Dr. Robert Servatius put before the court trying Adolf Eichmann a formal request for the right to call four former officials of the Nazi regime to testify on behalf of the former Gestapo colonel. Attorney General Gideon Hausner, the chief prosecutor, promptly replied to Eichmann’s chief defense counsel that the four ex-Nazis would be granted Israeli visas but would be detained as criminals under the Israel law for the punishment of Nazis as soon as they arrived in Israel.
The four former officials include Professor Franz Sis, who headed Bureau 2 of the Reich War Ministry, whom Dr. Servatius wanted to testify on Eichmann’s authority and rank and Dr. Max Mertens, former Nazi military governor of Macedonia, who was convicted of war crimes by a Greek military tribunal and who, Dr. Servatius said, sought from Eichmann a decision which was referred to a higher Nazi authority.
The other Nazis whom Eichmann’s lawyer wants as witnesses are General Hermann Krumay, who was a deputy for Eichmann in Hungary and who, the defense attorney said, was prepared to testify that Eichmann had no connection with or responsibility for the murder of 100 children from the Czech town of Lidice; and Eberhard von Thadden, former head of the German Foreign Ministry Jewish department, with the same rank as Eichmann. Dr. Servatius said that he wanted to call von Thadden to prove that orders about Jews from Hitler and Heydrich were under the jurisdiction of the German army and that Eichmann had not exceeded orders.
The West German attorney indicated he would like to call four or five others, but that this hope faced difficulties because they were in Austria. Austrian laws ban participation of both defense and prosecution attorneys during a hearing on a questionnaire he intended to submit to them for depositions, Dr. Servatius said.
Attorney General Hausner backed up his declaration that the four ex-Nazis would be subject to arrest with the statement that the prosecution had a file on each one. He cited briefly from the past of each of the four and submitted that, under the circumstances, Dr. Servatius’ request for their appearance was not practical. He added that the prosecution would accept sworn statements made by the four before a West German court or notary provided an Israeli representative could attend for questioning.
SERVATIUS WANTS WITNESSES TO BE CROSS-EXAMINED IN GERMAN COURT
Dr. Servatius continued to press for admittance of such men as witnesses and argued that Israeli approval, presumably with guarantees of immunity, would create a “better impression.” However, when he was told by the court that the Attorney General, as the legal adviser of the Israel Government, was expressing an official view of the Government, Dr. Servatius agreed that no witness would-come if he knew he faced arrest and prosecution. He indicated a preference for cross-examination of such witnesses before West German judges, rather than only their sworn testimony.
A Polish press photographer who worked as a photographer in the Statistics Department of the Lodz Ghetto administration from 1940-44, Henryk Ross, was the key witness today on the events in that ghetto. Besides taking official photographs, Ross also clandestinely photographed Nazi atrocities, hiding the pictures some of which were now in the possession of the prosecution.
He testified that from figures he learned at the statistics department, about 120,000 of the 250,000 Jews died of starvation in the Ghetto. From 1941 on, the Nazis deported Jews allegedly for work details but actually, as was later learned, for extermination.
The witness spoke in Polish, which was translated by an interpreter with Mr. Hausner assisting. He described a frightful scene when the Germans “evacuated” the Ghetto hospital. He said they threw children from second floor windows directly into trucks. “Some of the children cried,” he said, “but others, knowing their fate, were so terrified they were unable even to cry.”
DOCUMENTS DESCRIBE EICHMANN’S ROLE IN DEPORTING JEWS FROM LODZ
Earlier the Attorney General submitted several documents concerning a special SS group which in the last years of the war was engaged in destroying the evidence of the mass extermination program. He also submitted documents which implicated Eichmann in this operation. Other documents submitted by Mr. Hausner included a letter from the Nazi Governor
JEWISH DOCTOR TESTIFIES ON NAZI KILLING OF POLES WHO AIDED JEWS
The next witness was Dr. Joseph Buzhminski, a Polish Jew who escaped from the Nazis and whose life was saved by a non-Jewish Polish woman who hid him and 12 other Jews. She is now Mrs. Buzhminski, in Tel Aviv. The Polish doctor testified to watching the killing of eight non-Jewish Poles who hid a six-year-old Jewish girl. He said he saw the Poles beaten to death by SS guards when their action was discovered.
After he was found, he testified, he was taken with the others to be shot. Facing the SS guns, he and the others tried to stand in a way to be hit in the heart because those who were not killed instantly were buried alive with the dead. At the very last minute, a high ranking SS officer arrived, looked at the waiting victims and said “these fat Jews are good raw material for soap.” Thereupon they were herded into freight cars, presumably for transport to the Auschwitz death camp. Dr. Buzhminski jumped from the train and was hidden by the Polish woman whom he later married.
In his testimony, the Polish witness contrasted the help given by the Poles to Jews with the cruelty of the Ukrainians. He also testified that he was briefly a prisoner at the Przemysl Ghetto where he saw a most dramatic episode. He said he saw a Gestapo officer flogging a 15-year-old boy. He counted 80 blows and the boy was still alive. Usually 50 blows killed the victims. The Gestapo officer then ordered the boy to run and he did and so he was spared.
Mr. Hausner asked: “Do you know who that boy was?” The witness replied: “Yes, he is sitting next to you” and pointed to Police Inspector Holdmann who is an assistant to the prosecution for police bureau Zero Six which prepared the case against Eichmann.
EICHMANN’S LAWYER SEEKS TO DISCARD TESTIMONY OF U.S. WITNESS
The final witness today was Magistrate Y. Carmel of Tel Aviv who, after the establishment of Israel, served as Consul in Warsaw and who made a lengthy study of the diaries of Hans Frank, Nazi Governor of occupied Poland, which were used in the Nuremberg trials and also by the Polish prosecution of Nazi war criminals. Magistrate Carmel copied all parts of the diaries dealing with Jews.
He submitted these excerpts to the court and read aloud several passages showing that Frank was constantly complaining that the Gestapo in Berlin, an evident reference to Eichmann’s office, gave orders and took actions on Jewish matters in territory under Frank’s rule without informing him.
Today’s session of the trial opened with a legal battle between defense and prosecution over the relevance of testimony started yesterday by Dr. Leon Wells, a New Jersey engineer. Dr. Servatius, the chief defense counsel, said that the testimony of Dr. Wells, who recounted first-hand atrocities of the Nazis after the occupation of Lwow in Poland, was undoubtedly of great historical value but that it did not link Eichmann with the crimes described.
Attorney Gideon Hausner, the chief prosecutor, replied that it was the task of the prosecution to prove that the crimes described in the 15-count indictment against Eichmann actually took place and that Eichmann was responsible for them.
The prosecutor said that Dr. Wells was relating the events which took place in eastern Galicia, which was seized by Hitler’s Germany, and whose 500,000 Jews were among the 6,000,000 victims of nazism. Mr. Hausner added that it was up to the defendant “on whose head this grave indictment falls to answer–if he can answer.”
After a brief consultation, the three judges presiding declared that Dr. Wells’ testimony was relevant. The judges ruled that the issue was the personal responsibility of the defendant for the crimes charged against him and that it was the task of the prosecution to prove both that the acts were committed and the role of the defendant in those crimes.
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