The trial of five war criminals accused of engineering and participating in the mass murder of virtually the entire Jewish population in the Latvian town of Daugapils during World War II, has opened in the High Court of the Soviet Latvian Republic in Riga, according to reports reaching here today.
The five are Karl Neiberg, Erich Lasenberg, Arnold Minga, Vincent Flocins and Nicholas Sawickis — all Latvians who are accused of having served as torturers and executioners for the Nazis during the German occupation of the Baltic states. All had been living under false identities since the war and were apprehended only recently, the report stated. They planned the executions not only of Jews but of anti-Nazi partisans and others in the town and killed a number of people with their own hands.
The trial was expected to last a week and will hear eyewitness evidence from survivors, including several Jews, who have volunteered to testify.
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