Dr. Benjamin Sagalowitz, Zurich journalist and a leader of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Switzerland, gave evidence here today before the court trying Otto Hunsche for war crimes. Hunsche, a collaborator of Adolf Eichmann, is accused of directing the deportation and murder of 1, 200 Hungarian Jews in 1944, He denies knowing anything about the mass murders then carried out by the Germans, although he was one of Eichmann’s principal aides.
Dr. Sagalowitz produced in evidence numerous excerpts from Swiss newspapers of June and July 1944, reporting on the fate of Hungarian Jewry, and also gave evidence about information on the Nazi extermination which reached neutral Switzerland at that time.
At the request of the prosecution excerpts were read from a report by the late Dr. Rudolf Kastner, a leader of the Jewish community in Hungary during the war, in which Dr. Kastner listed Hunsche as one of those present at a meeting in which Eichmann had hiated at the plans for the extermination of Jews in the Auschwitz death camp.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
