The Senate investigating subcommittee today began closedhearings into the case of Ilse Koch, wife of the commandant of the notorious Buchenwald death camp, by questioning two witnesses who have publicly maintained that the Army’s action in reducing her original life sentence to four years was completely unwarranted.
William D. Donson, chief persecutor of the Buchenwald trials, who has characterized the Army’s action as a “travesty on justice” and Brig. Gen. Enil Kiel, head of the military court that imposed the original life sentence on Frau Koch, were the first witnesses to appear before the subcommittee today.
Son. Homer S. Ferguson, Michigan Republican and chairman of the subcommittee, told a reporter this morning that the subcommittee is trying to determine whether Gen. Lucius D. Clay, U.S. commander in Europe, had the jurisdiction to reduce the original Koch sentence and whether he now has the power to re-impose it.
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.
