A survivor of the Treblinka death camp collapsed yesterday while testifying at a Nazi war crimes trial that he had been forced to throw his infant sister into a trench filled with burning bodies.
Joseph Waller, 37, now a Brooklyn interior decorator, sobbed that “God saw it all, why didn’t He do anything.” He suffered a heart attack and doctors in the courtroom said he had to have rest and quiet after the “strain” of his testimony. He was a witness in the trial of 10 former Nazi personnel of the camp charged with killing nearly 700, 000 Jews in the camp during the war.
The witness testified that as a boy of 12, he had been put on a work detail by the camp’s crematoria. He said “they made me throw two girls into a trench where bodies were burning. Then–dear God–my eight-month-old sister,” he said, sobbing softly before he collapsed.
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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.
