An eye-witness account of the depredations and cruelties against Jews, ordered during World War II by Nazi SS Col. Adolf Eichmann, has been compiled by the Czechoslovakian Government and furnished to Israeli authorities, the Czech Embassy here announced today.
The report, disseminated by the Czech Embassy, comprises testimony by a Czech sanitation engineer, Josef Pacovsky, who was interred for three and a half years at the concentration camp of Terezin, north of Prague.
Pacovsky’s testimony shows that Eichmann personally ordered the establishment of a large ghetto in Terezin, in October 1941. Between 1941 and 1945, Pacovsky declared, 152, 000 Jewish men, women and children passed through the Terezin camp. Of the total, he asserted, 87, 000 were sent to extermination chambers at Auschwitz, Treblinka and Maidanek, while more than 34, 000 died at Terezin. “At the end of the war,” Pacovsky declared, “a mere 3,300 were left alive at Terezin.”
In his testimony, the Czech engineer said that Eichmann and his henchmen were rounding up thousands of Jews telling them they were being sent to a special resort, “Terezin Spa.” When Red Cross workers were scheduled to visit the camp, to check on the treatment accorded there to Jews from Denmark, Eichmann ordered that Terezin be “dressed up,” having new apartments built and furnishing decent clothing to the inmates.
Pacovsky said that the Jews were forbidden to talk to the Red Cross workers, the rabbi of the camp being ordered to deliver an address in which he thanked the Germans for their “excellent treatment.” Later, stated Pacovsky, the rabbi and several other Jews who were forced to participate in the deception, were murdered.
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.
