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German Court Hears Testimony on Tossing Jews Alive in Camp Furnaces

October 11, 1960
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A Dusseldorf court heard testimony today in the trial of two former Sachsenhausen camp guards that hundreds of Jewish inmates were tossed alive into the camp furnace.

Dr. Walter Adamets, testifying for the prosecution, described this horror. He testified that August Hoehne, one of the defendants, took part in sending to their deaths all 4,000 sick Jewish members of a convoy.

Another former inmate said that Otto Boehm, the other defendant, strangled a Jewish prisoner when the inmate stole one carrot. Hochne, former deputy commander of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, admitted responsibility during his trial in the shooting of 80 persons in February 1944.

Albert Layer, 56-year-old merchant and former SS guard in the Gross Rosen concentration camp, was on trial in Hanover today on a variety of charges of murder and complicity in the murders of camp inmates.

He was accused of killing 14 prisoners and abusing 27 others who died from their injuries. He also was charged with complicity in the slaying of at least 261 other in mates mostly Russian prisoners of war. In pleading not guilty, the defendant said, “I have not committed any crimes. I am much too soft for that and I am not a sadist.”

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