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time the drug had done its work. The orders
were welcomed just because they defied these feelings.
One of the
accused said that she always tried to remind herself that she was a human being
and a woman. It is all too plain from the evidence which this book records that
she failed in both respects.
I have said that I think this book should
be widely read, and I think this just because I think it important that
everyone should see the frightful consequences that followed — and, as I
believe, will ever follow — the acceptance of this principle.
It
was a relief to, me as I read this book and found myself becoming sickened by
an account of the horrors of Belsen and Auschwitz to find also revealed on page
after page evidence of the magnificent fairness with which this trial was
conducted.
I have always admired the way in which Courts-Martial are
conducted. I believe that for Service offences no better and no fairer tribunal
could be secured. It must be difficult for a military tribunal whose members
have little or no experience in criminal cases to conduct such a trial as was
here involved.
For myself, I do not doubt that an experienced judge
sitting with assessors would have been able to dispose of this case in a
shorter — and probably a far shorter — time than was occupied in this
trial.
If this course had been taken I think that none of those
convicted would have been acquitted, but I think it possible that some of those
acquitted would have been convicted.
I doubt, too, whether the accused
and their defenders would have been allowed the latitude which they were in
fact allowed; but in any prosecution it is well to err, if indeed there was any
error, on the side of the accused.
We, who have inherited the British
tradition of justice, may indeed be proud of the manner in which this trial was
conducted. May the facts here revealed make it unnecessary that any similar
trial should ever be conducted again. |
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| JOWITT. |
HOUSE OF LORDS,
LONDON, S.W.
1 |
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