A German court here today sentenced former Gestapo group commander Otto Kirwald to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of murdering two Jews and maltreating countless others while in charge of a Jewish slave labor battalion near Cracow.
According to the testimony of surviving women prisoners, and corroborated by statements from German workers who were employed as free laborers on the same project, the former Gestapo official “sentenced to death” a Jewish prisoner for illegally receiving a letter from his sister. The victim was forced to hang himself. Another Jew was hanged for a petty offense, in the presence of all the inmates of the camp.
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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.