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Jewish Witness at Nazi Murder Trial Defends One of the Accused

January 27, 1966
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A survivor of Nazi murder efforts in occupied Poland testified today at a trial of three former SS men in Lueneburg that one of the defendants was being tried without justification.

Zeev Toronczyk, 49, now a resident of Tel Aviv, gave the unique testimony at the trial of Paul Degenhardt, Kurt Jericho and Otto Loebel, who are accused of complicity in the murder of Jews in Czenstochowa in 1942 and 1943.

Although he gave deeply incriminating evidence against Degendhardt and Jericho, the witness said that Loebel had been “a good man” who had “helped us Jews in Czenstochowa” and “even helped a Jewish woman to escape.” At the conclusion of his testimony, the witness shook hands with Loebel.

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