At the conclusion of a long trial marked by a number of exciting incidents including the surprise defense testimony of several Jews, former Czech policemen J. Hosek and M. Drahnovsky were today sentenced to eight to ten years imprisonment on charges of having tortured, robbed, and denounced Jews at the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
The testimony of Jewish witnesses for the dependents moved one Czech in the audience to comment that “the Jews are overly kind-hearted.” The former policemen, in an interview with a Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent, expressed surprise that their sentences were so light. They had expected to be hanged.
The sentence of one of the accused was mitigated because he fought bravely during the Prague uprisings against the Nazis during the last days of the German occupation of the city. In the case of the second, the charge of denouncing Jews to the Nazis was considered not to have been proven. Police Captain Janecek, who was to have been the chief defendant, died a few days before the trial opened.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
