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| Request for
Charges to be Heard Separately |
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to say that
the man in charge of No. 2 Cookhouse is guilty because he knew these people
were going into the furnace, that is obviously going to be a very important
point for the Defence. The fact that the conditions at the two camps were
extremely different, and the application of what may prove to be the law to the
facts in those two different cases, is going to make it very difficult for the
Court and for the Defence to separate the one from the other. The accused, all
of them, object to the joinder of the two charges. Those who appear in the
first charge only object on the grounds that the joinder does not comply with
Rule of Procedure 16. Those who feature in both charges object on the grounds
that the joinder does not comply with Rule of Procedure 108. Finally, both
classes say that Regulation 8 of the Royal Warrant has no application to this
part of this case, that is, the joinder of the charges.
The JUDGE
ADVOCATE — Do you not agree that the Prosecution are setting out in the
first charge a sort of war crime committed by a group of persons at Belsen, and
then are putting a second charge alleging another sort of group war crime at
Auschwitz?
Captain PHILLIPS — Yes. I say that the first charge
should be tried and disposed of, and at a later date charge two should be tried
and disposed of.
Colonel BACKHOUSE — Dealing with the question of
whether the two charges should be taken together or separately, my friend
suggests that they do not come within RP 16. I am afraid I entirely disagree.
We disagree, of course, not on law but on facts. My friend says these are not
similar offences, and that they are two quite different camps and quite
different charges. On the contrary, the charges are identical, word for word.
The only difference is in the victims, and in many cases there is no difference
in the victims because you will find that every one of the witnesses called in
respect of Auschwitz was also, in fact, an inmate of Belsen at a later stage.
The allegation of the Prosecution is that these two cases are a continuation of
a series in so far as those persons who were at Auschwitz are concerned. Each
of the persons, with the exception of Starostka, came from Auschwitz to Belsen.
The allegation of the Prosecution is that, first of all at Auschwitz they
ill-treated a body of persons and that they then went to Belsen where they
continued with the ill-treatment of that body of persons. One offence is
precisely the same as the other. The individual methods of ill-treatment
sometimes varied because, in the submission of the Prosecution, every known
method of ill-treatment was used at one or other of these camps. The same
people were acting as concentration camp guards in one camp and went to the
other and acted as concentration camp guards there. They ill-treated literally
the same people at Auschwitz as they did at Belsen. Of course, at Belsen they
found a lot of new people as |
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