to suggest who had made claims that bodies were burned in pits?
A. Yes, it would.
Q. So, in answer to the first question that you said was a presupposition, that someone claims that bodies can be burned in pits and that such burning would result in total consumption, you say:
"Note that no reference is given for who makes such claims and no justification is given for the claim, if it exists, that such burning results in total consumption."
If you looked at Question 40, at least it gives you the reference as to who makes such claims, wouldn't it?
A. It does make that, if I looked at that question.
Q. I gather you didn't.
A. I looked at all the questions. I considered this question in isolation.
Q. Isn't that the danger of considering questions in isolation?
A. It is not necessarily the danger. The question is posed as a generic; it is not posed as a specific.
Q. If we are looking at logic and looking at the impact of writing, don't we have to look at it all?
A. Not necessarily.
Q. And answer the questions that you say existed by looking at one sentence, saying that no reference is given for who makes such claims? It is made in the previous line.
A. If I looked at the previous line, I would presume that I should also see some evidence that the claim is made that they were totally consumed by flames.
Q. That's right.
A. But I don't see that.
Q. I am not going to go over that. I suggest to you that a logical person understands, when they read the answer, that what the questioner meant was total consumption by flames. You say that is not necessarily so. That's fine. We will just leave it at that.
It is very clear, without changing the subject in my question, that the immediately preceding sentence says:
"Some Jewish 'death camp' survivors say they saw bodies being dumped into pits and burned. How much fuel would have been required for this?
A great deal more than the Germans had access to, as there was a substantial fuel shortage during the war."
So we agree that the first presupposition is answered by the previous line. Is that right?
A. The presupposition of the question taken in isolation is not.
Q. No, you take a question and answer in isolation from all other questions and answers, and the presuppositions will not all be contained in the material available.
A. Right.
Q. I see. We don't know if the reader is going to accept these presuppositions from whatever source, either the previous sentence or not, do we?
A. In order to make sense of the questions, the presuppositions need to be accepted.
Q. Yes, but were they accepted or would they be accepted by a reasonable reader?
A. I don't know.
Q. They could be seen as illogical; they could be seen any way that the reader was either predisposed themselves to see it or they might be viewed as incoherent.
A. That is right.
Q. To assess what, if any, effect the series of questions has, not taking one in isolation, you would have to do some kind of psychological experiments.
A. I don't know if that is the case or not. I don't know --
Q. Surely, by any -- sorry.
A. I don't know what we would have to do.
Q. Isn't that logical, though? To assess this, don't you have to test it on a wide variety of people?
A. To test what?
Q. This writing, to determine what effect, if any, it has on their state of mind and emotions.
A. By that, you mean this document?
Q. That is right.
A. Yes. If I wanted to test what effect this had on somebody's mind or emotions, I would presume that someone would have to carry out such a test.
Q. You then move to Question 47:
"If six million people had been incinerated by the Nazis, what happened to the ashes?
That remains to be explained. Six million bodies would have produced many tons of ashes, yet there is no evidence of any large ash depositories."
I am looking at your text, sir. I was actually reading from your opinion at page 6.
You say:
"This question presupposes that the Nazis did incinerate six million people."
In order to know if that is a valid premise or presupposition, you have to know something about the Holocaust, don't you?
A. No. All you have to know to interpret the question -- if I say, "If six million birds had been scratched by the aardvark," in order to make sense of that, I would construct a presupposition along those lines.
Of course, if the word "Nazi" is used, there is going to be a some sort of presumed association, but I would not have to know that.
Q. But, really, to make sense out of this statement, the reader would have to know something about the subject of the Nazis and six million people, something about the Holocaust.
A. No, I am trying to suggest that that is not the case.
Q. Okay. You gave an example, and let me deal with that.
A. Not a very good example.
Q. I know, but any other example which involves some presupposition of an esoteric nature about which the reader knows nothing is going to result in the reader saying, "What is this? Aardvarks? I don't know what he is talking about." That is going to be the result.
A. If the structure of the question -- I will just try this and see if I can make it clear.
Q. Go ahead.
A. If the structure of the question as to what happened to the ashes and why, if X, then the presupposition has to be X. In other words, for the question to make sense, if the question is, "If some proposition, then some other proposition," in order for that question to be sensible, one must accept that proposition.
Q. Right. And to accept the proposition that six million people had been exterminated by the Nazis, one would have to have some --
MR. FREIMAN: "Incinerated," please.
MR. CHRISTIE: Not exterminated?
MR. FREIMAN: The issue that you are dealing with with the witness, I believe, is on the issue of incineration.
MR. CHRISTIE: Yes, I agree. Thank you.
Q. If that was not a subject with which somebody who was reading this had some knowledge, it would make no sense to them.
A. I am saying quite the contrary, that one does not have to know, in terms of the form of the question--
Q. Like a logical syllogism.
A. Not like a logical syllogism; like a construction of a presupposition.
Q. Let me put it this way. No reasonable people accept presuppositions unless it has some relation to something they know about.
A. People construct presuppositions all the time.
Q. Based on experience.
A. Based on whatever -- belief, experience, whatever.
Q. Let's put it this way. On these facts, do you think anyone would pay any attention, if they did not know something about the Holocaust, to the suggestion that six million people had been incinerated by the Martians?
A. I like that. What was the question?
Q. I said: Do you think anybody would pay much attention to this statement if it said that six million people had been incinerated by the Martians?
A. They would pay attention in the following sense: In order to make sense of the question, they would have to accept the presupposition that the Martians incinerated six million people.
Q. That is what I am getting at. If you put that statement to somebody, they would not pay any more attention to you.
A. I have no idea whether they would or would not. I hope they would not.
Q. The only reason they will pay attention to such a statement and accept it is because the common experience of most people is that that is what a lot of people believe.
A. Or at least it is relevant to them in some sense.
Q. Yes, that is what makes it relevant. If it was Martians, the people on the street out there whom you approach with that proposition are going to phone 911 and ask that you be picked up because you are a menace, walking around and talking about Martians incinerating six million people. Right?
A. I don't know if they will phone 911.
Q. Their reaction is not going to be belief or serious consideration.
A. Of course.
Q. So to create some plausibility, this writer is addressing an issue to which most people have a shared experience, namely, the belief that six million people have been incinerated by the Nazis.
A. They may have that shared belief. I can't say that for sure because I don't know that.
Q. I am suggesting that common sense tells us that. Right?
A. You are suggesting that, yes. I am not concurring with that.
Q. If the majority of people did not have within their common knowledge and experience the belief that six million people had been incinerated by the Nazis, who would care what happened to ashes, because it would not make any sense to them at all. Right?
A. No, that is not the case.
Q. That is not the case?
A. That is not the case.
Q. Let me put it another way. If this was not a belief that most people held, there would be less interest in the question, by far.
A. There may be. I don't know if most people hold this belief.
Q. The answer given: "Six million bodies would have produced many tons of ashes, yet there is no evidence of any large ash depositories," certainly invites the reader to investigate the premises that there are no such ash depositories, doesn't it?
A. It may, but it does not lead to the conclusion that --
Q. Six million people were not exterminated.
A. Yes.
MR. FREIMAN: Incinerated.
MR. CHRISTIE: Incinerated, sorry.
Q. You have said:
"-- every serious scientist and historian must logically recognize, the absence of evidence for some X does not imply evidence of absence of that X."
A. No. I said: Absence of evidence is not evidence for absence. Just because the evidence is not available does not mean that there is no evidence, that the evidence for which this proposition is argued does not exist.
Shall I try it again?
MR. CHRISTIE: No, I think I will leave it there.
It being 12:46, maybe we could have a break.
THE CHAIRPERSON: You have run out of questions?
MR. CHRISTIE: Not at all. I have not run out of questions. I won't say any more.
THE CHAIRPERSON: We will break now for lunch. We will come back at 2:25.
MR. CHRISTIE: If you wish me to go for 15 minutes, to the regular time -- I realize what you are saying.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Is this a logical break for you?
MR. CHRISTIE: Yes, I think it is.
THE CHAIRPERSON: We will recess now and come back at twenty-five past two.
MR. CHRISTIE: Thank you, sir.
--- Luncheon Recess at 12:46 p.m.
--- Upon resuming at 2:45 p.m.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Dr. Prideaux, would you step down, please.
--- Witness Withdraws
All counsel have spoken to the Tribunal in chambers, and it has to do with a problem that has arisen in connection with the calling of a particular witness. Counsel for the Commission admits that no notice, as required under the practice direction, of an intention to call this witness has been given to Mr. Christie, but asserts that there are special circumstances with respect to security that apply in the case of this particular witness and that, therefore, he is asking for the indulgence of the Tribunal.
The Tribunal has considered the importance of the particular witness, the general nature of whose evidence he has disclosed; whereas, counsel for Mr. Zundel has pointed out that this is prejudicial because he would need time to prepare cross-examination, which could involve the procuring of certain records.
The Tribunal is interested, of course, in fairness being done to all parties. Subject to further argument, we are proposing that, if Mr. Christie needs time to prepare, that preparation time will be accommodated. If he needs time this afternoon and extending into tomorrow morning, then we will allow him whatever time he needs. We are not entirely precluding the possibility that he will not complete his cross-examination, for whatever reason, by reason of the fluxion of time or by reason of not having a full record. I am not going to prejudge that matter and I am not barring the possibility of a further application.
Having said that, I am urging Mr. Christie and his client to do whatever is necessary to make sure that we can proceed with dispatch with both the hearing of this witness and the cross-examination of the witness.
Mr. Christie, can I hear from you in terms of how much time you do need to prepare?
MR. CHRISTIE: Obviously, in view of the fact that I received notice of this entire matter probably 15 minutes ago, or maybe 20, and I have been in your chambers since, I still do not know precisely what it is this witness is alleged to have to offer.
My position in chambers, as here, is that, depending on what it is, I will certainly need time to obtain documents and information from a variety of sources, some of which are in Florida and some of which are in California, and to gather a good deal of material. This may not be all that germane, and I cannot be sure of how important it is until I see a summary of the evidence proposed to be called. I have not seen anything of that. I have heard about one sentence describing the general thrust of the evidence, allegedly having to do with ownership and control of the Web site. What is to be said I don't know.
Consequently, until I have a clearer picture of what it is the witness proposes to testify to, I cannot agree to go on at any particular time and certainly cannot agree to go on tomorrow with the cross-examination, hearing for the first time such unknown and unidentified evidence. It could conceivably have great significance, but I don't know.
I hope you will understand and forgive my inability to give you a direct answer, because I don't know what we are talking about.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I am going to suggest that we recess and that counsel for the Commission meet with you to discuss the outline of the evidence that this witness proposes to depose to. You can call the Tribunal back when your discussion is at an end.
MR. CHRISTIE: If it please you, sir, I agree that that is the way to deal with it.
In view of the difficulties that often occur when verbal communications are exchanged as to precisely what was said, would it be possible for you to direct that, say, in half an hour my learned friends produce a written summary -- they can sit and do it, and I will wait right here -- of what it is they say the witness has to say? At that time, when I have it, I will be prepared to make a submission somewhat better informed than I am now. There will be no doubt about what I am dealing with and no confusion over what it is all about.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Is that a problem?
MR. FREIMAN: A half-hour certainly would be a problem. We can provide a written outline, I suspect, in about an hour. By this evening we could do something a little more fulsome.
I don't think my friend will be very surprised by what he sees.
While we are dealing with logistics, I wonder if the Panel might consider releasing Professor Prideaux, since it is unlikely that we will be re-commencing his cross-examination.
THE CHAIRPERSON: One problem at a time. How long would it take you to write out an appropriate summary of what you anticipate the evidence is going to be?
MR. FREIMAN: I would think an hour.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I was told in chambers that this was a relatively short witness.
MR. FREIMAN: It is. I don't want to mislead Mr. Christie. I can attempt to do it in a shorter period than that, but, knowing that he will want to rely on whatever the Commission provides to him, I would not want to give him something that was unreliable.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Of course not. We will proceed in that way. You will write out a summary and supply it to Mr. Christie. Counsel will proceed with reasonable dispatch and let us know when the process has ended.
--- Short Recess at 2:54 p.m.
--- Upon resuming at 4:05 p.m.
MR. FREIMAN: I can tell the Panel that I was able to provide Mr. Christie with an outline in about 35 minutes from when we left. Unfortunately, Mr. Zundel was not present, so we had to wait for 30 minutes.
MR. CHRISTIE: Yes. At about 3:36 or 3:37 I got four paragraphs of will-say in, I take it, Mr. Freiman's hand.
This is really a request to discontinue the witness and start another witness on the grounds of urgency, without notice. My position is very simply this.
There is no evidence of any reason for urgency. There is an assertion by Mr. Freiman of some concern for this witness' safety. My client has no criminal record, no record of violence, no criminal record at all. I don't know what the reason for urgency is, but I think it is really actually fantasy of somebody.
There is no evidence --
THE CHAIRPERSON: Allow me to interrupt you for a moment. If we are going to get into the issue of security, I wonder if we should do that in camera, and then we can be in a position to speak frankly about that issue.
MR. FREIMAN: I can just inform the Panel that the individual who was here prepared to discuss that matter was informed that he would not be needed today and is no longer here.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Do you have information that you can share with the Tribunal based on your conclusion?
MR. FREIMAN: I can give the Tribunal conclusions. I cannot provide the Tribunal with the basis on which the individual in question came to those conclusions.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I am going to suggest that we go into camera here. I request that anyone who is not a party or a lawyer involved in the case leave the court room for the time being, please.
--- Whereupon the Hearing adjourned in public at 4:08 p.m.
to resume in camera immediately