One of the 13 former Nazis on trial here on charges of participating in the wartime slaughter of 180,000 Jews in the Chelmno concentration camp in occupied Poland testified today that he was “humane” and that he had always “been against beating defenseless prisoners.”
The defendant, 69-year-old former SS lieutenant Alois Haefle, was in charge of a Jewish labor command unit set up for road-building and to sort out the possessions of the murdered prisoners. He emphatically denied having whipped and shot to death the Jewish prisoners.
The indictment charged him with having told his SS subordinates that “men, women and children will be trampled down like beetles.” The indictment also charged that his job was to deceive the Jews about their ultimate fate and to ensure that they proceeded to the poison gas vans in an orderly way.
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