Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-075-01
Last-Modified: 1999/06/08

Session No. 75
6 Tammuz 5721 (20 June 1961)

Presiding Judge: I declare the seventy-fifth Session of the
trial open.

Attorney General: With the Court's permission, I shall first
reply to a number of questions which were left open at
previous sessions.  We have shown to the Defence Counsel the
passages from the book by Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel Out
of Distress.  As suggested by Judge Halevi, we have
translated the passages relating to the late Shlomo Gross on
pages 12-14 in the book. Counsel for the Defence objects to
their submission. In the absence of agreement we cannot
therefore submit them.

When I submitted Himmler's Posen speech, PS 1919, His
Honour, the Presiding Judge: asked me: What about the Nazi
Party's programme regarding the Jews?  I should like to ask
the Court to accept as evidence the document which was No.
PS 1708 in Nuremberg, published in IMG Volume 27, page 477;
it constitutes the programme of the National Socialist
Party.  Paragraphs 4 and 8 of the Party's programme concern
the Jews.  We have also made typed copies of those
paragraphs and I am ready to submit them as a separate
exhibit for the convenience of the Court.

Presiding Judge: Have you any comments, Dr. Servatius?

Dr. Servatius:  I have no formal objection.

Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/1403.

Attorney General: In the judgment of the International
Military Tribunal, these paragraphs are mentioned in the
first volume on page 193 and on page 278 (The reference is
always to the German edition).

His  Honour, Judge Halevi, asked me to find out whether the
Swedish Government took action on the information it
received from its representative in Berlin, von Otter, which
was based on reports he had been given by Dr. Gerstein. The
Israel Embassy in Stockholm applied to the Swedish
Government and an official announcement was published in
Stockholm on 8 June 1961. It says that von Otter reported
orally about his conversation with Gerstein, that the
Swedish Government knew about broadcasts over Radio London
on 9 June 1942 by Sikorsky, President of the Polish National
Council, and that in that broadcast attention had been drawn
to the mass killings of Jews in Poland. The Swedish
Government did not, therefore, think it proper to direct
attention once again to the same subject since it assumed
that the matter was already known to the world. In November
1942 the Swedish Foreign Minister was informed about a
report by an eye witness to the atrocities in Poland, which
had been published in London.

These are the contents of that official announcement. I have
it before me and I am ready to have copies made if the Court
so wishes. I am prepared to submit the text now in one copy.

Presiding Judge: Please submit it.

Attorney General: I ask you to disregard the emphases. They
are mine, for the purpose of presentation to the Court.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, I assume that you have no
comment in this matter?

Dr. Servatius:  I have no objection. I only request that I
receive a copy.

Presiding Judge: I have marked the text of the official
announcement T/1404.

Attorney General: I was asked by His Honour, Judge Halevi,
whether in the Weizmann Archives, or in the Archives of the
Jewish Agency, there is any trace of a reaction from the
Government of the Soviet Union to approaches made to it.
After checking the matter, I have to inform you that no
trace has been found either of an approach to the Soviet
Union or of a reaction from it.

And now, a different matter: Last week we received the
photostatic copy of a letter from Kappler - whose name has
already been mentioned in connection with the extermination
of the Jews of Italy - to Obergruppenfuehrer Wolff, a letter
describing the operation against the Jewish Community of
Rome. Since we have so far proved these matters through
witnesses only, we request you to accept this document. We
request the Court to accept it because it is one of the few
documents we have about this operation.

Presiding Judge: This is a letter from Kappler to Wolff?

Attorney General: Yes, a letter from Kappler.

Presiding Judge: Wolff belongs to Himmler's headquarters?

Attorney General: To Himmler's headquarters. General of the
Waffen-SS Wolff. The date of the letter is 10 October  1943.
It describes the operation which started at 5:30 in the
morning and ended at 2:00 in the afternoon. 1,259 persons
were arrested in their homes. After the release of the
offspring of mixed marriages, 1,007 remained under arrest.
Their deportation was fixed for 18 October, the day after
the arrest. Mention is made here of the resistance of an
Italian fascist who faced the German search squad, dressed
in his party's uniform, and tried to help the Jews.

Presiding Judge: What does Dr. Servatius have to say?

Dr. Servatius:  Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, I ask you
not to accept the document, since the witness Kappler is
being interrogated at the moment, and I am not able to have
him state his position on this. I think that at the present
stage of the proceedings this has been submitted too late.

Presiding Judge: When is he going to be interrogated?

Attorney General: He has not yet been interrogated. It is
correct that he will be interrogated within the next few
days and we have asked our representative at this hearing -
to the extent that we shall be represented - to put this
document before Kappler and to ask him for his reaction. The
document is already in Rome in the hands of our
representative who will represent me at the interrogation of
Kappler.

Presiding Judge: Can you not be satisfied with that, Sir?

Attorney General: I could if I were certain that we would be
represented there. But that is still in doubt.
Presiding Judge: But perhaps you could apply to the Court in
writing. I would propose that this be done, if we could be
certain that it will get there in time.

Attorney General: If the Court will kindly issue the
correction to Kappler's questionnaire in the course of today
then I might perhaps ask the embassy to delay the
interrogation, if possible, until the arrival of the
questionnaire.

Presiding Judge: What do you think about this proposal, Dr.
Servatius?

Dr. Servatius:  Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, I received
the document only half an hour ago. I ask you to give me an
opportunity perhaps to propose a question to the Court,
which would also be transmitted.

Presiding Judge: [After consultation] We think that the
correct procedure is that this be submitted in Rome. We
shall not ask for postponement of the interrogation there,
but if you, Mr. Hausner, manage to include this in the
examination there - we have no objection.

Attorney General: Will the Court correct the questionnaire?

Presiding Judge: Yes, we shall forward a correction to
Italy. You will submit to us today this document together
with the question you wanted to ask. I assume that the
question will be whether the contents of the document are
correct.

Attorney General: Yes, whether he signed this document.

Presiding Judge: And we shall ask Dr. Servatius to submit to
us by tomorrow morning the question, or questions, he wishes
to ask in connection with the document, but without any
request on our part to delay the interrogation.

Attorney General: Very good, Your Honour.

Dr. Servatius:  Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, I have
taken a brief look at the document and in my opinion it is
not relevant. The question at issue is not whether the
persecution against the Jews occurred, but who caused it and
on this the witness will be questioned, so that in my
opinion the contents of the document is irrelevant.

Presiding Judge: This is a question we have already
encountered before.

Decision No. 81

The Attorney General may ask for submission of the document
in question during the interrogation of the witness in
Italy. He is required to submit a suitable correction to his
questionnaire today and Counsel for the Defence may submit
his questionnaire by tomorrow morning. This Court will not
ask the Italian authorities to postpone the interrogation of
the witness on account of this matter.

Attorney General: I was asked about references to the
Gerstein Report in other Nuremberg decisions. His Honour,
Judge Halevi, asked me this question.

The answer is as follows: Part of the Gerstein Report was
presented at the major trial as PS 1553 and was marked RF
(Republique Francaise) 350 by the Court. It contains only
the bills for the supplies of gas. The report in its
entirety was submitted in Case No. 1 at the Doctors' Trial.

Presiding Judge: Was this report mentioned in the judgment
in the major trial?

Attorney General: No. The Court will find it among the list
of exhibits in the Doctors'Trial, in Volume 2 of the Green
Series on page 347. It is marked "Prosecution Exhibit 428."

Presiding Judge: There, too, it is not mentioned in the
judgment?

Attorney General: No, not according to my recollection. I am
certain that it is not in IMT.

Presiding Judge: I think that this was really the question
because of the difficulties of authentication.

Attorney General: I shall look into it again.

The Gerstein affair in general is mentioned in the judgment
in the I.G. Farben case, in Volume 8 of the Green Series on
page 1169. There is the conversation between Gerstein and
Dr. Peters, the director of the Degesch Company, the
suppliers of the gas, is mentioned, as for the judgment in
Case No. 1 - I shall find out.

Presiding Judge: But in the I.G. Farben case the report is
not mentioned in the judgment?

Attorney General: No, not the report.

Presiding Judge: In which volume did you say the I.G. Farben
case was?

Attorney General: In Volume 2.

Attorney General: One more matter: At the Session of 26 May,
Dr. Tibor Ferencz testified about his conversation with the
Hungarian Under-Secretaries of State, Endre and Baky, a
short time before they were executed. This appears in the
record of Session No. 54. In the course of his testimony he
was asked by His Honour, Judge Raveh, whether Endre and Baky
mentioned Eichmann in their testimony; and His Honour, Judge
Halevi, asked whether he knew where the record that was made
of those conversations was kept.

In reply to the question of His Honour, Judge Halevi, we
promised to make inquiries through the Government of Hungary
and to try and obtain the record of the conversations. This
is recorded on pages xx and xx of Session No. 54 of this
Court. His Honour, Judge Halevi, remarked at the end that
only in the event that the reply be in the negative would it
be necessary to be content with the oral testimony.

I have to inform the Court as follows: Very recently, while
the Court was in recess, Mr. Jenoe Levai arrived in this
country, the author of the well-known book "The Black Book
of Hungarian Jewry" and of other books about the Holocaust.
He was present at the trials of Endre and Baky.

Presiding Judge: What is his name?

Attorney General: Jenoe Levai.

He can testify - if the Court will grant permission to hear
him at this late stage - about the fact that Eichmann's name
was indeed mentioned at the trials of Endre and Baky, and
also that he heard from Dr. Tibor Ferencz about his
conversations with Endre and Baky.

Presiding Judge: That he heard this from him?

Attorney General: Yes, that he heard this from Dr. Tibor
Ferencz and that he was present when Dr. Ferencz read the
record that was made of the said conversations. He also
remembers the contents of the document which Dr. Ferencz
read on that occasion.

Presiding Judge: The contents of a document which Dr. Tibor
Ferencz himself did not remember, or about which he at any
rate did not testify?

Attorney General: He testified that such a record was made,
but he does not know the whereabouts of the record of his
conversations.

Presiding Judge: That is to say, for the corroboration of
Dr. Tibor Ferencz' testimony and nothing more?

Attorney General: Yes, nothing more. Except for one
difference: While Dr. Tibor Ferencz Tibor was convinced that
Eichmann's name was not mentioned, Dr. Levai recalls that
the name was mentioned by the accused during their trial.
Eichmann's name was mentioned by Endre and Baky.

As a result of our approach to the Hungarian Government, we
were informed that something would be published in the
Hungarian press and in fact, in Sunday's paper this week -
the day before yesterday apparently - the record of the
testimonies of Endre and Baky was published. From our first
perusal this morning it emerges that the name of the
Accused, Eichmann, is mentioned in the record of their
evidence.

Presiding Judge: What is your request?

Attorney General: I shall come to my request at once. The
record which Dr. Tibor Ferencz made and about the contents
of which he testified, has not yet been published and has
not yet been received by us.
I have an alternative application: I have said that I have
no more witnesses and I do not want to change this
announcement, unless the Court expressly decides otherwise.
Dr. Levai is here at the disposal of the Court. If the Court
is of the opinion this it is in order to hear him on those
points which I have mentioned we shall be glad to comply and
have him heard. Only if the Court does not wish to hear Dr.
Levai, we would ask for permission to submit the Hungarian
newspapers at a later stage; both the newspaper which has
already appeared and the one which, we hope, will yet appear
and will also contain the second document in which the Court
was interested.

Presiding Judge: Is this being published in instalments?

Attorney General: It was stated that it would appear this
Sunday, or rather, this is what we were told. But when we
looked at what was published this Sunday we found the record
of the proceedings of the trial, but we did not find the
record of the conversation between Dr. Tibor Ferencz and the
accused before their execution.

Presiding Judge: This is to say to that you did not receive
a reply to the official request?

Attorney General: The reply we received was that this would
be published in the press.

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