An elderly Holocaust survivor from Israel told a Stuttgart court last Friday that she actually saw accused Nazi war criminal Josef Schwammberger murder her husband at a concentration camp in Poland during World War II.
Sarah Ehrenhald, 70, of Tel Aviv said her former husband, Leon Pater, was caught stealing bread for a family member. On the next day, he was shot to death in the main square of the Przemysl concentration camp, where Schwammberger was commandant.
“I watched the execution,” Ehrenhald said. “It was Schwammberger himself, the camp’s commander, who killed my husband.”
According to the witness, the SS officer took pleasure in randomly murdering and torturing Jews and humiliating them. “He was a sadist. For him, killing Jews was just a game,” she said.
Schwammberger, who was extradited from Argentina last year, has been on trial in Stuttgart since June 26. A previous witness, American Holocaust survivor Leo Berger, told the court on Aug. 16 that he never saw the accused kill inmates at the Przemysl or Rozwadow concentration camps, where he was confined.
However, a Canadian survivor, Oscar Hersthal, testified a week earlier that he saw Schwammberger kill prisoners at morning roll call.
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.
