A woman survivor of the Nazi destruction of the Lodz Ghetto in occupied Poland broke down during testimony in the Bradfisch-Fuchs war crimes trial here yesterday, screaming “murderer” at Gunther Fuchs, 52, a former Gestapo official.
Mrs. Ida Weynberg, 51, now a resident of Paris, told the court that Fuchs had shot her in the leg when she begged permission to go with her two children to a Nazi death camp. Fuchs and Otto Bradfisch, Gestapo mayor of Lodz during the war, are on trial here on charges of helping to murder some 86,000 Jews during the Lodz occupation.
She testified that Gestapo men, acting under Fuchs orders, tore her children, then seven and three, from her arms for transport to the Kulmhof death camp. She said the older child called to her from the death van, “Mama, mama, don’t leave us now.” Her voice breaking, Mrs. Weynberg testified that she managed to break through the police line and she begged Fuchs “Let me go to my children–take me, too.” In response, she testified, Fuchs drew a gun and shot her in the leg.
She collapsed again when she showed the judge photographs of her murdered children. As court aides helped her from the witness stand, she screamed, “Give me a gun–that murderer, that murderer-my innocent children.”
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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.
