The public prosecutor’s office here disclosed today that it is investigating the cases of two more former SS officers charged with the wartime murder in August 1941 of some 4, 500 Jews in Nazi occupied Pinsk. The names of the two men were not disclosed.
A former SS guard at the Chelmno murder camp in Nazi-occupied Poland declared today at his trial, “I damn the day when I Joined this wretched commando unit. ” Alois Haefle, one of the 12 SS guards charged with complicity in the wartime slaughter of 180, 000 Jewish men, women and children in the camp near Poznan, made that statement after the prosecutor asked for a term of life imprisonment at hard labor for him.
Similar sentences were asked for Gustav Laabs, 60, Walter Burmeister, 56, and Karl Heinl, 50. Lesser terms at hard labor were demanded for the other defendants. The prosecutor summed up the testimony with the charge that the consciences of the 12 former SS guards “were kept silent by order. ” The defense attorneys for the other 11 defendants will make their pleas this week when a verdict is expected.
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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.
