Accounts by eyewitnesses to the brutality of a suspected Nazi war criminal arrested last week in Argentina are being forwarded to Argentine authorities, according to officials of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles and the World Jewish Congress in New York.
Both groups are continuing the search for survivors of labor camps in Przemysl and Rozwadow, and the concentration camp in Mielce, all in Poland, where Josef Schwammberger, 75, is said to have been responsible, as commandant, for the executions and torture of hundreds of Jews.
The groups hope to speed extradition proceedings against Schwammberger. They expect a full trial for Schwammberger to be held in West Germany, where he will be charged with mass murder and torture.
According to Austrian police files obtained by The New York Times, Schwammberger admitted shooting 35 Jews and plundering from Jewish slave laborers sacks of gold and diamond jewelry found in his possession when he was arrested by Austrian police in 1945.
Testimony by witnesses in those same files depict Schwammberger as a bestial executioner who yanked gold teeth from the mouths of prisoners, set his dog upon others and shot Jews at point-black range, the Times said.
Meeting with Argentinean officials last Friday, Wiesenthal Center dean Rabbi Marvin Hier presented a dossier on Schwammberger and a list of living witnesses.
CASE INVOLVING ‘LIVING PEOPLE’
“I wanted to impress upon them that this is not a matter of historical research, but a case involving living people,” Hier told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this week.
The witnesses include Sam Nussbaum, a Kansas City plumbing contractor who served as Schwammberger’s plumber in the Przemysl ghetto, and Arnold Susskind and Joseph Wellner, both of Forest Hills, N.Y., who lived in Przemysl when Schwammberger was the ghetto’s commandant in 1942-43.
The World Jewish Congress has also forwarded to Argentine authorities the testimony of Ignaz Horowitz of Brooklyn, also a survivor of Przemysl.
Horowitz told JTA that he was 21 years old when Schwammberger ordered the executions of his entire family in the nearby village of Stalowa-Wola. “I was lucky to escape,” said Horowitz, who was asked to testify against Schwammberger during an earlier extradition attempt by West Germany, and who contacted the WJC last week when he heard of Schwammberger’s arrest.
Susskind told Hier that he was one of seven men caught by Schwammberger as they baked matzoh for Passover. Schwammberger personally executed one of the men, and his guards emptied their rifles into a second man as the others, including Susskind, fled the bakery.
SAID TO HAVE EXECUTED 3-YEAR-OLD
Susskind said that Schwammberger also ordered the execution of Susskind’s 3-year-old son, according to Hier.
“It makes me sick remembering all these things,” Susskind said in a telephone interview. “But I have no problem testifying.”
As Schwammberger’s plumber, Nussbaum was probably the closest eyewitness to Schwammberger, according to Hier. Nussbaum not only witnessed murders, said Hier, but also Schwammberger’s wife pleading with the commandant to put an end to the atrocities.
Wellner is one of two living witnesses to the 1942 execution of a Rabbi Frenkel of Wieliczka. “Wellner wasn’t standing more than 20 feet away from the gallows” when Frenkel was hanged in Rodzwadow for refusing to work on Yom Kippur, said Hier.
About his meeting with Argentine officials last week, Hier said that he thanked them for their role in arresting Schwammberger, while voicing skepticism about the state of Schwammberger’s health. Schwammberger was moved to a prison infirmary in La Plata last week after he said he was having chest pains.
According to Hier, Schwammberger appeared fit at his first hearing.
“I told them to be careful that it was not a defense ploy” to prevent him from being sent out of the country, said Hier.
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.
