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German Prosecutor Files Appeal Against Verdict in ‘chelmno Trial’

April 5, 1963
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The public prosecutor’s office filed an appeal today for a review of the sentences imposed by a Jury court here last week against 12 former SS guards convicted of complicity in the wartime murders of some 180,000 Jewish men, women and children in the Chlemno camp near Lodz in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Six of the defendants were sentenced to prison terms at hard labor ranging from three to 15 years. The other six, while found guilty, were not sentenced to prison because their crimes were not considered sufficiently grave by the Jury court to Justify the minimum three-year term for such crimes. The prosecutor’s action indicated the sentences were regarded as too light.

Defense attorneys also filed appeals against the sentences. The defendants had been charged with murdering Jews in gas vans and by shooting as well as general abuse and mistreatment of the prisoners from 1941 to 1953. The trial lasted six months.

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