. NMT04-T0580
Volume IV · Page 580
| place and then adds that he arrived after the date of the alleged executions. The communication in question, however, states — |
"Kommando 10b reached Chernovitsy on Sunday, 6 July 1941, at 18:15 hours after an advance division had established the first communications with Romanian posts in town the day before and had provided quarters." [Emphasis supplied.] |
| Since the defendant admits that he was
responsible for the procurement of quarters it is not to be excluded that he
led the "advance division" which established communications with the Romanians
and provided quarters. This, however, in itself would not make him a
participant in the executive actions which followed nor would his contact with
the Romanians in itself establish that he was aware that executions were
impending. A presumption cannot be built upon another presumption in an issue
as serious as the one involved in this particular transaction. The prosecution has also introduced Report No. 19, dated 11 July 1941 which plainly involves the Kommando, but again there is no indication that Ruehl was in charge of the Kommando or had any authority over it. Report No. 50, dated 1 August 1941, speaks of an operation in Khotin or Hotin. Ruehl denies all knowledge of the executions mentioned therein. That Ruehl may not have taken part in these executions is admissible but that he was ignorant of their happening is contrary to human observation. That he may not have done anything to prevent them is within the realm of believability but to assert that as a member of a unit made up of only seven officers and 85 men he could not know that killings were taking place is to enter into a fairyland which was quite the antithesis of the demon's land in which they were operating. But there is no need to resort to the machinery of logic and deduction to produce the conclusion of cognizance. It is ready made in Ruehl's own pretrial sworn statement in which he tells of having received official notice of the killings by the Kommando of 12 to 15 people declared to have participated in a surprise attack against Romanian troops. He also tells of the Sonderkommando which killed 30 Jews declared to have participated in the murder of two German air pilots. At the trial he denied having actual knowledge of these events and stated that what he acquired in the way of information came to him only through hearsay. Although it is evident that Ruehl had knowledge of some of the illegal operations of Sonderkommando lob, it has not been established beyond a reasonable doubt that he was in a position to control, prevent, or modify the severity of its program. The prosecution also charges that Ruehl was criminally involved in the matter of the migration of a large group of Jews from the German controlled territory into Romania. Although this episode |
