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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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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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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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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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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A. About the “ghettoization.”

Q. In the course of that conversation, whose first-degree relatives did the Accused propose, or agree, to release from the “ghettoization”?

A. Those of the members of the central executive.

Q. Did you request that?

A. No. We did not request it. It was spontaneous. Because Dr. Reiner had complained; he said “Why are you making a ghetto?” something like that. He asked: “How can one maintain hygiene, if one square metre is being provided?” He was then asked: “How do you know this?”

He replied: “Rooms have been allotted both to our parents and our families according to this quota.” Then Eichmann said to Krumey: “Very well, they can be brought back to Budapest.”

A. And was this carried out afterwards?

A. It was partly implemented, partly not. People were brought from Nyiregyhaza, but, for example, the two sisters of Dr. Wilhelm, who were living in Kassa, were deported, as were the mother and sister of Kahan-Frankl.

Q. Why did the Accused extend this favour, or this act of grace, to the Jews?

A. I believe that was somehow part of the plan of the SS. Generally, there was a plan to calm the people and to let everybody think that if one person could be brought back, perhaps another one could be brought back as well. Or simply that we had asked that they should not implement “ghettoization” – that they should create better conditions; then it was simpler to tell me: “I shall send five or ten people to Budapest, rather than making some other arrangement on the spot.”

Q. Did you see Wisliceny’s evidence after the War regarding yourself?

A. Yes. I was happy to read it.

Q. Please look at this page, and see whether the account is correct. (I am showing him T/1116 on page 14) At the bottom, in the last line.* {*Refers to the Hebrew translation. For the original, see Exhibit T/1116, p. 8 (S.86).}

A. “There were circumstances preceding Freudiger’s departure. From the very beginning Eichmann had hated Freudiger, because he had a red beard, and because of his confident and non-servile bearing towards him. Endre had a Jewish informer, a certain Rabbi Berend who came from Satoraljaujhely or from Kosice. That is where his family were living.

Endre described this Berend as a Jewish national socialist. Berend constantly gave Endre information about members of the Jewish council, but especially about Freudiger. He described Freudiger as the head of a Jewish conspiracy. Endre reported this to Eichmann and suggested eliminating Freudiger.

Eichmann agreed and wanted to get rid of Freudiger and his family, in exactly the same way as he had sent people simply off to their deaths, one by one – Dr. Eppstein and other public officials in Germany who had ‘known too much.’ Freudiger was to ‘depart’ from Budapest towards the end of August, either alone or on the first deportation train.

As soon as I became aware of this, I advised Freudiger about it. I was the one who insisted on his escaping. We considered all kinds of ways how he could escape, for Freudiger’s family was a very large one.

After we examined all the possibilities, we were left only with Romania. I secured from Grell, the counsellor to the German embassy, the grant of Romanian ‘returnee passports.’ Freudiger did not want to leave but only wanted to send his family. But his wife and children did not want to leave without him. On my personal insistence that any delay was likely to mean certain death, he decided to go, and a few hours before that he was still in my apartment. I sent a Hungarian policeman, who was personally loyal to me, to the train to watch the departure and report to me. When Freudiger left me, he happened to come across Hunsche.

In this way Eichmann got to know about Freudiger’s visit to me. The next day Eichmann learned, through Endre, of Freudiger’s escape. He immediately accused me of assisting him and opened an enquiry. Dr. Kasztner’s report does not do full justice to Freudiger and his activities. Freudiger had to leave, since his remaining would simply have been a useless sacrifice. No one can appreciate this more than I do.”

Q. Is this a correct description?

A. It is slightly exaggerated, but there is something in it.

Q. Were all these details known to you at the time, or did you get to know about them later?

A. No. He told me, as I have said: “Freudiger, go now – you must go.” Several times he told me that Eichmann was angry with me. But the fact that he wanted to deport me or to kill me and my family – that he did not tell me.

Q. Why this excessive care on the part of Wisliceny – why did Wisliceny worry so much about you?

A. Your Honour, I have spoken about this matter – how he brought me a letter, and how our connections with him through Slovakia were known. I was in constant contact with him, and he also received money and all kinds of things from me. He did, in fact, say that it was worthwhile rescuing me. He thought this to be somewhat of a duty, after all the negotiations with him. I do not know whether he would have saved me if there had been a deportation in Budapest as there were throughout the country. But to save me from the private hatred of Eichmann – that he found to be in order.

Q. Did you not know about Eichmann’s personal hatred towards you?

A. Not to that extent. I read that, as I have said, with joy – joy at the fact that I had been privileged to read it, to be alive and to read it.

Q. To what extent did you supply information about the situation to the provinces – to the communities that were deported – before the deportations took place, or at the time they were taking place? When you got to know, when you received the news from Weissmandel, was it possible to convey information about it to the communities in eastern and northern Hungary? What did you do?

A. In eastern and northern Hungary, it was not possible. By the time I received the information, and by the time we believed what Auschwitz meant – the eastern and north-western parts of Hungary, the 300,000 persons whom I mentioned – they had already been deported.

The plan of action was according to the following order: North-east, east, north, south and west. By the end of June, by the middle of June, only western Hungary remained, and the Jewish population there was relatively small. They already knew, they already received instructions from us, they were aware of their fate. But what could we have done?

Please forgive me, Your Honour. We spoke about this before, before the incident – I mean the disturbances in the courtroom. Now people are saying that they were not told to escape. Fifty per cent of the people who escaped were caught and put to death. With regard to those who were caught and put to death while escaping, people say: Why did they tell them to escape? Where were they to escape to?

I emphasized yesterday, possibly Your Honour may remember, that from 1938, perhaps even before that, the Jews were gradually becoming an alien body in Hungary. It was not the same as in Denmark. First of all, there were many more Jews…

Presiding Judge: I am not sure that this relates to the question you were asked.

Attorney General: If Your Honours wish at this stage that we submit that report – we were intending to submit it sometime later – we can put it before the witness and ask him if this is the report he saw. This report is verified in another way. If my memory serves me correctly, it was also part of the I.M.T., but if you so desire, I am quite ready to try to have the report identified by the witness.

State Attorney Bach: This report was, in fact, submitted at Nuremberg as an exhibit.

Witness Freudiger: [(after the report is handed to him for perusal] I think the report that was sent to us was shorter. But I remember the last page, which I quoted, together with the detailed figures, where it says that now they were preparing to act against the Jews of Hungary. Yes, I remember the illustrations. It is possible that he did not send us all that is in it. For it is so detailed – who was there, what was there.

Attorney General: The Court will find in the sworn verifying affidavit that the declarant Yeshayahu Carmil states there that there are additions to the report which he himself wrote at the time. There is a full explanation in the affidavit accompanying the report as to why the report contains more pages than it contained when Freudiger received it.

Witness Freudiger: [while examining the report] This I remember in particular – if I close my eyes I can still see this page before me.

Presiding Judge: What can you tell us about this report? Can you identify the whole of it? I hear from the Attorney General that part of it was added by someone else. Can you identify part of it?

Witness Freudiger: I can identify the two pages that I remember, which are truly engraved in my mind.

Q. Which are they?

A. There is this page with the illustrations of the Auschwitz camp and the last page, where there is a detailed account of the victims, and I even remember the numbers. What was inside – there was not so much of it.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, do you have any comments? I hear that the witness has identified two pages of this report – firstly, the plan of the Auschwitz camp, and secondly, a list of the Auschwitz victims.

Dr. Servatius: I once read the report – but now I am only able to glance through it. At the time it struck me that in the text the total number of victims was stated as 174,000.

Presiding Judge: 1,450,000.

Dr. Servatius: That appears on the last page. There it says 1,765,000.

Witness Freudiger: Another 300,000.

Dr. Servatius: …and until 27 May there were about 180,000 Hungarian Jews, whereas in the report itself there is one numeral less. The figures are added precisely, and at present I cannot see whether it refers to several camps or it is Auschwitz only, and whether the final figure refers also to other camps. Thus on page 18 of the text which I have before me, the final figure is 174,000, whereas later it is more by one zero numeral. May I hand the report to you?

Presiding Judge: On what page is this written, Dr. Servatius?

Dr. Servatius: On page 18.

Attorney General: I can explain this briefly. There is no mistake here. The last figure which Dr. Servatius read out, appearing on pages 16, 17 and 18, is not a total but refers to the period from the end of February until the beginning of March. This is what it says there, and a detailed account appears there for the various periods. It begins with 153,000-154,000, and after that 155,000-160,000 in October-November 1943, and so on. And when we add it all up together, we receive the total on the last page.

Presiding Judge: At all events, the witness has only identified the two items I mentioned previously.

Attorney General: In the further course of the trial, when we come to submit the chapter of our evidence on Auschwitz, it is in any case our intention to submit this document, and then we shall ask the Court to admit the whole of it; for the present – that part which the witness has identified.

Presiding Judge: Then we can defer this matter. For the present, the witness has said what he has said, and it has been recorded. That is your No. 4.

[To witness] In connection with the matter of the 250 trucks which you did not have, what was the sequel? Eichmann referred you to Becher. This is what we heard.

Witness Freudiger: Eichmann told me to go to Becher. When I left the room, I remembered that Becher was not in Budapest; this was the day after the attempt on Hitler’s life. The attempt was on 20 July and this was on 21 July, and I knew that Becher had gone to Berlin and that there were no communications. I went back and said “Obersturmbannfuehrer, Becher is not in Budapest, according to what I know, should I perhaps go to Hauptsturmfuehrer Grueson (who was his deputy)?”

He told me that Becher was due to return on Tuesday, and if he did not return, I should come to him to receive fresh instructions. I then went to consult my colleagues, not of the central executive, but those attached to the executive with whom we worked in matters of rescue. Dr. Kasztner was not there then. He had disappeared and, as we ascertained later, the Hungarians had seized him.

We sat there, thinking what we could do. There were Dr. Wilhelm and Dr. Komoly, and Offenbach and Johanan Link, my friends and I. We took counsel together as to what we would do. The decision was that, first of all, we would have to go to Becher and first of all promise and talk about twenty trucks and about fifty trucks, to drag the matter out, and meanwhile to buy the trucks in Switzerland, for we had money there.

But actually I did not go to Becher, for Dr. Kasztner returned in the meantime, and then he said he would handle the problem. And in the first days of August I had already stopped dealing with all those matters from which I could divest myself, for I was already getting ready for my escape. That was on 23 or 24 of July; and after that I escaped.

Presiding Judge: You left this in the hands of Dr. Kasztner?

Witness Freudiger: Yes.

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

Presiding Judge: Yes, Mr. Bach.

State Attorney Bach: Your Honour, just a few words of explanation. It is difficult to maintain a chronological order of presentation, as each witness describes various stages. With the Court’s permission, I shall now call our remaining witness in regard to the central aspects regarding Hungary. One of these is the chapter of Kistarcsa. Witness Freudiger told us what happened to him at the Schwabenberg on that critical day. I shall now call a witness who was present at Kistarcsa. He is Dr. Alexander Brody.

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

State Attorney Bach: The witness does not speak Hebrew. He knows German and Hungarian, but he prefers to testify in Hungarian.

Presiding Judge: As he wishes.

[The witness is sworn.]

Presiding Judge: What is your full name?

Witness: Dr. Sandor Brody – now Dr. Alexander Brody, a Brazilian citizen.

Presiding Judge: Where do you live?

Witness Brody: Sao Paulo, Brazil.

State Attorney Bach: Dr. Brody, you told us that you now live in Brazil. Were you born in Hungary?

Witness Brody: I was born in Hungary, in Miskolc, on 13 March 1900.

Q. When did you leave Hungary?

A. On 24 March 1949.

Q. Were you in Budapest in 1944?

A. I was in Budapest in 1944.

Q. What did you engage in there?

A. After I returned from labour service in Russia at the end of September 1943, I became, in 1944, the director of the department for Jewish aid called O.M.Z.S.A.

Q. Dr. Brody, do you remember when the Germans entered Hungary in March 1944?

A. Certainly. On 19 March 1944, in the morning, while I was taking part in the Annual Meeting of the community council, although I knew about it earlier since, at 8.30, Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinsky telephoned me and informed me that the Germans had arrived, and that we had to prepare for the worst, and while we were talking the Germans entered his apartment.

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A. No.

Q. When did you leave Budapest?

A. On 10 August.

Q. Can you tell us where you went to and how you managed it? I would ask you to do so briefly – there is no need for all the details. Where did you go to – and by what route?

A. We left Hungary and escaped to Romania as Romanian Jews. I cannot say that the passports were forged – the passports were not forged, only the names were forged. I did not state my name, and I obtained the passport. It was not only for me. We secured, through Dr. Fildermann and friends who lived in Budapest, the means for 130 non-Romanians to travel to Romania. The genuine Romanian Jews simply had the right to return to Romania.

Q. Did Wisliceny know about your plan to escape?

A. Yes. I was also supposed to go on that train to Bergen- Belsen, in the same way as the greater part of the Jewish public functionaries of Hungary. At the last minute, Wisliceny notified me that I had to remain in Budapest, because Krumey, on his own initiative or that of Eichmann – this I do not know – anyhow did not allow a member of the Judenrat to abandon his job, and I had to remain. I prepared myself, in case he would allow me to do so later on.

We began to take steps to arrange the passports, because I got news from my friends in Bucharest. Approximately in the middle of July, possibly on 20 or 15 July, Wisliceny said to me, suddenly, without any preamble (we had been talking about other matters): “Freudiger, go away now!” After that, a day or two after this, he told me about the possibility of Romanian Jews returning to Romania. I did all the rest.

Q. Did you reach Romania safely?

A. The following day, on 11 August, we went by the ordinary train from Budapest to Romania. They wanted afterwards to arrest the whole group – it was not only my family and I, there were other people there as well. But we had already crossed the border. By the time they came to arrest us, we had already crossed the border.

Presiding Judge: And from there, from Romania?

Witness Freudiger: We remained in Romania for 14 months, and from there we came to Palestine.

Q. Were the Russians in Romania then?

A. On 11 August Romania was still under the rule of Antonescu. The Russians entered on 23 August.

State Attorney Bach: Thank you very much.

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

Dr. Servatius: Yes, I have a number of questions.

Sir, you spoke about the ban on using the railway, about the ban on leaving the country, and about many other prohibitions. Who issued these prohibitions?

Witness Freudiger: The instructions appeared in the official Hungarian Gazette.

Q. Thank you. Who set up the camp at Kistarcsa, the Hungarians or the Germans?

A. This camp had been in existence previously. I said yesterday that it had been in existence before 1944.

Presiding Judge: Was it a Hungarian camp?

Witness Freudiger: Yes.

Dr. Servatius: Thank you, that is sufficient for me. You said at one time that, at the end, there was a Hungarian camp commandant. Was this the case also at the beginning?

Witness Freudiger: Yes, it was always a Hungarian.

Q. At the time of the operations or the steps that were

taken, did the Hungarian police or gendarmerie appear?

A. What operations?

Q. I shall not enumerate the operations in detail, but the question is directed to whether these arrests were carried out by the Germans, or whether the Hungarian gendarmerie did that.

A. When hostages were taken at the beginning of the occupation in Budapest, the Budapest police went together with an officer or soldier of the SS or a German soldier. The deportation itself was always carried out by the Hungarian gendarmerie together with a small contingent of the SS. On the train, after they were already in the railway waggon, there were only SS officers who were in charge of the train.

Q. You spoke about the Jewish laws enacted by Hungary. Were these laws more severe than in Germany?

A. Before 1944 or during the occupation? Before 19 March or after 19 March?

Q. Were the laws more severe before that date or thereafter?

A. Before – no. The laws before 19 March were certainly not stricter, perhaps even less so than in Germany. After 19 March, there were laws against the Jews. I am not familiar with the German laws. They deported Jews from there, and  they deported Jews from Hungary.

Q. Do you not know whether the subsequent laws were more severe than in Germany itself?

A. I do not know the German laws that existed in 1944.

Q. Did you once make a report – on 18 August 1960 – in which you also described that which you have recounted here?

A. Yes, I gave my account to the police.

Q. Is everything in that written account on this question accurate?

A. I did not write that account in August 1960. We wrote that account in September 1945. A large part of that account accords with the truth. When we wrote it, we were under the impact of what had happened – this was a month or two after we escaped.

Judge Halevi: 1944 or 1945?

Witness Freudiger: Yes, 1944. We wrote it in Bucharest at the request of Dr. Fildermann, the director of the Joint in Bucharest. When I read the report some years later, it was almost entirely correct, but there are matters there which I see today in a somewhat different light. But at the time I knew it that way and felt that way.

Presiding Judge: Was it written by you?

Witness Freudiger: It was written by the three of us.

Q. Who were they?

A. Myself, Alexander Diamant, and Yohanan Link.

Q. And in 1960, I understand, you gave that to the police.

A. And in 1960 I confirmed that I stood by it.

Dr. Servatius: Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, it appears here that this is the account of Pinhas Freudiger about the events from 19 March to 10 August 1944, whereas at the end it says “Jerusalem, 18 August 1960″ and signed by Philip von Freudiger.

Presiding Judge: That is the same name, Dr. Servatius.

State Attorney Bach: I should like to explain. On 18 August 1960, the witness identified the account, and therefore that date appears there. The account was written then [in 1944], and not in 1960.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, do you wish to submit this account?

Dr. Servatius: Not for the present. I merely want to put forward an argument to the witness. [To Witness] It says here, on page 21, in the copy in my possession, that “In Hungary the racial laws were much more rigorous than in Germany, the more so than in Slovakia, and they included a wide range of Jews who had been converted for a long time, and their descendants, and also a large number of half-Jews who were the offspring of mixed marriages.” Is that correct?

Witness Freudiger: We felt it in this way. But I think, according to all that I have read from 1944 to this day about the events in Germany – I think that was a mistake. In Germany, too, they seized Jews who had converted out of the faith, and so on.

Q. Sir, I asked you only whether you wrote the account, and whether the correct version is what you wrote there or what you have stated here as a witness.

A. I wrote that, and that was what I thought then. Meanwhile I learned that this was erroneous, and that in Germany, too, the situation was severe.

Q. I have another question. How did the Hungarian gendarmerie behave – did it treat you with greater consideration, or did the Hungarian police behave in the worst manner?

A. The Hungarian gendarmerie, particularly in the provincial towns, was not any better. They were very cruel.

Q. Allow me to read out to you what you wrote then, in your account, on page 11 in the lower part. “The Hungarian Gestapo was created entirely according to the model of the German security service, a state within a state, without control, endowed with full authority, and seeking to outbid in brutality and shamefulness the body in whose image it had been established. Thus there was imposed upon Hungarian Jewry an arm which took upon itself the orders of the German rulers and the Hungarians.

A. So what is your question?

Q. Which is correct? The statement which I have just read, or the account which you gave here previously?

A. Earlier I said that the Hungarian gendarmerie was no better than the SS, and here we are talking of the Hungarian Gestapo. First of all, these are two separate matters. The Hungarian gendarmerie was part of the Hungarian police, a special part of it, and they were always more aggressive than the police. And the Hungarian Gestapo was not yet in existence. The Hungarian Gestapo was set up upon the demand of the SS. And the head of the Hungarian Gestapo, Peter Hein, was the one who handed over Horthy to the Germans; he was the head of the Hungarian secret police.

Q. Sir, that is sufficient for me.

What was Endre’s role? Was he the authority upon whom everyone’s fate depended?

A. Upon whom everyone’s fate depended? Endre was the Director General of the Ministry of the Interior, and his function was – he took this upon himself – to help, to work hand in hand with the Sondereinsatzkommando. He aimed at – and this was his aim – securing the consent of the Hungarian Government for this plan. He was directing the affairs in the Ministry of the Interior.

Q. Sir, was he the person upon whose word depended the fate of every single Jew – for life or death?

A. If Endre wanted to stop the deportations and not to help, he would either have had to find someone else in his place, or really to implement it a little more slowly and with somewhat greater difficulties.

Q. Sir, that is enough. I shall now permit myself to read from page 13 of your account. “The man who had it in his power to decide on matters of life and death in regard to the fate of the Jews was Endre.” Is that correct?

A. That was correct.

Dr. Servatius: I have no further questions.

State Attorney Bach: I have no questions in re-examination.

Judge Raveh: How did you arrive at that figure of 600,000 which you mentioned?

Witness Freudiger: As I said previously, there were 800,000 Jews in Hungary and, in my estimation, there remained in Budapest after the deportations only the Jews of Budapest and the young Jews who were in labour service. I believe they numbered more than 200,000 – possibly some tens of thousands more. As against this, I did not include in these 800,000 those who converted out of the faith.

Q. Were the numbers of those who remained based on statistical data or upon your estimate?

A. We knew how many Jews there were in Budapest according to the statistics. Possibly there was a difference of 10,000, not more than that.

Judge Halevi: Mr. Freudiger, with regard to the figures you mentioned, that in the Auschwitz report that was sent to you by Rabbi Weissmandel and drawn up by two Slovakian prisoners of Auschwitz, a total was mentioned of 1,450,000 Jewish victims.

Witness Freudiger: Yes.

Q. This was before the deportation of the Jews of Hungary.

A. Yes.

Q. Is there another copy of that report? Did you duplicate it at the time.

A. The report was printed in a book by the late Rabbi Weissmandel, which was published some months ago in New York, entitled Out of the Distress. The report is included there.

Attorney General: This book is in our possession. We are able to submit it to the Court.

Judge Halevi: The question is: Who would be able to verify the report? The witness? After all, he duplicated it and dealt with it.

Attorney General: Perhaps he can do so. We did not intend to submit it, since we have no way of verification, unless the witness can do so.

Judge Halevi: The witness obtained it, dealt with it and duplicated it.

Attorney General: We can do so immediately. We have the report right here.

Judge Halevi: I think it is a sufficiently first-hand source relating to Auschwitz. Did you tell us who sent this report to Switzerland?

Witness Freudiger: Moshe Krausz.

Q. When did he send it?

A. At once. Already in June. Possibly it was also sent directly from Slovakia to Switzerland.

Q. Did you see any letters in Rabbi Weissmandel sounded the alarm; did Rabbi Weissmandel’s call for help also pass through your hands?

A. Yes. The letters for help which he sent to us, or…?

Q. No, a call to the free world.

A. A call to the free world – I did not see the actual letter, because he sent it to Switzerland, to Istanbul, and perhaps also to America; but I know about the letters and also about the outcome of these letters. The Rabbinical Rescue Committee of America was established as a result of these letters in 1943.

Q. Did he ask only for financial help or for military help
as well?

A. He asked for everything. From the Jews he asked for financial aid – he asked the Jews to undertake all kinds of activities, to persuade the British and American armies to help, to bomb Auschwitz. And we sent letters, and I know that they reached their destination, describing the route, the direction in which the trains were going. Weissmandel sent a plan of Auschwitz – where the crematorium was located.

After the report was received, we asked that they be blown up and I do not know what else, but they did not do
so.

Weissmandel had a further plan. There was a large railway tunnel – I don’t know how you call it in Hebrew – a tunnel between Kassa and Presov – his plan was to blow it up. Nothing came of all these suggestions.

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A. A day or two after the Jews were returned to Kistarcsa, we received an order that all the members of the Judenrat were to come to the Hotel Majestic, to the offices of the SS. I came around 9:00, 9:30 to the office of the Judenrat.

All were nervous, because all of us, the whole of the Judenrat, had never before been summoned to come together.

Q. Where was the Hotel Majestic?

A. At the Schwabenberg, that was actually the headquarters of the Sondereinsatzkommando. There it said: Sondereinsatzkommando IVB4.

Q. Who were the German officers working there?

A. I did not know them all – Eichmann, Krumey, Wisliceny, Hunsche, Novak. Later on I met Klages on one occasion – he belonged to the SD – who was located elsewhere. He took the place of Krumey, because at the beginning of July they transferred him to Vienna from Budapest. Some other officer came in his stead, I think his name was Krueger.

Q. Were the offices of Eichmann, Wisliceny and Hunsche in the same place, in the Hotel Majestic on the Schwabenberg?

A. Yes.

Q. In the same place to which all of you were summoned?

A. We were all summoned to come on that one day.

Presiding Judge: When was that?

Witness Freudiger: It was two days after the train was brought back to Kistarcsa, it could have been, perhaps, 12 or 13 July.

State Attorney Bach: Did all of you actually go?

Witness Freudiger: At the beginning we all went, with one exception. Berend was not in the office at the time. Eight of us came, instead of nine. We came to the office on the Schwabenberg. We went in. They asked us whether everyone was present. I was somehow the spokesman. I said, Berend is not here. He was a young member – he had not been a member of the executive for long. They said he, too, must come here. We had a taxi, and they said: Send the taxi to fetch him. We sent the car back – it was six or seven kilometres from town. An hour later, Berend was also there. I told the officer there, Hunsche: Our complement is full.

Q. Was it mainly Hunsche who spoke to you on that day?

A. Yes.

Q. What did he talk to you about, and how long did he keep you there?

A. This could have started roughly at 10 or 10.30. He said a few words to us and told us to wait, and that soon he would take us into his office. We waited an hour, an hour-and-a-half, two hours. Our members were extremely nervous.

Eventually Stern, who was seventy years old and not in good health, said to me: “Freudiger, go to Hunsche and ask him why they summoned us here.” I went to Hunsche and said: “We are all waiting, what is going to happen?” He replied: “Soon, soon.” And another hour passed. After an hour, our nervousness grew. I said to Hunsche: “What is going to happen? We would like to telephone our office to tell them we are here.” And he said: “No, do not telephone, I will phone right away.”

Then I asked him to provide something to eat. I said I was able to fast, I was an Orthodox Jew, but he should give food to the others. Stern was there, and he gave him a slice of bread and a cup of coffee. The others did not receive anything.

At approximately two o’clock, he took us to his office and began speaking about various subjects – that the life of the Jews had to be organized, how to organize the Burial Society, and all sorts of matters. That would have been an interesting subject for discussion, if there had been Jews in Hungary, but not when there were no longer Jews in Hungary. Thus the time passed.

Then he again sent us down, and we waited for him. By now it was six p.m. I said to him: “We are allowed to walk in the streets until eight o’clock only.” All of us, by now, had the yellow Shield of David. The whole Jewish population, as I have previously said, had permission to be in the streets from 2-5 p.m.; we had special permission – from eight in the morning until eight in the evening. I pointed out that it was now six o’clock, that we were up there on the Schwabenberg, and that we had to get home. He answered: “Don’t worry, I will provide you with an escort, and everyone will reach his home.” He said there was something we had to arrange.

After that, at seven o’clock, the telephone on his table rang. He began speaking. Then he stopped and went into another room. Apparently he did not want us to hear, that we should hear what he was saying. We heard him saying: “Well, very well.” After that he returned to the room. We were left in the middle of a sentence when the telephone rang. Then he came back and said: “All right, now you may go.” We went home.

Q. During all this time, from ten in the morning until seven in the evening, was anything at all discussed which seemed to you to be a matter of importance?

A. No. If there had been Jews in the country, it would perhaps have been important, but to talk about the Burial Society when the Jews had already been killed in Auschwitz?

Q. What did you find out when you returned home?

A. I, of course, could no longer go back to my home, for it had been destroyed by a bomb. I was living in the Old Age Home of the Orthodox community. It was not far from the Schwabenberg. It still had a telephone, because in institutions, in hospitals, the telephone was allowed to remain. I got back at eight o’clock, a little before eight, and I received a telephone call from Kistarcsa to the effect that SS men, a special contingent with Hauptsturmfuehrer Novak, and thirty trucks had arrived. They shut out the Hungarian police force under Vasdenyei and the remaining police who were in the Kistarcsa camp.

They took the Jews who had been on the train before, put them on the trucks, and left the place in a hurry. As I learned afterwards, the phone call Hunsche received was a message that a train had brought them to Hatvan, in a direction opposite to that of Budapest. They had transferred them to a town closer to Kistarcsa in another direction, and sent them in an express train beyond the borders, to Auschwitz. The call to Hunsche was to the effect that they had crossed the border. It was after this that they allowed us to go home, for they thought that if we got to know about it, we would again intervene and run to Horthy.

Q. Did you speak to Wisliceny about this episode?

A. Yes, definitely. On the next day or the day after I spoke to Wisliceny – I described the whole incident to him. Wisliceny said to me…

Q. Perhaps you would quote what Wisliceny said in German?

A. He explained the meaning of the telephone call. I told him the whole story. Then he said: “You stayed there until Hunsche received the telephone call that everything was in order.” And he said to me in German: “Was glaubt denn der alte Trottel, Eichmann wird diese Ohrfeige einstecken, dass er seinen Zug hat zurueckholen lassen?” (Does that old fool really believe that Eichmann would keep quiet at this slap in the face that his train was sent back?)

Q. To whom was he referring with the words “der alte Trottel” (the old fool)?

A. To Horthy.

Q. Was it only from Kistarcsa that Jews were later taken away by force, as you described?

A. There was one other place, about a week or ten days later, another concentration camp, at Sarvar, from where they also took away 1,000 or 1,200 Jews. But there they had  already begun with the second stage. They did not begin deporting them in trains, but came immediately with trucks and locked up the police. What they had done at Kistarcsa on the second occasion was the model for Sarvar. That we knew only after it was done.

Q. When you said “they came,” to whom were you referring?

A. Novak and his men.

Q. Did you also discuss this matter with the commandant of Kistarcsa – Vasdenyei?

A. Yes.

Q. Did he also confirm it to you?

A. He was really an honest man and apologized. He said: “What could I do?”

Presiding Judge: Who was this man?

Witness Freudiger: He was the Hungarian police chief of Kistarcsa.

State Attorney Bach: Did he express his regrets at this incident?

Witness Freudiger: Yes.

Q. By the way: What is the distance between Budapest and Sarvar, that second camp you mentioned?

A. It is further away. Sarvar is in the west of Hungary – it could be at least 120 kilometres away.

Q. After this occurrence, when you returned to the Schwabenberg and saw Hunsche and his comrades, did they again refer to the incident when you were held at the Schwabenberg?

A. Actually I did not have much to do with Hunsche, but he knew me. A day or two after I had been in the office there, when he saw me, he asked laughingly: “Sind Sie noch immer nervoes? Stern hat sich schon beruhigt?” (Are you still nervous? Has Stern already calmed down?)

Q. Mr. Freudiger, I shall not question you on details of the negotiations that were conducted between Brand and Kasztner and the Germans. We shall hear about this directly from Brand. I would ask you only this: Did you occasionally receive reports about these discussions from Dr. Kasztner?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you remember that he once expressed himself on a certain matter concerning the wording of a draft proposal for a deal made by Eichmann?

A. Yes. He always reported on something when it was already done. He always confronted us with a “fait accompli,” and informed us that there had been such negotiations. He said that people would be sent to Bergen-Belsen, and after that also to Strasshof, there had been some haggling, trucks would be delivered, etc.

He asked him whether they were sending these people to Germany? Perhaps only to Bergen-Belsen. There had been no talk as yet of Bergen-Belsen, but only that the train was to proceed to the Spanish frontier – this was what was afterwards called the Bergen-Belsen train, instead of to the Spanish frontier.

It was after 6 June, after D-Day. Major battles had already taken place in France. We then asked what would happen if some disaster occurred, for the route was not all that safe? To that Eichmann once replied: “Nu, es ist keine grosse Sache. Getoetete oder beschaedigte Juden werden mit anderen ausgetauscht.” (Well, that is nothing of importance. Killed or injured Jews will be replaced by others.)

This is what Kasztner told me that Eichmann had once said to him, that he was an honest man, and if he sold 3,000 Jews, he would have to supply him with this number, and if they should be killed or injured, there would be others. He would supply other merchandise. His expression was: “This is nothing of importance, dead or injured Jews will be replaced by others.”

Q. The main thing is this expression “Vernichtete oder beschaedigte Juden werden mit anderen ausgetauscht” (exterminated or injured Jews will be replaced by others). Please tell the Court about your last meeting with the Accused on 21 July 1944.

A. As I have said, the whole of Hungary, with the exception of Budapest, was already judenrein by the beginning of July. A duel was being fought whether or not to deport the Jews from Budapest. We hoped that Horthy would be the stronger – we had some indication that, on the German side, too, that Veesenmeyer was also not so rigorous and was opposed to Eichmann’s plan to expel the Jews from Budapest at all costs.

On 21 July – I remember that day well, it was a Friday – I received an urgent telephone call from Wisliceny saying that he wanted to speak to me, and that I should come to him right away. I went to his private apartment on the Schwabenberg.

He told me that a day or two before he had been in Bratislava, where he had spoken to Rabbi Weissmandel and with all our Jewish friends; they had heard the B.B.C. broadcast which reported on Brand’s programme to exchange a million Jews for 10,000 trucks, and that the B.B.C. added that a guarantee had been required that these trucks would not be used except on the western front, but not on the eastern front against the Russians, and His Majesty’s Government could not do anything against its allies, the Russians.

Presiding Judge: I think you have made a mistake here. They wanted to say that the trucks would be used only on the eastern front, and not on the western front.

Witness Freudiger: That they should guarantee not to use them on the western front.

Q. You simply interchanged “east” for “west.”

A. His Majesty’s Government was very sorry – it could not accept this offer.

Q. Were those his words in English?

A. Yes, as far as I remember, he said that in English. But  it may be that I am mistaken. Afterwards the press, the Hungarian newspapers, also reported it. Rabbi Weissmandel told him that this was clear proof that the matter would now be carried out. It had already been going on for a month and a half.

Throughout this month and a half we had not heard a word about the whole matter. Now it was of no value. And why were the English disclosing such a matter, because they were seeking an alibi against the Russians? And now they would do it.

State Attorney Bach: Was this what Rabbi Weissmandel said to Wisliceny?

Witness Freudiger: Yes. Rabbi Weissmandel said this to Wisliceny, and the proof of it was that Mr. Freudiger already had 250 trucks which they could begin to deliver on account of the 10,000.

Presiding Judge: Were they already in the possession of the Germans?

Witness Freudiger: No, in the possession of Mr. Freudiger.

State Attorney Bach: Wisliceny said to Mr. Freudiger that he had learned from Rabbi Weissmandel that he (Mr. Freudiger) had 250 trucks?

Witness Freudiger: Yes. And he summoned me and asked whether this was true. I said it was true. Of course, I had neither 250 trucks, nor even one, but since he asked me whether I had them, I told him that I did – the Almighty would help me. After that he said to me: “Fine, if Eichmann calls you – I have spoken to him – confirm this, and in this way the question of the deportation of Jews from Budapest will be removed from the agenda.”

“Very well,” I said to him, “I am going to Eichmann.” It was about five to ten minutes from there. He was living at the Hotel Majestic. He said to me: “Eichmann must not know that I have spoken to you – do you know that he is angry with you and also with me? We have not spoken to each other – go down into town, and he will call you.”

I returned to the offices of the central executive, where there was already an uproar. They asked me: “Freudiger, where have you been? They are looking for you all over the city – Eichmann has already telephoned for you twice.” Of course, I was unable to tell them where I had been. I went back to the Hotel Majestic. Eichmann was not in his office.

I waited outside, and some minutes later he arrived in his car. He saw me waiting outside and came up to me and said: “Come in.” I went to him and stood there at attention. He said to me – perhaps I may repeat this, too, in German: “Ich habe die Verstaendigung bekommen, dass Sie 250 Lastautos zu Ihrer Verfuegung haben?” (I have received information that you have 250 trucks at your disposal). I replied: “Yes.”

After that he said to me: “Go to Obersturmbannfuehrer Becher, tell him about it and arrange with him for their delivery.” I said: “Very well.” He then said: “And see that he is satisfied,” and then – this was the first time that he had not shouted at me – “you, too, will be satisfied” (Schauen Sie, dass Sie ihn zufriedenstellen, Sie werden auch zufrieden sein.) (Endeavour to satisfy him; you, too, will be satisfied.)

Q. Mr. Freudiger, one other question connected with the matter of Kistarcsa. You said before that you had a member of the executive named Janos Gabor. A day or two after the incident which you recounted to us about the return of the train and its seizure for a second time, were you also informed of something by Janos Gabor?

A. I said that Janos Gabor was a liaison officer before he was appointed to be a member of the second executive, but after he was appointed as a member, he continued in that role, and day after day he used to go to the Hotel Majestic in order to deal with current matters. He came back and said that he had spoken to Eichmann and had received a telling-off – it was something awful.

Eichmann shouted at him and said: “What is this – you people are interfering in my affairs, you are here to assist us and not to meddle in our business.” He said that Eichmann was very nervous, and after that there were days when he did not want to go to the Schwabenberg any more, and he said that Eichmann had shouted at him in such a way that he was afraid to go. After that, nothing happened in this connection.

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A. Textiles and clothing.

Q. Was your grandfather one of the founders of the Orthodox community in Budapest?

A. Yes. Moshe Freudiger.

Q. Were you also active in the Orthodox community in Budapest?

A. Yes. After my grandfather, my father, of blessed memory, was the head of the community for approximately 26 years. When he died, in 1939, I occupied his place until 1944.

Q. What kind of relations were there between your family and Hungarian ruling circles before the outbreak of the Second World War?

A. In view of the fact that my family had been Hungarian for over a hundred years, that we manufactured goods in the factory, that we worked for the government and manufactured clothing goods for the Hungarian army and for other government institutions, we were on very good terms both with the Ministry of the Interior, the Police Ministry and the Defence Ministry. We had many friends there.

Q. In fact, your grandfather received the title of nobleman in Hungary?

A. Yes, from King Franz Joseph.

Q. You also inherited this title?

A. Yes.

Q. How many Jews were there in Hungary on the eve of the outbreak of the War?

A. In 1939 there were approximately half a million, a little less than that, perhaps 480,000 Jews.

Q. Perhaps could you tell this Court what were the changes that occurred regarding the borders of the state, and also how these affected the number of Jews in Hungary?

A. I do not remember the dates exactly, but after Munich, after an independent Slovakia was set up, Hungary regained – this was at the end of 1938 – the southern portion of Slovakia. And thereafter, gradually, Hungary received the north-eastern territory which was called Carpatho-Russia, later on it received the northern part of Transylvania, and later still, a small area, the northern part of Yugoslavia. All this occurred between the end of 1938 and 1940.

By this means the Hungarian population was increased, let us say, from eight or nine million to twelve or thirteen million Hungarians, and the number of Jews from half a million to 800,000.

Q. When did Hungary enter the War on the side of the Axis powers?

A. In June 1941, Hungary declared war on Russia, and afterwards also on the United States. As far as I remember, the United States did not declare war on Hungary.

Q. By the way, you said there were 800,000 Jews. Was there, in addition, also a certain number of Jews who had converted out of the faith?

A. Yes.

Q. How many were there in this category?

A. I cannot say exactly, but more than 100,000; one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand.

Q. Can you tell the Court what was the attitude of the Hungarian Government to the Jews, up to March 1944?

A. The waves of anti-Semitism, which began after the end of the First World War, in 1919, gradually subsided. And in 1927 the economy was also put in order, more or less. There was prosperity, then, in the whole of Europe, in the whole of central Europe, and also in Hungary.

This, too, was the reason why the life of the Jews was more or less normal in the years 1927-1928, and of the anti-Semitic laws of 1920 there remained actually only two: One was the “numerus clausus,” by which not more than 6 per cent – I think it was 6 per cent – of students admitted to the university could be Jews.

And even if we acknowledge that this, in itself, was not a great disaster, since our students went abroad to France, Italy and Germany and studied there, and came back with their diplomas, it nevertheless remained in effect and was the only law that, in fact, ran counter to the Hungarian constitution. According to the Hungarian constitution Judaism was a religion, and they were not admitted because they were of the Jewish religion.

In the “numerous clausus” law nothing was said to the effect that this was against the Jews; it was to “divide up the possibility of studying at the university according to race.” And hence there remained the concept that Jewry was already an alien body, the Jews began to be an alien body in Hungary. And the other factor that remained was the use of anti-Semitism as a political weapon. Of course, there were always anti-Semites, both in Hungary and throughout the world.

But this was the first time that there were political parties in Hungary established on the basis of anti-Semitism. There was the party – the organization of the “Awakening Hungarians,” and there was the party which called itself simply the “Party for the Defence of the Race.”

Q. Of what period are you speaking now?

A. Of the years from 1920 to 1925, 1930, the period between the two World Wars. And in this way the concept was gradually created that the Jews of Hungary were alien. And if you wanted a “pure Hungarian,” this meant a “non-Jew.”

Q. What was the attitude to the Jews from the outbreak of the Second World War until March 1944?

A. The most vicious anti-Semitic line began actually before the outbreak of the War. This was after the “Anschluss” of Austria. In March 1938, the anti-Semitic line of the government began. Then they passed the first anti-Jewish law.

This law – it was not yet described as an anti-Jewish law – was called “The Law for the Restoration of Social Equilibrium.” This was after the “Anschluss” of Vienna. Whether or not this was under the growing influence of Nazism, which was approaching nearer to the borders of Hungary – it certainly was self-understood. That was in April 1938.

In December of that year, 1938, after Hungary regained part of Slovakia, as I mentioned previously, the government already presented the second Jewish law, which was much more severe than the first, but which was not yet based on the concept of race, not yet based on the Nuremberg laws. The number of Jews had been increased and their rights reduced. And in 1941, a month after Hungary had declared war against Russia, came the third law, and by now it was based on the Nuremberg laws.

Q. You mentioned the year 1941. Do you remember a particular event that occurred in 1941 and which caused harm to many Jews in Hungary?

A. Yes. This was the first deportation from Hungary. As I said, the second Jewish law, of December 1938, curtailed the rights of the Jews on account of their citizenship as well. Many Jews, of the areas which Hungary regained, did not receive Hungarian citizenship. In principle, anyone who did not possess Hungarian citizenship, did not have the right to reside in Hungary.

And they were deported – they were deported as a matter of principle. They were given a deportation order, and afterwards regularly received an extension of six months, and a further extension of six months, to remain in Hungary, since there was no possibility of deporting them anywhere.

But in 1941, after the German army occupied Wolhynia, Ukraine and White Russia, one of the Hungarian leaders, Martinides* {*Oedoen, Martinides} – one may say: “May his name be blotted out!” – came forward with the suggestion that now it was already possible to expel the Jews, to deport them, those Jews who, in principle, did not possess the right to remain in Hungary.

He took advantage of the opportunity, when the Hungarian Minister of the Interior was on his summer vacation, it was exactly on 17 Tammuz, and extracted a decree from his deputy, the head of the department, to deport the Jews to Galicia.

Q. Were these Jews stateless?

A. Stateless.

Q. How many Jews were affected by this deportation, and where were they sent to?

A. The object was to seize at least 100,000 Jews, or even more. They began deporting them to Koeroesmezoe, a small town near the border, and in the course of two or three weeks 17,500 Jews were deported to Galicia.

Q. Did these Jews come from particular places in Hungary, or in fact from all parts of the country?

A. Actually, they came from all parts of Hungary. Thus, for example, a woman clerk who worked in my factory, and who had been born in Budapest and had never, at any time, been outside Budapest, but who possessed Austrian, not Hungarian, nationality, was taken, and she, too, was sent off to Galicia. But naturally the greatest number came from the north-eastern areas, Munkacs, Maramaros, Szeged, and all that region.

Q. Mr. Freudiger, can you tell us where these Jews ultimately got to and what happened to them?

A. They came to Galicia, and afterwards a large number of them reached Kamenets-Podolski.

Q. Where was this place?

A. Between Galicia and Wolhynia. Previously this had been Russia, not Austria. Out of 17,000-18,000, two persons returned by special permit – two. Approximately 2,000 came back via the Carpathians by an illegal route – they escaped and returned.

The others remained in Galicia – they moved them more and more towards the east. Thereafter, we received information that in Kamenets-Podolski about 12,000 of them were killed on one day. Apparently, all the residents of Kamenets-Podolski were killed at that time, and together with them all the Hungarian Jews.

Q. By whom were they killed?

A. By the Germans.

Q. Mr. Freudiger, you told us of the anti-Jewish legislation, which at that time was mainly economic, which hit the Jews in their economic life. Between 1941 and March 1944, did a radical change come about in these laws, in the anti-Jewish legislation?

A. From 1941 to 1944, no. They were the outcome of the law of 1941. For example, I cannot say that Jewish farmsteads, forests, and so on were confiscated, although they were exploited. But more severe laws – there were none.

Perhaps I could say this – that despite all the difficulties we had undergone since 1941, those that I have described, such as the deportation of part of Hungarian Jewry, we were still given the right in those years to help the Slovakian refugees in 1942 and, at the end of 1941, to help the refugees from Galicia and Poland who were brought to Hungary, and we took care of them.

Q. When were the labour camps set up for the Jews of Hungary?

A. Labour camps or labour service?

Q. I understand that it was called “labour service.” But as I understand it, the people were also kept in certain camps. Tell us about the labour service.

A. The labour service was based on a law, I think it was No. 2, of the year 1939, which gave the Hungarian army the right to avail itself of people to whom it was unwilling to give arms, because it did not trust them, and to demand that they serve the state with their labour.

In that law as well, there was not a single word about its being against the Jews, but in practice this was a severe decree against Hungarian Jews. Labour service began in 1940. At the beginning they exploited these people only for work within the state, in the country itself, to build roads and for all kinds of work. Assuredly this was not pleasant, but it still did not endanger the lives of the people.

In 1941 they began sending them outside of Hungary, as the German army advanced. The Hungarian Government under Horthy did not want to supply Germany with soldiers, but provided them with soldiers in the occupied areas, the areas which had been occupied by the Germans; they sent Hungarian soldiers there, and also Jews for labour service. As far as I know, approximately 60,000-80,000 Jews were dispatched for labour service in the year 1941-1942 – and possibly 45,000-50,000 died.

Q. Do you know anything about roughly 60,000 Jews who were sent to Galicia and the Ukraine – to labour camps?

A. That is what I was talking about.

Q. Now, Mr. Freudiger, when were detention camps established – such as Kistarcsa?

A. This was in connection with what I said earlier – namely that Jews were sent away but were not deported beyond the borders. Where there was something against them, the government set up four to five concentration camps, such as Kistarcsa, Goron, Riesa and others.

In each of these places there were several hundred Jews. Generally it was the practice at that time to judge Jews administratively. If they had brought a Jew before a Court of Law, the Court would have found him to be either guilty or not guilty, but by administrative means it was possible to send him to a concentration camp.

Presiding Judge: Also, at that time, Jews possessing Hungarian nationality?

Witness Freudiger: Yes, also Jews possessing Hungarian nationality: For instance, there was a law which provided that, if anyone helped a Jew who was in Hungary illegally, his penalty would be to be sent to a concentration camp.

State Attorney Bach: What did they do with the Jews who escaped from Slovakia and reached Hungary and were captured by the Hungarian authorities?

Witness Freudiger: If they were caught – if they were lucky, they were sent to one of the concentration camps we mentioned, and if they were not lucky – they were sent back to Slovakia.

Q. Mr. Freudiger, you told us that there had always been a good relationship between your family and the Hungarian authorities. When there were anti-Semitic measures, did you occasionally try to contact those Hungarian officials and ask for an explanation, why they were adopting anti-Jewish legislation and anti-Jewish measures?

A. It was not only the Freudiger family that had a good relationship. There were also other Jews in Hungary who were on good terms with the government. Officially, Hungarian Jews still had their formal institutions, and they used to complain and to take all kinds of steps with the government.

Q. What was the reply that you received?

A. At first the reply was that they wanted to take the wind out of their sails.

Presiding Judge: Whose sails?

Witness Freudiger: Those of the anti-Semites. They said: If we promulgate a few anti-Jewish decrees, it is possible in this way to avoid some kind of anti-Semitic explosion. After the War had broken out, after 1940, they said that they were being subjected to German pressure.

They said that the Germans were insisting on the application of the Nuremberg laws and the liquidation of Hungarian Jewry, and that what they were doing – we could count ourselves lucky that they were doing it – amounted to a stand against the strong pressure of the Germans. For instance, the last Prime Minister of Hungary, Kalai, said this specifically on more than one occasion.

Q. The last Prime Minister before the revolt?

A. He was Prime Minister from 1938 until March 1944.

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The first document is our No. 163 – it was submitted to the Accused and was given the No. T/37(88). The question arose whether there was any point in deporting Jews who had fled to Hungary, from the region east of the Dniester river.

And the Accused, as he had already done in the case of Romania, was opposed to a partial operation regarding Hungary, and he says: “It would not be appropriate to set the whole evacuation apparatus in motion in order to remove those Jews alone who escaped at the time to Hungary” – and subsequently this apparatus would have to be stopped again. He thinks it desirable to delay this operation until Hungary would be ready to include in these measures the Jews of Hungary as well.

Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/1136.

State Attorney Bach: That was a letter to the Foreign Office, dated 26 September 1942.

Our next document is No. 1242. Here Luther writes a detailed note to the German legation in Budapest and asks that influence be exercised on the Hungarian Government to show understanding for the German plan for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question and to agree to the designation of the Jews and to their deportation to the east.

Presiding Judge: There is something missing here. This is a document of two pages, is it not?

State Attorney Bach: A document of three pages, actually three.

Presiding Judge: There are two incomplete copies here – one with the first page missing, and one with the second page missing. The Hebrew translation is complete.

State Attorney Bach: Perhaps I can submit at least one German copy intact.

Presiding Judge: We now have two and two-thirds copies. This document will be marked T/1137.

Dr. Servatius: Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, may I be permitted to make a comment on this document? There is an important passage here. We have to treat this matter in the light of this passage.

Presiding Judge: From what page are you quoting?

Dr. Servatius: I was not quoting it – it is on the first page – it is merely in keeping with the meaning of the words. On page two it says:

“The handling of the Jews of Hungary itself appears to be more complicated, but even more urgent. Therefore, I would ask you to explain to the Hungarian Government the reasons that have motivated us to strive, in compliance with the wishes of the Fuehrer, towards an early and complete solution of the problem of the Jews in Europe, and to request the Hungarian Government, for its part, also to promote the operations necessary to that end.”

State Attorney Bach: I am thankful to Defence Counsel for drawing your attention to this passage, which is also of importance in our view.

The next document is our No. 510. It was submitted to the Accused and was marked T/37(164). This document is signed by Mueller, but was drawn up in IVB4. Mueller here seeks authority to permit individual Jews to depart from Slovakia and Holland, in exchange for a payment of 100,000 Swiss francs. This money would enable the recruitment of volunteers for the Waffen SS in Hungary.

Presiding Judge: One copy of the translation is missing here. Instead of the translation, we have an extra copy of the German original, but let us leave that. I have said this because I was unable to read the marking IVB4 on the original. Where did you get it from?

State Attorney Bach: I will tell Your Honour. The original is actually attached to the statement, and there, evidently, the mark IVB4 is very clear. It is only on this copy that it is somewhat blurred. But the number is evidently absolutely clear on the original.

Presiding Judge: How does it appear here in the translation?

State Attorney Bach: The translation was prepared according to the original – according to the photostatic copy which is to be found in T/37(164).

Presiding Judge: Yes, we can see it there.

State Attorney Bach: There we are able to see it clearly. Incidentally, Your Honour, it is also found in the supporting reference, where it says: “The order…IVB4a on the same subject.”

Presiding Judge: Yes, that is clear. Will we receive a further copy of the translation at a later stage?

State Attorney Bach: We shall gladly let you have it, Your Honour. He also mentions that in Holland there were eight cases of this kind affecting 28 Jews who indeed made use of – let us express it this way – this right.

Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/1138.

State Attorney Bach: The following document is our No. 972. Here Klingenfuss of the Foreign Office reports to Eichmann on 7 December 1942 on a debate in the Hungarian parliament on the question of labour camps for Jews and the work of Christian women in Jewish homes. He indicates that this legislation was not proceeding satisfactorily.

Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/1139.

State Attorney Bach: The next document, Your Honours, is No. 1341. It is a letter signed by Guenther of IVB4a on 5 April 1943. This document illustrates the blind hatred of these people.

It mentions the fact that 150 Jews, who included lawyers, factory owners, merchants, and other intellectuals – and this is what Guenther stresses – were working in a labour camp near the railway line, in a place not far from the border, and once a day they were allowed to purchase a hot meal in a restaurant, the same restaurant where German railway officials were also entitled to eat – they were obliged to have their meals there, at the same place.

He asks them to take steps to put an end to this practice, both for security reasons and also – as he puts it – “since it is impossible to demand of these officials that they should be obliged to come into constant contact with Jews.” The emphasis is on “Jewish intellectuals.”

Presiding Judge: “Intellektuelle“?

State Attorney Bach: Intellektuelle, yes. He specially stresses “lawyers, factory owners, merchants and other intellectuals.” I should like to emphasize that this was in the period when Hungary had not been occupied, and the German army was not yet there.

Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/1140.

State Attorney Bach: Our following document is No. 519. It is a letter signed by the Accused, to the German Foreign Office, in connection with a Jew named Oskar Trenk, evidently of Hungarian nationality, so it says here. He says that there were no documents proving his Hungarian nationality. Consequently, such people were considered to be stateless and were sent to the east for “forced labour.” Their whereabouts are not known at the moment.

Presiding Judge: Was this in the time of Horthy? Did it belong to the Horthy period?

State Attorney Bach: Yes, Your Honour.

Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/1141.

State Attorney Bach: The next document is No. 523, which was submitted to the Accused and given No. T/37(160). Here there is reference to methods of evacuating Jews possessing Hungarian nationality.

Presiding Judge: Evacuation from the German Reich?

State Attorney Bach: Here it talks of evacuation from the Reich. But evidently there was some intervention on the part of the Hungarian Government which, via the German Foreign Office, took an interest in these Jews.

And it says: “The present whereabouts of the Jews who were sent to the east cannot be determined at present. It is not possible, for reasons of principle, to grant the demand of the Hungarian Consulate-General or the Hungarian embassy to repatriate those concerned to Hungary.” Obviously the reference is to Hungarian nationals who were in the Reich at that time and who had been deported to the east.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1142.

State Attorney Bach: The following document is our No. 546, which shows the control of the Accused over the camps of Terezin and Bergen-Belsen. The issue here was whether Jews possessing Hungarian nationality ought to be in a detention camp in Bergen-Belsen, or whether they should be transferred to Theresienstadt.

For various considerations of convenience and location, the Accused decided that there were more suitable conditions in Theresienstadt. And I especially underline the last sentence: “Accordingly I have instructed the Commander of the Security Police and the SD in Prague to leave the Jews in question in Theresienstadt for the time being.”

Clerk of the Court: This document has already been submitted and was given No. T/851.

State Attorney Bach: If that is the case, I draw the Court’s attention to T/851. Possibly it was submitted in connection with Theresienstadt.

The next document is No. 521 – it was submitted to the Accused and given No. T/37(157). Here the reference is to a Jew named Goldberger who, together with his family, emigrated to Belgium as Czechoslovakian citizens, and they were taken to the labour effort in the east. It is not possible to ascertain their present whereabouts. He, too, possesses Hungarian citizenship. This is a letter that Eichmann writes to von Thadden on 25 January 1944.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1143.

Edmund Veesenmayer

State Attorney Bach: The following document is our No. 1644. This is a rather lengthy report by Veesenmayer, dated December 1943. Its importance is actually in the very last page of this document, to which I draw your attention, in paragraph 7. In fact, throughout the document Veesenmayer hints that it is desirable that the German army – the German forces – should take control over the whole of Hungary. But the seventh paragraph indicates that one of the principal reasons for that proposed action is, as he calls it, the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Hungary.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1144.

State Attorney Bach: And now, Your Honours, we come to 19 March 1944, the day the Germans entered Hungary. Our document No. 1021 constitutes Veesenmayer’s report to the Foreign Office, to the effect that he had safely reached Budapest and had taken over control of matters.

He describes his entry into Budapest and adds: “After this I spent three quarters of an hour alone with the Regent; I introduced myself to him and informed him that I had been entrusted, together with him, with the task of setting up the new government. The spirit of the conversation with the Regent was a positive one – and we began making changes in the structure of the government.”

Presiding Judge: Was there also an exchange of ambassadors here? Is it not it a fact that Veesenmayer was the ambassador later on?

State Attorney Bach: Yes, Your Honour. Actually he had then arrived for the first time. He came together with the army. Prior to that the name of the ambassador was Jagow.

Presiding Judge: I see that here it says “through Minister
Ritter.”

State Attorney Bach: Yes, but I do not know if he was then in Budapest or whether this was simply a means of delivering the letter to Ribbentrop. For Your Honour will notice that in paragraph two it is stated that Ambassador von Jagow informed the Regent today of such-and-such. This means that the German ambassador was then von Jagow, but the notification to Ribbentrop was passed on by Ritter.

Judge Halevi: Did the meeting between Horthy and Hitler not precede this?

State Attorney Bach: Yes. Such a meeting had taken place. This episode is mentioned in the Kasztner report. This was on 19 March. I believe that the meeting took place on 17 March. Immediately afterwards there was this operation, the entry of the German army.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1145.

State Attorney Bach: At this stage, with your permission, I should like to lead the evidence of Mr. Pinchas Freudiger.

[The witness makes an affirmation.]

Presiding Judge: What is your name?

Witness: Pinchas Freudiger, previously Philip von Freudiger.

Presiding Judge: Please answer Mr. Bach’s questions.

State Attorney Bach: Mr. Freudiger, you are a native of Budapest?

Witness Freudiger: Yes.

Q. You first studied in Budapest and then went to work at a factory which had been founded by your grandfather, of blessed memory?

A. Yes.

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