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Survivor Says He Never Saw Schwammberger Kill Inmates

August 19, 1991
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An American Holocaust survivor told a Stuttgart court last Friday that he never saw accused Nazi war criminal Josef Schwammberger kill inmates at the Przemsyl and Rozwadow concentration camps in Poland, where the accused Nazi war criminal was commandant during World War II.

The testimony of Leo Berger, 71, who was a prisoner at both camps, differed from that of earlier witnesses who said they had observed Schwammberger killing inmates.

The 79-year-old former SS officer was extradited here from Argentina last year to stand trial in Germany. He has been charged with the murders of at least 45 people and complicity in the murders of 3,377 others, most of them Jews.

Oscar Hersthal, 79, of Canada testified last week that he actually saw Schwammberger kill inmates at morning roll call. He swore he saw him murder a rabbi named Fraenkel in the Rozwadow camp on Yom Kippur of 1942.

But he could not identify the accused as commandant of the camp where he was held.

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