A Frankfurt court has asked 180 witnesses, mostly Jews, to testify in the trial of seven former Nazi police officers accused of participating in or aiding the mass murders of 30,000 Jews and 6000 other Soviet citizens during World War II. The trial, one of the largest war crimes trials ever held in West Germany, is expected to last a year.
All of the defendants are presently free on bail of about $2500 each. The principal defendant, Alfred Ebner, 58, is charged with personally shooting Jews when he was deputy commander of the Pinsk region. The other six defendants were members of the notorious Police Battalion 306 which shot Jews en-masse behind Russian lines during 1941-42. They are Johann Kuhr, 55; Heinrich Plantius, 57: Walter Gross, 60; Rudolph Eckert, 57; Heinrich Teitz, 55; and Adolf Petsch, 66.
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.
