Direct testimony that Ilse Koch received specimens of tattooed skin from the bodies of prisoners executed at the Buchenwald extermination center was introduced at the International War Crimes Tribunal, Aufbau, German and English-language weekly, recalled today in its current issue.
The publication posed the question why, if such testimony was ruled admissible at the War Crimes trials at Nuremberg in 1945, it was apparently disregarded by the United States officials in reviewing the Koch case. Aufbau assorted that the testimony in question was brought before the International War Crimes tribunal on Dec. 13, 1945, by Thomas J. Dodd, then serving as executive trial counsel for the U.S.
The testimony was given by Andreas Pfaffenberg, a German prisoner, and was taken by members of the United States Mobile Field Interrogation Unit No. 2 after it entered Buchenwald. The publication cited an excerpt of Pfaffanberg’s testimony as introduced at Nuremberg.
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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.
