Life imprisonment was demanded in court here today for Wilhelm Unkelbach, “the horror of Czenstochova,” who has been on trial on charges of murdering at least 30 persons, most of them Jews. He had been a policeman in the Czenstochova ghetto under the Nazi regime, his job being to drive a truck transporting Jews to the death camp at Treblinka.
The prosecutor demanded the life sentence after the court heard the last of a group of foreign witnesses, brought here for the trial from Israel, the United States and other countries. The final witness was Jacob Benzlowicz, a carpenter from Israel, the man who discovered Unkelbach’s whereabouts two years ago. It was Benzlowicz who notified authorities who, subsequently, arrested Unkelbach. The Israeli testified that Unkelbach crushed his jaw by kicking him and was about to shoot him, when another policeman told Unkelbach: “Don’t kill this Jew, we need carpenters.”
Unkelbach denied the many accusations at the trial, including the shooting of old men, sick people, and a mother and her child. His wife took the stand as a “character witness, telling the court he is a “kind and good man who loves animals and 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.
