The Belzec Trials

 

These former SS officers who served in the Belzec death camp were brought to trial in Munich, during August 1963, indicted with murdering Jews:

 

The Belzec trial in Munich lasted only three days from 18 January – 21 January 1963 Only Josef Oberhauser was found guilty and sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment, the following SS men were acquitted:

• Werner Dubois

• Erich Fuchs

• Hans Girtzig

• Heinrich Gley

• Robert Juhrs

• Karl Schluch

• Heinrich Unverhau

• Ernst Zierke

 

Josef Oberhauser

The crimes of genocide committed in the three Aktion Reinhard Camps, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka only began to come to light during the euthanasia trials in 1948.

 

Heinrich Unverhau who had been in charge of the locomotive depot at Belzec, where the clothes was sorted and stored and cutting out the yellow stars, from the clothes of the murdered Jews, was the first to be arrested and charged.

 

This was in connection with the killing of patients at Grafeneck euthanasia centre, it was during the course of the trial that information began to emerge about the Aktion Reinhard death camps.

 

Unverhau, after a lengthy hearing into the euthanasia allegations, was acquitted of all charges and released. His references to the death camps were held to be inadmissible and were disregarded by the court.

 

Even then, the wheels of justice were slow to turn, it was only in 1959 that the West German government instigated a wide-ranging investigation into the Aktion Reinhard death camps.

 

Belzec was the first Aktion Reinhard death camp was first to be identified as a major killing centre in Poland. At the conclusion of these enquiries speedily the Belzec personnel were arrested and interrogated. They were arraigned at the Munich Assizes charged with several counts of murdering several hundred thousand Jews in Belzec.

 

Although the defendants had made admissions, the defence put forward a mixture of defensive lies, self exoneration to the actual killing, and not without some foundation, that they were in fear of their very lives and their families lives, should they not carry out the express orders of the Belzec camp commandants Wirth and Hering.

 

The defendants attempted to lessen their own involvement in the genocide, by suggesting that the “actions of destruction” could not have been carried out without the assistance of the Jews.

 

They had suggested to the court that the Jews carried out the whole operation – removed the victims from the transports, cut the hair of the females, removed their bodies from the gas chambers, extracted gold teeth and buried the bodies in the pits, which they had previously prepared.

 

Fortunately, on this point the court was not persuaded. To convict these men of the Belzec crimes there had to be direct evidence identifying them as the perpetrators of destruction. Whilst there was circumstantial evidence or loose admissions by the accused, the main requirements the witnesses to events implicating individual defendants was absent.

 

Rudolf Reder also known as Roman Robak who had travelled from Toronto, Canada was unable to positively identify any of the defendants.

 

To rebut the general defence proffered collectively by the defendants, the prosecution relied on one principle – that the defendants were guilty of collective participation, even though they had not acted as instigators.

 

In principle, the one in charge who gives the orders, in this case Wirth or Hering, is solely responsible, the one who carries out these orders must also share the responsibility if he knows the task in hand is unlawful. The jury disagreed. At the end of January the trial collapsed and all the defendants with the exception of Oberhauser, were acquitted. The defence of “acting out of fear for life” was accepted by the court

 

Immediately on leaving the court as free men, Dubois, Fuchs, Juhrs, Unverhau and Zierke, were re-arrested and held in custody on similar charges relating to the Sobibor death camp. The case against Josef Oberhauser was adjourned, and a new trial was ordered. In January 1965 Oberhauser again appeared before the Munich Assizes, but this time the prosecution were better prepared.

 

Immediately Oberhauser claimed to the court that he had already been sentenced to a term of imprisonment for the Belzec crimes at the Magdeburg court in 1948, where a Soviet Military Tribunal sentenced him to a term of fifteen years imprisonment.

 

When the Munich court investigated Oberhauser’s claims, it was established that he had been tried and sentenced for crimes relating to euthanasia and not the Belzec crimes, as these were not known at the time. The trial continued.

 

 

Read more here:  http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/belzectrials.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

 

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

 

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto 2009  H.E.A.R.T

                Overall, I can’t complain about today.  I had my busy morning; time with Erin, who I love, and then 45 minutes with AB, who was very flighty and resistant today.  Sue said he got his medication, so she thinks it was just him being purposefully stubborn.  I just think she doesn’t like him very much.  She has hit her limit with him; it’s my job to repair that bridge.  Then I went to Jacqui’s room to work with CB, but she told me, ‘he (thinking I was there for NB)’s absent today’ and when I said, no I was there for CB, she said, ‘she’s out, too’.  So instead of staying, I went back to my room and had fun.

                Lunch was another ‘D and Kait issue’ (why is it always when I’M alone in there? And why is this turning into a Friday routine?).  Not NEARLY as bad as last week.  Thank the Lord.  He sat down at the table with A, and then stood and went a row and a table over to stand behind his sister, pretty much shoving his tray into her neck.  He assumed/accused that she was telling people about a bump on his forehead (the nerve!).  Again, we had to tell him to give her space, and he wouldn’t.  So Kati got up to get some salad dressing for her lunch, and in that 2 second period, D slid into her seat and refused to stand up, even with both Dorell and I urging him.  Finally he got up, and walked out of the cafeteria.

                Got down to the room, Parker started to talk to him and he started talking to Parker, and I told Parker that D did NOT have permission to be there.  Fun when he started to bring his tray down for recess and I said, ‘and then come right back here’.  He asked ‘why?’.  When I explained that he left location and had also been bothering his sister, he tried to back-pedal pretty hard:  “so you’re telling me I can’t go out, even if I do a re-start?” when when he first came in we’d told him to go back and ASK to come to the room, but he wouldn’t.  Kept going back to ‘so you’re telling me_____’, but I held my ground, and Claudia and Parker did, too.  I was actually really nervous during it, because I know how he blows, but I also know that it’s not fair that he get to do whatever he wants and get no consequences.  No other kid in the SCHOOL would dream of talking back to a teacher that way,  No other kid has the privilege/option of eating in the classroom when he wants to, and that we’re deserving of respect when we give him that option.  I don’t think that option’s on the table for a while.  He told me he wouldn’t take his tray down, so I said, ‘okay, as long as your tray is here, you will not be watching the movie with us; you and I will go into the room and do work or read’ and I basically got growled at, but he went.

                I have to share silent reading.  This is something that actually made my heart feel WARM, even if you’re about to read it and go, ‘big whoop’.  In the work I do, with kids as tough as mine, you have to savor small moments where things go really right, or you burn out focusing on negative things (like D’s lunch drama).  So, to rewind a little, A is my 6th grader.  Not a typical 6th grader; he has a lot of mental disabilities (I'm pretty sure he suffered a TBI when he was 2-3), and functions pretty much on a kindergarten level.  He cannot really read; made HUGE leaps from the start of the year, but the books he's reading are... designed for pre-k/k, and he still flubs through most of them.  Mostly what's improved is his work ethic.  So today, after lunch, we got our usual mini-tantrum that it was silent reading time.  He said, "I want to listen to a book" (we have a few that are on CDs so he can just follow along).  I told him that if I saw him actually looking at a book quietly when I turned back, he could have those.  I reminded him what we've been saying since September; we don't care if you cacn READ the book; just show us you can look at the pictures/pages/be engaged in it, and we're happy.  Today...he did that.  He sta there and quietly flipped through a story, and then a second when I told him it hadn't been enough time, and he did that witout complaint, and he got his reward.  And a very happy teacher : ).

Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) (2006)

Plot Synopsis: East Berlin, November 1984: Five years before its downfall, the former East-German government ensured its claim to power with a ruthless system of con... (read more) East Berlin, November 1984: Five years before its downfall, the former East-German government ensured its claim to power with a ruthless system of control and surveillance. Party-loyalist Captain Gerd Wiesler hopes to boost his career when given the job of collecting evidence against the playwright Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend, the celebrated theater actress Christa-Maria Sieland. After all, the "operation" is backed by the highest political circles. What he didn't anticipate, however, was that submerging oneself into the world of the target also changes the surveillance agent. The immersion in the lives of others--in love, literature, free thinking and speech--makes Wiesler acutely aware of the meagerness of his own existence and opens to him a completely new way of life, which he has ever more trouble resisting. But, the system, once started, cannot be stopped. A dangerous game has begun.

Sojo's take: This movie was an incredibly powerful story. I don't think many Americans really understand the price others have paid to gain the freedoms we enjoy every day. YOU'VE GOT TO SEE THIS MOVIE.

I leave tomorrow for Germany, i'm still not totally packed =/
I'm going on the trip with my mom and baby sister. I say baby as if shes a small infant. But shes 15.

As some of you already know, I'm going to see my sister. Her husband is in the military and their stationed their currently.
She should have already had her second child, but is now past her due date. I love my sister. Even tho shes quite a bit older then me i've always felt very close to her. She's never talked to me like i was a "child" even when i was. I always felt listened to. I'm so thankful i dont have one of those really annoying bitchy sisters growing up, that always wanted you to leave their room and stay away from their friends. Sure their were times when i got in her space and she wasnt happy, but i mean thats going to happen with siblings.

So i wont be on here for 2 weeks. I'll miss you guys.
Write me while i'm away :D
♥!

Yeah, like this post isn't going to shock the hell out of people.

I basically had a mental breakdown while in gerany, was rushed to the hospital because I had become so drunk that started to slit my wrist, not only was there blood all over my sheets, there was also beer and vomit. Manically I was cleaned up and sobered up. Then ordered to to go home to my family doctor and into his care. So I came home and was basically 302'd and sent to Washington Psych Unit Tripple A. It was me and a bunch of other drug addicted alcoholics who failed death. And now we were stuck in a small prison of discontempt, constantly tranqued with pills so every was calm. Yeah that lasted for two minutes. They had me on all sorts of mood stabelizers and sleep aids. They upped my thyroid meds and gave me anti-depressants. Basically stayed there for a little under two weeks. Then I was shoved into the battlefield again called life. I had to find a therapist and slowly, but awkwardly talk about what happened and why I'm here. I will spare you all those details, as there's a 1Billion character limit when posting.

So now I'm on all sorts of daily meds. I"ve been having bloodwork every month, and twice this week because  I am scheduled for an MRI of my Brain this friday, Yes a fucking MRI of my brain.....

I'm scared, pissed, lonley, worried and all sorts of emotions that cannot be described with tact. This is like the super super short succint version.....One day I'll post allllllll about what reallly happened.