SLAUGHTER AND CREMATION OF JEWS

Chronicle (Levin), 15 April 1946, Page 8

SLAUGHTER AND CREMATION OF JEWS

EVIDENGE AT NUREMBERG NXJREhEBERG, April 12. 1 Pormer employees of a creniatorium, giving evidence at the trial today of •lvaltenbrunner, the foraier Chief of the German Securitv Police, in an affidavit, estimated that during the war he alone cremated 17,556 bodies, nearly 10,000 of them in 1945. • "When the Amerieans advanced we had to smash 3000 urns containing the ashes of Dutch Jews, and. throw the ashes away, so that eveiy traee waswiped out," said the affidavit. A dying statement from Franz Ziereis, the former Mauthausen commandant who was shot while attempting to escape when the United States troops liberated the camp, said that 65,000 of the 90,000 Mauthausen prisoners had died. Another 500,000 had died in g. Harheim camp for "incorrigibles and those mentally deianged. " Kaltenbrunner flatly denied Ziereis 's statements. He was then eonfronted by the affidavit from a Mauthausen internee, saying that, aceording to the camp's corpse carriers, about 15 prison«re ware selected to show lvaltenbrunner the three extermination niethods — shooting in the neck, hanging, and gassing. "Produce Stroop!" exclaimed Kaltenbrunner excitedly, .denying the affidavit from the S.S. General Stroop, stating that death sentences on 14 Jews were "ordered by the Reieh Main Security Office — Kaltenbrunner. ' ' The American prosecutor (Colonel Amen) said: "When your testimoiiy is directly contrary to that of 20 or 30 other witnesses and far more documents, it is almost incredible that you should be tru'thful and everyone else f alse. ' ' Kaltenbrunner feplied: cannot admit that I have that feeling; every document you have submitted can be refuted by me in the most vital points. ' ' Kaltenbrunner told the War Crimes Tribunal he did not hear about the escape of R.A.F. officers. from Stalag rmft 3 until six weeks after the executions. He denied knowledge of a document. produeed in court, in whieh his predecessor Heydrich recommended the yomplete eleansing of the eastern regions of all Jews. The document showed that Jews in Riga were reduced from 25,000 to 2500 and also that 3000 Jews were shot at Minsk. Smirnov showed Kaltenbrunner a letler in whieh Kaltenbrunner asked Ribbentrop for a grant of 1,000,000 lumans (about £78,000) to further the Nazi cause in Persia. Kaltenbrunner adnjitted the Jetter bure his signature althongh just previouslj' he had denied to Smirnov that he would have dreamed of sueh a thing. He admitted he had intelligence agents working in Persia. The defenee tliat his refusal to kill prisoners would niean his own imprisonment :uid possibly execution, -was oifered for Hans Altfuldiscli, one of the 61 defendants in the Hauthausen concentration camp , trial.