Seven court officials in the trial here of 21 former Auschwitz death camp personnel left today for Poland to take testimony from 25 Polish witnesses who could not or would not come to Frankfurt to testify.
It was believed here that some witnesses called by the defense anticipated reprisals or difficulties at home if they accepted the invitation of the Frankfurt court.
Those in the group going to Poland included two state prosecutors, four defense attorneys and an East German lawyer attending on behalf of Auschwitz survivors now living in East Germany. The Polish witnesses will be heard by Polish judges.
Frankfurt court officials who went to the Auschwitz camp site last December on a similar mission said afterward that the Polish authorities were most helpful and that their aid had been invaluable. The trial of the former staff members of the camp, where an estimated 3,000,000 victims, most of them Jews, were killed, began in December 1963.
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