Six former Gestapo members went on trial in Hannover today on charges of being accomplices of the murder of 2481 Polish Jews. The murders took place at the end of 1942 in the city of Bilgoraj near Lublin. The city’s Jews were told they were going to be “resettled” in the Soviet Union but instead were “brutally herded together” and taken to the Belzec concentration camp. The prosecutor said that many of the Jews were killed before they reached the camp.
Three of the accused are also charged with ordering mass executions in 1942 and 1943 intended as revenge for attacks by Polish partisans and the killing of Jews unfit for work. One of the three. Friedrich Keller, is alleged to actually have carried out the murders. All six deny the charges. About 130 witnesses are expected to be called.
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