A Frankfurt court team in the trial of 20 former personnel of the Auschwitz death camp reported finding new evidence during a three-day visit to the site of the camp, it was reported here today from Warsaw.
Prosecutor Joachim Kugler said he found new documentary evidence against defendants accused of killing inmates with carbolic acid injections into the heart. He said he found the evidence in the archives of the camp which has been preserved by the Polish Government as a permanent reminder of Nazi savagery. An estimated 4,000,000 victims, most of them Jews, were put to death at Auschwitz.
One of the newly found documents is an order to the camp pharmacy for a kilogram of carbolic acid. The order was signed by Josef Klehr, an Auschwitz defendant charged by witnesses with having killed up to 30,000 victims. Commenting on the three-day visit, Chief Prosecutor Hans Grossman said “we have collected a great deal of proof” about the credibility of witnesses who have testified during the trial, now nearing the end of its first year.
The visiting court officials also saw a film of the liberation of the camp. Anton Reiners, an attorney for two of the Nazi defendants, broke down and wept during the showing. He said he wished his 14-year-old daughter could see “this terrible place so she will know what Nazism was.” The film included shots of child inmates, holding out thin tattooed arms as they were led from the camp by Soviet soldiers and Polish nuns.
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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.
