The trial of Adolf Eichmann was adjourned today until August 3 following completion by Dr. Robert Servatius, Eichmann’s chief defense counsel, of his defense of the former Gestapo colonel charged with engineering the annihilation of 6,000,000 Jews in Europe.
The three-justice court ordered the adjournment at the request of Prosecutor Gideon Hausner, so that the prosecutor and defense attorney will have time to prepare their summations.
The end of the marathon proceedings came exactly 15 weeks after the trial opened last April 11. The prosecution brought 112 witnesses to the stand and submitted some 1,500 documents. The prosecution also ended its presentation today.
After Mr. Hausner and Dr. Servatius present their summations, a procedure likely to last a week, the court will adjourn to study the mountain of evidence and to prepare a verdict. This is not expected until after the High Holy Days. Dr. Servatius has indicated he expects a verdict of guilty and that he will appeal the verdict to the Israel Supreme Court. The appeal will mean several additional months of the case for Israel.
The final defense affidavit introduced today prior to the adjournment was from Eichmann’s former valet, SS Staff Sergeant Franz Slawik. Dr. Servatius introduced this affidavit in an attempt to refute prosecution charges that Eichmann helped kill a Jewish boy with his own hands for allegedly stealing some cherries from a tree in a villa in Budapest commandeered to serve as Eichmann’s headquarters.
On May 26, Avraham Gordon testified for the prosecution that he saw Eichmann and Slawik drag the boy into a toolshed and that he heard blows and screams. Gordon also testified that Eichmann later came out of the shed with his clothing spattered with “what looked like blood.” Gordon said that later the body was thrown in Eichmann’s automobile, driven away and presumably tossed into the Danube river.
Slawik said in the affidavit that he was with Eichmann in Budapest from May to November 1944. He said that he never saw or heard of the killing and that he never received orders to punish anybody stealing fruit. The affidavit was made in Vienna on July 6.
The court rejected a document verifying the numbers given by Dr. Rudolf Verba, an office worker at the Auschwitz camp, in a report on the number of victims killed in the camp. The document explained the statistical methods used to arrive at a total of 2,500,000 killed. Dr. Servatius objected to its introduction, contending it had no bearing on the charges against Eichmann and that it was a document for historians and not for the trial. Judge Binyamin Halevi dissented from the rejection, saying he favored acceptance of Verba’s statement.
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.
