Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Defense Counsel Remains Silent
Summary: Witnesses describing experiences in Auschwitz,
         Ravensbru"ck, Treblinka, are not cross-examined by 
         defense counsel.
Reply-To: kmcvay@nizkor.almanac.bc.ca
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Nizkor Project, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords:
 
Archive/File: holocaust/germany/nuremberg east.001
Last-Modified: 1996/06/17

   "The thrust of the Russian case on the concentration camps came
   from witnesses. Severina Shmaglerskaya who had spent three years in
   Auschwitz told of seeing women sent to work within minutes of
   giving birth, of babies taken away, of children driven to gas
   chambers. No defense counsel wanted to cross-examine her. Samuel
   Rajzman, had been taken from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka. He
   survived because he could speak Hebrew, French, Russian, Polish and
   German; he was needed to act as an interpreter. He described the
   arrival at Treblinka station. It looked like a station. There were
   signs saying 'restaurant,' 'ticket office.' There was even an
   arrivals and departures board but all departing trains left
   Treblinka empty. For on the platform prisoners were stripped, women
   were shaved so that their hair could be used for mattresses. Then
   they walked up Himmelfahrt Street, the 'Journey to Heaven', to the
   gas chambers. The whole procedure up to then had taken ten minutes.
   Rajzman believed they killed between 10,000 and 12,000 people every
   day at Treblinka. There were plans to increase the number of ovens
   from ten to twenty-five to keep up with the output of the gas
   chambers.*** [Archivist Note: The Tusas are incorrect here.
   See note appended below for actual testimony from Rajzman.
   knm] He had seen the arrival at the station of his mother, his
   sister and two brothers. Friends, sorting the piles of clothes on
   the platform, found a photograph of his wife and child. 'That is
   all I have left of my family. Only a photograph,' he said. None of
   the defense counsel wanted to cross-examine Samuel Rajzman either.

   Besides such witnesses, the Russians could produce documents of
   suffering too - documents on tortures, beatings, castrations,
   injections with poison, infections with cancer, typhus, malaria.
   They had too many documents. But how could the court refuse to
   accept in evidence the statement which Jacob Vernik, a Warsaw
   carpenter, had given his government? It described the year he had
   spent at Treblinka. The judges knew all too much by now about camps
   like Treblinka. But Vernik said that writing his statement had
   given him the only reason to continue his life. 'Awake or asleep I
   see the terrible visions of thousands of people calling for help,
   begging for life and mercy. I have lost all my family, I have
   myself led them to death. I have myself built the death chambers in
   which they were murdered. I am afraid of everything. I fear that
   everything I have seen is written on my face. An old and broken
   life is a very heavy burden, but I must carry on and live to tell
   the world what German crimes and barbarism I saw.'

   At the end of a morning session, where the massacre of the Jews at
   Vilna was described and Severina Shmaglerskaya gave her evidence,
   Doenitz's counsel Dr. Kranzbuehler asked him 'Didn't anybody know
   anything about any of these things?' Doenitz shook his head and
   shrugged his shoulders sadly. Goering turned round. 'Of course not
   ... The higher you stand the less you see of what is going on
   below.' They all ate their lunches in silence that day.<59>" (Tusa,
   200-201)
   
   <59> Gilbert (G.M. Gilbert, "Nuremberg Diary," Eyre and
        Spottiswoode, 1948)

   *** The authors have mis-quoted the Nuremberg testimony of
   Rajzman. He does not use the word "ovens" in his testimony,
   as they claim:

   "There were plans to increase the number of ovens from 
   ten to twenty-five to keep up with the output of the gas chambers."

   The Soviet Counsellor Smirnov questions Rajzman - here is
   the relevant transcript, taken from the Aristarchus CDROM:

   "Rajzman: At first there were only 3 gas chambers, but then 
   they built 10 more chambers. It was planned to increase this 
   number to 25. "

   At no point does Rajzman mention "ovens." Nizkor's thanks
   to Matt Giwer (mgiwer@ix.netcom.com) for pointing out the
   Tusa error so that we could investigate and correct it.
   (Giwer, Amazing)

                          Work Cited

   Giwer, Matt. UseNet alt.revisionism. Subject: "Amazing nonsense if 
   you look for it.," June 10, 1996.  Message-ID: 
   4pfsje$pkv@dfw-ixnews2.ix.netcom.com, archived within URL
   http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?people/g/giwer.matt/1996/giwer.0696

   Tusa, Ann & John.  The Nuremberg Trial.  Birmingham, Alabama: The
   Notable Trials Library, Division of Gryphon Editions, Inc., 1990

   IMT VIII. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the 
   International Military Tribunal. Volume VIII. Proceedings: 
   2/20/1946-3/7/1946. IMT, 1947. pp. 327-329.

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