Eight Germans yesterday received sentences ranging from 13 and a half months to 13 years, after conviction for helping in the murder of 152,000 Jews at the Kulmhof concentration camp, near Lodz. Three others were freed.
Judge Rudolf Bohner called the sentences “purely symbolic,” since any of the 152,000 murders could have been punished by a life sentence. The Judge said the accused were not murderers, only accessories, since they had been ordered to serve at the camp. He said that “every Judge must have a feeling of sympathy for them. Nevertheless, the accused heaped guilt on themselves by blindly following criminal orders.”
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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.