The Trial of Adolf Eichmann

Attorney General: Now, Professor Gilbert, you say that you took Judge Musmanno to Goering and acted as translator. What was said in that conversation?

Witness Gilbert: Well, Goering said more or less the same things that he had said to me, namely that he was sure that Hitler was dead and that his political testament was genuine. This was the political testament, I’m sure you all know, in which Adolf Hitler accused the Jews of starting a war and admitted ordering their extermination as punishment.

There is psychology behind that, but we need not go into it. Then Goering, of course, was asked what he thought about this crime of extermination and he immediately said: “Well, this, of course, was not any business of mine, it was not in my jurisdiction, it was under the jurisdiction of Himmler and his boys, Heydrich, Eichmann and so on.”

Q. Did you introduce Judge Musmanno to other accused persons?

A. Yes, there were some others, but frankly I don’t remember the details at this point. There were other interpreters available, enlisted men, and some of the other accused did speak English.

Q. Did Judge Musmanno also see other accused men, such as Ribbentrop, Frank, von Schirach, von Papen and Kaltenbrunner?

A. I believe so, but frankly, I don’t remember all the rest of the details.

Q. Did you talk to Judge Musmanno about Eichmann?

A. No, we didn’t. There was really no occasion to speak about Eichmann at the time. Frankly, he wasn’t thought of very much by the major Nazi war criminals, and anyway, I had reason to believe that he was dead, at that time.

Q. What led you to the conclusion that Eichmann was dead?

A. Well, his own boss, Kaltenbrunner, told me he was dead. I remember this conversation very vividly, because it was the one day on which, I’m afraid, I lost a little of my professional aloofness. This was a day on which a survivor of Auschwitz testified how the children born in concentration camps were taken from their mothers and never seen again, and then, in the rush season of 1944, children were thrown alive into the furnaces of Auschwitz.

This was too much, even for a psychologist, and I went to Kaltenbrunner at lunch that day, and I said: “Herr Kaltenbrunner, now do you really mean to tell me that you know nothing about these things?” And he said, “No, no, really. I didn’t have anything to do with the extermination programme as such. This was done by Heydrich and Eichmann and the people in that context – Heydrich, Eichmann and the others involved in this chain of command, from Himmler on down. And,” he added, “they’re all dead.”

Q. Is that to be found on page 163 of your book?

A. Yes, this is a correct recording of the conversation I had with Kaltenbrunner, right out of my diary.

Q. Eichmann’s name is mentioned here on a further occasion, after Wisliceny’s evidence – I think on page 102. This is Goering’s response when already in gaol, after Wisliceny’s evidence.

A. Yes, I remember that conversation.

Q. What did Goering say then?

A. Well, his comment on Wisliceny’s testimony was that Wisliceny looks like a big Schweinehund only because Eichmann isn’t here – or to make it exact, that “Wisliceny is a little Schweinehund who looks like a big one, because Eichmann isn’t here.”

Q. Does this appear in your book?

A. Yes, this can be found in the original diary – all of these notes that are in the public version can be found in the original diary which I kept at the time.

Q. Did anyone else in the Nuremberg gaol talk to you about Eichmann when you were on your official mission?

A. Yes, the name came more and more into discussion, not so much amongst the main Nazi war criminals, but among the SS men of whom we had practically the entire military and police power in gaol in Nuremberg. There were many higher SS police officials, and I frequently ran across Eichmann’s name there – at first, somewhat to my surprise, but more and more a clear picture emerged.

Q. Did you speak to Oswald Pohl about Eichmann?

A. Yes. Oswald Pohl – I believe his title was Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl, the Chief of the WVHA – was also in Nuremberg, and I, of course, discussed the atrocities with him.

Q. What did he say to you?

A. Well, he tried to get into a jurisdictional dispute about who had charge of the extermination programme. He, of course, disclaimed responsibility for himself, insisting that this was under Kaltenbrunner’s jurisdiction, but he made it quite clear that Eichmann was involved.

In other words, both Kaltenbrunner and Pohl tried to shove on to the other the responsibility for being in charge of the bureaucracy, but both agreed, automatically, that Eichmann was the one involved, at least one of those involved.

Q. Pohl was kept in the witness wing in the Nuremberg gaol – is that correct?

A. Yes, in the witness wing there was the rest of the top hierarchy of Nazi Germany, and they were interrogated at times, called at times as witnesses by the defendants, sometimes by the prosecution; I had access to all of those – just as free access as I had to the top Nazis themselves.

Q. Is that where you also met Ohlendorf and Rudolf Hoess?

A. Yes.

Q. Was there any contact between the witnesses detained in the witness wing and the principal accused who were imprisoned in their cells?

A. No, that’s why they were kept in a separate wing. They could only be called to discuss particular cases, if they were needed as witnesses, and then the attorney might call the witness to discuss something with the defendant. Otherwise they were kept quite separate.

Q. You said that other people spoke to you about Eichmann. Who were they?

A. Well, the main one was Rudolf Hoess, the Commandant of Auschwitz.

Q. What did Hoess say about Eichmann?

A. Well, he seemed to be unable to discuss the extermination programme without referring to Eichmann, and at first I hardly noticed this, but when I started to get written statements from him for psychological purposes, the name came in more and more, and it gradually dawned on me that this man must be a key figure in the whole extermination programme.

Q. What do you mean by “it dawned on me”?

A. Well, I was starting to investigate something else. What I was really interested in was what makes these Nazis tick. So I was trying to find out what made Colonel Hoess tick, how could he do things like this? And in the orderly procedure of getting a case history on a subject, I asked Colonel Hoess to write an autobiography telling his entire history from childhood up to the present time.

Q. Are you referring to that autobiography which was published under the title “Commandant of Auschwitz”?

A. Oh, no – I am speaking of the original autobiography which Colonel Hoess wrote for me in Nuremberg, for purely psychological purposes, in his own handwriting.

Q. You have kept it in your possession until now, and it has not been published so far?

A. That’s right – that is one of the original written documents I had to confirm my conversations, and it hasn’t been published except for excerpts which I used in analysing the case of Rudolf Hoess in my second book, The Psychology of Dictatorship.

Q. Did Hoess write it before he wrote his autobiography in Poland?

A. Oh, yes – definitely; he had not yet been brought to Poland to stand trial, and I was the first one, I believe, to ask him for his case history.

Q. I notice there is a date at the top – 10 April 1946. And Hoess ended it on 12 April. It took him two days to write – would that be correct?

A. Yes, that would be about right.

Q. And it has not yet been published?

A. Not as such, no – as I said – except for brief excerpts.

Q. Is this the original handwriting of Hoess?

A. This is the original.

Q. Signed by him?

A. Yes, this is Rudolf Hoess’ signature, and this is exactly the document which he wrote for me.

Presiding Judge: Did the witness receive this from the hands of Hoess?

Witness Gilbert: I received this from Hoess himself and have kept it in my possession ever since, except that I showed it to Mr. Hausner when I came here.

Attorney General: I submit this document. To my regret we have not managed to make copies. We shall make copies for the Court. We shall ask for the document to be returned to us so that we may print it. The handwriting of Hoess is quite legible.

Presiding Judge: This will be exhibit T/1169.

You will receive it back after the session, in order to make copies of it. Has Dr. Servatius seen the document?

Attorney General: Dr. Servatius has received from us a copy of the English translation, since Dr. Gilbert made an English translation for himself. And I gave him the complete translation.

Presiding Judge: Please also give him the German original.

Attorney General: Certainly.

Dr. Servatius: May I request a photocopy of the handwritten document, in order to show it to the Accused?

Attorney General: I have no objection to Defence Counsel receiving the document and showing it to the Accused.

Presiding Judge: The document will be returned to you, and you can submit it to Defence Counsel.

Attorney General: I have a manuscript of Hoess which has also not yet been published. I shall let him have it immediately.

I understand that Eichmann is mentioned in the autobiography written by Hoess?

Witness Gilbert: Yes, I noticed that. That is how I began to get the impression that Colonel Hoess cannot describe the extermination programme without referring to Eichmann, even though he is only supposed to be writing a personal autobiography for psychological purposes.

Q. At a later stage we shall draw the Court’s attention to what it says there.

Tell me, Professor Gilbert, did Hoess testify in Court?

A. Yes. He was a witness for Kaltenbrunner.

Q. He gave evidence, or at any rate evidence was led, showing that 2,500,000 men, women and children had been exterminated in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

A. Yes.

Q. What was the effect of this evidence on the other accused in that trial, as far as you remember?

A. Well, this was one of the main psychological problems at the trial. The atrocity evidence of the extermination and the films of the atrocities and concentration camps sometimes had a very shocking effect on the defendants themselves, and I was very anxious to find out just how genuine this was, and what their guilt reactions were from a psychological point of view.

Q. Do you remember what Hans Frank said to you?

A. Yes. In connection with the testimony of Rudolf Hoess, he stopped me in the hall on the way to lunch or from lunch and said: “Captain Gilbert, this was the lowest point of the trial. Just imagine a man sitting there and saying out of his own mouth: I murdered two and a half million men, women, and children.” Oh yes, I remember the additional comment: “People will talk about this for a thousand years.”

Q. Do you recall the testimony of Keitel who, I believe, was the Chief of the German General Staff?

A. That’s right. I recall Keitel’s reaction to the atrocities particularly vividly in connection with the atrocities films. And when I saw him in the cell later, he said: “Those dirty SS swine! If I had known what they were up to, I would have told my son, I’ll shoot you rather than let you join the SS.” He was, of course, at the same time trying to indicate that it was not the army that had committed these horrible atrocities. But he did react emotionally and with great shock.

Q. Do you remember any unusual reaction on the part of anyone else?

A. Well, there were a number of them. We could, of course, go on and on, but I think we want to come back to the documents that form the picture that I gradually formed of the role of Adolf Eichmann.

Q. That is correct.

A. Well, in connection with getting these guilt reactions, I would have to present the reaction of Goering, which leads to the next document which I received from Colonel Hoess. Goering’s reaction was to try to brush it all aside, to tell everybody that this was all exaggerated propaganda. “Oh, they are a bunch of SS Schweinehunde doing some dirty things, but it is all exaggerated, it’s all propaganda.”

So, I would engage Goering in conversation in front of the others and say: “Well, now, you can’t just brush off the murder of two and a half million people. The German people themselves will demand to know how did this happen. The conscience of the world demands to know how did this happen. Do you want to go down in history as a man who just laughed it off?” …And we would argue along this line.

You see, the only way of appealing to Goering was not through conscience, but through his egotistical role in history. And I knew that he was trying to brush aside the crimes, so that he would not lose his chance to get his picture in the German history books, because he knew that even the German people would be horrified by it. Particularly because women and children had been murdered. The killing of the men would not damage his picture in the German history books, he told me.

Now then, realizing that he was determined to try to blot out the memory of this horrible crime from history, I felt that, psychologically, historically and humanly, it was absolutely necessary to see to it that this was properly documented – both from the historical and the psychological point of view.

Q. And then, what did you do?

A. I therefore told him…I’m sorry. No, the next step was his clinching argument, namely, that it was technically impossible to exterminate two and a half million people inside of the three or three and a half years that Colonel Hoess was Commandant of Auschwitz. This seemed to be very convincing to some of the other Nazi leaders.

Q. What did you do, then?

A. I then told him that, of course, I was no expert in mass production of extermination, but that there was an expert in the witness wing, and I could get the details from him. I was, of course, referring to Colonel Hoess.

Q. And then you took a sheet of paper and you wrote at the top certain words in German?

A. That’s right. I wrote a question in German.

Q. And you gave it to Hoess and got his written reply?

A. That’s right. I handed it to him, and he wrote the reply in his own handwriting.

Q. You gave it to him on 23 April 1946, and you received his reply on 24 April 1946?

A. Yes. I believe the dates are recorded on the document.

Q. Kindly read out to the Court the question and the answer (I already have a printed copy here – it is a short document).

A. The question which I wrote down in German was: Goering wants to know how it was at all possible, from a technical point of view, to destroy two and a half million people in the course of three and a half years.

Q. What was Hoess’ reply?

Presiding Judge: Mr. Hausner, this is going to take very long, with the translation.

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Q. One further question – my last – Dr. Foeldi. At the time the Jews were being loaded on to the trains at Uzhgorod, did you notice, at the time, Germans of the Gestapo or the SS as well?

A. Yes, they were there at the railway station, between the rails and the station; they were standing and watching and actively participated, I would say. They got hold of one who had not reported, they arrested him in the town and brought him to the railway station, and one of the Gestapo men beat him up.

State Attorney Bach: Thank you very much.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, do you have any questions to the witness?

Dr. Servatius: Yes. [To witness] Was the member of the gendarmerie whom you mentioned a Hauptmann by the name of Zoeldi?

A. I think so, with the rank of Captain – I think so.

Q. Did I understand correctly that he was the liaison officer to the Eichmann Kommando?

A. I did not say that. What I said was that I got to know subsequently that he fled from the Hungarian gendarmerie and went over to the German army already before the occupation of Hungary.

Q. Do you know the name Ferenczy?

A. Yes.

Q. Who was he?

A. He was an officer of the Hungarian gendarmerie - the commander of the gendarmerie.

Q. Did this Captain Zoeldi serve with Ferenczy?

A. I do not know. I cannot know that.

Dr. Servatius: Thank you. In that case I have no further questions.

Presiding Judge: Mr. Bach, do you have any questions?

State Attorney Bach: I do not wish to re-examine the witness.

Witness Foeldi: Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, I should like to add a few remarks.

Presiding Judge: After you have answered all the questions.

Judge Halevi: You said that, as was well-known, 4,000 Jews were killed in Sobotica. Perhaps you would tell us about it briefly, for nevertheless here not everybody knows, in which year and by whom?

Witness Foeldi: As far as I know, it was in 1942. The place was a military zone. Acting on their own, the army and members of the gendarmerie initiated an operation, rounded up Jews, killed them and threw them into the Danube.

Q. Was this in Hungary or outside its borders?

A. It was within the borders of Hungary, but without the government’s knowledge. The government intervened only with difficulty, for they cut all communications with Budapest, the telephone and telegraph lines, and by the time the matter had become known in Budapest, several thousands had already been killed.

Q. Did you say that this Zoeldi took part?

A. He was one of the most active and cruel.

Q. And after that he fled to Germany, you say?

A. So we heard, for they were looking for him and wanted to bring him to trial. And we heard that he had fled to Germany and joined the service of the Gestapo.

Q. And you saw him again in the ghetto as an officer of the Hungarian gendarmerie?

A. No, I said that he was in the uniform of the German army.

Q. You said that there was a Council of Elders, which stayed outside the ghetto?

A. Yes, all the time, until the very end, for they concerned themselves with providing food for the people of the ghetto and, as far as they could, clothing and other articles.

There was a Jewish soup-kitchen there, and every day they sent in food for the people who were inside the ghetto. They were outside the ghetto, and we – the three of us together with a number of others who dealt with matters of administration – were inside the ghetto.

Q. And finally did they put them, too, into the ghetto?

A. Yes. And subsequently, as far as I remember, all of us left together with all the members of the Council on the last transport.

Presiding Judge: The dates were not so clear to me. The date you gave for the ghettoization – was that after the occupation of Hungary by the Germans?

Witness Foeldi: Yes. It was after 19 March 1944.

Q. What was the situation, prior to that, in Carpatho-Russia?

A. Until that time the position was not bad, relatively, except for a section of the border where they began the evacuation a little earlier, but we did not see anything exceptional in this, since, with the approach of the Russian army, we thought that the citizens – and first and foremost the Jews – were afraid and therefore these people were moved away from the border.

Q. These events that you described – were they at the beginning of March, 1944?

A. Yes.

Presiding Judge: What did you want to add?

Witness Foeldi: I wanted to make three additional remarks.

Presiding Judge: Please make them briefly since, generally speaking, we do not allow this.

Witness Foeldi: Yes, I understand the position, but in order to complete the picture, the first question, which, in fact, Your Honour the Presiding Judge, has already asked, relates to the fact that the Russian army was on the border – 100 kilometres from Uzhgorod, and this affected the morale.

We listened practically every day to the Czech radio which kept on saying: “Stand firm, we are 100 kilometres away.” We thought that the Russians were likely to enter our zone any morning. That is the first remark.

The second remark: Perhaps the question of revolt can be raised.

Presiding Judge: We have already heard about that.

Witness Foeldi: I merely wanted to add that in the ghetto there were no youths and no men – there were only old people, above the age of 48 and so on.

My final remark: In connection with the committee whose function it was to preserve order, as I stated, I related that in the course of the evacuation, whether intentionally or not, it was carried out in certain places in such great haste that people arrived at the ghetto without any personal effects, and the Council had to take care of them with the result that when fresh transports entered the ghetto, for instance in the evening, people fell upon them and deprived them of all kinds of things which they needed for their children and themselves. And it was for this reason that it was necessary to keep order and also see to the fair distribution of food.

Presiding Judge: Thank you very much, Dr. Foeldi, you have concluded your testimony.

State Attorney Bach: We shall still have time for the evidence of Ze’ev Sapir.

Presiding Judge: [To witness] Do you speak Hebrew?

Witness Sapir: Yes.

[The witness is sworn.]

Presiding Judge: What is your full name?

Witness: Ze’ev Sapir.

State Attorney Bach: Where were you born, Mr. Sapir?

Witness Sapir: I was born in the village of Dobradovo, near the town of Munkacs, in Carpatho-Russia.

Q. How old were you when the Germans entered Hungary in March 1944?

A. 20 years old.

Q. Do you remember when you and your family were confined to the ghetto?

A. Yes.

Presiding Judge: When did the Germans arrive there?

Witness Sapir: The Germans occupied our zone on 19 or 20 March 1944, I do not remember the exact day.

State Attorney Bach: At that time did your zone belong to
Hungary?

Witness Sapir: Yes – from 1939 to 1944, that date I mentioned, our zone was annexed to Hungary. I well remember the day on which we were all brought – my family and I and the members of our community, all of us – into the ghetto of Munkacs; it was on 17 April 1944.

Q. How many were there in the ghetto?

A. In the ghetto we entered – it was actually a brickyard in the name of Kalush in the town of Munkacs – we were some 14,000 people. Apart from this ghetto, there was another one in the same town, the ghetto of Sajovits – I do not remember the number who were kept there.

Q. Before this, were you living in the town itself or in a townlet or in a smaller place?

A. On 17 April the Hungarian gendarmerie came to our village and also to adjoining villages, and we were brought in on the same day, 17 April, reaching the ghetto towards evening.

Q. How many Jews were you in your village?

A. One hundred and three souls, including children of all ages.

Q. When you were in the ghetto, do you recall an occasion when Adolf Eichmann visited this place?

A. Yes – one day the Hungarian gendarmerie informed us that one of the SS high command was about to visit us; they also mentioned the name of Adolf Eichmann two weeks before we entered the ghetto – that was at the beginning of April. And when the Hungarian gendarmerie announced the visit of Adolf Eichmann, an order was issued to clean the ghetto area and to do everything necessary to welcome him.

To this end an instruction was given – perhaps it would be more correct to say an order – that precisely the older Jews – particularly those over the age of 50 – should be obliged to perform this work. Since I was a young man, I did not participate in this work. But my father did.

Q. How old was your father?

A. My father was then over 50 – he was born in 1895.

Q. Did the name of Eichmann also appear in the local newspaper at the time?

A. Yes, the day after his visit.

Presiding Judge: Your father was 49 then, to be exact?

Witness Sapir: Yes. The visit was featured the following morning in the local Nazi-Fascist press. It expressed its joy in honour of the visitor, and a pro-Nazi article appeared there written in an extremely liberal tone – naturally, when I say “liberal,” I mean in quotation marks.

Presiding Judge: Please, do not quote anything in quotation
marks – simply give us the facts.

Witness Sapir: They said that he was concerned for the Jews, that he had visited the Jews in the ghetto, and that was enough for us to know that he was the man who had been with us the previous day, because he had been there the day before.

State Attorney Bach: Was his name also mentioned in the paper?

Witness Sapir: Yes, his name was given in the paper on that day.

Q. And did his picture appear as well?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you see this man at the time of his visit?

A. I also saw this man at the time of his visit. A roll-call took place in which, I think, everyone over the age of 16 had to participate, and we all took part in this roll-call.

Q. How many officers took part in this visit?

A. It was a fairly large party of about thirty SS officers.

Q. Whereabouts in the party, did this man, who you later knew to be Eichmann, walk?

A. The following morning, according to what we saw in the newspaper, it was clear to all of us – at any rate to all those people who were standing near the newspaper and read it – that he was the man who walked at the head of this party.

A. You identified him afterwards, after you had seen the article and the photograph in the newspaper, you remembered that this was the man who walked at the head of this party?

A. Yes.

Q. How many days before the commencement of the deportations did this incident, this visit, take place?

A. Two days in all, two days before the deportations. And, if I may point this out here, when the deportations began, it was the talk of the day of everybody in the ghetto, that it was precisely this man who had visited the ghetto who had been instrumental in organizing these deportations.

Presiding Judge: We do not want to hear this. What the topic of conversation was of that day, is of not much value.

State Attorney Bach: You see the Accused here. Can you identify him as being the man whom you saw then?

Witness Sapir: It is hard to compare. After all, 17 years have elapsed since then.

Q. By the way, that man whom you saw – how was he dressed?

A. In a green uniform.

Q. Of what army?

A. Of the SS.

Q. Do you remember on which date the deportations began?

A. I think that the deportations began on 16 or 17 May 1944.

Q. Were you amongst those deported?

A. Yes.

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Q. Are you able to tell the Court something about attempts to mislead the Jews of the town regarding their ultimate fate?

A. Yes. When the deportations began, a Gestapo officer said to me – I will use his actual words in German: “Ihr lebt jahier wie die Schweine, Ihr werdet nach Deutschland ueberfuehrt, wo Ihr in normalen Verhaeltnissen leben werdet mit Euren Familien. ” (You are indeed living here like pigs; you will be transferred to Germany, and there you will lead a normal life; you will be transferred with your families). And then he said: “Ihr werdet dort arbeiten” (You will work there).

Q. Can you tell the Court about a false order which appeared
to show some concern for Jewish education?

A. Yes. Once we received a letter from the Gestapo. The Ghetto Committee received the letter through the Council, which stated that it was not good for the children to be wandering about the ghetto area without studying the Torah or receiving an appropriate religious education. Therefore they gave us an order to see to it that the children studied. I was given the letter for my attention. I did not understand – and I was unable to understand – the purpose of the letter.

Presiding Judge: In what capacity did you receive this letter?

Witness Foeldi: I was one of three former officers of the Austro-Hungarian and Czech army, and the three of us were charged with organizing and attending to the fair distribution of food, etc., and also with keeping order, as far as it was in our power. I received this letter and I did not understand the Gestapo’s concern for the Jewish education of the children.

But, anyhow, I asked the Rabbis who were in the ghetto to attend a meeting. There I read out the letter. The senior Rabbi suggested that we send our thanks to the Gestapo for its concern and request authority to send a number of men to the synagogue where we could take out the books which would enable us to provide for education and studies. We never received any reply or reaction.

State Attorney Bach: Did you ever see in this place, in Uzhgorod, the officer Marton Zoeldi?

Witness Foeldi: Yes.

Q. Perhaps you would tell the Court, who was Marton Zoeldi?

A. He was an officer of the Hungarian gendarmerie. In 1942, when there were the riots in Subotica, and it became known throughout the world that 4,000 Jews were killed there, he was the prime mover of this whole operation. Subsequently, when an end was put to this whole campaign in Subotica, he fled to Germany and joined the Gestapo. On one occasion we heard in the Uzhgorod Ghetto that Marton Zoeldi would be coming. I was alone in the office when he walked in and moved around.

Suddenly he asked me: “What is your name?” I told him: Martin Foeldi.” He gave me a slap in the face and said: “How dare you have such a name when there is a difference of only one letter between my name and yours – my name is Marton Zoeldi and you are Martin Foeldi?” That is how it began. This was the first time my face was slapped since I became an adult.

Q. How did the presence of Zoeldi affect the manner of the deportations?

A. It had an adverse effect. Even prior to this the arrangements were not good, and no deportation was carried out without acts of cruelty. But after he had been there a day or two, everybody was afraid of him, including the officers of the Hungarian Police. We felt that they feared him.

Q. Do you know anything about Zoeldi’s function within the Gestapo?

A. No.

Q. In what office, in what place did he work as a rule?

A. It was only after the War that I got to know that he was Eichmann’s right-hand man.

Presiding Judge: You said earlier that he had been in the Hungarian Gendarmerie?

Witness Foeldi: Yes, but he fled after the riots.

State Attorney Bach: He added that he subsequently joined the Gestapo.

Presiding Judge: Was he in uniform?

Witness Foeldi: Yes.

Q. In what uniform?

A. In the uniform of the German army.

State Attorney Bach: When did the deportations in Uzhgorod begin?

Witness Foeldi: Approximately on 14 April 1944, or 20 April.

Q. Did the “ghettoization” of the transports begin then?

A. The deportations from the ghetto began then.

Q. Where to?

A. At that time we did not know the destination – merely that the deportations had begun.

Q. Are you sure it was in April?

A. No, I made a mistake, it was in May.

Presiding Judge: In what year?

Witness Foeldi: 1944.

State Attorney Bach: In what manner were these deportations carried out?

Witness Foeldi: We received a notice from the Council, for the members of the Council were not inside the ghetto. We received this notice to the Ghetto Committee that we were to draw up a list of people – as far as I remember, of 1,500 to 2,000 persons. Inside the ghetto there was a loudspeaker and we requested those persons who wished to leave together to come to the office to register.

Whole families reported, or one member of a family who gave us a list of all the members of the family, their relatives and friends. There was an official there, he was also a Jew and in fact one of us, who recorded and drew up the list. On the following day there was a roll-call and all the people were divided into sections of 50 or 52 persons – approximately 1,500 to 2,000 people in all.

Q. Was there any distinction at all made between men, women and children?

A. No, no distinction.

Q. All of them were taken?

A. Yes, they were all taken. Old men and women, women and men.

Q. In what kind of trains were they transported?

A. In freight trains. We saw the trains from inside the ghetto. Although it was far away, one could see the trains.

Q. How many people were there in each freight-car?

A. Seventy to eighty persons.

Q. At what rate were these deportations carried out?

A. Almost every day or two days.

Q. Almost every day or two days a train left with 1,500 people?

A. Yes. Every two days would be more accurate.

Q. When did you go?

A. I left with the last transport.

Q. Which members of your family went with you?

A. All my family. And apart from that, we three officers who had been on the committee.

Q. Were you officers in the Austro–Hungarian army?

A. Yes, and we were on the Ghetto Committee.

Q. Who were the members of your close family?

A. My wife, son, daughter, father-in-law, mother-in-law, my brother-in-law, his wife and little girl.

Q. Where were you transported to?

A. We went via Csap and Kosice. At Kosice we knew that we were on the border between Slovakia and Hungary. And we knew that from that point onwards we would know that if we went to the right after Kosice this would mean that we were going to the east, to Poland. If we continued in a straight line we believed we would remain inside Czechoslovakian territory.

Q. In fact, where did you go?

A. We travelled to Auschwitz via Obysovce-Presov.

Q. When you arrived at Auschwitz, did someone in a certain conversation want to tell you what was happening in Auschwitz?

A. When I arrived?

A. Yes, or shortly before that. I am referring to a particular encounter when someone wanted to tell you what was happening there.

A. The moment we reached Auschwitz some people came in – we did not know who they were for we had never seen uniforms such as theirs. We were given an order to get down, but quickly, and to leave all our effects and belongings inside the freight-car.

We alighted and it was in such a hurried manner and at such a fast pace that we did not realize what was happening. They said to us that the men should stand on the right side with children over the age of 14, and the women on the left with the young boys and girls. They, the women began walking while we were still standing, and suddenly they were almost completely out of view.

I stood there with my son who was only 12 years old. After we had started walking forward, I suddenly came up to a certain man. I did not know who he was. He was dressed in a uniform of the German army, elegant, and he asked me what my profession was. I knew that being a lawyer by profession would not be very helpful and, therefore, told him that I was a former officer. He looked at me and asked: “How old is the boy?” At that moment I could not lie, and I told him: 12 years old. And then he said: “Wo ist die Mutti?” (And where is your mother?) I answered: “She went to the left.” Then he said to my son: “Run after your mother.”

After that I went on walking to the right and I saw how the boy was running. I wondered to myself how would he be able to find his mother there? After all, there were so many women and men, but I caught sight of my wife. How did I recognize her? My little girl was wearing some kind of a red coat. The red spot was a sign that my wife was near there. The red spot was getting smaller and smaller. I walked to the right and never saw them again.

Q. Did they take all the women with the children to that side?

A. I noticed that also amongst the women they made some kind of division. The younger women were walking separately without boys or girls, and the older women walked in a separate group. After the event we heard of a case where “Haeftlinge” (detainees) the old hands, if I may call them that, came along. It happened occasionally that one of them would say to a young woman: “Give the child to granny and you go to work.” There were individual instances of this kind – a cousin of mine also handed over her boy and girl to a grandmother and went to work, but she was killed there.

Q. Dr. Foeldi, how long were you in Auschwitz?

A. I was in Auschwitz for only ten days.

Q. While you were there, can you tell the Court something about the postcards which you were obliged to write?

A. Yes. It was during the first days that we were given an order – we received a postcard and a pencil and they dictated to us the wording of the postcard.

Q. Who dictated?

A. He was some kind of Kapo or SS man. I do not remember exactly any longer – we were standing against a wall, writing, and from behind they dictated to us the contents of the postcard.

Q. What did they tell you to write on this postcard?

A. I do not remember it word for word, but it was more or less as follows: “I am at my ease and I am going out to work. I am feeling well.” I do not remember the postcard exactly, but I subsequently found in my sister’s possession the card I had sent her in Budapest.

Q. Did they tell you to write the name of the place where you were?

A. Yes. Waldsee. I must add that, while we were still in the ghetto we had already received such a postcard from the first transports.

Q. You received a postcard from Waldsee. What did you think of that?

A. We began searching for the place and found some resort place by that name in Austria.

Q. How did the receipt of these postcards at the time effect you?

A. That put our minds at ease. We thought, at any rate, that they were well and, secondly, that this was a wonderful place in Austria – so we thought.

Q. Dr. Foeldi, can you identify this postcard? [Hands a postcard to the witness].

A. Yes. It says here: “I have arrived safely. I am fit and in good spirits, and feel fine.” And here is my first name and that of my wife. I added my wife’s first name in order to give a hint that I was together with her.

Q. Is it written in your handwriting?

A. Yes.

Q. And to whom did you send this postcard?

A. To my sister in Budapest.

Q. And afterwards did she return this postcard to you, and is that why you have it in your possession?

A. Yes.

Presiding Judge: Are you producing this postcard in evidence?

State Attorney Bach: Yes.

Presiding Judge: Again, we shall hand the postcard back to the witness – we have a copy here. The postcard is marked T/1151.

What name did you sign?

Witness Foeldi: The first name and surname we used within the family – Martin is Marcel and Bizi – Elizabeth.

State Attorney Bach: Did they dictate the contents of this word by word or merely the general content?

Witness Foeldi: Word by word.

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Q. Mrs. Szenes, would you nevertheless now reply to my specific question – how did you succeed in reaching Hungary?

A. I crossed the border on foot and managed to reach Budapest. There I subsequently obtained from the Foreign Office, in other words from the government, the right of asylum.

Q. Where were you when the Germans entered Budapest on 19 March 1944?

A. I was living in Pension Darday, at No 2 Rothermere Street.

Q. What happened to you?

A. The Germans arrived on Sunday 19 March. On the Tuesday of that week, at 5 o’clock in the morning, I was awakened by SS men who entered my room and said: “Come with us.”

Q. Where did they take you at first?

A. They took me, together with a few Polish refugees who were also living in the same pension – they took me to Koshot Street, to the Astoria Hotel, the headquarters of the Gestapo.

Q. How many days were you there?

A. I was there four days, until Friday afternoon. They did not give us anything to eat or drink.

Q. Throughout the four days, you did not receive anything to eat or drink?

A. We received absolutely no food or drink. I also want to stress that then, on the first day, I was the only Jewess there. There were Hungarian ministers, Ferenc Keresztes-Fischer, Minister of the Interior, Count Gyoergy Apponyi, Ferenc Choren, and later on members of the editorial staff of the newspaper Nepszava, and Mano Buchinger, a socialist member of the Legislative Assembly.

Q. Mrs. Szenes, where did they take you?

A. Later on – when there were already more of us Jews – they took us to the gaol on Zrinyi Street.

Q. Can you tell the Court what they did to you there?

A. Already at the Gestapo headquarters they stood us up against a wall for hours, and they threatened that if we turned our faces they would use their weapons. When I came out of the basement of the Astoria and a van for transporting prisoners was waiting there, I shouted out in the street to passers-by that they should stop since I wanted it to be known that I was still alive. When one of the passers-by stopped, a SS man threatened me with his gun and threw me on to the truck. In the prison on Zrinyi Street, there were 16-18 of us in a cell of two and a half metres.

Q. Do you remember that the SS men acted in a certain way in order to embarrass the women in the presence of the soldiers?

A. Yes. Every morning we had to rise between 4 and 5 o’clock and to wash ourselves in the corridor while naked, which was exceedingly embarrassing to us.

Q. To wash yourselves – that means in the presence of the soldiers?

A. Yes, in the presence of the soldiers. And if anyone did not undress and did not wash herself in a way that was satisfactory in their opinion, they would throw a bucket of water over her.

Q. Mrs. Szenes, in those years, 1943 and 1944, did you already know what was happening to the Jews in Auschwitz?

A. Yes. I knew. Already in 1943, when I was no longer in Michalovce, a man named Klein-Klinowski, who had a Hungarian passport, and who now lives in Herzlia, moved to Budapest. He brought the news that a member of the Slovakian Guard had brought a letter from Auschwitz for the Blei family.

Q. Perhaps we do not need all these names – simply tell the Court what you know, in fact, of what was happening to the Jews in Auschwitz.

Presiding Judge: Were you, at that time, already in Budapest?

Witness Szenes: Yes. It was stated in that letter that gas chambers existed there and that they were taking the girls to houses of prostitution.

State Attorney Bach: Did you attempt to tell responsible people in Budapest about these matters?

Witness Szenes: Yes. I accompanied Klein-Klinowski to Dr. Georg Polgar, who was then in the social welfare department, and I informed him of it. I told him about it since danger again threatened the Jews of Slovakia, and I very much wanted them to be brought en masse to Hungary.

Q. Mrs. Szenes, what was the response to this story of yours?

A. He said simply: “You are a great poetess and possess a broad imagination.”

Q. Mrs. Szenes, when did you arrive at the Kistarcsa camp?

A. I also want to relate that they took me from the prison in Zrinyi Street firstly to the Schwabenberg. That was where the Gestapo was situated. There I was seriously tortured. And ultimately they returned me to the prison on Zrinyi Street.

Q. Now please tell us when you were transferred to Kistarcsa?

A. I do not remember the exact number of days, but I was in the Zrinyi Street prison for about six weeks.

Q. What happened at the end of these six weeks?

A. First of all, we Jewish women there, at Kistarcsa, were in the hands of the Gestapo.

Q. After that you came to Kistarcsa?

Presiding Judge: She has already spoken of what took place in Kistarcsa.

State Attorney Bach: You were in the hands of the Gestapo. Can you tell the Court when you were put, for the first time, on a deportation train from Kistarcsa?

Witness Szenes: From there they passed us on to the Hungarians, and we were there for a few weeks under their control, until July. Then they apparently knew that a deportation transport was leaving, since they took certain steps. At first they took us to the Kistarcsa Keleti station. We travelled by train to Budapest, but not to the eastern Keleti railway station but to another station, on the outskirts.

Q. How long were you in Budapest?

A. They then put us in a so-called place of detention, and there we already met many women and men who had been transferred there from Roekk-Szilard Street and other places of detention. After that we were taken to the Keleti railway station and were loaded on to railway waggons used for transporting animals.

We were about 70 people or perhaps 80 in one waggon. We stood for a very long time at the Keleti railway station. Then, nevertheless, we were sent away. At a later stage, we were held up at a station for a very long time.

Q. After you were held up at that station, what happened to
the train?

A. Since we were in railway waggons designed for conveying animals, we did not see, we could not observe what was happening outside, there were no windows. But later on, despite that, when the train began moving, we sensed that the train was now travelling in the opposite direction.

Q. Did the train in fact go back, and were you returned to Kistarcsa?

A. Yes – we returned and in the evening we reached Kistarcsa. The next morning we heard rumours that we had been sent back on Horthy’s orders.

Q. Mrs. Szenes – what happened to you a few days later?

A. After about four or five days – I do not remember exactly how much time elapsed meanwhile – it was precisely during lunch that SS soldiers entered and shouted “Heraus mit euch” (Out with you).

Q. Did this come to you as a total surprise?

A. It was a total surprise. A terrible panic arose.

Q. What did they do with you?

A. By then buses had already been prepared and they forced us to board the buses very quickly. A few, who were unable to walk, were thrown on the buses.

Q. Was any consideration at all given to the sick and the aged?

A. No, no. The widow of Dr. Michael Foeldi, the well-known writer, had previously taken poison, and therefore was unable to walk; so they threw her up onto the bus. At great speed we reached the railway station of Keleti and were put into the railway waggons.

Q. How many were there this time – how many people were put into one waggon?

A. In the waggons? Like the first time, that is to say together, about 70-80 women.

Q. Mrs. Szenes, where did the train take you to?

A. We reached Auschwitz via Slovakia. We crossed the border at Orlova.

Q. What happened to the people of that transport who arrived at Auschwitz?

A. They went off, group by group, to the right and to the left. I was sent off with the group that was directed to the side of life, and the others, as we know, went to the gas chambers.

Mengele was standing there – he indicated to the right or to the left. As he divided up the groups, roughly half by half, in each of the two directions, to the side of life and to the side of the gas chambers – roughly, I cannot  say exactly.

Q. How do you know that one side led to life and the other to death, to the gas chambers?

A. They did not conceal that at all, they made no secret of it. They said that to us right away, when we were directed to the side of life, the women who were there told us.

Incidentally, I met acquaintances there. There was actually no need for gas, since many people died in the first weeks, even in the first days – within a few days they perished.

Q. Do you know roughly how many persons of the transport survived?

A. No. I cannot tell you that, since they were transferred to various places.

Q. To what place were you transferred from Auschwitz?

A. I was transported as part of a group of 500 people, but within this group there were only a few people left of those who had come from Kistarcsa. They took us to Fallersleben in West Germany, to a factory for war production.

Q. Did you ultimately reach a place called Salzwedel?

A. Yes. Ten days before the liberation, the group was transferred to Salzwedel; but by that time the group had already grown to 800 who had come from a death march, had stopped at Fallersleben and were joined together with us.

Q. Do you recall a particular incident concerning railway waggons that arrived – waggons full of Jewish men who came to Salzwedel?

A. Yes. They came after us. But then they no longer opened the doors of the waggons.

Q. What did that mean? What was the outcome?

A. Since the Americans only arrived ten days later – this happened on 14 April – they all died there in these sealed trucks.

Q. You mentioned earlier a place called Fallersleben. What happened there to women who gave birth to children?

A. In Fallersleben there were two women who gave birth to babies. At the beginning the SS women nursed them fondly, for about four or five days, but afterwards, they took them away together with their mothers. As we learned they brought them subsequently to Bergen-Belsen and to the gas chambers.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, do you have any questions to the witness?

Dr. Servatius: You said that they brought you to the Schwabenberg and took you into the office. What office was this?

Witness Szenes: Yes. It was some villa.

Q. But there were several officers there. The chief of the German Security Police was there, as was the commandant of the Sipo and the SD in Budapest; there was something there called the “Sonderkommando Eichmann” and the German Gestapo was there. Do you remember in which of all these offices you were?

A. I did not meet any Hungarians there. SS men interrogated me, in one of the rooms. Prior to that I was guarded by a soldier of the SS. Then they placed me against a wall for three hours and said to me that if I should turn my face around, they would shoot me and kill me. But notwithstanding that, I could no longer restrain myself, and I turned my face.

Q. Madame witness, my question was: Do you remember in which one of the offices you were? You did not see Hungarians. Do you remember in which office of non-Hungarians you were? Yes or no? Either you remember or you do not remember.

A. I understand. There were high-ranking officers there, and on the same day Budapest was bombed. The Germans looked at the city through binoculars, and tortured many people there, including both a Jew and a Franciscan monk.

Presiding Judge: The witness did not understand the question. Dr. Servatius referred here to several German offices. Are you able to tell us whether it was in the building of the Sonderkommando Eichmann or of the Commander of the Sipo or in one of the other buildings – yes or no?

Witness Szenes: I do not know. They did not tell me and I did not know it, and I don’t know.

Dr. Servatius: Thank you very much – I have no further questions.

Judge Halevi: You said that they were interrogating you there. What were they interrogating about? What did they want to know?

Witness Szenes: My impression was that they intended to attach me to their espionage service – since they asked me questions of that kind. May I point out further – they said that a journalist should know that, to which I replied: “Yes, I am a journalist, but I am not a statistician.”

Presiding Judge: Thank you very much, Mrs. Szenes.

State Attorney Bach: One further witness, whose evidence will be brief, Mrs. Margit Reich.

Presiding Judge: Kindly stand up. Do you speak Hebrew?

Witness Reich: No.

Presiding Judge: What language?

Witness Reich: Hungarian.

[The witness is sworn.]

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Q. Do you know a place called Sabac? What does it remind you of?

A. Austrian, German and Czech refugees, who were on their way to Israel via the Danube at the beginning of 1941, and who were stopped at the Yugoslav-Romanian border when war broke out between Germany and Yugoslavia, were taken to Sabac. In Sabac 900 of these refugees were shot.

Q. Mr. Arnon, do you remember an extradition request from the Zagreb authorities while you were in Ljubljana?

A. I was in hospital in Ljubljana after an operation when two Italian officials, one in uniform and one in civilian clothes, came and wanted to examine my status after an extradition request had been received from Zagreb. They asked me to report to the police station after leaving the hospital.

When I appeared before the prefect, he told me that he had let my file disappear since, formally, the law had not been adhered to: The extradition request from Croatia was sent directly to the District Government in Ljubljana, without passing through the official channel via the Foreign Ministry.

Q. You were not extradited?

A. No.

Q. You told the Court how many Jews there were in Yugoslavia before the outbreak of the War in 1941. How many were left after the War?

A. As I said, there were 75,000 Jews in Yugoslavia, of whom 60,000 were killed. Thanks to the generous gesture of Marshall Tito, 8,000 Jews were able to come to Israel from Yugoslavia with all their movable property. 2,000 may now be in various parts of North and South America, Canada and Australia. 5,000-6,000 live in Yugoslavia today.

Q. I should like to remind you of an article. Tell the Court, please, whether you remember it. It is Prosecution document 1624. It is an article which was published by the Minister of the Interior, Dr. Artukovic, in the Croatian “People’s Journal,” No. 26, of 26 February 1942. It deals with the solution of the Jewish Question. Do you remember it?

A. Yes. I heard the speech by Andre Artukovic on the radio, and besides, I read it in the papers.

State Attorney Bar-Or: I should like to submit the text.

Presiding Judge: This will be Exhibit T/891.

State Attorney Bar-Or: I have completed my questioning.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, do you have any questions to the witness?

Dr. Servatius: Here, also, I have no questions.

Judge Raveh: You told us that you had to report many times to the Gestapo office in Zagreb. Was this the only Gestapo office in Croatia, or were there other offices in Croatia?

Witness Arnon: In Zagreb there was the central office of the Gestapo in the very well-known Nasicka building. In other parts of Yugoslavia we know only about Gestapo branch offices in Osijek and Sarajevo.

Q. Were there representatives of the Gestapo in the camps?

A. No.

Q. Did you remain in Ljubljana until the end of the War?

A. No. In August 1942 I was sent to the so-called Libero Confino, in Alba near Cuneo.

Q. Was this under Italian authority?

A. It was in Italy.

Q. And you remained there until the end of the War?

A. No. After the surrender of Italy I fled to a small village called Robbi near Alba and went into hiding with a peasant. On 20 September 1943 I escaped to Switzerland with my family.

Judge Halevi: Mr. Arnon, you mentioned Artukovic several times as a persecutor of the Jews. How did he escape from liberated Yugoslavia?

Witness Arnon: He fled like all other ministers of the Pavelic government, he reached Italy, obtained a passport under an assumed name and fled to South America.

Presiding Judge: Where are you living now?

Witness Arnon: In New York or in California.

Judge Halevi: Did he carry out the measures against the Jews at the order of the Germans?

Witness Arnon: I cannot say definitely that it was at the order of Germans, because I have no proof. But this was generally known.

Q. You mentioned your activities on behalf of the Joint several times. You visited the Representative of the Joint in Budapest three times. What was his name?

A. Mr. Blum, who lives now in Israel.

Q. You said that both he and Dr. Joseph Schwartz in Portugal gave you, or sent you, money?

A. Yes.

Q. And at the request of the Joint you were released from detention?

A. Probably.

Q. How could the Joint make that a condition? You say they made it a condition, that they would not give money unless you were released. Did the Gestapo have an interest in these funds which were to be turned over to the Jews in Croatia?

A. Yes, it did, because it was a matter of dollars.

Q. One more question: I am not sure that I heard correctly when you said that in one camp hundreds of thousands of Serbs were exterminated?

A. Hundreds of thousands.

Q. In what year was that?

A. Beginning in 1941, and until the end.

Q. And who killed them?

A. The Ustashi.

Presiding Judge: Thank you, Mr. Arnon. You have completed your evidence.

State Attorney Bar-Or: I pass on to document No. 1432, and I request that it be admitted in accordance with Section 15 of the Nazi and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law. It is one of those government reports some of which have already been submitted to this Court. This time it is a report by the Staatskommission, the State Commission for Establishing the Crimes of the Occupiers and their Helpers.

This commission was established by the Government of Yugoslavia, which had been reconstituted after the expulsion of the German occupier. The report was submitted in June 1945, and I should like to submit only that part which deals with the crimes of the Germans against the Jews.

We know the identity of the author of this part of the Commission’s report; his name is Milan Marcovic. The importance of the report lies in the fact that it quotes figures on all parts of Yugoslavia and that it gives a survey about the development of the most important events.

It does not primarily deal with the personal responsibility of this or that person from among the Germans and their helpers, such as the Ustashi, etc., but provides a good and exact general survey about the anti-Jewish activities in the various parts of Yugoslavia during the War. I request that it be accepted.

Presiding Judge: Yes. Dr. Servatius, what have you to say about this?

Dr. Servatius: I have no formal objection.

Presiding Judge:

Decision No. 41

We accept as evidence the part dealing with the fate of the Jews in the report of the commission set up by the Government of Yugoslavia.

State Attorney Bar-Or: Your Honour, I submit an original official photograph, together with a translation into German certified by the Yugoslav authorities. I have not been able to prepare a Hebrew translation in time, and I apologize. Counsel for the Defence has also received the German translation of the document which was made in Yugoslavia.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/892.

State Attorney Bar-Or: I shall not go into every detail of this important document. From the titles of the sections the Court will see that it deals with all the questions which also arose in the evidence of Mr. Arnon, and there are also some additional episodes. There are, of course, more details here, but Mr. Arnon actually went over most of the subjects described in detail by the commission.

I now have to ask your permission, Your Honours, to submit a number of additional documents which are only admissible under Section 15.

A number of Gestapo personnel, the Nazis responsible for anti-Jewish and anti-Serbian activities, were in the end put on trial in Belgrade before a military court of the Yugoslav army.

I have before me document No. 1434 which contains the Vernehmungsprotokoll, the record of the examination of Obersturmbannfuehrer Hans Helm. We located him on the organization chart of the operational groups; he was one of the chief subordinates of Fuchs, about whom we shall hear in a moment. It is a record dated 18 September 1946, which was drawn up in Belgrade.

Helm was not directly connected with the Accused; he was directly connected with Fuchs. He was Police Attache in Croatia – this will emerge from a number of documents bearing his signature, which I hope to submit to you in the course of this morning’s sessions. It seems to me that Helm’s evidence is of value, and I ask you to permit me to submit this record.

Presiding Judge: Is Helm still alive?

State Attorney Bar-Or: I am convinced that he is not alive. At any rate, we know nothing about him.

Presiding Judge: Are there more documents of this kind?

State Attorney Bar-Or: There are. If it is possible to combine my requests, I should gladly do so.

Document No. 1433 deals with the evidence of Dr. Wilhelm Fuchs, who was already mentioned, of 4 September 1946. Here the name of the Accused is already expressly mentioned. The man was executed. He had been Helm’s superior.

Presiding Judge: Was the evidence given before that same court in Belgrade?

State Attorney Bar-Or: Before the same military court in Belgrade.

Presiding Judge: Does he mention the Accused?

State Attorney Bar-Or: He speaks about him, already in the second line he mentions the Accused.

A third request concerns document No. 1437. It contains the record of the evidence of SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Ludwig Teichmann before the same Yugoslav military court, dated 17 September 1945; he was also one of the group active in Serbia on behalf of the Gestapo and the SS. He refers of course again to Helm and Fuchs. These things are all connected with one another to a certain extent.

Presiding Judge: What was the fate of this Teichmann?

State Attorney Bar-Or: I do not know his exact fate, I know that he is not alive.

The fourth request concerns document No. 1435. There are actually two records here from Senior Commander of the Police and the SS, August Meisner. From the administrative point of view, he was SS und Polizeifuehrer (Head of the SS and the Police), and he had therefore the highest rank of all those whom I have mentioned.

His evidence was taken on 31 August 1946 before the same Yugoslav military court. The importance of this record lies in the fact that it is the only one that connects the actions of the SS in his region directly to Berlin.

Presiding Judge: What does Berlin mean here?

State Attorney Bar-Or: It means to the Head Office for Reich Security. He mentions the word “Kurfuerstenstrasse.” The man was executed.

And finally document No. 1493, a record dated 26 May 1945 oft the examination of Aleksander Benak on the chapter of Croatia – this one relates to the Croatian side. The significance of the document lies in the fact that it mentions the representative of the Accused in this region.

Presiding Judge: What was Benak’s position?

State Attorney Bar-Or: He was in contact with the Gestapo on behalf of the Directorate about which we have heard.

Presiding Judge: He, a Croat?

State Attorney Bar-Or: Yes, in the main Directorate for Public Order and Security, the internal Croatian administration which acted parallel with the SS.

Judge Halevi: On behalf of Mr. Artukovic?

State Attorney Bar-Or: Yes. Or Kvaternik. The director was Kvaternik. He mentions Abromeit from the office of the Accused, who was active in this region. We shall see him appearing in a number of documents which I shall submit today.

Presiding Judge: Was this also before the same court?

State Attorney Bar-Or: Before the same court.

Presiding Judge: Is Benak alive?

State Attorney Bar-Or: Benak is not alive. He was executed.

These are the five requests. They all belong, in fact, to one group, the same personnel plus Benak, who are active in the area about which the Court heard witnesses this morning.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, what about these five requests?

Dr. Servatius: In my opinion these testimonies are irrelevant, they only show the establishment, but not who operated it and bears the real responsibility. There will be other documents to show this. But I have no formal objection.

Presiding Judge:

Decision No. 42

We accept as evidence the testimonies of Helm, Fuchs, Teichmann, Meisner and Benak, according to the details given to us by Mr. Bar-Or. We do so by virtue of our authority under Section 15 of the Nazi and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law 5710-1950, for the reasons given in our Decision No. 7.

State Attorney Bar-Or: With your permission, I shall discuss them one by one. First, document No. 1434, the Helm record, in which I shall draw the attention of the Court to two passages.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/893.

State Attorney Bar-Or: One passage is in the middle of page 3. He speaks about a conversation between himself and Gruppenfuehrer Mueller in Berlin, actually about two conversations. In the first one there is mention of the need to proceed ruthlessly and resolutely against the Yugoslav population, against the Serb elements in Croatia.

He says that, in 1944, he reminded Mueller of that conversation and told him that, already at that time (in 1941), he had objected to this, that there was no use, no sense, in this manner of proceeding; and that Mueller then agreed, that, indeed, in 1944 it seemed to him that in 1941 he (Helm) and not Mueller had been right. So much about the general activities of the Special Operations Group.

As for the Jews, he refers to them specially in the second passage on page 4 and says that “the Special Operations Group received orders from Berlin to transfer them to a ghetto, in cooperation with the Military Administration.”

He mentions the camp near Sajmiste, which was under the control of the Special Operations Group, by order of the Military Administration. He also mentions that sometimes Jews were chosen as victims from among camp inmates and executed, shot in reprisal.

Now, document No. 1433, the examination of Dr. Wilhelm Fuchs.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/894.

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