One of 14 ex-Nazi policemen standing trial at Wuppertal for the massacre of 2,000 Jews in the Bialystok ghetto, in 1941, hanged himself in his cell yesterday, after fellow defendants gave incriminating testimony against him. The man, Heinrich Schneider, 53, was the second defendant to take his life of a group that originally numbered 24 members of the notorious police battalion 309. He had been a lieutenant in the battalion at the time of the atrocities and, after the war, served as a police officer in Cologne. Schneider was arrested twice, in 1963 and 1966, but subsequently was released on bail. His re-arrest was ordered following yesterday’s testimony.
Members of the battalion are accused of having forced Jews into the Bialystok synagogue on June 27, 1941, drenching the building with gasoline and igniting it with hand grenades. An estimated 2,000 Jews were burned alive. Of the original 24 defendants, one previously committed suicide and nine died of other causes.
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.
