Three former SS officers have officially gone on trial in Hannover on charges of murder and complicity in the murders of at least 19,500 Jews in Cracow, Poland between 1942-44. But chances that the defendants will be brought to justice are slim. One of the accused, Rudolf Koerner, 70, was granted a separate trial after he failed to appear in court for alleged reasons of health.
His co-defendants, Kurt Heinemayer and Max Olde, both 69, claim they are medically unfit to stand trial. More than 100 witnesses have been called and if the trial ever gets underway it could last for more than two years.
The three men are alleged to have committed individual acts of murder and other crimes of their own accord because of their pathological hatred of Jews and zealous support of the Nazi leadership. The charges against Koerner include shooting an eight-year-old child and his parents in the back as they tried to escape from a convoy bound for a concentration camp. Koerner and Heinemayer are also accused of murdering at least eight children who were hidden by their parents in suitcases to prevent them from being separated enroute to a concentration camp. The defendants allegedly fired into the suitcases.
They are charged with torturing a salesman to admit he was Jewish and then sending him to a death cell at an SS prison and ordering the shooting of 30 Jewish women at a forced labor camp at Plaszow.
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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.
