"[ Fred Leuchter,Jr.] I became involved... in the manufacture of execution equipment... because I was concerned with the deplorable condition... of the hardware that's in most of the states'prisons, which generally results in torture... prior to death." "A number of years ago I was asked by a state... to look at their electric chair." "I was surprised at the condition of the equipment... and I indicated to them what changes should be made... to bring the equipment up to the point of doing a humane execution." "Beyond making recommendations for changes," "I sat down, on my own time and at my own expense, and made a new design and new equipment... available to the states... utilizing electrocution... at a price far lower than they would have to deal with... if they hired an engineering firm to redesign a specific item." "The equipment is all standardized, it all meets the current electrical requirements for electrocution... and the pricing is such... that it's similar to what you'd pay for an off-the-shelf item, even though it's made up." "They essentially pay for the parts, the labor and the installation, and a 20-percent markup, which is more than fair." "We are testing the electrocution system... here at the Tennessee State Prison." "This is connected to the execution system... in place of the electric chair, and the system thinks that this is a human body." "It consists of a series of heavy-duty resistors... cooled by four fans." "I will now switch on the fans..." "[ Click, Fans Humming ] and begin the cooling process." "We then proceed to the power supply." "We turn on the main circuit breaker." "You can see the voltage has increased to 2,640 volts." "We begin the test at the control console... for the electric chair." "We turn the fail-safe system on to operation." "Power up." "Computer on." "And then I push the button for operation." "The human body is not easy to destroy." "It's not easy to take a life humanely and painlessly, without doing a great deal of damage to the individual's body." "Excess current cooks the tissue." "There have been occasions... where a great amount of current has been applied... and the meat will come off the executee's body like meat coming off a cooked chicken." "The execution must be conducted in two jolts." "In 1/240th part of a second... the first jolt disrupts or destroys the individual's central nervous system." "Current is then applied... for a time approaching one minute." "The adrenaline is being driven out into the bloodstream." "The second jolt now seizes the pacemaker a second time." "There's now no adrenaline left to restart the pacemaker." "The person is dead." "If the voltage does not exceed 2,000 volts... throughout the execution, the individual's pacemaker is not permanently seized." "In some 20, 30 minutes later the individual's heart restarts itself on its own... and the person is now alive again." "They would have to call all the witnesses back, strap the vegetable back into the chair... and reelectrocute him." "There's no difference in a life support system and an execution system." "Uh, the system has to function flawlessly... for the time period that it's operating." "With a life support system, if it doesn't function, the person dies." "With an execution system, if it doesn't function flawlessly, the person lives, but he doesn't live as a human being." "He lives as an injured, brain-dead vegetable, which is probably far worse than being executed." "[ Film Projector Running ]" "[ Film Projector Running ]" "My father worked in the Massachusetts correctional system." "He was a superintendent of transportation for many years, first at the old state prison in Charlestown, and then at the new prison in Walpole, which has now since been renamed Cedar Junction." "As many youngsters do," "I went to work with my father." "I'd been accompanying him to work since I was four years old." "I visited all of the cell areas, including the death house area." "I was in the same room that people like Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in." "I learned a number of things from the inmates that normally would be illegal... but have proved very useful to me in my later life, things like picking locks and cracking safes and" "I learned all kinds of strange things as a youngster." "I came into the execution field... from a back-door standpoint, because I was very concerned about the humanitarian aspects of death by torture, similar to what happened in the state of Florida two years ago... with Mr.Jesse Tafero," "where they actually set the man's head on fire." "Once the chair broke in half in the state of New York, and the individual lay writhing on the floor of the death chamber... crying for 35 or 40 minutes while the carpenters repaired the chair." "They burnt the transformer up." "Fortunately, due to the quick thinking of the prison electrician, they had some cable, they ran some wires over the prison wall... and tapped into the outside power line... without the consent of the power company, but there was no objection later." "They had one execution... where the transformer caught on fire and blew up, and it occurred in such a sequence... that all it did was knock the individual unconscious." "He came out of it with no apparent brain damage, no problem." "Six months later they repaired the electric chair... and they did successfully execute him." "But, I mean, he was very lucky." "He was hit with a full jolt of electricity, the equipment blew up, burned up... and he walked away from it without any damage, not even a burn." "One by one," "I determined that this state's equipment was not functional, this state's equipment was not functional." "Then suddenly one day I said, "None of the equipment is functional."" "Many of the electric chairs were built by inmates and electricians... who had no idea of what they were building." "They took a picture of another state's electric chair and made something that looked like it." "[ Film Projector Running ]" "Tennessee contacted me... with the construction of their new prison." "I was asked to inspect the equipment at the old facility... and make a determination of what could be salvaged." "The only consideration was that they wanted to maintain the electric chair, which they've had in place since 1898." "The reasoning being that the wood from the electric chair... not only had the tradition of all of their electrocution executions, but it also formerly served as the wood of their gallows." "The chair itself... was much smaller than one would expect." "It looked more like it was made to accommodate a youngster... or a woman." "So, we essentially made the chair wider, we made the chair higher." "We supplied them with a completely new power supply... so there's no excessive cooking." "And then finally, because we were unable to match the old wood with the new oak, it became necessary for us to paint the chair... with a special, high-quality epoxy paint, the same basic paint that's used by NASA... on the nose and body of the space shuttle." "[ Steve ] That was back in '89, I believe it was." "At that time I was still in school." "I just remember coming home-- "What is this big box in the front yard?"" ""Well, it's an electric chair. "" ""Oh. "" "Fred and my uncle were here." "They'd come out with the crowbars." "They had to break the box open, unscrew all the parts." "There was an electric chair sitting in the front yard." "It was very unusual, something I wasn't expecting." "I guess Fred was expecting it." "[ Laughs ]" "It was very difficult getting up and down those stairs... with a couple hundred-pound piece of oak chair." "Of course, before we even brought it inside, had to have Fred sit down in it." "Strapped him in-- [ Laughs ]" "I said, "No, thanks. " [ Camera Shutter Clicks ]" "[ Leuchter ] I had processed a couple of rolls of film, photos that I took for engineering purposes-- detail stuff, so you'd know how it looked before you took it apart." "I went through it and said, "What the hell's this?"" "We had a magnifier and we were trying to figure out what was there." "We saw what appeared to be more than one image." "As far as I understand it, certain objects give off auras, and some objects that have been exposed to high-intensity electromagnetic fields... absorb some of that energy and would give off an aura." "I don't know what we photographed." "We don't know if we photographed an entity." "We don't know what's there." "It may still reside in the parts that are in Tennessee." "When I tore the chair apart, maybe it was freed." "I don't know." "That's assuming there was something there to start with." "Because of my work in electrocution," "I was contacted by the state of New Jersey... to consult with them on the construction of a lethal injection machine." "They realized that lethal injection is a difficult, if not impossible problem, even for trained medical personnel." "They determined that there should be some kind of a machine... that could repetitively deliver the necessary chemicals... at the proper time intervals... for all executions." "This completely took the human factor out of it." "I studied for several months, and I put together a proposal on how this machine should work." "The syringe is driven by a weighted piston... that floats on a column of air." "This causes a push-pull relationship... between the machine and the individual's vascular system, and it allows the executee to take the chemical... at a rate that his body and vein will accept." "The doctors were satisfied." "Now they had to make the presentation to the prison officials." "The deputy commissioner was sittin' there through most of the meeting very bored, probably because he didn't understand what I was talking about... most of the time." "But then he finally heard something he understood." "One of the doctors said, "Fred designed the helmet that's used on the electric chair... in the state of North Carolina."" "At that point the deputy commissioner said, "Wait." "Stop the meeting."" "He looked at me and says, "You designed the helmet, the one that they just used?"" "I says, "Yes." He said, "Okay, that does it."" "He turned around to the doctors and he says, "Do the necessary paperwork... and see that Mr. Leuchter gets the contract. "" "Now, what lethal injection has to do with electrocution is beyond me." "Simply because I'm capable of building an electric chair... doesn't mean I'm capable of building a lethal injection machine." "They're two totally different concepts." "[ Beeping ] With electrocution, unconsciousness takes place in 1/240th part of a second." "Gas chamber, within three or four minutes." "And with the gallows it doesn't matter, because you're being dropped almost immediately after being brought onto the scaffold." "None of the procedures require that somebody lay on a gurney for 35 minutes... looking at a ceiling." "You have to have the man immobile." "He has to be unable to move, or else he's gonna damage his arm with the catheter." "But you certainly can make it more comfortable." "You could put him in a contoured chair like they have in the dentist's office." "Then at least he'd be sitting up." "You could give him a television, music, some pictures on the wall... rather than put him in a concrete room." "That's not humane." "Essentially, the states talk with each other." "We immediately got Illinois, and we got Delaware." "They had a hanging problem that they totally were not able to deal with." "They had a gallows that had been stored for 25 or 30 years." "They took it out, they screwed it together and it fell over." "The only thing left that was functional were the hinges for the trap door." "The reasoning here is that I'd built helmets for electric chairs, so I could build lethal injection machines." "I now built lethal injection machines, so I'm now competent to build a gallows." "And since I'm building gallows," "I'm also competent to work on gas chambers... because I'd done all of the other three." "What really makes you competent is the fact that you have the necessary background, you do the investigation, you find out what the problem is and you solve it." "It's not anything different than any competent engineer could do." "The difference is that it's not a major market." "A lot of people are not interested... and are morally opposed to working on execution equipment." "They think it's somehow gonna change them." "As you've probably guessed by now," "I am a proponent of capital punishment." "Uh, I'm certainly not a proponent of capital torture." "We must always remember... and we must never forget... the fact that the person being executed is a human being." "One of the things that I've had to deal with... is the feelings of the people who are doing the executions." "The guards that work with the execution equipment... are generally the same guards that have dealt with that inmate... for the last five, ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty years... while the man was on Death Row." "The warden of the institution... is, in many respects, the surrogate father... is, in many respects, the surrogate father... of the inmate who's being executed." "He sees that inmate maybe five or six times a week." "He's concerned if the inmate is sick, if the inmate doesn't feel well-- the general welfare of the inmate." "Then, at the end of the time, he must take that inmate out, strap him into his electric chair, his gas chamber, strap him into his lethal injection machine... or put a noose around his neck." "Most people think of a hardened criminal and a murderer... as someone who is in a cell and gonna be executed, but these people are really no different than somebody that we work with every day." "The only difference is, the inmate doesn't go home and the guard does." "And now, at the end of this ten or fifteen-year cycle, they now are faced with the task of executing this man... with equipment that's defective, with equipment that's gonna cause pain." "Even with a good execution... you get some burning at the electrodes." "It's a very distasteful thing... for the guard who has to unstrap the inmate from the electric chair... after the execution." "Normally, if we think of a belt with holes in it and the pin that goes through the holes, that guard has to then compress all the flesh and everything on the body." "It's oozing, because it's been cooked." "He has to get the body fluids on his hands." "With the equipment we designed, all of the straps are instant-release." "They're the same as the safety belts in your car." "You hit a button and the strap opens." "Another thing that we do is, our electric chair contains a drip pan." "All executees, during the execution, lose control of their bodily functions." "They urinate and defecate in their pants, on their chair." "This normally winds up on the chair and on the floor directly beneath the chair." "This is a disgusting thing when it occurs." "It's a very inhumane thing to allow a person who's being executed, a human being... who should be afforded the greatest dignity of all because he is losing his life" "It's a disgusting and a degrading thing to allow him to defecate... and, quite frankly, piss on the floor." "Additionally, the urine, when it hits the floor-- and I think everybody knows that urine is highly conductive-- it's normally mopped up." "If there's a second execution or a third execution-- and this sometimes occurs when they have more than one execution at the same time-- the guards in the death house now have to work and stand on a floor... that's dampened and wet... with this highly conductive urine." "Fortunately, there has never been an accident." "But it's quite possible for the urine to conduct electricity and shock a guard." "And nobody should have to place his life in jeopardy... because an execution is being conducted." "This is much the same thing that goes on with the gas chambers." "With the defective equipment that exists, every time there's a gas execution... it's an accident waiting to happen." "There is a major danger of leakage, and I honestly believe and I wish... that those remaining few states that are utilizing gas... would do away with the gas chamber... and go to lethal injection or some other procedure... which wouldn't place in danger the lives of witnesses and prison officials... who have to be at that execution to see that the execution conforms with the law." "Being familiar with all of the four systems that we use," "I would much rather be electrocuted, providing that you were gonna electrocute me on the system that's in Tennessee." "I don't want to be electrocuted in Virginia." "I don't want to be electrocuted in Florida." "I don't want to be electrocuted in Alabama." "I don't want to be Mr. Tafero or have my eyeballs blown across the room." "I'd like the execution procedure to go smoothly." "I have often been asked, generally by some type of adverse party, whether I sleep at night, or how well I sleep at night." "My answer is always the same." "I sleep very well at night, and I sleep with the comforting thought... of knowing that those persons that are being executed with my equipment, that these people have a better chance... of having a painless, more humane and dignified execution." "Been drinking coffee for a long time, since I was, probably, around four or five years old." "Yes, it's still true." "I love coffee." "I think it's running through my veins." "Coffee never bothers the ulcer, but I remember, must be 15, 20 years ago when I went to the doctor" "He was asking me, "How much coffee do you drink a day ?" " About 40 cups. "" "So he's writing it down." ""How much coffee do you drink a day ?" " About 40 cups. "" "He says, "How much coffee do you drink a day ?" And I says, " About 40 cups. "" "He says, "Look, I'm not kidding. " I says, "I'm not either. "" "He said, "Oh?" "How much do you smoke a day ?" I said, " About six packs. "" "He said, "Six packs of cigarettes, 40 cups of coffee a day." "You should be dead by now. " [ Laughs ]" "If I don't drink the coffee, I get headaches." "They're terrible." "My body's so used to the caffeine that it doesn't bother me." "I'm asleep before my head hits the pillow." "Somewhere along the line, she just appeared." "I was a good tipper, and she used to bring me extra coffee." "[ Woman ] I was a waitress, he was a customer." "I was working nights." "He'd come in on his way to the gun club." "He taught me how to shoot." "I have a.22." "This guy Joe asked me if I knew what Fred did for a living." "I said "No, " and he said, "He kills people. "" "That kind of surprised me... until he explained exactly what he did, which wasn't that he killed people, but he made things that killed people." "He was having problems at home with his mother." "She wasn't talking to him, and we just got married." "Because of my expertise in the construction of execution equipment," "I was asked to testify... by the defense team... of Mr. Ernst Zündel, a German national living in Canada for some 20-odd years... who published a pamphlet.:" ""Did Six Million Really Die?"" "[ Reporter ] As in most of his public appearances," "Ernst Zündel arrived at court surrounded by supporters wearing hard hats." "They are bodyguards for a man who says the Holocaust is a myth... and who's prepared to argue that before a judge and jury." "Zündel is charged under a rarely used section of the criminal code... that he published statements he knew were false, statements that could cause racial intolerance." "Forty-five years of undetermined hatred is enough." "The Holocaust is nothing but undetermined hate propaganda... posing as history." "I, with the help of my friends from around the world, Jews and gentiles, am going to finish the Second World War, I guarantee you." "[ Zündel ] We can solve the mystery of the gas chambers... in Auschwitz and all these other places... if we find an American expert, because America is the only country that dispatches people with gas." "You can't open up the phone book and say "gas," then "chamber," then "experts,"" "and out come ten Fred Leuchters." "No, there's nobody." "Fred Leuchter was our only hope." "[ Leuchter ] We were married for less than a month when we went." "Although she doesn't like to hear it," "I normally tell her that was her honeymoon." "That's not a particularly good place to go for a honeymoon, Poland." "Every American, it would have done them good to visit there." "Then they would have appreciated what we've got here." "Specifically, I brought Carol and my draftsman Howard Miller." "Sent with us from Canada... was a cinematographer who videotaped everything we did... and a translator... who's fluent both in German and particularly in Polish." "We were small, but we had everything we needed." "Our first night there we stayed at the Auschwitz Hotel, which, apparently, was the officer's quarters... for the German military at Auschwitz." "They had a cafeteria-style dining area, and our first meal there... was, uh, starch soup." "What they did is, they boiled noodles in water, removed the noodles and served the soup." "It was terrible." "Unfortunately, I received a double portion, because when I wasn't looking my wife dumped hers into my dish." "Good morning." "My name is Fred Leuchter." "I'm an engineer from Boston in the United States, and I'm here this snowy morning at Auschwitz in Poland." "The date is February 28." "It's approximately 10:30 a.m." "I'm here to examine... this alleged gas chamber." "Some people feel it was an air raid shelter." "Other people feel that it was simply a morgue." "And then there are those that feel the structure functioned as a gas chamber... for sending people on their way to their death." "Carol was outside at one of the entrances, essentially freezing." "She was one of our lookouts." "We had her at one door." "The translator was at the other door." "Howard, my draftsman, and myself were inside, taking measurements and recording the locations and bagging the samples, and the cinematographer was making the videotapes." "So everybody was busy at what they were supposed to do." "We didn't have any extra people." "We made paint scrapings and chiseled plaster from locations... that are not immediately noticeable, but still were proper locations for condensation of cyanide gas." "We made detailed scale drawings of the rooms... with arrows showing the location that was removed." "The notebook, videotape and the drawings... were given to the court and became part of the permanent evidence." "[ Man ] Zündel is on trial for publishing false history, for publishing books of Holocaust denial." "He needs to prove... that what others see as false history is true history." "Fred Leuchter is their trump card." "He will be the scientist... who will reclaim from those ruins... evidence that killing didn't happen there." "Holocaust denial, for me, is so revolting, and the way for me not to immediately become sick... of having to deal with Leuchter... was by saying, "Okay, I'm going to map his journey. "" "I have a job to do, and my job, my first job, is to try to understand where this guy was at what time," "to take that tape and record every camera angle-- where it was, what piece of wall they were looking at, where he took the samples." "It was important to be able to follow that trail very, very precisely." "I wanted to see how he had done it." "Sixty-one feet." "Sixty-one feet from the rear wall." "[ Van Pelt ] Leuchter's a victim of the myth of Sherlock Holmes." "[ Leuchter Continues, Faint ]" "A crime has been committed." "You go to the site of the crime and with a magnifying glass you find a hair... or a speck of dust on the shoe." "Leuchter thinks that is the way reality can be reconstructed." "But he is no Sherlock Holmes." "He doesn't have the training." "It was not that he brought any experience, the specific experience needed to look at ruined buildings." "The only experience he had... was design modifications for the Missouri gas chambers in Jacksonville." "[ Carol ] Birkenau I never went in." "I stayed in the car, with no keys, and froze my... whatever off-- feet." "I was in the car for hours." "I brought books to read." "Mystery books." "And crossword puzzles." "I do a lot of crossword puzzles." "I didn't consider it my honeymoon." "Let's put it that way." "I don't know that we ever slept in the same bed while we were there." "I try to forget about going there." "[ Leuchter ] I should note that everything that was done, was done in the best possible taste, understanding that these things are national shrines and national monuments." "The only thing that was a little bit harrowing or frightening... is that I didn't want to get caught." "Unfortunately, you have to make a lot of noise when you're chiseling brick out of walls." "[ Van Pelt ] Auschwitz is like the holy of holies." "I prepared years to go there." "And to have a fool come in, coming completely unprepared, it's sacrilege." "Somebody who walks into the holy of holies and doesn't give a damn." "[ Leuchter ] I expected to see facilities that could have been used as gas chambers." "I expected to see areas that were explosion-proof." "I expected to see areas that were leak-proof." "There have to be holes in walls or areas where they had exhaust fans and pipes." "There has to be something to remove the gas after it's been put into the room." "There has to be some kind of device to heat the chalk pellets... and sublimate the gas to get it to go into the air." "These things didn't exist." "[ Van Pelt ] Auschwitz is very, very different... from the place it was during the war." "Everything has changed three or four times... since that camp operated as an extermination camp." "The barracks are 50 years old." "They're moldy, they smell bad." "It's not a smell of the war." "It's a smell of decay, of 50 years of being exposed to the elements." "There's no way that when you go to the crematoria... you really can understand what it was to be led there as a victim, to have to undress and be led in the gas chamber." "And when you are in the building archive, it is possible to reimagine what the place was like... during the war." "The first time I came into the archive, I was stunned." "I had found a mission." "I had found a task." "I had found a vocation." "When you go to Birkenau there's very little left, and to suddenly have in that room... that concentration of evidence" "There is a tactile reality, an incredible texture, the texture of making that camp." "[ Train Whistle Blows, Faint ]" "If Leuchter had gone to the archives, if he had spent time in the archives... he would have found evidence about ventilation systems, evidence about ways to introduce Zyklon B into these buildings, evidence of gas chambers," "undressing rooms." "But then, of course, I don't think he knows German, so it wouldn't have helped very much." "[ Typing ] 26th of February, 1943," "20 after 6.:00 p.m." "Telegram to Topfwerke Erfurt." ""Send immediately ten gas detectors." ""Invoice us later." "Signed, Pollok, S.S. Untersturmfuhrer."" "" Auschwitz, 6 March, 1943." ""Subject.:" "Crematoria Two and Three." ""In accordance with your suggestion," ""Cellar One should be preheated." "" At the same time, we would ask you to send an additional quotation..." ""for the air extraction installation in the undressing room." "S.S. Sturmundfuhrer Bishof. "" ""31 March, 1943." ""Three gas-tight doors..." ""have been completed." ""We remind you of an additional order..." ""for the gas door for Crematorium Three." ""This must be made with a spy hole..." ""with double eight-millimeter glass." ""This order is particularly urgent." "Signed, S.S. Major Bishof. "" "There was a code." "The Germans had a coded language." "You never talk about extermination." "You always talk about "special action"... or "special treatment. "" "There was a very clear policy." "Words like " gas chamber" would not be used." "The letter of Bishof of the 29th of January... is a kind of exception in this... because it is a letter which is written by a person who manages the whole operation... and who himself had established a policy that you would never use the words "gas chamber."" "Somebody in the architecture office... underlined the word "Vergasungskeller,"" "literally, " gassing basement, "" "and put on top a note" ""S.S. Untersturmfuhrer Kierschnecht, exclamation mark. "" "This means Kierschnecht should be informed... about this slip." "It doesn't occur after that." "The Nazis were the first Holocaust deniers... because they deny to themselves... that it's happening." "When my doubt about the Holocaust first came to me, it took me two and a half years." "I was like a reforming alcoholic." "I was like one yo-yo... back and forth-- believe, not believe;" "maybe believe;" "false belief;, true belief." "Fred was able to purge his own mind... within a matter of a week." "That's amazing to me." "So I said, "Fred, what convinced you?"" "He said, "Ernst, it wasn't what I found." ""It's what I didn't find that blew me away." ""It never, ever occurred to me... that a man could be convinced by something that is not there. "" "That's what Fred said." "[ Coughs ]" "[ Leuchter ] Before I went, I had no idea of their purpose." "I just knew that they were concentration camps." "I knew because I was taught that they had gas executions there." "But I subsequently found out... that the concentration camps were, in effect, slave labor camps." "It doesn't make much sense that they would take an entire force of slave labor... and execute them." "You get into a situation where you start thinking about what happened, you look at the facilities, none of it seems to make any sense." "If I were to take any one of the facilities... and attempt to conduct a gas execution in them today, and the facilities haven't changed at all since 1942 or 194 1, then what, in effect, I'd do is, I'd kill myself and everybody helping me do the execution." "I certainly don't have a death wish, and I don't think the German S.S. had a death wish." "If those facilities could be made competent for an execution," "I would be the one that would be able to do that." "I assure you that nobody could do that better than I could." "[ Van Pelt ] Leuchter has said a number of times... that the place wasn't touched." "Just open your eyes." "You realize that this is utter nonsense." "Virtually every brick, which was located in 1944 in one place, has been relocated to another place." "Where are all the bricks of the crematoria?" "It's an interesting question." "There's some mountain of bricks in Crematorium Five, but for the rest there are no bricks." "I think I know where they are." "The real places to sample are the farmhouses to the west of the crematoria, the farmhouses where people are living, children are playing, dogs are barking." "These were rebuilt after the war with bricks of the crematoria." "This site has been turned inside-out." "What was inside the camp is now outside the camp." "And inside, you have a big void." "We're standing at Krema II... at one of the alleged holes... where the S.S. officers threw in the hydrogen cyanide material." "As you can see, it's a rough-cut opening... with metal reinforcing rods." "I'm about to descend through a hole in the roof... in the gas chamber at Krema II... to retrieve samples from... below the structure." "I was saying to myself, "Fred, do you really want to go down in there?"" "It came with the territory, so I had to go down in the hole." "Excellent." "Excellent." "Can't actually stand up in here." "Not sure if the whole thing is gonna come down on me." "[ Man ] Where are you?" "Oh, there you are." "Beautiful." "Got a beautiful piece of a roof." "I guess you thought-- I guess you're getting me." "A sample from the roof... that I am now bagging." "Okay?" "Now I will find another sample... of brick... from the wall we were not able to get at from the surface, which is over here." "I am again going out of view, and I will see what I can find." "[ Leuchter ] It was cold." "It was wet." "It was kind of spooky." "It must feel like the same way somebody feels when they go into a tomb... that they've opened after a couple of thousand years, and you don't know what you're gonna see." "I didn't know if I was gonna see somebody's skeleton or bones... or whether or not there were gonna be animals in there." "That would not have been a particularly good place... to encounter some kind of a wild animal." "I have a sample of the concrete... from the alleged pillar... that carried the hydrocyanic acid... into the chamber." "It would be nice if I could obtain a floor sample, which I will seek..." "in the lowest spot." "[ Scraping ] I am at floor level." "And the floor is covered with water." "I will obtain some of the material from the bottom, bottom of the-- the sediment from the bottom... which should contain residual cyanate." "Okay, there not being much more I can do down here, I will ascend to the surface." "Aah !" "[ Van Pelt ] Okay, let's go slightly back." "[ Audio Rewinding ]" "So Krema Tomb II was the most lethal building at Auschwitz." "In the 2,500 square feet of this one room, more people lost their life than in any other place on this planet." "Five hundred thousand people were killed." "If you would draw a map of human suffering, if you create the geography of atrocity, this would be the absolute center." "Every year remains of human beings are found." "Bones, teeth." "The earth doesn't rest." "[ Leuchter ] What happened in all of these facilities... is undoubtedly a mystery." "Whether or not these facilities were used for gas execution" "That's not a mystery." "I don't believe they were." "Because in my best engineering opinion," "I don't think they could've been." "It's a tough job... to execute several hundred people at once." "We have a hard job executing one man." "I think it would be easier to shoot them or hang them." "I probably could do a reasonably good job by building a multiple gallows... and hanging 50 people at once." "I probably could execute more people... within a shorter time frame." "Why didn't they just shoot them?" "Bullets would've been cheaper than doing this." "Why didn't they just blow them up?" "Why didn't they take them down into a mine and seal the mine off?" "Maybe we're gonna find an execution chamber under Berlin... with 3,000 electric chairs lined up." "I don't know." "It just doesn't seem to make any sense." "I had a couple of heavy bags of samples, which we mixed with our dirty linen, dirty underwear and all sorts of things... because we figured the customs people would not be willing to go through our dirty laundry." "In the event we got caught, we did have a contingency plan." "I had maps of Austria, Czechoslovakia and East Germany." "And we would have made some kind of a ground flight across one of those countries... to either get to Austria or to West Germany." "We would've just essentially taken off... and hope we made it to a border before somebody figured out what was going on." "They probably wouldn't have chased me immediately... because I would've, from a practical standpoint, just been a vandal chiseling holes in their wall." "I was never so relieved when we passed through the West German passport control." "Because at least I hadn't chiseled... at any of the West Germans' national shrines." "All of the forensic samples that I took were brought back to the United States... and sent to a lab here in Massachusetts that was highly recommended." "They were not told what the samples were or where they came from." "They were told that they were materials... that would be involved in a court case... relative to an industrial accident... and they should be prepared to testify... and they should certify all of the samples." "All of their tests came back." "And they did several types of tests... to determine whether or not there was any hydrogen cyanide." "They were negative." "These facilities never saw any gas." "For virtually 40-odd years I believed unquestionably that there were gas chambers... at these concentration camps." "When I found that there weren't, my next question is, what do I do about it?" "I completed my report, and I testified at the trial." "The judge would not accept the report into evidence." "So what the judge did is, he accepted the report as an informational exhibit... as opposed to an evidentiary exhibit." "And every bit of the information in that report... had to be testified under oath into the record." "My publishing imprint in England, Focal Point Publications, we published The Leuchter Report." "I can't remember where I first met him." "He's not the kind of person who would strike you." "He's a mouse of a man." "He's also a man who is totally honest and totally innocent, innocent in the sense of being a simpleton." "He went into this as a glorious adventure." "He was taken out of oblivion." "He was given this task to perform." "He traveled abroad, probably for the first time in his life, to Poland." "He came back with these earth-shattering results." "The big point.:" "there is no significant residue of cyanide in the brickwork." "That's what converted me." "When I read that in the report in the courtroom in Toronto," "I became a hard-core disbeliever." "[ Zündel ] On April 20, 1988," "Adolf Hitler's birthday," "Fred Leuchter, not knowing he's gonna be delivering a birthday present to the führer, steps into the witness box in Toronto." "Devastation reigns all around." "The prosecution and the judge... were in a visible state of panic." "I could see the facial muscles working in the judge." "I could see the pale face of the prosecutor." "This was history-making." "That was clear to everybody present." "They cross-examined Fred." "Immediately, of course, they zeroed in... on his soft or inadequate academic credentials for what he was doing." "The judge made a decision that could have been very dangerous to us..." "The judge made a decision that could have been very dangerous to us... in that he said, "The samples by themselves are worthless, unless the defense can bring the man who did the testing. "" "[ Man ] I went up to Toronto on very short notice, not knowing any of the background at all of what was going on." "They wanted somebody from the laboratory to say," ""Yes, we analyzed these samples." "Yes, we produced this report on the analysis."" "And that's what I was there to do." "I don't think the Leuchter results have any meaning." "There's nothing in any of our data... that says those surfaces were exposed or not." "Even after I got off the stand, I didn't know where the samples came from." "I didn't know which samples were which." "And it was only at lunch that I found out really what the case involved." "Hindsight being 20-20, the test was not the correct one to have been used for the analysis." "He presented us with rock samples... anywhere from the size of your thumb up to half the size of your fist." "We broke 'em up with a hammer... so that we could get a sub-sample, placed it in a flask, add concentrated sulfuric acid." "And it undergoes a reaction." "It produces a red-colored solution." "It is the intensity of this red color... that we can relate with cyanide concentration." "And you have to look at what happens to cyanide... when it reacts with a wall." "Where does it go?" "How far does it go?" "Cyanide is a surface reaction." "It's probably not going to penetrate more than ten microns." "Human hair's a hundred microns in diameter." "Crush this sample up." "I have just diluted that sample... ten thousand, a hundred thousand times." "If you're gonna go look for it, you're gonna look on the surface only." "There's no reason to go deep... because it's not going to be there." "Which was the exposed surface?" "I didn't even have any idea." "That's like analyzing paint on the wall." "By analyzing, they timber this behind it." "If they go in with blinders on, they will see what they want to see." "What was he really trying to do?" "What was he trying to prove?" "[ Woman Reporter ] The jury said Ernst Zündel is guilty... of publishing news he knew to be false about the Holocaust." "In spite of that, when he emerged from the courtroom this afternoon," "Zündel still maintained the Holocaust was a hoax." "No, this is just one more hurdle to overcome." "And I have always looked upon boulders in the path of my life... not as stumbling blocks but as stepping-stones." "[ Leuchter ] On my return from Canada," "I went about my work and business as I normally did." "And I began to notice... that not as many prison officials were talking with me." "Orders weren't coming in as expected." "The wardens and commissioners were receiving very heavy pressure... from Jewish groups." "[ Woman ] There is no slippery slope for Mr. Fred Leuchter." "The man..." "is an anti-Semite." "[ Shapiro ] There are hatemongers in this country, and he's one of them." "He handed over his entire life and reputation... to the cause of spreading hatred." "He didn't stop." "He kept on going." "He could've gotten out any time." "What kind of man is he?" "And why is he doing this?" "And what kind of reflection is this upon our community?" "[ Tabasky ] To me, he looks like he's almost under a spell, and I think he is." "He's under his own spell." "He truly believed... what he was doing was right." "[ Leuchter ] I testified in Canada for two reasons." "First, the trial was an issue of freedom of speech... and freedom of belief." "As an American, one who supports the Bill of Rights," "I believe that Mr. Zündel has the right to believe and say what he chooses." "I have this right in the United States." "Secondly," "Mr. Zündel was not on trial for a misdemeanor." "This was a major felony." "He could've faced up to 25 years in prison... for printing a document stating that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz." "I believe that any man, no matter what he's done, has a right to a fair trial... and the best possible defense that he can muster." "I, unfortunately, was the only expert in the world who could provide that defense." "There was no one else." "[ Shapiro ] I don't think he's naive." "I think he was empowered by being part of this group." "Who is this guy ?" "The bottom line here is, you got a guy who basically made a deal with the devil." "[ Zündel ] Fred Leuchter is a hero." "Not every generation gets a George Washington or a Thomas Jefferson." "Our generation's heroes maybe are more humble." "[ Tabasky ] Fred got involved in this and wanted to play this game." "And I think he thought it was a game at first." "I really believe he did." "How nice to fly to Canada, to go to Poland, get paid a lot of money... and come back and have a lot of attention... brought to him." "I think he really dug it." "I think that he really thought that that was great." "I pity him." "[ Van Pelt ] In April 1988, there was still opportunity for Fred to redeem himself, to apologize." "To apologize for having gone down in that hole." "But he chose not to consider the evidence... of his own foolishness." "Holocaust denial is a story about vanity." "It's a way... to get in the limelight, to be noticed," "to be someone." "Maybe to be loved." "I have a sympathy to Fred who was lost in Auschwitz, because I think he's lost." "But not anymore with the Fred who appears at these conferences." "You're ignored." "You're despised by many people." "And then there is a home, and the home is the Institute for Historical Review." "You make new friends." "Go to one conference, then you go to the second one... and a third and a fourth." "And it's nice to get up and stand behind a lectern and have people applaud." "They compare your logic with that of any university professor." "Maybe it's about choosing the right friends." "Please welcome a man whose work is a mighty blow for historical understanding." "Mr. Fred Leuchter." "[ Applause ]" "My paper is entitled, The Leuchter Report, the How and the Why." "In 1988-- 1988 was a very informative and likewise disturbing year for me." "I was appalled to learn that much of what I was taught in school... about 20th century history and World War II... was a myth, if not a lie." "I was first amazed then annoyed and then aware... that the myth of the Holocaust was dead." "[ Shapiro ] Fred Leuchter put blinders on himself." "He sat through all of those speeches and neo-Nazi rallies in Europe... as he heard Jews vilified." "Whether he belonged to a group beforehand... has no relevance." "He joined and he took part for many, many years." "I think Fred Leuchter, when he was called upon, became one of them." "[ Leuchter ] I did this, but because of what I have seen," "I have a compelling urge and perhaps a responsibility... to countless generations who come after me, a responsibility to the truth." "[ Man ] Hear, hear !" "[ Applause ]" "I thank you, ladies and gentlemen." "I hope I've lived up to your expectations." "[ Applause ] And I will entertain any questions." "[ Applause Continues ]" "[ Zündel ] The Leuchter Report-- about 500,000 circulated in Germany." "There have been translations." "A Leuchter edition appeared in Russian." "In Latvia, in Hungary, in Spanish." "The Leuchter Report is out there in dozens of languages." "and, I would dare say, in millions of copies." "We will not go down in history... as being a nation of genocidal maniacs." "We will not." "We can, with historical truth, detoxify a poison planet." "Holocaust Survivors and Friends... has asked the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Engineers... to investigate whether Leuchter is properly credentialed." "Last week the board's chief investigator told us... that Leuchter is not certified as an engineer in Massachusetts." "And if he is working or soliciting business here, he could be liable for criminal charges." "[ Leuchter ] I have no question that it's a conspiracy." "They even pressured the engineering board here in Massachusetts... into bringing a criminal complaint against me... for practicing engineering without being registered." "Less than ten percent of the engineers in the state are licensed or registered." "But I'm the only one that was ever prosecuted for practicing without a license." "Did Christ have a diploma in Christianity?" "Did Marx have a diploma in Marxism?" "Did Adolf Hitler have a diploma in national socialism?" "No, they did not." "But they knew one hell of a lot... about their field." "[ Leuchter ] I have a half of a lethal injection machine... which belongs to the State of Delaware." "We had a contract to repair the lethal injection machine... and to repair their gallows and write their protocol for hanging." "I was told that the deputy attorney general, Fred Silverman, would not allow me to complete the contract." "A conference call was set up... between corrections officials and the deputy attorney general... and several other attorney generals whom I had worked with... in terms of the development of the hanging procedure." "And Fred Silverman told me that I would not be allowed to deal with the State of Delaware... because I testified in Canada." "They did not pay me... for the $7,000 work that I put into the repair of the machine." "I lost all of the contract work for the gallows." "And the State has effectively said," ""Take the half of the machine that you've got... and stick it someplace."" "I put an ad in the Want Advertiser." "The second week that the ad was running, someone saw the ad." "Determined that the instrument shouldn't be sold... because I was the one that was selling it." "Subsequently, there was write-ups... in both major Boston newspapers... and pressure was again applied to the district attorney's office... and the attorney general's office... to prosecute me for selling the machine." "And it was necessary for the attorney general's office... to explain in the newspaper that it is not illegal... to sell a lethal injection machine to anybody." "Delaware turned out to be a major problem, but I still have their machine." "And anybody who's interested in buying half a lethal injection machine can contact me, and it's available for the cost of the repairs." "[ Carol ] I went a lot of places that I probably wouldn't have gone." "But basically, it was a nightmare." "He had a job offer from California." "He thought I was going with him." "I told him that he could give his speeches, he could do whatever he wanted, but I would not be there." "And I told him I went to a lawyer." "And I explained to him that yes, I could get a divorce and yes, you have to leave here." "I don't want you here." "And he hemmed and hawed and whatever, but he left, like, a week later." "When he left, he took his phone." "The other phone was being shut off." "The gas and electric was being shut off." "And that was how he left." "If I never saw him again, that'd be fine." "[ Leuchter ] The guy that brought me out there didn't have any money." "He wound up with everybody suing him and all kinds of stuff." "So I said, "Well, I'm not getting anywhere. "" "I was locked out of my hotel room three times." "It's kind of tough when they take your car away and they drop you off on the freeway." "You're looking around trying to figure out how the hell you get back to your apartment." "Then you find you got this super-size doorknob on your knob so you can't get the key in, and all your clothes and razor's inside." "I had my car taken away from me while I was driving it on the freeway." "I had another car taken away in a garage." "These are rental cars that had been assigned to me." "It's pretty tough when you're out in the middle of nowhere all by yourself." "[ Irving ] He's been destroyed as a human being." "He's had his marriage destroyed." "He's had his life destroyed." "I frankly am surprised he didn't go and commit suicide, jump under a train." "He saw everything he had built up in his own quiet, humble way destroyed... by these people he had never met, whom he had offended." "All he did was take the bucket and spade and go over to Auschwitz... and come back with the samples." "And that was an act of criminal simplicity." "He had no idea of what he was blundering into." "He wasn't putting his name on the line because he had no name." "He came from nowhere, and he went back to nowhere." "[ Leuchter ] Of course I'm not an anti-Semite." "I have a lot of friends that are Jewish." "I've lost Jewish friends, too, because of what's happened." "I bear no ill will to any Jews anyplace, whether they're in the United States or abroad." "I bear a great deal of ill will to those people that have come after me, those people who have persecuted and prosecuted me." "But that's got nothing to do with them being Jewish." "That only has to do with the fact that they've been interfering... with my right to live, think, breathe and earn a living." "As far as being a revisionist" "At this point, I'm not an official revisionist, but I guess I'm a reluctant revisionist." "If my belief that there were no gas chambers... at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek... makes me a revisionist, then so be it." "They've expressed their unquestioned intent of destroying me... simply because I testified in Canada, not because I have any other affiliation with any anti-Semitic organization, not because I'm affiliated with any Nazi or neo-Nazi organization." "I have no work." "I haven't sold a piece of equipment in almost three years." "And I have no idea if this situation is gonna change." "[ Man ] Have you ever thought that you might be wrong?" "Or do you think that you could make a mistake?" "No, I'm past that." "When I attempted to turn those facilities into gas execution facilities... and was unable to," "I made a decision at that point that I wasn't wrong." "And perhaps that's why I did it." "At least it cleared my mind." "So I know that I left no stone unturned." "I did everything possible... to substantiate and prove the existence of the gas chambers, and I was unable to." "In 1957," "I actually had the opportunity for the first time to sit in the chair." "There's a legend that goes with the chair... relative to prison personnel and their families." "There was, um, a youngster, much the same age as I was when I sat in the chair, whose father was a guard at the institution, who toured the institution and who sat in the electric chair." "Some ten or twelve years later, he was executed in that same chair... for the commission of a murder during an armed robbery." "And so the legend grew... that prison officials shouldn't allow their children to sit in the electric chair." "I kind of sat in the chair waiting for something to happen." "But some 20 years later," "I wound up making execution equipment, instead of being the person that the execution equipment was used on." "So, maybe the legend got turned around, and maybe we created a new legend, and some good came out of it after all."