Prior to the commencement of the trial, Crown Attorney John Pearson
requested presiding Judge Ron Thomas to take judicial notice of the historical
fact that during the Second World War, the National Socialist regime of
Adolf Hitler pursued a policy which had as its goal the extermination of
the Jews of Europe. Thomas granted the application in the following terms:
It is my respectful view that the court should take judicial notice of
the Holocaust having regard to all of the circumstances. The mass murder
and extermination of Jews of Europe by the Nazi regime during the Second
World War is so notorious as not to be the subject of dispute among reasonable
persons. Furthermore, it is my view that the Holocaust is capable of immediate
accurate demonstration by resort to readily accessible sources of indisputable
accuracy. But I emphasize the ground upon which I hold that the court should
take judicial notice of the Holocaust is that it is so notorious as to
be not the subject of dispute among reasonable persons...The Holocaust
is the mass murder and extermination of Jews by the Nazi regime during
the Second World War, and the jury will be told to take judicial notice
of that.
As a result, the jury in the Zündel trial was directed that it was
required to accept as a fact that the "Holocaust", as defined
by Thomas, actually occurred.