Vaissnavi Shukl
In 1996, British author and Holocaust denier David Irving filed a libel case against American historian Deborah Lipstadt, stating that she had defamed him in her book denying the Holocaust. In what became the case, ‘David Irving versus Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt’, architectural historian Robert Jan Van Pelt, was brought in as the defense’s expert witness owing to his work on the history of Auschwitz. What was striking in the whole case was the role of historians as guardians of evidence, of ensuring that the narratives that they published were a result of rigorous research deeply rooted in forensic work rather than conjecture. This episode is the first in a two part series on Robert’s research on Auschwitz. Today we’ll talk to Robert about his books, the court case and his other work on the Holocaust. And in our next episode, we’ll speak to architects Anne Bordeleau and Donald Mackay, who built upon Roberts existing body of work and designed ‘The Evidence Room’ at the 2016 Venice Biennale.

I am Vaissnavi Shukl and this is Architecture Off-Centre, a podcast where we highlight unconventional design perspectives, practices, and research projects that reflect emerging discourses within the design discipline and beyond. Architecture Off-Centre features conversations with radical designers, thinkers, and changemakers who are redefining the way we live and interact with the built environment.

Okay, Robert, I wanted to talk about your work on our trades, keeping the two books that you have written in the foreground. Let’s start with the first one, and eventually how, in a very twisted way, that led to the second one. So along with Deborah toric, he wrote the book, Auschwitz 1270, to the present, in which he recorded the history and development of Auschwitz, the Polish town that is universally recognised as the concentration camp, operated by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust and the Second World War. Before we get into any specifics, can you tell us how you got started on this project?

Robert Jan Van Pelt
Yes, I’m still a little bit surprised that I ever ended up doing the work in Auschwitz. And in some way, spending my life as an adult studying that gap. From 1979 to 1984, I worked on a doctoral dissertation that dealt with a biblical or post biblical topic, it was a cosmic speculation on the temple of Jerusalem. Basically, I looked at 2000 years of both Jewish but even more importantly, Christian speculations, that the temple of Jerusalem was shaped as a kind of image of the universe. And that by starting studying the architecture of the temple, you could understand the universe and the end and a place of human beings in the universe much better. And that goes back to the very basic idea that, according to the Book of Chronicles, which is a biblical book, The God gave to David to King David the blueprints for the designs for the temple. And then when Solomon, Solomon, the son of David finally built a temple to use the designs that God had given to his father. And the idea is that since God created the world, and God drew up the plan for the temple to be related. So that was a topic in the history of ideas, focusing on antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. And on the 14th of June 1984, I defended my thesis at the University of Leiden extended room, and there were some seven professors all in their robes as the examining committee and one of the professor’s sitting there. He said, basically, the question was the following youth who have written a book, which will argue that the temple of Jerusalem was one of the most important buildings in the history of architecture, not so much for what it was while it existed, because it was actually destroyed a couple of times. But because of its after effect in all of these are thoughts in all of the speculations of people that we’ve had, that speculations have a really important impact, for example, on the classical Catholic theory of what the church is, and why the Catholic Church is the only road towards redemption and things like that. And so then this the deficit statement, and then this professor asked a question, on the basis of this statement, he said, if there’s any building today, that will have a similar kind of impact on our future, which building would it be. And without really knowing why I just blurted out the crematorium at Auschwitz, I didn’t even know that there were four or five too wide. I didn’t know anything. But I did realise at that moment, kind of intuitively. And I knew, of course, that there had been a crematorium as a gas chamber, that this was a building, specially designed for genocide, that in some way, something had happened when that building was designed and came into operation that has radically changed the history of architecture itself in the history of humanity. That sense, it was the most important building, I think, that was ever designed, because it had radically changed the prospects of humanity. And so, that was 1984. But, and I had this idea, you know, I don’t really know anything about this building. But my ability to study it at the time was really limited because months later, I left for Singapore, where I had a position at the National University of Singapore in the School of Architecture. And to know I didn’t know how to teach, I didn’t know anything, really. And so I basically had to focus on beginning a career as a university lecturer creating courses out of nothing, you know, faking my face through my first year as a teacher. And it took a couple of years to find the space, the mental space for me to really start actually looking at the material concerning the history of that cat. So what happened was that by 1988, I applied for by that time I was in Canada, and I applied for a tiny little grant to go to Jerusalem, just to see what was out at the Yad Vashem. It has a big archive. And I think 2000 Canadian dollars isn’t that much. But I spent amongst the Jerusalem working in the UK for film archives, for sharing this the big Memorial authority Holocaust Museum, right at this time of year famous Holocaust Museum, probably one of the most famous in the world, but also has a big archive. And going through the archives, I found a t, which means it’s an indictment written for two architects that were indicted in 1970. As war criminals were having participated in the construction of the gas chambers, that was melted the Jaco and feets air tool to or to Austrian architects. And of course, it was termos, compared to Germany in 1938. And they had been involved in the ss. And in 1970, they were tried in Vienna, in an unsuccessful, unsuccessful trial, they were both acquitted. And this, this was, for me, a breakthrough because I now realised that there was a trial. And so the next step was to go and go to Vietnam. And see if I could find out more about the trial. And the evidence if I could study the evidence that has been presented in the trial. Now, this was not easy because they have been acquitted. And because they have been acquitted, I was really supposed to, to, to see the material or certainly, I wasn’t supposed to photocopy it. So with help, I was able to get into the archive. And I was told right at the beginning that under no condition was I allowed to make any photocopies. And the and the stuff that was in the collection was absolutely amazing. And then I had learned something from a mentor of mine, he said, you know, the most important people in the world are the gatekeepers. That’s quite often it’s not the director, it is not the minister, it is not whoever, who apparently makes the decision, but it is the Secretary of the director or the secretary of the minister, because they basically give access, if they’re your friend, everything works. So the gatekeeper in this case, was a lovely secretary and elderly woman. I mean, she was younger than I am now. But she would have been in her late 50s, early 60s. And I liked her, she liked me and you know, I gave her a bunch of flowers for the imported chocolate. Okay, and you have you know how that goes, if we have a cup of coffee if we have a cup of coffee together. Now, I don’t call this bribing because it’s called, you know, normal social relationships between, you know, people who like each other. And one day I was sitting in the basement where the archives, you know, where basically you are working in the basement of this building and have all of these papers. And she comes down and she says, you know, Robert, let me tell you, the director of the archive is on holiday because it’s a holiday today, and the man who replaces him doesn’t know you’re not allowed to photocopy. Good luck.

The post office was rushed. And my theory is that the moment that something is actually in the post office that it is, you know, you’ve handed over to a postal clerk and safe. So I started photocopying, you know, and every two hours and leave the courtroom and basically walk to the post office with a big envelope and mailed it, you know, sort of strange and build four or five packages a day. But the idea was that I thought at any moment I can be interrupted that can be found out this the end of his research. So this is how I got all of the material that I that was in Vienna, I go back to Canada, and that was really the beginning of my of my work the problem. However, whilst that that in some way the questions that lawyers ask in a criminal trial are different questions that a historian will try to understand. trials are really bad to kilton innocence of, of an individual. So in the end, while the material was useful for me to get a first stab at the problem, in the end, it was clear that I had to do much more work in the archives in Eastern Europe. And this was this at the time that the Berlin Wall came down. And so sinks opened up in Eastern Europe very quickly, it wasn’t that you couldn’t do work in the archives in Eastern Europe. But suddenly, everything became very easy. And that also applied to Poland. So I travelled to Poland shortly after the wall came down, and basically checked myself in, into, into against him and I rented a room there, a friend of mine had family members there. So I actually stayed with the family. And this was, you know, immediately after, so this was still pretty grim. It was winter, it was, it was cold, and it was dark. And this was, you know, the whole, the whole country was heated by soft coal, smells terribly. And so it was, you really feel that you were in a kind of different country. Environmentally, it was it was rather harsh. But I had an amazing time, because everyone was so nice to me, in some way I represented, I think, at that time, you know, the west. And, you know, a new opening up and also in the town of SPN, seem very close to the archive of the houses. Museum was a big liquor store. And the liquor store had all kinds of Western whiskies and cures and whatever like that, and you had to have Western currency to buy, you could buy this response. Now, I had Western currency. So basically, I supplied, you know, whiskey and grew up us and whatever like that on a regular basis, to the lunch room of the archive. And the rest is history. I had an amazing time, because I could just sit in the stacks, I could smoke. You know, I mean, all of the things that are completely from Bolton, forbidden, unacceptable in any professional archive was possible at the time, and people were very sweet and helpful. And any photo I wanted to have made, was made for me and didn’t cost me anything. I didn’t have much money. But you know, you get a big big photo of an architectural plan that you got it for, I mean, 50 cents or something like that. They were it was absolutely a wonderful place to work. And so yeah, so so. So I got hooked up by a by really, by 1990 hours, fully and totally absorbed into this into this topic, which is the design of the camp.

Vaissnavi Shukl
There’s something that you said early on today is you refer to Auschwitz as a Tramadol idiom. And I wanted to turn to that part in our next question. But since we are on the topic of archives, in the book, you draw upon a variety of archival documents. So you talk about architectural plans, do brands, memoirs, oral histories, battle for the staff to illustrate the origins and development of the camp in Auschwitz. I was struck by the variety of sources you have used and wanted to talk a little bit about your research method, especially since this is a two part series with Anne and Donald talking about the creation of the evidence through in the next episode. What was your process? Like?

Robert Jan Van Pelt
You know, I I’m always a little bit all federal was awkward to talk about talking about my mutual method, because I don’t I don’t have any method, except more or less like a Viking raiding the poor English town in the ninth century, he takes anything he can. No, I, I must say that, first of all, when you’re dealing with when you’re dealing with a topic related to the Holocaust, and I was interested in Auschwitz press, first of all because of its role in the Holocaust, but also in relationship to, to of course, what happened to Polish prisoners, Theobroma, sinti, and others. Oral histories are very important. Normally, of course, for in an architectural history context, oral histories are relatively insignificant. You know, you might have an interview with an architect and the architect is still alive, but you know, if you were to deal with the building of, you know, Sampras, Sam percent, or Brian Tracy read like that there are no problems. However, in the case of the Holocaust, or histories have been taken, since the 1960s Certainly, and became an in the 1980s to start to happen systematically. And one of the reasons is because the Germans went out during the Holocaust itself the murder of 6 million troops to destroy evidence. So survivor testimony became an important source of historical information. And so when, and of course, that is not necessarily necessarily that relevant always to the building of things to at least relevant to what buildings did. The second thing is that of course, in a when you when you normally study an architectural, the development, the architectural construction of a site, mostly there are no criminal proceedings or no significant criminal proceedings, there might be a civil case. But in the case of Auschwitz, we are you’re basically, we are we’re studying the site of an enormous crime. And that means that there is going to be an empty slate of a forensic investigation suddenly 1945 46 by the Russians in the polls. And then there were a number of trials in which in which people are accused of various things, some of them who were involved in the construction, but for example, the commandant of Auschwitz, who oversaw the construction, who ultimately was tried and sentenced to death and executed and who left as he was awaiting his execution along memoir that’s actually extremely important to understand the construction of the fact that we’re dealing with a building complex. That was that that was the site of a enormous crime against humanity that was prosecuted in various courts. means also that you have an unusual kinds of supply of material from the judicial system. Testimony into allegations that were done. Very important this interrogation of the clerk in the Gestapo office, which actually gives a lot of information about doing crematory one was used or done already mentioned to come and done so, and then we have the prosecution of the architects of Auschwitz, two of the architects In Vienna in 1970 so that already creates a kind of an unusual body of material that you’re dealing with this and then of course it’s Some way to do also have once One of the problems that one has seen in studying the history of Auschwitz It’s just that there’s a lot of mystification Iran survivors ADB sell their fan He said you know nobody who wasn’t there can ever understand So don’t try to understand it or any many survivors will say the same thing Get told it to me you know why do a wire bye over injustice you have no idea about this place Also I don’t have a place an idea of what it means To be a presenter there But I can have some ideas about place was built because still Normal building procedures were used But it was a were many survivors who didn’t trust me Use the material And And so there is This is This kind of mythology Built around Auschwitz that was a place that was totally I isolated from the world they call it to be As last night and for additional language and so And when when when I started Stop eating it and that was looking at books Step described Auschwitz typically The pictures were very great The black and white picture And it was mostly always you know it’s simply in Greece It’s always a safe always sort of kind To have dark clouds with the sun A storm hanging over Auschwitz there was Never to shop and so when I came there The first time it was actually fun and it was Beautiful and so already to see that place under the sun with You know the birds flying and of course survive except we’re never ending births in Auschwitz gasps all the birds flying and I was actually thinking this is actually quite A beautiful place and this is a place of the swirl this is not we’re not in an oven world we are in this world at least now And then I was walking and I I became very interested in a tonne of Austrians because I lived there I went tell you a little There was a little place where you could get a pizza Listen I mean I I basically lifted in the town and I started doing recognise in the town or kind of civilian construction That was very typically Sherman it doesn’t Polish That’s it had This imprint on The German architecture on it plus counter dislocated This was a style that I If expected around race and sex

Vaissnavi Shukl
but not only Not only the architecture right I think even the Writing over the gate is in German Right

Robert Jan Van Pelt
yeah but this was a German camp but what I didn’t realise Instead there was civilian construction in the town , German construction on that the town itself and Then I started reading up and I read them I said in fact this town which is now We’re in the in the centre of Poland This is central South What’s actually always been territory and the Germans rightly or wrongly claimed This town had been a German town in the middle age stuff that had been settled better In the Middle Ages that The German name Auschwitz pretty It’s the Polish name was VMC And I started now looking at maps from the 1920s and 30s and started to see this revanchist kind of narrative in words German tour kind of be back in between up after the first quarter was sort of Versailles treaty and so on claimed a significant part of East Central Europe as being perpetually German culturally term an extra feature Roman and that the Germans have pushed out of there that they wanted to recovered and that out Schlitz was one was part of big territory and so southern What what I’d never done But nobody has ever done until I did it was two To look at Auschwitz From the perspective of the German school arrived here in 1939 who didn’t see it as a Polish stamp The short as a true But the town that had been polluted The fights that have become Polish As a result of some terrible Next into history And now it had to be feature manifest. And so that brings them in this book that that that I published in 1996 is very deep history. That because I had to reconstruct the mental, the mental map of the Germans who were there during the war, the Second World War, and for them, so so so this is why also the title of the book is Auschwitz 1270, to the present, because in 1270, when it was founded by according to German law, and there were German merchants involved in that. It clearly was part of a German kind of push to the east as it’s called normally, which is the some way comparable to the American push to the Western and 19th century. So it was a colonial city in the sense that ultimately had become part of the Polish Commonwealth had been philosophise with the Germans, we’re going to undo that, that, that that tragic mistake of history. And so all of that material became really important in the IT, ultimately my understanding of the place, and then ultimately, in the way that I wrote the book was to pour an understanding, you know, that ultimately goes back to a very simple question, do you need a building permit when you construct a homicidal gas chamber?

Vaissnavi Shukl
I was wondering if there was any material from the Nuremberg trials that played a role in your research, because I’d assume that the trial was pretty well regarded. And I’m sure there must be some mentioned of a bunch of architects were tried even in that trial. If

Robert Jan Van Pelt
the Nuremberg trials, the one of the trigger, there is the first Nuremberg trial, that they see that against the leaders, the only thing that’s really important series sub testimony that was given by Auschwitz survivors and the testimony given by the commandant of Auschwitz, who was a witness in the trial. That was his first testimony after he was trapped in 1946. He was arrested, you’re hiding as a common labourer and brought to Nurnberg to testify in the trial against the SS chief who was the Kaltenbrunner. Kaltenbrunner’s lawyer had asked to have her school Call to confirm that Kaltenbrunner had never been in outfits. And this wasn’t the case Kaltenbrunner never been in Auschwitz and this was important for the defence, but then he gave a testimony a lengthy testimony was interrogated also Nurnberg that was important but then later he gets on trial is separate trialling polenta there’s much more material there but the other trial that’s very important for us were follow up trials in North America and one of them was set up the IG Farben management it farms the biggest company in Europe in 1940 41 was a chemical company and they built in Auschwitz a very big rubber plant a synthetic rubber plant And it’s actually that trial that has a lot of material on the Auschwitz the outfits factory and the outfit factory operators built and operated in conjunction with the cap So there was a lot of material on debt that’s collaboration between The SS And the hiring out of slave labour from the camp To IV Farben in that trial so Yes that was quite important for

Vaissnavi Shukl
me Again This just brings me to my next question. You know, at the at the end of the day, everything from the archive contributed to becoming evidence for what was this very interesting incident that happened, but we usually don’t perceive architecture as a piece of evidence in our crime. It’s a stage for committing crimes. Sure, but architecture itself, as evidence, especially when we’re designing is is never a thought in architects might have ever in our own process of interviewing guests and doing research for the season. Do you realise that architecture is perhaps the greatest piece of evidence in any site of crime? And that is kind of what happened with your second book, The Case for Auschwitz evidence from the Irving trial, which recounts a high profile libel case involving and alleged Holocaust denier and author and a publishing house you were invited by the Defence As an expert witness and presented your research as evidence in the courtroom Can you walk us through that case and how you got involved in that

Robert Jan Van Pelt
okay so let’s take one step back when you were a historian when you’re basically when you were graduate students history when you’re historian you Have you learned there are really three levels of stuff we deal with the lowest levels called Evidence Yeah then evidence on the basis evidence you formulate a fact And one To formulate a defence Were a number of facts that you interpret effects now Have you realised very much as a graduate student The people who become famous are the people bald who have brilliant integrity tations After Effects If you see interrupted rotation that makes reputation the interpretation that gets your point mastership interpretation so that that that is what counts and In history really there’s actually relatively late All attention is being In education As a historian to the problem of evidence and also Typically when you have evidence for You’re going to interpret nobody will ever Take your evidence because you’re probably the the only one who’s ever seen it I follow you in the archives

Vaissnavi Shukl
now Robert you My thing I I don’t know if so Good country Because emoji didn’t graduate from a history programme And when I was different My thesis that aspect that third step interpretation I stool that it’s less sf interpretation and more of critical Isn’t that I should be careful that whatever my interpretation doesn’t be Come to critical Are

Robert Jan Van Pelt
you Get get but ultimately the criticism Is there to create an alternative entity protection yeah So you could you you could teach cue critique one interpretation Nobody wants your critique is One interpretation to create another interpretation but ultimately The battle the battle battle takes place at a level We’ll look into protection can we Remember that

Vaissnavi Shukl
yes no i Good to you I was just wondering why You know I visited caught off guard in my own defence I just say huh I know This is definitely an interpretation because It was bordering on Media Studies what I was looking at its head This case study you know blah blah blah blah I did not think of it as critic But sure I mean if you want to call interpretation criticism I’ll take it okay Okay so moved on so

Robert Jan Van Pelt
but so that We’re that’s what we’re good at that’s what we have SUPPOSED TO BE DIFFERENT let’s go on historically was good tends to be good criticism and interpretation When you come in To the court the whole universe This is Basically put upside down because Nobody cares about Your interpretation and he More people don’t they Care somewhat about the facts but they really focus on the evidence And that was my very big surprise I have literally to stand on I had to hold times to get Not that I had to see the whole world Old that I had seen as a historian from one perspective I had to see it from exactly the opposite perspective Everything is about evidence show How do I get How do I get To Holocaust denial I did not think I was going to end up there when in 99 Six are books published It’s published to a lot of acclaim In in in the Americas US and England are two different things Separate the difference immediately Translated into Dutch into two Urban and So now Basically I come out of this Out of this publication by the end of 99 86 I am quote unquote Mr outruns Thank you very much A great a great reputation to Have you show no In March 9 97

Robert Jan Van Pelt
Something like that. I get a call from someone I’ve never heard off and he’s a producer and a producer and he says that Errol Morris wants to speak to me. Who was Errol Morris. He said he doesn’t know who Errol Morris is. I said no, I don’t know where horses. He said to filmmaker. I said, Okay, tell me what films so Errol Morris is a document very famous documentary filmmaker in the US who had created a he became famous was kind of equals it’s a it’s these are these are documentaries, but their feature lens and call to sin blue line in which in making the documentary he solved the crime that he was reporting on. He actually solved it he proved that the man who was on death row for this crime was actually in the set and identify the person that committed the crime in making the movie. I mean, arrow is really smart and Errol Morris had decided to make a movie. It’s actually lives in Cambridge, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So very much part of the same kind of community that you’re a part of. And he also has a studios there and he had decided to make a movie on a engineer, and then fret loiter who lived in Malden, Massachusetts, and who has become famous in the late 1980s When he had testified in a trial in Toronto, of David Irving, David, sort of MC MC window was a Canadian Holocaust denier who was prosecuted in court for spreading false news about Auschwitz, or Holocaust deniers always focused on Auschwitz. They think that when they can create doubt about Auschwitz, it can create doubt about the Holocaust in general, and the defence team of zoobel, which was led by a Holocaust denier from France called Gold or barefoot, we saw had decided to send them to court off the ruins of the gas chambers in Auschwitz, to prove that they would not have that they could not have killed people. So now if you if you want to create a

Vaissnavi Shukl
that they had not killed people not to prove that it had killed.

Robert Jan Van Pelt
There was no proof in the remains of the gas chambers that there had been definitely been a genocidal massacres there and now, if you if you want, if you want to testify in court as an expert, you need to have some recognised expertise. So the problem is Who Can you send as an expert to Auschwitz who comes back with an expert report that will be listened to in court you need to have an expert on executions happened to be that the United States of course is a country that has legal executions. So then they looked at the telephone book is history of overkill. gastrin was in operation at the time in the state of Missouri. There were the reassignment guests. So they felt basically the seat warden of the prison where the gas chamber stories and they asked a question to this poor man, if for anyone who services those gas chambers, and he said yes, we have an engineer. He is in Malden. Massachusetts systems replicator. So now they had found an expert because this is a man who works with homicidal gas chambers, so they sent him to Auschwitz. He came back after two days. didn’t spend any time in the archives he just expected to ruins in a kind of compare contrast. One of it

And so he had rusks had been shown at Harvard and students as your your, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So this is not very flattering for Harvard. So the students, the students at Brandeis believed that the university was a Jewish kind of immigrant thought that Errol Morris was an anti Semite. And the truce at Harvard thought that law after the Holocaust denier was right, so much for Harvard education. So, Errol Morris realised that he was in trouble and contacted a person who had written on Holocaust denial Deborah Lipstadt Deborah Lipstadt said, I’ve just reviewed this book on Auschwitz and the person the only person who knows all the blueprints is Robert Townsend. So that’s how our Errol Morris Beats me. And so I started to work with him on this movie, so to speak, to help him salvage this movie so that another bunch of students neither Harvard’s nor Brandeis, would actually be willing to engage the argument. So the movie came out in the end of 1999. That’s how I got introduced in into the field of Holocaust denial and their use of architectural evidence. So what happened then was that as Deborah Lipstadt had introduced me to, to Errol Morris,

good graces, she was being sued by this David Irving person. Because she had in her book on Holocaust denial identified David Irving as a falsifying of history and anti Semite racist, blah, blah, and, of course, the Holocaust denier and David Irving, David Irving’s book sales went down. And then in 1996, a New York publisher Massoud Martin press had actually cancelled the contract. It was quite a lucrative concert. So he had a lot he was starting to lose money. So then he decided to sue her in a British court for libel and her publisher Penguin Books, and in a British court. The libel law is constructed in such a way that you only that it’s upon the defence that burden of proof. So she had to more or less than to her the burden of proof or whatever she she had said about, about Irving that was right. And in some way the case came to hand partly on the question is Irving should ever have given any credence to the locker report to the locker forensic report. So I already had gotten my training my initiation into the problem with Errol Morris. I knew everything of the locker report. I was involved in making a movie, and so they decided to get me as an expert witness because I actually show the evidence. I knew all of that stuff. When I was there. I had worked in Auschwitz. By that time for you know, many years I had to I spent there three months at the time one months at a time but ever in the archives I published a book and certainly I was able to see that whatever moisture had done in this two days that he was in Auschwitz was three days. He was absolutely you know, yet yet deeply touched on the on the issues he had done. He hadn’t looked at any evidence yet that any of the evidence had already been collected in 1945 by the Russians in the polls, so I helped to lawyers, to some way right to brief of what my task was. And my task was basically a study of the evidence about Auschwitz that might have been available to Irving when he became a Holocaust denier so the question is, of course, as a historian, you know, when you make a statement about any fact what what what is the stuff you normally should have expected to have looked at before you open your mouth about it? And I said, I’m only going to look at all the evidence that was basically available by the end of 1946. So from from from 1940, when the cap goes into operation until the end of 1946. And the reason for that is that after 1946 There is a possibility of contamination of the evidence your people, the history of the can’t get published in the first book. People can read now about it, and they can start to confuse whatever bad is what they’ve seen and so on. So I took a very narrow timeframe, you know, what was available and still is available, but it was, which was in some ways, articulated in that early period and then after having basically giving a full exposition of all the evidence for the use of Auschwitz as an extermination camp, focusing on the costume of the gas chambers and crematoria, that this means the capacity especially the ovens, because they had an enormous incineration capacity, it can only be explained on the you know, because there’s so many murders there. crematory have to keep up list of murders. Then I was looking at all the arguments of Holocaust deniers including that of of, of Florida. And then I started to review those arguments and I was starting to look at their internal contradictions, the lies the shortcuts, the way that they they twisted evidence, etc, etc, etc. So this was a 750 page kind of document that I then had to defend on the cross examination in court. And that that happened over a total of five days. So that was quite an experience.

Vaissnavi Shukl
How the dots connect and how just you know something you had no idea would end up in a chord brings you to the court, but you know, considering how your work became evidence or a moot point to prove somebody else’s point of denial and how architecture leaves like it says, As a footprint that can become evidence in the future. I would think that the role of architecture in this case and by extension, the role of architecture, in perpetuating acts of violence, I often wonder about the role of us as designers and how we are complicit in building the various spaces where such acts of violence take place. And, of course, the Holocaust took place decades ago, but we see different forms of detention camps and reorientation centres in several parts of the of the world. I mean, it’s happening today with the knowledge that we all share a very sad, brutal, depressing history in terms of how people are capable of killing other people. What do you think is the role of the kind of research that you do or just broadly forensic research in holding these government agencies and architects or, or even Well, anybody who builds the kind of spaces where such acts of torture or oppression take place? How do we hold them accountable? What are the tools that we have as researchers as historians as just gatekeepers of documenting everything that’s going on today?

Robert Jan Van Pelt
You know, both optimists. And pessimists, and I’m both believing in the scope, the scope that we have to make a difference and also the limitations. So one of the things is very clear in the Auschwitz case is that when people set out to design crematoria that have combined for crematoria that have combined incineration capacity of 4500 Corpses per day, per day, not per year, per day.

Then, and they’re equipped the staff same as we really know that the architects are at the centre of the crime they’re building. They’re building the weapon but it’s not like a machine gun that’s made in a factory in the United States that ultimately is used, you know, somewhere in Africa or in Asia to shoot people a bit machine gun wasn’t really created to murder civilians. The machine was was created to be used in war, but it ends are being used like that. In this case, you have to have a very clear I mean, as an architect, you’re considering how this building will function in the murder of innocent civilians. It doesn’t make any sense. A gas chamber as a tool of war of, of killing combatants. Legal fashion. So that’s one thing but if you don’t look at many of the internment camps, inclusive Auschwitz will look at Auschwitz Birkenau. Almost all the barracks that were used there were built up and were purchased on the shelf. They were not designed to even house people. Most of these barracks were horse stables, Army horse stables. And so they’re fulfilled because of that very little design documentation because they were not redesigned for the camp. The barbed wire that was used was not really produced in order to create a concentration camp; it was just barbed wire, it can be used for farmers’ fields and whatever. So when you’re dealing with this many of these detention centres that basically in which the building pieces are things that are bought off the shelf and that have been developed for different purposes. And it’s very clear also when you look at what the American government is building on the Mexican border, and so yeah, these are all these are all units pieces, that are basically ready available and that are standard used in the American army and it’s a standard use for the Red Cross and whatever like that, and now they’re going to be used to house people who have illegally crossed the border and were awaiting asylum procedures. So they’re that I would say is kind of difficult. It’s difficult to say that because I particular, you know, I could let’s call it the IKEA that the new the new little shelter that IKEA the flat back shelter that IKEA has developed you know this developed is very good intentions, humanitarian intentions, but can be easily used to basically put it in a barbed wire compound for the most horrific of purposes. But what I think that our research does, what our research suddenly shows is that in the end is still some accountability, because in the end, some kind of lost work. I think that you know, we know right now that it many, you know, that ultimately when people commit certain acts, they also do it with a view to what posterity will tell about and how they will judge them. And architects have kind of easy, you know, they architects are the people who construct things. You know, the only way they would ever be to be held to judgement was if the building was ugly or not, you know, are they going to compete with the great masters in creating another UNESCO worthey the World Heritage piece? Or are they going to be in the great sea of mediocrity? That’s forgotten. But now, some of these architects who might be forgotten might think twice I don’t think they really will. But they might be remembered like the architects of yo that down that 50 years from now that might be an Al bytes model, even a Robert Johnson who comes along, or anne bordeleau or Donald Mackay and basically says here we’re going to make an exhibition independence. Be another about your work and you will not look good in that one. A for many, it will not make a difference because the paycheck will be more important, but I do think that our work in both studying these places forensically and publishing it and then even more important representing it as we did with the evidence ultimately creates, I think, context of judgement. And I think in the end, you know, we’re all raised to fear judgement or to welcome good judgement and to fear negative judgement. And so I think in that in that way, we might in the long term, make a little bit of a difference.

Unknown Speaker 18:14
We can try.

Robert Jan Van Pelt
Yeah, I’m a cheerful pessimist. You know, I may say the six but to the end to the world is pretty fucked. But let’s be honest, you cannot teach by saying that you have to be able to meet, you have to be somewhat optimistic. So I tried to be cheerful, even when I’m somewhat of a pessimist.

Vaissnavi Shukl
Yeah. Well, Robert, last question. We spoke about this before we hit record, but what’s next for you? And can you please talk a little bit about your new book?

Robert Jan Van Pelt
So yeah, I’m, at this moment. I’m actually in Berlin. I’ve just come back from Ukraine, where I participated in the in the 80th anniversary of one of the worst single massacres in the Holocaust Babi Yar massacre, which two days the holiest days of the Jews hear that Yon Ki Por. So 34,000 Jews are murdered in a in a ravine and this ravine is now being developed by the by a foundation as a memorial place and there are a lot there are a number of architectural projects are part of that one thing that we did was part of the architectural board that is advising the foundation on how to become a steward responsible How to Be a responsible steward of this 120 hectare site with a sense of suffering we built a synagogue tear, which was built by Manuel hertz, a brilliant piece that is that closest like a book and and then it is very close to death for services. It can be opened by a group of people you need all this group of people to do this as the book opens the synagogue open, so that can be service. And so this has been a quite well published project right now. And I wrote a book together with New York artists called Mark path well called Atlas to space to, in some way ground this project in a history of the tools understanding of space. I’m here for me right now to actually give two courses or three courses at the University of Kassel. My friend Philip oswaal Two is a professor of architectural theory they’re invited me to give course on the barrack cuts so that is the off the shelf prefabricated barrel cut, so I give a course on the history of the barrel cart and run a concurrent seminar on that. And then, a month from now, I will be I hope there’s a big group of students in Auschwitz and we do a concentrated course on for architecture students on our streets. So in fact, much of what I’ve been talking about today, actually will be I will I will, I will explore I will I will discuss I will this the students at the site itself, so, we will do historical, let’s say historical investigation of the site will do forensic one, we will look at narratives of presentation every presentation and look at Auschwitz as a site of mass tourism and so on. So basically this is that’s going to be an interact on that twice before once for students of the Technical University in Vienna. And along 1990 When I when I was there, for the first long time, I stumbled on a group of architecture students from the Technical University in Berlin who were there and I basically spent a couple of days with them. So I love to actually be at a place with architecture students and to, you know, some way it’s to do a kind of professional, professional investigation of the site as a professional perspective as architects. So that’s what I will be doing the next month for the rest, you know, COVID willing will be healthy all and we will be way out of this terrible, terrible pandemic.

Vaissnavi Shukl
And I think it’s just me, I think it’s, it’s heavy stuff for anyone to listen to due process to come to terms with remembering and revisiting everything that happened decades ago. But I think if we do have the liberty to be the optimist that you were talking about, I think there’s a there’s a lot to learn in the process just in terms of making this world a better place. If nothing is so thank you for your work so so so much.

Robert Jan Van Pelt
Thank you for giving me the time I see the hours almost up I think it’s bedtime for you and for having me here.

Vaissnavi Shukl
Special thanks to Ayushi Thakur for the research and design support, and Kahaan Shah for the background score. For guests and topic suggestions, you can get in touch with us through instagram or our website through our website archoffcentre.com, both of which are ‘archoffcentre’. And thank you for listening.