. |
| Defense Application for
Separate Trials |
| |
| what
happened at Auschwitz was the result of planning, contrivance or
pre-arrangement? In our submission there is no such evidence; and in support of
that contention I would point out that certain of the accused did not arrive at
Belsen until April, 1945. The liberation took place on 15th April. How then,
can these persons be said to have been responsible for or taken part in a
series of war crimes committed at places where they never were, as in the case
of Auschwitz, or where they only were for a short period as in Belsen? It is
ridiculous to suggest that there is at this, moment, whatever, may be later,
available to the Court any evidence to suggest concerted action. It is admitted
that the charge sheet alleges that these people, when members of the staff of
Belsen and responsible for the well-being of people there, were together
concerned and so on as parties to the ill-treatment of certain such persons,
but the point I am making is that the Court is entitled to look behind the
wording of the charge sheet and at the substance of the matter as it stands and
as it can only stand from the available depositions at this moment. If the
Court is not satisfied that there is now evidence of concerted action it is
entitled to hear from individual accused an application to be tried separately
on the grounds either that they will be embarrassed in their defence if tried
jointly or on the grounds that they wish to call for their own defence some of
these people who stand accused with them here today and who would otherwise not
be available as a witness for the Defence except possibly upon
cross-examination if that accused gave evidence on his own
behalf. |
| |
(All the Defending Officers
then made applications for separate trials
based on Captain Phillips’
argument.) |
| |
| Colonel
BACKHOUSE — The case for the Prosecution is that this is a joint charge of
creating bad conditions at Auschwitz in respect of the second charge and at
Belsen in respect of the first charge. There are no specific details contained
in the charge, but it was ill-treatment which caused the death of a number of
people and the cause of suffering to a large number of other people. The case
for the Prosecution is quite a definite one; it is that the people concerned
are all members of an organization, that they served under a joint leader, and
that their action are common — that each one of the persons in the dock
has taken part in these cruelties. I ask the Court to say that from the
evidence on the depositions there is ample prima facie evidence on which
the Court can draw the overwhelming inference that this was a common action by
all those people. It cannot be coincidence that at five different cookhouses
people are shot; it cannot be coincidence that at Auschwitz people went round
hitting people on the head with a large stick and at Belsen people did
precisely the same thing. |
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