“..One of our companies held out for 40 minutes and another ..for more than 6 hours. ..mine set in ..brushmakers area exploded. Several of our companies attacked the dispersing Germans. Our losses in manpower are minimal. That is also an achievement. Yechiel fell. He fell a hero ..at ..machine gun. I feel that great things are happening and what we dared do is of great ..enormous importance. Beginning from today we shall shift over to ..partisan tactic. Three battle companies will move out tonight ..with two tasks ..reconnaissance and obtaining arms. Do you remember ..short range weapons are of no use to us. We use such weapons only rarely. What we need urgently ..grenades ..rifles ..machine guns ..explosives. It is impossible to describe ..conditions under which the Jews of the ghetto are now living. Only a few will be able to hold out. ..remainder will die sooner or later. Their fate is decided. In almost all ..hiding places in which 1,000’s are concealing themselves it is not possible to light a candle for lack of air. With ..aid of our transmitter we heard ..marvellous report on our fighting by ..Shavit radio station. ..fact that we are remembered beyond ..Ghetto walls encourages us in our struggle. Peace go with you ..my friend. Perhaps we may still meet again. ..dream of my life has risen to become fact. Self defence in ..Ghetto will have been a reality. Jewish armed resistance and revenge are facts. I have been a witness to ..magnificent ..heroic fighting of Jewish men in battle.” Mordechai Anielewicz.
I know many might consider me a Jew, either in consideration of what I say or what I might accuse those perpetrators, bystanders, intolerant or indifferent individuals in relation to The Holocaust. To be honest. You do me a great service when I consider those Jews whose exemplary effort has never waned nor allowed for 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews to be ignored or become marginalised or become forgotten. In many ways, my work and the very effort to denounce the ability of human beings to commit to such crimes, is in part an appropriate reason why so many suggest I must be a Jew, otherwise why would I bother to write on the subject of The Holocaust of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe.
“..I had no wish to know these defendants as human beings. I did not want to know their Family history or ideology. My evidence of their mass murder would make them answer for their crimes.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.
Well Humanity has taught me well and that all of human life is worthy and 6,000,000 Jewish extinguished lives are no less worthy than that of any other, persecuted Being, for who they are. While history is forever looking back, and in the case of The Holocaust especially so, and given the magnitude of the atrocity the World came to witness, it would be calamitous for us not to do so. We are right to do so. Many of the questions though, which deal with the fundamental wrongs perpetrated against 6,000,000 Jews, and then with the near total lack of prosecuting terms relating to this, will focus upon what Ben Ferencz encountered as a severe authorative unwillingness to prosecute.
“..authorities do not encourage remembering.” Maja Abramowitch.
In this I have seen in Ben Ferencz that determined willingness to prosecute undermined, and if he was not allowed to indict the many 100,000′ s of Nazi’s, then at least he should have been allowed to proceed against the 3,000 Einsatzgruppe. However, he was instrumental in recognising that these roving bands of killer’s, these mobile killing squads had pretty much signed their own indictment and were for certain prosecution. Sadly though, while many more of those involved in the historical search of the narrative, they merely seem content to control the course of these events and block the very routes to their causes.
“..I feel that I will be able to write much more now because I have come to understand humanity.” Hinde Bergner.
History owes its integrity only to the factual truth and not to those who might inflate, by infusing the false illusion of any Jew being able to rectify the very entrenched position they were in, attempting to remove Hitler from the centre of the narrative itself. There are far too many of these, given over as they are to attaching any of the wrongs still being apportioned, but wrongly toward the Jews of The Holocaust. We need to correct such falsehoods and allow the true state of the atrocity to be firmly fixed at its central core, be that Adolf Hitler, Adolf Hitler and his henchmen or Adolf Hitler and the full collaborative effort that went into ensuring his solution for the Jewish People was fully resolved.
“..Seventy years ago ..after our nation’s German occupation ..Nazi overlords and ..Hungarian authorities that collaborated with them seemed to fulfil ..will of Hitler’s Nazi Germany.” Janos Ader.
Of course there were many Nazi’s who would have assisted certain Jews over a given time and for a given token of profit and gain. But, there can be no doubt here that of 11,293,300 Jews to be identified at The Wannsee Conference, these Jews had no hope of ever gaining a way out from what Hitler had put in place. For them all, The Final Solution of the Jewish Question was what Hitler called for, and it was meant for the complete extinction of Jewish life, wherever any or all of these Jews were met. The call for Justice still calls out from where these Jews were met with their destruction and Ben Ferencz understood that need.
“..In Majdanek and everywhere in Poland. They gave what is ..best in humanity. I have it all ..in my soul ..letters written to me by many. Everything is possible ..in spite of other manifestations. I ..myself have never experienced any animosity toward me and what I represent. There is always ..goodwill and hope.” Halina Birenbaum.
Here, there will be many who will still argue that Poland was merely an integral part of Hitler’s Worldview which saw in War, the expansion of ideals only Hitler proposed. Instead though, Poland was the most vivid embodiment of Jewish life that had ever been recorded, 3,300,000 Polish Jews suggesting that this is so. Then, when the discourse of the continuing World War deflects Hitler’s main efforts away from Moscow and toward Kiev, this is where 150,000 of Kiev’s Jews will be Slaughtered, and in a place called BabiYar. But, are we not accepting that here, Hitler saw the chance to further annihilate at Kiev, ever more Jews linked exclusively to his final resolve to do so.
“.. first foreign witnesses this week returned to Moscow from what are ..most terrible two acres on earth ..series of ..ravines in ..Lukyanovka district 3 miles northwest of Kiev. ..name Babi Yar ..is going to stink in history. ..name of ..main ravine where ..Russians estimate between 50,000 to 80,000 people were killed and buried during ..25 months of ..German occupation. From what I saw ..convinced that one ..most horrible tragedies in this Nazi era occurred there ..between September 1941 and November 1943.” Bill Downs.
It is not beyond reason to question the continual shifting of emphasis in War, but throughout the entire thrust of battle, the World War II campaign on Continental Europe saw to it that the Jewish People were centre stage. Uppermost in Hitler’s thought processes’, and without exception, was the idea he had set in motion and that was of a programme upon which a destructive course was established for all Jews, and without exception. For that certain reason, we could not have dealt with Hitler on the subject of the Jews, as they remained the sole focus of his entire hatred. There was only one course that steered straight through all that Hitler perceived of while in search of and gaining total power.
“..victory of morality is ..issue in this war. Should we succeed in no more than mitigating ..enemy’s foul design against his most hated victim ..it would amount to partial victory. ..we have arrived at a juncture when we are threatened by grave omission. ..it is a case of putting a stop to boundless ..unscrupulous destruction.” Ernest Frischer.
Hitler’s quest for power was steadied by The Final Solution that would render all Jews destroyed and 6,000,000 Jews of Europe actually were annihilated. Of course there were always those Nazi’s who saw a net gain in tempting the Jews with the seeming lifting of the spectre of total destruction. From the Jews own immediate perspective, and albeit this breathing space could only ever be on a temporary basis for any of them, no Jew knew precisely the time limit given over to their lives. This too is true of the likes of vehement antisemites like Eichmann, whose ‘Blood for Goods’ has pock marked the latter days of The Holocaust.
“..Somewhere near Lublin ..buildings ..constructed. ..thousands ..killed ..in a day ..saving ..trouble ..shooting ..digging mass graves ..filling them in.” Wilm Hosenfeld.
Sickeningly, with every accusation ranged against the Jews that is imaginable, the crime is being forced, in many cases, upon the Jews themselves. But I would put it to any Jew, whilst looking back, would they not deal with the devil himself, and perhaps excluding Hitler, enter into a pact in saving 1, 2 or perhaps a few Jews from extinction. I know, through my time studying and researching our loss of 6,000,000 Jews, improper questions are thrown at the narrative of The Holocaust to accuse the Jews of what the Jews could not stop. That would have been the essential to countering in any trial, established to fight for the memory of the 6,000,000 Jews of The Holocaust, which Ben would bring forth.
“..It will be a disgrace to go on living ..to belong to ..what was known ..what was done by ..Allies human race ..unless immediate steps are taken to put a stop to this crime ..greatest that history has known.” Shmuel Artur Zygielbojm.
The Jews could barely alleviate their own position and while the Jews could no more prevent what was set against them than a World appeared incapable of trying to prevent, Jews are being accused. But here, and it is not for me to remind the Jewish People who are, or who should be their heroes, especially from within or even outside the remit of The Holocaust, but I suggest to them some of those I have encountered along my way. However, I aim merely to inform those of whom I consider are in need of the searches I have made and not those Survivor Jews who know too well who are overlooked or who are and might be the unconsidered heroes.
“..Day in ..day out ..in hundreds of cities throughout Poland ..Russia 1,000’s upon 1,000’s of Jews are ..systematically murdered according to a preconceived plan ..no one .takes our part.” Emanuel Ringelblum.
Some Jews though are the suggested heroes by sheer weight of their effort and for that reason, I look at the efforts of so many in order to relate back to a time where all too many of these Jewish Heroes remained unaware of the fate that had been allocated them. For most of these Jews, and right up to the point of their destruction, their love and sense of Family proved heroic in a compassionate and humanitarian way. More especially for me though, and from amongst the Survivor, who knows who these true heroes are, I have no need in informing them. I reckon by now though, that the Survivor’s are heartily sick of the World bleating about what this Jew did or what that Jew did not do so here I am informing on what Ben Ferencz did do.
“..Survival is a privilege which entails obligations. I am forever asking myself what I can do for those who have not survived. ..answer I have found for myself ..which need not ..be ..answer for every survivor is ..I want to be their mouthpiece ..I want to keep their memory alive ..to make sure ..dead live on in that memory.” Simon Wiesenthal.
For 11,293,300 Jews, these Wannsee Jews, 6,000,000 of whom, at the point of a gun, fully succumbed, we are left to acknowledge, theirs was a unequal task for Survival. Ben Ferencz’s search for truth and through that, a limited aspect of Justice that was to be inadequately provided, leaves the door open to deliver an eventual Justice. Here, and even by the open written admissions of guilt of those 24 Einsatzgruppe kommanders, for whom Ben finally managed to establish his prosecution evidence, a mix of denial and abeyance could not seriously defend them. For Ben though, written into the pages of these Operational Situation Report’s, these memo’s despatched directly to the Hitler desk, calibrated and sketched by those very criminals sitting to the side of Ben, was the damning evidence he required.
“..It is with sorrow ..with hope that we ..disclose ..deliberate slaughter of more than 1,000,000 innocent ..defenceless men ..women ..children. ..tragic fulfilment of a program of intolerance and arrogance. Vengeance is not our goal ..nor do we seek merely a just retribution. We ask this Court to affirm by international penal action man’s right to live in peace and dignity regardless of his race or creed. case we present is a plea of humanity to law.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.
For as Ben prosecuted these mass Murderer’s for their crimes, their own admission was written in an unconcealed and detailed accounting of those Jews and other’s that they had ritually Slaughtered. As a young prosecutor, Ben was only 26 years old when he first arrived in Nuremberg, May 1946, to become Berlin Director at the Office of the Chief Counsel for War Crimes, and 27 as he stood before the dock of Case 9. Formerly, as Chief of an investigative centre for the International Military Tribunal, the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, Ben matched his youthful enthusiasm with an unmatched and unwavering dedication. For Ben, he stuck to a duty which yielded more than the justice at the time was meant to deliver.
“..We ourselves decide whether to make ourselves learned or ignorant ..compassionate or cruel ..generous or miserly.” Maimonides.
There were to be 12 subsequent War Crimes Trials after the arraignment of Hitler’s top officials, of which The Einsatz Trial would be subsequent to them. From Concentration Camp to Concentration Camp this Romanian Jewish investigator, born on March 11th. 1920 in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania, which then belonged to Romania at the time, was saved from the same fate of the 6,000,000 of his fellow European Jews of The Holocaust. Such a realisation, which must have been unleashed upon his senses, would not allow this rather small Jewish Man to be intimidated by these insignificant aryan masters of life and death over Jews.
“..we travelled 3rd. class because there was no 4th. class.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.
Already, when Ben and his Family had been forced to move to America, at that time Jews were being caught up in a tug of war with Romania and Hungary, both vying for the territory Ben resided in. The one constant in both of these belligerent countries was their explicit assaults upon Jewish integrity. For this express reason it had forced the hand of Ben’s Family, and without resource they took a ship bound for America in January 1921. Ben, at the age 10 months old, and with his family in tow, moved toward a land that might give them more hope. With Ben, who must have eventually felt the pressure of having been brought out of harm’s way, must have been looking at defendants, who would surely have had him Murdered for being a Jew with an immense sense of vindication.
“..civilisations may change. ..not ..inconceivable that ours may ..turn away from history ..and historians would do well to reflect upon this possibility. If they do not take care ..danger that badly understood history could involve good history in its disrepute. ..should we come to this ..it would be at ..cost of a serious rupture with our most unvarying intellectual traditions.” Marc Bloch.
Money at the time though was an issue for the migrating Ferencz family as they arrived in America, and as Ben records, money became an issue which also faced many in New York. However, after educating himself, there would be an approaching storm to submerge all of Europe in what Hitler intended for the Jews. There would also be a World of War, set to conceal that attempt at mass murder, a screen to divide atrocity from the systematic and sought after destruction armed against Jewish humanity. What would then destroy some 50 to 70 million People would not secrete the 6,000,000 Jews independently targeted.
“..Only after I left Germany was it clear to me that we ..Jews of Germany had been living until 1933 in a fools paradise.” Professor Hermann Zondek.
War though, which would bring Ben back to Europe, would secure for him a clash with such a monstrous deed against his own People, that it appears an alignment of sorts came about which saw to it that he was in the right place at the correct time in History. Here, a morally ethical idealist Ben avowed to end the blight of War while he fully sought to know, what was then emerging as the greatest atrocity ever conceived, how far mankind has tumbled down the table of civilising influence. Ben clearly saw the evidence of such a diabolical atrocity for himself, and in the pages directly in front of him, it was clarified.
“..horrible sight ..I encountered during ..trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. ..things I saw beggar description. While I was touring ..camp I encountered ..3 men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. ..visual evidence and ..verbal testimony of starvation ..cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me ..sick. In one room ..where they were piled up 20 ..30 naked men ..killed by starvation ..George Patton would not even enter. He said that he would get sick if he did so. I made ..visit deliberately ..in order to be in a position to give first hand evidence of these things if ever ..in ..future ..there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda.” General Dwight David Eisenhower.
For Ben, as he was fully dedicated to unravelling the atrocity’s targeted against all opponents of Hitler’s, and while not realising the full extent of The Holocaust catastrophe, 6,000,000 stilled voices must have raged out at him from their final resting place. Through the full extent of the carnage, as the undiluted atrocity was as yet to fully emerge, humanity was being confronted with the graven image of man’s inhumanity to mankind. Today, and while we are aware that such is the enormous level of this catastrophe, which could never be prosecuted, Ben set about his arduous task with purpose and a driven desire to see to it that the very level of the catastrophe was prosecuted enormously.
“..Someone who was not there could never really grasp how unreal ..situation was. I once saw Displaced Persons beat an SS man and then strap him to ..steel gurney of a crematorium. They slid him in ..oven ..turned on ..heat and took him back out. Beat him again ..and put him back in until he was burnt alive. I did nothing to stop it. I suppose I could have brandished my weapon or shot in ..air ..but I was not inclined to do so. Does that make me an accomplice to murder. ” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.
Meanwhile, there began a sequence of newsreel footage that was appearing with a glimpse into what hell must have been for so many Jews of Europe. For those General’s like Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton, all wanting not only to inform the World of what Hitler’s Germany had infested humanity with, but set about ensuring that no future doubt could ever be cast over what had been perpetrated in what amounted to Crimes Against Humanity. As these Hitler led atrocities were continually uncovered, the serving Ben Ferencz was being transferred to the formative investigative office of the US Armies own War Crimes Branch.
“..murders ..committed ..rights ..defendants violated belong to all men everywhere. ..nationality of ..victim ..time and place of crime do not impugn this jurisdiction. ..Where conduct menaces ..universal social order ..there can be ..no prohibition on ..right of courts to act. No law has ever prohibited ..trial by any court of crimes such as we shall here disclose. Piracy and brigandage were ..forerunners of modern international crimes. International jurisprudence soon gave states ..right to punish these violators regardless of ..victim’s nationality or ..location of ..crime. ..applied in time of war or peace. ..long ..accepted ..belligerent may punish ..enemy forces in its custody who have violated ..laws ..customs of war.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.
Ben was merely 3 years out of graduating from Harvard Law School, and here he was assessing his inexperience as a learning curve he could never have thought possible. But here he was, before the most cruel and vindictive, murderous genocidal force in all of history, and he was ready to lead 50 other’s from his team with the sole effort of the direct condemnation of all our humanity that could be aimed against just 24 of these mass Murderer’s. In seeking to prosecute as many of the guilty as he could, and for the sake of the nameless Jews who could no longer seek the Justice they deserved, barely a modicum of some form of justice did emerge.
“..seared into my memory are ..scenes I witnessed while liberating these centres of death and destruction. Camps like Buchenwald ..Mauthausen ..Dachau ..vividly imprinted in my mind’s eye. Even today ..when I close my eyes ..I witness a deadly vision I can never forget ..crematoria aglow with ..fire of burning flesh ..mounds of emaciated corpses stacked like cordwood waiting to be burned. ..I had peered into Hell.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.
For his pains Ben interviewed some of the most despicable people in all of history in his attempt to Prosecute their obvious inhumanity toward their fellow man. Before him lay the biggest murder trial in all of history and this young prosecutor, charged with indicting and then prosecuting 24 mass murderer’s was not overawed by the prospect. Here before History, stood a form of human being who would, eventually, be charged with the most systematic Slaughter of 1,250,000 Jewish People ever conceived of. Even though the number of Murdered Jews was and will never be known, the daunting detail of the atrocity before Ben, written into the osr pages, stifled all appreciation of the immense scale of the Slaughter.
“..you can die once ..twice ..even 7 times ..but you can’t die a 1,000 times. I can. My underground cells reach everywhere.” Dan Pagis.
Ben, who was still only 27 years old as he stood at the prosecuting podium at this trial, and remembering this was Ben’s first criminal case, no one could imagine that the pressure did not unduly affect Ben at work. Of course, there was a great expectation from World Jewry, a hope for Humanity and the search within far reaches of a justice system that would fail to ever meet with 6,000,000 Jewish losses, would still deliver an exemplary prosecution. I remember too that what Dan Pagis recorded, seared into his own memory, would be what is the actual experience of being gripped by The Holocaust that Ben, nor I could fully appreciate.
“..witnesses might prove unreliable. Those who would testify against any of these defendants would be blinded by pain and rage. I would not need them. I would hang this murderous gang by their own documents.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.
Dan Pagis, as another transported Romanian Jew, and though this particular Jew had Survived the Camp system and with that The Holocaust itself, for me, his memory adds deeper to the accusation of what these defendants were never going to admit to. Anyway, I am never quite certain whether any Jew could truly survive such an experience without its lasting effects tormenting them. So, as we take the lesson’s of ‘Never Again’ from out of a hell on Earth so as to teach us, it is imperative that we listen, learn and act from the words of Dan Pagis and the Script of Ben Ferencz. In any assessment then, if 6,000,000 Jews could die a 1,000 times, I would assess Jewish pain and suffering will never dissipate, will never become resolved and will never be forgotten.
“..Nuremberg taught me that creating a world of tolerance and compassion would be a long and arduous task. And I also learned that if we did not devote ourselves to developing effective world law ..same cruel mentality that made ..Holocaust possible might one day destroy ..entire human race.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.
In the approaching 1,000 millennia, in any attempt at coming to terms with what can never ever be comprehended, History will look as crucially at what was done to the Jews of The Holocaust in as much the same way as with what was not done to assist these Jewish People. For Ben though, the legal objective had always been to ensure the conviction of these mass murderer’s. Alongside that commitment too, it was Ben’s personal demands to secure a better future for all that drove his humanitarian grasp for change forward. That which he placed ahead of his own personal enmity, and toward these educated killer’s, was a humanity the Einsatz kommanders had not recognised in their assault upon the integrity of 1,250,000 Jews.
“..I was reprimanded because I could not comply with various restrictions. ..Here ..there were enormous crimes committed against humanity and no punishment for it. People being killed ..burned and ..voice of God kept silent. ..I in view of ..atrocities against mass murderers. No illusion was left. Nothing happened that would shudder ..world to ..core.” Halina Birenbaum.
For Ben to establish a legal precedent that would encourage a more humane and secure world for the future, he had to overcome the scent of evil permeating the legal process ahead of him. Ben, who worked tirelessly with the prospect of these vastly well educated men demanding more questions than he had answers for, could not be convinced that he would secure the level of punishment they deserved. The discomfort for him, dealing with those who acted without humanity, always demanded their treatment with his humanity. For these who acted illegally, and expected every inch of the legal process to treat them somewhat regally, they received every legal process afforded them.
“..charge of purposeful homicide in which this case reaches such fantastic proportions and surpasses such credible limits that believability must be bolstered with assurance a 100 times over.” Nuremberg Tribunal.
While Ben had always felt that the immediate death sentence of all these Murderer’s would satiate an immediate demand, it would never serve the legal process in civilising terms. Though Ben was morally conflicted by the dilemma before him, it drove him forward in the hope of understanding how educated people can act outside those moral and ethical thought processes. The foundation of all understanding, which education must deliver to a normal person’s intellectual grasp, was cast aside in a fit of hate and atrocity. But Ben drove this prosecution forward knowing the World was watching with a mixture of doubt as to such a capacity to kill and a despair that indeed such mass Murder was accomplished.
“..decided that of 3,000 Einsatzgruppe they were aware of ..just 24 ..highest ranking commanders would be indicted simply because there was not enough room in ..dock.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.
What 6,000,000 Jews had faced, doubting what would be a final encounter with all existence, the World was now asking how this could have happened. A World which pretty much knew, for the entire period of the genesis forming, graduating and escalating terms of The Holocaust, what was emerging for 6,000,000 Jews of Europe was utter devastation. What had emerged at the earlier International Nuremberg Tribunal adjudged that those who perpetrated the most heinous crimes in all of history must, without equivocation, face such punitive measures that their fullest extinction must be ratified into law.
“..These four Einsatzgruppe ..as they would exist in Russia ..or as they would operate in ..Balkans and certainly as they scourged ..Baltic States ..amounted to some 3,000 ethnic Germans. Each Einsatz or Sonder unit operating with a central core of between 500 – 900 members ..overriding need for local assistance ..support from ..Militia ..Field Gendarmerie ..Wehrmacht compliance and Waffen SS participation ..destruction of ..Jewish Race was almost assured.” Patrick Dempsey.
When I contrast this statement of Ben’s, with what I would refer to in my own book, der Einsatzgruppe and the Destruction of European Jewry, that as we witness the close cooperation between Hitler’s cohorts, an assurance of The Final Solution would deliver toward The Jewish Question, the complete evisceration of 6,000,000 Jews. So as to bolster the demands placed upon 3,000 murderous Einsatz individuals, every cog in the wheel of The Third Reich turned with a single motion, a motive Hitler allowed for the German people to adopt, adapt and exercise with mass murder. Perhaps here too, Ben Ferencz was right, in that space played a hand in indicting merely 24 Mass Murderer’s instead of the 3,000 protagonist murderer’s and their assisting killer squads.
“..I got witness statements ..going into a village where ..an American pilot had parachuted ..been beaten to death ..line everyone ..against ..wall and inform anyone who lied would be shot. ..never occurred to me that statements taken under duress would be invalid.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.
While we measure the space capable of holding 3,000 Murderer’s to account, we cannot even define the space which has detained 6,000,000 Human Beings, Murdered because they were Jews. Literally, the court room space which was needed to be large enough to confront all 3,000 mass murderer’s, could not be arranged. So one can sense the immediate frustration of Ben as he tackled the need for Justice with what seemed to him an emptying gesture. Think too of the number that will be presented to you in this short piece, those who faced Ben, and know this as a huge missed opportunity to prosecute all who were guilty. This clearly leaves us empty so as to know the failure of justice as it is perceived here.
“..records ..incomplete as they are ..reveal ..deeds of men ..women who said nay heroically. ..Were they profound believers in truth and justice. ..idealists ..basically ..religious ..humanitarians. They were all of these and more. Our surviving civilisation owes these people ..grateful recognition they so richly deserve.” Dr. Philip Friedman.
Only 22 of the defendants stood before the scales and rigors of justice as both Rasch, unfit and Graf was released having served time. The remainder were all found guilty to varying degrees with 13 of these sentenced to death, 2 were sentenced to life terms, and 5 received sentences that ranged from 10 to 20 years. One of the guilty was immediately released with time served. Ultimately, only 4 of these 13 death sentences were carried out. One other death sentence was delivered by a Belgian Court. The varying sentences of all of the other defendants, all convicted mass murderers, were later commuted or reduced and mostly exonerated by this travesty.
“..She never grew up. She will be a 6 year child forever. A talented girl who taught herself to read. She was gassed 75 days after her 6th. Birthday ..June 3rd. 1944. ..there can be no justification. I will be there for Evika ..for all ..others who were murdered. I want to understand.” Judith Kalman.
The sheer scale of atrocity being investigated, becoming unveiled and still allowed to remain detached from the weight of World War II, exposed the entire World to an intolerable indifference that still is troubling to this day. But for the here and now at a Court sitting, it is largely down to a pugnacious Benjamin Ferencz, who found and deciphered the importance of the Operational Situation Reports, of these Murder squads, that was to lead to the prosecution of these 24 der Einsatzgruppe Kommanders. These peculiar osr’s, an accounting detail of mass Slaughter were discovered by Ben at the Gestapo Headquarters in Berlin on September 3rd. 1945.
“..perpetrators should be brought to trial ..in spite of age ..not as a vengeance ..but as a lesson and warning for ..future.” Yitzhak Arad.
#01) SS Gruppenfuhrer Dr. Professor Otto Ohlendorf, Kommander Einsatzgruppe D, Death sentence, ‘Red Jacket Murderer,’ Hanged June 8th. 1951.
02) SS Brigadefuhrer Heinz Jost, Kommander Einsatzgruppe A, Life sentence, released 1951.
#03) SS Brigadefuhrer Erich Naumann, Kommander Einsatzgruppe B, Death sentence, ‘Red Jacket Murderer,’ Hanged June 8th. 1951.
04) SS Brigadefuhrer Otto Rasch, Kommander Einsatzgruppe C, unfit for Trial.
05) SS Brigadefuhrer Erwin Schulz, Kommander Ek5, Einsatzgruppe C, sentence 20 years, released 1955.
06) SS Brigadefuhrer Professor Franz Six, Kommander Ek7e, Vorkommando Moscow, Einsatzgruppe B, 20 years, released 1952.
#07) SS Standartenfuhrer Paul Blobel, Kommander Sk4a, Einsatzgruppe C, Death sentence, ‘Red Jacket Murderer,’ Hanged June 8th. 1951.
08) SS Standartenfuhrer Dr. Walter Blume, Kommander Sk7a, Trupp Smolensk, Einsatzgruppe B, Death sentence, released 1955.
09) SS Standartenfuhrer Martin Sandberger, Kommander Sk1a, Einsatzgruppe A, Death sentence, released 1957.
10) SS Standartenfuhrer Willi Seibert, Ohlendorf’s Deputy then Kommander Einsatzgruppe D, Death sentence, released 1955.
11) SS Standartenfuhrer Eugen Steimle, Kommanded both Sk7a, Einsatzgruppe B and Sk4a, Einsatzgruppe C, Death sentence, released 1954.
12) SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Pastor Ernst Bieberstein, Kommander Ek6, Einsatzgruppe C, Death sentence, released 1958.
#13) SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Werner Braune, Kommander Sk11b, Einsatzgruppe D, Death sentence, ‘Red Jacket Murderer,’ Hanged June 8th. 1951.
14) SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Walter Haensch, Kommander Sk4b, Einsatzgruppe C, Death sentence, released 1955.
15) SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Gustav Adolf Nosske, Kommander Ek12, Einsatzgruppe D, Life sentence, released 1951.
16) SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Ott, Kommander Sk7b, Einsatzgruppe B, Death sentence, released 1958.
17) SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Eduard Strauch, Kommander each of Sk1b, Sk1c and Ek2, Einsatzgruppe A, Death sentence, Butcher of Minsk, died a lunatic, 1955.
18) SS Sturmbannfuhrer Emil Haussmann, Kommander Ek12, Einsatzgruppe D, suicide 1947.
19) SS Sturmbannfuhrer Waldemar Klingelhoefer, Kommander Einsatzgruppe B, Kommander of both Sk7b and Ek7e, Einsatzgruppe B, Death sentence, released 1956.
20) SS Sturmbannfuhrer Lothar Fendler, Deputy Kommander Sk4b, Einsatzgruppe C, sentence 10 years, released 1951.
21) SS Sturmbannfuhrer Waldemar von Radetzky, Deputy Kommander Sk4a, Einsatzgruppe C, sentence 20 years, released 1951.
22) SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Felix Ruehl, Deputy Kommander Sk10b, Einsatzgruppe D, sentence 10 years, released 1951.
23) SS Obersturmfuhrer Heinz Schubert, Kommander Einsatzgruppe D, Death sentence, released 1951.
24) SS Oberscharfuhrer Matthias Graf, Deputy Kommander Einsatzgruppe C, served Ek6, Einsatzgruppe C, released 1948.
“..if we had wanted an injustice we simply would have killed them in ..beginning.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.
Sadly, as the days have now turned into decades since the guilty have faced the humanitarian concerns of a World, now removed from the immediacy of some of the most despicable crimes ever recorded, lessons have yet to be learned. Along with the sheer significance of Ben’s find, a paper trail which became evidently apparent to Ben and his team of 50, what then led to the only War Crimes Trial dedicated to the Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews in their Final Solution, should never allow for Justice to ever end. Also, while it cannot ever be underestimated what any evidence the Russians might have then withheld, we know from the osr’s alone the sheer scale of the Murderous undertaking. If these osr’s had only been any or every part of the documentation being discovered, Ben Ferencz and his Team have laid down the foundation stone for World Justice, still to be maintained.
“..In ohlendorfs’s case I am completely convinced ..he believed in necessity and rightness of what he was doing. ohlendorf did not picture himself as a ruthless killer. Nor should he be made to appear as an ordinary felon or madman. He was a man of great intellect and dedication. He was one of ..very few tried at Nuremberg who appeared to be telling ..truth.” Benjamin Berell Ferencz.
