The Central Commission for the Investigation of War and Concentration Camp Crimes is busy with “a great number” of preliminary investigations, Erwin Schuele, the director, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today.
He noted that the Commission was racing against a statute of limitations which has already ended possibilities of prosecution of many such crimes. Charges for first and second degree murder must be filed before 1965.
“Many of the crimes under investigation are so ghastly that it is humanly difficult to prepare the evidence necessary for prosecution,” Schuele said. He reported also that there were substantial difficulties in collecting evidence, noting that witnesses were scattered through the world and that documents must be sought in areas of a number of countries, including those behind the Iron Curtain.
The Commission was created last August by the various provincial Ministries of Justice in West Germany to coordinate the prosecution of Nazi crimes. The Commission’s principal function is to collect evidence which is turned over to local prosecutors for legal action.
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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.
