The Stuttgart court trying Josef Schwammberger for Nazi war crimes heard more evidence last week that the former SS official personally killed Jews at concentration camps in Poland and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of others.
Leon Gottdank, an American who lives in Los Angeles, testified that Schwammberger shot his friend Leo Pater in 1942 in the Przemysl concentration camp, near Krakow.
He told the court he heard the shots that killed his friend and later saw his body in the camp’s main square, where Schwammberger was standing with three inmates who served in the camp’s police force.
Pater was killed because he had walked to an off-limits area of the camp to steal bread for his son, the witness testified.
The court also heard testimony from a man who served time in the same prison as Schwammberger who said he heard the 79-year-old former SS official boast of killing Jews.
Dieter Wolf, who is in jail for his involvement in a traffic accident, said Schwammberger boasted of having killed many Jews in the concentration camps of which he was in charge.
Schwammberger, who was extradited here last year from Argentina, denied the allegations against him and said he had never met Wolf.
Wolf has a long criminal record and has served time for several offenses, among them circulating false accusations against individuals.
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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.
