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| Request for Charges to be
Heard Separately |
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well. All the
witnesses with regard to Auschwitz were found at Belsen.
These cases
are part of a series of similar offences and are properly joined together, on
the same charge sheet. I will say that if the Court decides to separate these
two charges I will apply to give the evidence in respect of Auschwitz on the
Belsen charge. Some of the accused have indicated their defence in relation to
Belsen as virtually one of accident. Some have in fact said, “We realize
that conditions here were appalling, but we could not help it.” I should
therefore ask, if necessary, to give evidence that the conditions which these
people created somewhere else were equally appalling and that they merely
carried on with a series of similar offences. It is my submission that these
two charges should be tried together.
With regard to the question of
the joint trial of individual persons, I want to make it quite clear from the
outset that the Prosecution in this case will allege that this is a joint and
collective offence by a group of people. Individual atrocities committed by
individual persons are put forward to show that they were taking part in and
acquiescing in the system which a group were carrying on. They were acting in
common under a commanding officer, Kramer, who was the Kommandant of that camp.
All the accused were either members of his staff or internees who had been
given authority by him. I say they are definitely a group and indeed, in the
sense of this rule, a unit. As such, in respect of each charge the Court cannot
take note of an application to try persons named in that particular charge
separately. I agree that does not apply to the question of splitting the
charges, which is a separate application. I say they should not be split; they
are plainly part of a series of similar cases and that they come directly
within the amendment which was specially made for this purpose in cases of this
nature.
The JUDGE ADVOCATE — What about the one accused who does
not seem to have taken part in the system because she was not there?
Colonel BACKHOUSE — That particular accused was, of course, a
member of the group at Auschwitz and therefore must be tried with the other
members of the group there. She is a member of the Auschwitz group who did not
come on, as far as I know, to Belsen. She must be tried with the other
Auschwitz people and it clearly, cannot embarrass her to hear about Belsen.
Captain PHILLIPS — In my submission the Prosecutor has dealt
almost exclusively from the point of view of the victims. It is not denied that
many of the people who were at Belsen had previously been at Auschwitz, but
what of it? What we are concerned with here is the accused, many of whom never
were at Auschwitz. What connection, therefore, can they have with what has been
suggested by the Prosecutor to be a series |
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