Mrs. Hermine Braun-steiner Ryan, the convicted concentration camp guard whom the United States is trying to deport, testified today that she had not indicated her 1949 Austrian conviction on her American citizenship application because the Austrian judge had advised her she did not have to. Yesterday afternoon, the 52-year-old witness said it had not been “in my power” to halt the gassing and burning of inmates.
She admitted that she “sometimes” slapped prisoners with her open hand “when it was hard to get the people together…to line them up.” When the government attorney asked “Did they hit you back?” she said “No.” When he asked “What if they refused to stand up?” she replied “They didn’t.” Mrs. Ryan said she was unaware of a mass killing of 18,000 Jews one day at Majdanek during the half-year (June-Dec. 1943) she was a guard there. She was out sick most of the time, she explained. Witnesses against Mrs. Ryan are to be heard next Monday morning at the offices of the US Immigration and Nationalization Service.
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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.