A High Court jury awarded today to Dr. Wladislaw Dering nominal damages of one half-penny, the lowest sum that can be given, in his libel suit against author Leon Uris and the British publishers of his novel, “Exodus.”
The Polish-born doctor-inmate at the Auschwitz death camp had sued over a passage in the book which accused him of performing experiments without anesthetics on Auschwitz inmates. The judge ordered Dr. Dering to pay the defendants’ costs and refused him permission to appeal. Costs are estimated at 25, 000 pounds ($70, 000). Thirty Auschwitz survivors, from the United States, France, Israel, Poland and Austria, testified during the 18-day trial in six languages.
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