Eight of Nuremberg Defendants Charged with Direct Responsibility for Murder of Jews

Eight of the 20 top Nazis being tried before the international military tribunal were charged today with direct complicity in the anti-Jewish atrocities carried out by the Germans.

The accusation was levelled against Hans Frank, Alfred Rosenberg, Julius Streicher, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Saukel, Wilhelm Frick, Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl and Rudolf Hess by French prosecutor Charles Dubost. Dubost also charged Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl with personal responsibility for the murder and torture of thousands of Jews.

A description of the murder at the Majdanek concentration camp of 18,000 Jews in one day, Nov. 3, 1943, was submitted to the court in a statement by Max Marbler, a former prisoner of the Nazis. The statement, submitted by M. Dubost, declared that for four days previous to Nov. 3rd, all the Jews in the camp were forced to dig trenches in a field behind the crematorium, and on that day all the Jews–men, women, and children–were led to the field between two rows of police guards. "They all had to march past me," Marbler said, and "they marched all day at a regular pace. Those who were unable to maintain the pace were knocked down on the spot by the police.

"They were forced to undress, and then were directed to trenches and forced to lie down in them. They were then killed by S.S. Gestapo men with automatic pistols. Others were forced to lie down on the dead until the trench was filled. To cover the noise of the automatic weapons, the Nazis turned on high-powered loudspeakers blaring forth music," he reported.

Another witness, Isaak Ochshorn, in a statement, testified that he had seen the commander of Oswiceim and five other S.S. men grabbing children by the hair and then killing them. He personally witnessed the murder of 386 Jewish children under the age of ten.