Source: http://www.nizkor.org Accessed 18 October 1999 Judgment in the Trial of Adolf Eichmann [Part 13] 113. The Allies landed in
Normandy on 6 June 1944. Important
personages, including the King of Sweden and the Pope, intervened with
Horthy to stop the deportations. Budapest
was bombed heavily from the air. Under
the impact of these events, Horthy gathered courage and ordered that
deportations be stopped at the beginning of July (T/1212; T/1113, the
Kasztner Report - pp. 57, 69). This
step came too late to save the Jews in the provinces, but it did, for
the time being, foil the plan for the evacuation of the Jews of
Budapest. That the plan for
this operation was ready, we read in the report prepared by von Thadden,
of the German Foreign Ministry, who visited Budapest at the end of May
1944. The information about
the plan of action against the Jews was provided for him by the
Accused's office (T/1194, p. 3). Later,
in a memorandum prepared by him for his superiors (T/1195), he describes
a plan to evacuate all Budapest Jews within 24 hours in the middle or at
the end of July in one huge operation, for which auxiliary help would be
mobilized, including all the postmen and the chimney sweeps.
The intention was to collect all the Jews of Budapest together on
an island in the Danube, and to deport them from there. The Accused could not reconcile
himself to the cessation order, and on 14 July 1944 he tried to deport
another 1,500 Jews, imprisoned in the Kistarcsa camp, near Budapest. This came to the knowledge of the Jewish leaders, and they
managed to inform Horthy about this action.
The latter ordered the return of the train carrying these Jews
before it crossed the Hungarian border (evidence of Dr. Alexander Brody,
Session 52, Vol. III, pp. 957-958).
This setback enraged the Accused, who organized the transport
anew, in spite of Horthy. SS
men under the command of Novak, of Eichmann's unit, appeared in the
Kistarcsa camp on 19 July 1944. Novak informed the Hungarian commander of the camp that the
very same 1,500 who had been brought back on 14 July would be expelled
again, because "Eichmann will not tolerate his orders to be
countermanded, not even by the Regent of the state himself (Evidence of
Dr. Brody, supra, p. 957). SS
men loaded the Jews onto trucks with great brutality and brought them to
the railway station, and this time the expulsion took place.
To avoid another intervention with Horthy by prominent Jewish
personalities, the Accused resorted to a ruse.
He assembled all of them in his office, where they were kept by
his assistant, Hunsche, for the whole day on various pretexts, and were
sent home only when word was received that the train had crossed the
border (evidence of Freudiger, Session 52, pp. 947-948).
About those events, as seen through the eyes of the deportees
themselves, who were returned to Kistarcsa and deported a second time,
this time reaching Auschwitz, we learn from the witness Elisheva Szenes
(Session 53,Vol. III, p. 961 seq.). In his evidence, the Accused
claims (Session 104, Vol. IV, p.xxxx6) that all he remembers is
"that a train left and returned."
On further cross-examination by the Attorney General, he seeks
refuge behind the naive question: If all this be correct, where did the
trucks come from, in which the Jews were taken the second time from the
Kistarcsa camp? (supra, p. xxxx8).
When he is reminded that trucks could be obtained from the
Hungarian gendarmerie, again he remembers nothing at all.
We have no doubt that the Kistarcsa incident occurred, as
testified by the witnesses for the Prosecution.
Witness for the Defence, Grell, who at the time served as an
adviser at the German Embassy in Budapest, also confirms in his
declaration (T/691, p. 8) that he heard about the Accused's resorting to
some stratagem in order to deport the inmates of some camp to Germany.
We are convinced that the Accused remembers his victory over
Horthy quite well. The
whole incident is very significant as proof of the Accused's position in
Hungary, and the traits of obstinacy and cunning which characterized his
actions. 114. On 14 August, the Hungarian
Minister of the Interior informed the Accused that the Council of
Ministers had decided to propose 25 August to Horthy as the date for the
commencement of the evacuation of the Jews of Budapest.
The Accused was not satisfied with this, and at his request the
Minister of the Interior agreed to advance the date of the evacuation to
20 August (T/1217; T/1218). In
his evidence he explains that his demand for the speeding-up of the
evacuation was apparently due to an approach from the Ministry of
Transport in connection with timetables (Session 86, Vol. IV, p.
xxxx18). The plot failed
once more because of the resistance of Horthy, who ordered instead that
the Jews of Budapest be collected in camps outside the capital, but that
they were not to be deported to Germany.
In Veesenmayer's report to the German Foreign Ministry on 24
August 1944 (T/1219), he adds that "Eichmann will report the matter
to the RSHA and will request that he and his unit be withdrawn, since
they have now become superfluous." 115. The situation again changed
radically in mid-October 1944. The
Germans intervened again, to avoid Horthy's surrender to the Allies, and
forced him to appoint Szalasi, the extremist leader of the "Arrow
Cross," as prime minister. This
again opened the way for the deportation of Jews from the country.
Horthy submitted to the Germans on 16 October (evidence of von
dem Bach-Zelewski, p. 13). Two
days later, the Accused returns to Budapest and starts negotiations for
the handing over of more Jews to the Germans.
Veesenmayer's cable to the German Foreign Ministry, on the same
day, states that the Accused "began
negotiations with the Hungarian authorities for the deportation of
50,000 able-bodied Jews on foot (im Fusstreck) to work in Germany"
(T/1234). Veesenmayer cables again on the
same day (T/1235), reporting the results of the negotiations between the
Accused and the Hungarian Minister of the Interior: The minister will
attempt to obtain consent for the handing over of the 50,000 male Jews.
Veesenmayer adds that, "according
to top secret information, after completing the above foot march
successfully, Eichmann intends to ask for another 50,000 Jews, in order
to achieve the final aim of complete evacuation of the Hungarian area,
while having due regard for the attitude taken on principle by Szalasi." (Szalasi, it follows from the
same cable, demanded that the Arrow Cross themselves deal with the Jews
within Hungary proper.) The idea of marching the Jews
from Budapest to the Austrian frontier, some 220 kilometres distance,
emerged because Allied bombing had destroyed the railway line. This march of tens of thousands
of Budapest Jews began on 10 November 1944. Mrs. Aviva Fleischmann, who
took part in the march, told
us about this operation, and Dr. Arye Breszlauer, who was employed by
the Swiss Embassy in Budapest, saw the marchers on their way and also
wrote a report on the subject at the time (Session 61, Vol. III, p.
1102; T/1237). The Arrow
Cross men assembled all the Jews from the special Jewish houses.
Those taken were not only adults - mostly women, as many men were
away from home on work service - but also children and old people.
Thousands of Jews were crammed into the yard of a brick factory
which was used as the assembly point for the marchers.
There they were kept, terribly crowded, in the open and in the
rain. From there, they
started to march in large groups. Witness
Mrs. Fleischmann spent only one night at the factory, but others stayed
there two or three days until they set out on their way.
The escort consisted of Arrow Cross men, who behaved cruelly
towards the Jews, robbed them of all their valuables, clothes, blankets
and the provisions they had taken with them.
Thus they marched for seven or eight days, without food for days
on end. They slept in
stables, in pigsties or even in the open, during cold November nights.
No medical help was afforded them.
Those who fell by the way from exhaustion were shot by the Arrow
Cross men or died by the roadside.
The survivors were handed over to German SS men at the Austrian
frontier. Twenty-five thousand Jews had
been dispatched in this manner by 22 November 1944. Veesenmayer
estimated the total number of Jews thus brought to the frontier at no
more than 30,000 (T/1242). Mr.
Breszlauer, in evidence, set the figures at 50,000 (Session 61, Vol.
III, p. 1101). Even SS officers who saw the
marchers on their way regarded the march as an atrocity.
Krumey, the Accused's assistant, discussed the march with him.
The Accused's reply was simply: "You saw nothing!";
that is to say, he ignored the matter completely and ordered Krumey also
to close his eyes to it (Evidence of Krumey, on pp. 15, 16).
The witness Juettner, who was an SS General, describes the sight
of the marchers as shocking. He
approached Winkelmann, the Higher SS and the Police Leader in Hungary,
but Winkelmann said that in this matter he was helpless, since this was
in the hands of the Accused's unit, and the Accused did not take orders
from him [Winkelmann]. Juettner
then approached the Accused's office. A young officer was sent over to him from the Accused's
office to explain to him that he [Juettner] was not to interfere in the
matter, as the Accused's unit took orders only from the RSHA
(declaration T/692 and the evidence of Juettner in this trial).
Finally, the march was stopped by order of Himmler.
The credit for this is claimed by a number of German witnesses (Becher,
Juettner, Winkelmann). We need not decide whether one of them or someone else
secured this order to stop the march.
It should be stated that Szalasi, on his part, also ordered the
stopping of the march (See Veesenmayer's cable of 21.11.44, T/1242). 116. We wish to mention two more
matters from the Hungarian chapter. (a) At the beginning of June
1944, Blaschke, the Mayor of Vienna, requested Kaltenbrunner to supply
him with labourers for war work in Vienna.
Kaltenbrunner replies in the affirmative on 30 June 1944 (the
reference on this letter is IVB4b - the Accused's Section, managed in
his absence by his deputy, Guenther).
He writes there that, in the meantime, four transports with some
12,000 Jews will be sent and will arrive shortly at the Vienna-Strasshof
camp. He adds that, according to his estimate, about thirty per
cent of the Jews will be fit for work, and that they can be employed,
provided that they can be withdrawn at any moment.
As to the wives and children of those Jews, who are not fit for
work, they will all be kept ready for special action (fuer eine
Sonderaktion), and will therefore be removed in the future, but are to
stay in the camp in the meantime, under constant guard also during the
day. Kaltenbrunner asks Blaschke to discuss further details with
the representative of the State Police and with SS Obersturmbannfuehrer
Krumey of the Special Operations Unit in Hungary (i.e., the Accused's
unit) (T/1211). The meaning
of the words "special action" need not be explained: All those
Jews were to be taken away and exterminated, but in the meantime, those
fit for work would be employed at the pleasure of the Mayor of Vienna,
and their wives and children would wait with them as prisoners until
their turn came to die. The Accused made use of this
order by Kaltenbrunner, which he had to obey, to mislead the
Hungarian-Jewish leaders and to extort money from them.
From the report of the Jewish Relief and Rescue Committee in
Budapest written by the late Dr. Kasztner, it is apparent that the
Accused made a show of agreeing to the request put to him by Jewish
communal leaders to save Jewish lives by allowing the transfer of 15,000
Hungarian Jews to Austria, in order to "put them on ice."
In consideration for this simulated concession, he demanded a
large sum of money from them, alleging that this was needed for food for
these Jews and for the care of the sick (see T/1113, pp. 49, 50). When cross-examined by the
Attorney General, the Accused does not deny this act of deceit.
He says: "It is possible that I painted a bright picture for
Kasztner" (Session 104, Vol. IV, p.xxxx6). If some of these Jews were
finally saved from the fate which was in store for them, this was not
thanks to the Accused, but because extermination by gassing at Auschwitz
was stopped in October or November 1944.
There is proof here of the deceitful methods to which the Accused
resorted in regard to his victims. Mention should also be made of
another remark by the Accused to Dr. Kasztner, to the effect that there
should be no Jews from the Carpathians or from Siebenbuergen amongst the
Jews to be sent to Austria, because they were "elements of much
greater ethnic value and more fertile, and he was not interested in
keeping them alive." These
words were confirmed by witness Mrs. Hansi Brand (Session 58, Vol. III,
p. 11052). (b) We listened to long
testimony from Mr. Joel Brand and his wife, Mrs. Hansi Brand.
Also documents were submitted to us about negotiations carried on
between Jewish communal leaders and Himmler's agents concerning a barter
of Jewish lives against goods required by the Germans, especially
trucks. We do not intend to
follow all the details of these complicated negotiations, which are now
a matter of history, but shall only make a few comments on the Accused's
contentions regarding these negotiations. The Accused alleged that Becher,
Himmler's chief agent for economic affairs in Hungary - in particular
responsible for robbing Hungarian Jews of their property - trespassed
into his domain, by handling matters of Jewish emigration which were
reserved for the Accused, he being the expert on the subject.
Moreover, Becher pressed him (the Accused) to step up
deportations to Auschwitz, in order to force the Jews to hurry up with
the supply of the goods. But
actually, Becher dealt with these matters only in a small way - the
emigration of a few thousand Jews.
Becher's interference angered the Accused, for here - so he
explains - comes an outsider and interferes in a field in which the
Accused had become expert over the course of many years - namely Jewish
emigration - and what is more, presses him to increase the pace of the
despicable work of deporting Jews to Auschwitz. That is why he, the Accused, thought up a far-reaching plan
for the emigration of a million Jews, in order to have the better of
Becher in this competition. And
here the unbelievable happened: He is informed by Mueller, to whom he
put the plan, that it has been authorized by his superiors.
He therefore sends Brand to Istanbul; and now he understands the
feelings of Brand, who is bitter about the failure of his mission,
because of his arrest by the British Intelligence Service, and the
Allies' refusal to respond to the proposal for the supply of goods.
He further alleged that he stipulated with Brand - and this, too,
with the consent of his superiors - that ten per cent of the total
number, i.e., 100,000 Jews, would be allowed to emigrate to any country
they wished, as soon as Brand brought the consent of the other party to
the supply of the goods, and even before the actual supply began.
In the meantime, he was already busy working out the
organizational measures involved in the transport of these 100,000
emigrants (Session 86, Vol. IV, p. xxxx15).
He concludes his long explanation as follows: "If,
later on, an obstacle was put in the way of this transaction abroad,
this caused me sorrow at the time, and I permit myself to say that I can
very well understand Joel Brand's fury and pain.
I only hope that Joel Brand, too, in the light of the documents
which now prove to him that I was not the man who carried out the
extermination, understands on his part my own fury and my
anger...." (supra) We are of the opinion that this
whole effort to appear now before this Court as the initiator of the
above transaction is nothing but a lie. There is no doubt that the order
to begin negotiations about the exchange of Jews for goods came from
Himmler himself. What
caused Himmler to make this proposal, we do not know.
Possibly, all this was nothing but a manoeuvre, or he was seeking
to prepare an alibi for himself or wanted to show what he could achieve
by obtaining essential goods for the Reich.
In any case, all these were matters of general high policy,
entirely beyond the sphere of activity of the Accused, who concentrated
all his efforts on the implementation of the Final Solution.
On receiving the order to conduct negotiations with the Jews, he
carried it out. There is
proof that when Brand did not return and the whole matter collapsed, the
Accused expressed satisfaction (the evidence of Hansi Brand; report by
Wisliceny, T/85, p. 21). The
most that can be said is that the Accused conducted the negotiations as
he was ordered, in the same way as, in accordance with orders received,
he allowed the departure of 1,700 Jews from Hungary to Bergen-Belsen,
and later on from there to Switzerland.
But it is sheer hypocrisy to come now and testify that his
reactions to the failure of the negotiations were sorrow, fury and
anger, like the feelings of Joel Brand.
This entire version was invented by the Accused only after he had
read Joel Brand's book, from which he thought he could find something to
hold on to, in order to show himself in a more favourable light. To this end, he also exploited an error made by Joel Brand,
in connection with the 100,000 Jews whom the Accused allegedly agreed to
release as soon as the barter agreement was concluded, and even before
the goods were supplied. In
the detailed report drawn up by Mr. Moshe Sharett (Shertok) after his
conversation with Brand in Aleppo (T/1176), there is no mention of such
a promise, but Brand is quoted as saying that only a few thousand would
be released immediately (supra, p. 4).
Incidentally, it seems to us - although Brand's evidence is borne
out by that of his wife, and we do not doubt the subjective sincerity of
both these witnesses - that Brand was mistaken in regard to one further
detail, namely that the Accused promised him to blow up the
extermination installations at Auschwitz the moment an agreement was
concluded. This, too, is
not mentioned in Mr. Sharett's report, and it is inconceivable that
Brand would not report two such important promises to Mr. Sharett or
that Mr. Sharett would not have noted them in writing, had they been
communicated to him by Brand. When one compares the Accused's
evidence in Court with what he said in Statement T/37 on the same
matter, the untruthfulness of his version is glaring (supra, p. 294 et
seq.). He says there
that he received the order to conduct the negotiations directly from
Himmler, and that he does not remember who initiated the idea, whether
it was Becher, or he himself, or Himmler.
And again, on p. 2905, in answer to a question by Superintendent
Less as to how things got to the stage of negotiations with Brand: "Mr.
Superintendent, this, too, I do not know; I left this matter entirely
open, this I do not know. When
I read the book [by Brand], I always thought to myself: I do not know
who gave the order or the idea. The
order, of course, came from higher up, this is clear - but the idea, if
it was I, if it was the Reichsfuehrer, if it was Becher, someone must
have thought of it - and in any case I was the one to send it on higher
up. Whether I was the
initiator of it or someone else gave me the idea and I only passed it on
higher up and received the necessary instructions, this I do not know
any longer; this I can no longer say." (See also pp. 1089-1090.) It is therefore evident that he
devoted much thought to this question, but he cannot give the answer -
although the first hint of an effort to claim credit for the initiative
already appears at this stage. Is
it possible that he would not remember so important a matter, if it were
indeed true that he initiated the idea of sparing the lives of one
million Jews? But in his
testimony in Court everything seems to have become quite clear: He, and
he alone, initiated the plan, brought it before Mueller (not directly to
Himmler) and received, from or through Mueller, authority to conduct the
negotiations (Session 86, Vol. IV, p. xxxx13). We learn from the documents the
kind of plans the Accused was concerned with, after Brand's departure.
He was not engaged in preparations for the emigration of 100,000
Jews, as he had the temerity to allege in his evidence, but in the
deportation of all Hungarian Jewry to Auschwitz at an accelerated pace,
that is to say, the extermination of those Jews who still remained in
German hands and who were to be the subject of barter against goods.
He is already preparing the evacuation of the Jews from Budapest
at this very same time, that is, the second half of May 1944.
This we learn from von Thadden's report mentioned above (T/1194). 117. With regard to all the
Accused's activities in Hungary, he reverts to his usual tactics of
shifting responsibility to other authorities, until his Counsel has to
put the question to him: "Witness,
what else remained of your activities, because I do not know what there
was left for you to do?" And the Accused answers: "This
I already said in my Statement when questioned by the Superintendent on
behalf of the Israeli Police, but I know that these things sounded
incredible. In fact, the
documents prove that I was associated with the preparation of the
timetables, but only marginally. At
first, all that was left for me to do was to report and pass on
information to my superiors...I know that this is incredible, or almost
incredible, but what am I to do? This
is how things were." (Session
86, Vol. IV, p. xxxx11.) Indeed, this version is not credible, because there is no truth in it. As to the relationship between the Accused and the Hungarians (especially Endre and Baky and Ferenczy of the gendarmerie), we have already said that they were his loyal partners, that their desire to get rid of the Jews was no whit less than the Accused's desire to get hold of them, in order to send them to extermination. But in this partnership the Accused was undoubtedly the one to guide and decide, both as the representative of the German conquerors and as being the expert in the Solution of the Jewish Question, who had become famed as such after his feats in other countries. The true relationship between the partners is quite evident from Ferenczy's reports, which were submitted to us. Representatives of the Accused were present in the assembly camps, into which Jews were collected before deportation, and the deportation plans were drawn up by joint committees of Hungarian and German representatives (see, for instance, T/1160, para. 3). The Accused claims that his representatives fulfilled only one function: They were present to exclude Jews of foreign nationality from these deportations, in accordance with Veesenmayer's directives (Session 103, Vol. IV, p. xxxx6). This, also, is a false contention; for this task was kept for the German Embassy officials themselves (see T/1188, and von Thadden's report, T/1194, pp. 3, 4). Finally, we see who was really in authority, from the report by Ferenczy, T/1163: "Mishaps" were discovered in one of the camps: The Hungarian in charge enabled Jewish notables to leave the camp, etc. It was therefore decided that German Security Police units, led by German officers - i.e., the Accused's men - would in future take over the command within the camps, as well as the technical arrangements for loading the Jews on to trains. The Hungarian gendarmerie were left to attend only to external security and security within the camps (supra, pp. 1, 2; see also T/1164, para. 2). Escorting the trains remained a function carried out by the Germans all the time, within Hungary as well. German Security Police men also prevented Jews from being rescued from the assembly camps through the call-up for labour service in Hungary; they arrested Jews who had received such call-up notices, confiscated their papers and handed them over to the Accused (T/1161, para. 2; T/1163, para. 8). From all these details, a true
picture emerges of the Accused's activities in connection with the
round-up of Jews before their deportation, and also of the balance of
power between him and the Hungarians.
It is true that he needed the help of the Hungarian gendarmerie,
because only they knew the local conditions and had the large amount of
manpower required to carry out these operations.
It is also true that the gendarmerie remained loyal to Regent
Horthy, and this occasionally made it difficult for the Accused to carry
on his activities when Horthy showed signs of independence and rebellion
against the Germans. But the incident of the Kistarcsa train shows that the
Accused succeeded in having his own way, even in the face of an explicit
order from Horthy. As to the German side, the
Accused tried to shift responsibility in two directions: to Veesenmayer,
the Reich Plenipotentiary and Ambassador, and to Winkelmann, Higher SS
and Police Leader, and to Geschke of the BdS.
Veesenmayer was undoubtedly very active in Jewish affairs.
For instance, documents were submitted to us showing that in
April 1944 he conducted negotiations with the Hungarian authorities for
the handing over of 50,000 "Jews for labour" to the Reich
(N/73; T/1181; N/75, and others). He
put pressure on the Hungarian Government regarding the expulsion of the
Jews of Budapest (declaration by Lakatos, N/106, p. 4).
Obviously, the German Embassy did not engage in the actual
rounding-up and deportation of the Jews.
Veesenmayer's duty in such matters was only to report to his
Foreign Ministry on what had been done.
Generally, reading between the lines, Ribbentrop's concern is
felt about the fact that Veesenmayer is not sufficiently assertive of
his authority (see, for instance, N/70).
In reply to instructions couched in this spirit, Veesenmayer
cables on 22 April 1944 in reassuring terms that the SD men handling
Jewish affairs (i.e., the Accused's unit) are in continuous contact with
the SD through a special liaison officer.
In any case, it is clear that the Accused was not dependent on
Veesenmayer in the carrying out of his duties.
Even when it came to conducting top level negotiations with the
Hungarian authorities, to prepare operations against the Jews, which, in
the nature of things, was Veesenmayer's area of activity, the Accused
frequently acted on his own, while Veesenmayer only sent in reports (see
T/1219; T/1234). As far as Winkelmann and Geschke
are concerned, it seems that there was some formal connection between
the Accused's Special Operations Unit and the BdS Geschke.
But this connection was even weaker than that which existed
between the Advisers on Jewish Affairs on behalf of Section IVB4 of the
RSHA in various countries and the BdS in each country.
The position held by the Accused, as head of a Special Operations
Unit, added independence to his status as special representative of
Himmler and of the head of the RSHA, Kaltenbrunner, as he received his
order directly from Berlin. In
fact, there is no indication in the evidence that the Accused received
any substantive instructions from Geschke or Winkelmann, except in the
evidence given by the Accused himself, which is not trustworthy in this
matter as well. We wish to point out that we
have reached these conclusions without having recourse to the evidence
of Veesenmayer and Winkelmann themselves, since for obvious reasons they
were trying to keep themselves as remote as possible from any connection
with actions against Jews, or even from knowledge of them, and their
statements in this matter are unreliable. From what has been stated above, a clear picture emerges of the Accused's activities in Hungary. On the German side, which was dominant and made the decisions, the Accused was the chief stimulating force in implementing the Final Solution in Hungary. Here, in the field itself, he acted with increased energy, initiative and daring, and stubborn determination to complete the work, in spite of all the difficulties in his way. The measure of his responsibility for the catastrophe which befell the Jews of Hungary must be evaluated accordingly. 118. In connection with the
Hungarian chapter, we will have to deal with the Attorney General's
contention that, while in Budapest, the Accused took part in the murder
of a Jewish youth named Solomon, who was engaged in forced labour in the
garden of the house in which the Accused lived.
One of the witnesses for the Prosecution, Mr. Avraham Gordon,
testified on this matter that the Accused and his servant Slawik beat
the boy to death in a tool shed at the house.
This charge does not appear as a special count of murder in the
indictment, but the Attorney General wanted to bring this incident as
proof of the Accused's cruelty and his attitude to the life of an
individual Jew, apart from his attitude to the lives of Jews in general.
Although we have no formal accusation of murder before us, we
think that we should evaluate the evidence in this matter according to a
criterion befitting the nature of the deed attributed to the Accused
(see C.C. 232/55, Piskei Din 12, 2017, 2064).
We have examined the evidence according to this criterion, and
although the impression made on us by Mr. Gordon's evidence is positive,
we do not consider it safe to find facts against the Accused on the
basis of this evidence alone, without any corroborative evidence as to
the details of the incident. Eastern Europe 119. We must now go back and
consider the stage of the Final Solution, from its beginning in
mid-1941, and turn to Eastern Europe - Poland, the Baltic countries and
Soviet Russia - the valley of death in which millions of Jews were
slaughtered by the order of Hitler.
This is where the Jews, who had been hunted down for this purpose
in the other European countries, crammed into trains and brought to the
East, were done to death in many different ways.
Documents were submitted describing the Holocaust in the East,
but the bulk of the evidence consisted of statements by witnesses,
"brands plucked from the fire," who followed each other in the
witness box for days and weeks on end.
They spoke simply, and the seal of truth was on their words.
But there is no doubt that even they themselves could not find
the words to describe their suffering in all its depth.
As one of them, Judge Beisky (Session 21,
Vol. I, p. 346) said, in trying to describe his feelings whilst
being forced to watch the hanging of a young boy in the presence of
thousands of Jewish prisoners:
If these be the sufferings of
the individual, then the sum total of the suffering of the millions -
about a third of the Jewish people, tortured and slaughtered - is
certainly beyond human understanding, and who are we to try to give it
adequate expression? This
is a task for the great writers and poets.
Perhaps it is symbolic that even the author, who himself went
through the hell named Auschwitz, could not stand the ordeal in the
witness box and collapsed. Moreover,
this part of the indictment is not in dispute in this case.
The witnesses who gave evidence about this part were hardly
questioned at all by Counsel for the Defence, and at a certain stage in
the proceedings he even requested that the Court therefore waive the
hearing of these witnesses. To this we could not agree because, since the Accused denied
all the counts in the indictment, we had to hear also the evidence on
the factual background of the Accused's responsibility, and could not
break up the indictment according to a partial admission of facts by the
Accused (see Decision No. 13, Session 23, Vol. I., p. 366). Accordingly, we are obliged to
sketch the background at least in brief outline, so that a fitting
picture may be revealed of the crimes in which the Accused was a
partner. Here and there, we have interwoven verbatim passages from the
evidence. We shall begin
with a general description, and afterwards examine the Accused's part in
the events described. |
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