Sentences of life imprisonment at hard labor were imposed today in a Bechum court on four former officials of a Nazi camp in Neu-Sandz, in occupied Galicia, convicted of mass murders of Jews.
The life terms were imposed on Heinrich Hamann, 57, former head of the German security police in the Neu-Sandz camp, who was found guilty on 77 counts of mass murder Johann Bornholt, 62, found guilty on ten counts; Joseph Runehoff, found guilty on one hour and 18 further counts of participation in mass murder; and Bruno Daunack, 63, convicted on two counts and one count of participation.
Several other former officials received lesser sentences, all at hard labor, after 71-day trial at which 100 witnesses, most of them Jewish survivors of the occupation, came from the United States, Canada, Austria and Israel to testify.
Judge Alter Heide, president of the court, declared in imposing sentences, that es defendant had blamed other Nazis for his actions. He said that no political consideration had been involved only the issue of the guilt of the defendants.
He also said that the crimes of which they had been convicted were so horrible that no normal person could possibly understand how they could have occurred. He added the German people must realize what awful atrocities had been perpetrated and must ne allow such things to happen again. He emphasized that the trial should serve as a warn to those who were at the present time burning synagogues and destroying Jewish cemete
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.
