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British Counsel for Nazis Apologizes to Jews; Regrets Reference to “ghetto Dregs”

November 9, 1945
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Major Thomas C. Winwood, defense counsel for several of the Nazi defendants at the Belsen trial, today publicly apologized to the Jews for his remarks that the people exterminated in the Nazi camps were "dregs of the ghettos".

During his final speech today in defense of Joseph Kramer, commander of the Belsen camp, Maj. Winwood said: "I personally regret that any words which may have been spoken by me should have added to the pain of that race which has suffered so much in Nazi Germany. I have been acting only as the mouthpiece of the accused."

However, Maj. Winwood opened his speech by suggesting that the experiments on human beings carried out at the Oswiecim camp might prove beneficial to humanity.

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