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CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ
THE UNITED NATIONS WAR CRIMES COMMISSION…
“A criminal responsibility for the crimes committed on Czechoslovak citizens in the
concentration camps Oswieczim and Birkenau falls also on the persons who are in
charge of the administration of the concentration camps and eventually on those
who actually perpetrated these crimes.”
52
The list contains some infamous names
like Rudolf Hoess (Höß), the longest serving commandant of Auschwitz, Hans
Liebehenschel, the successor of Hoess, Hans Aumeier and Karl Fritzsch, the deputy
commandants, Maxmilian Grabner, the Gestapo official in the concentration camp
(responsible for the torture Block 11), Josef Kramer, the commandant of Auschwitz
II-Birkenau (and later Bergen-Belsen), Heinrich Schwartz, the commandant of
Auschwitz III and others. Most of these war criminals were tried and executed in
Poland after the war. On the list there is also a numerous group of medical officers,
including Dr. Mengele (No. 304), and many low-ranking SS officers. There are even
nine prisoners (perhaps
Kapos
) who, according to “Notes on the Case”, “murdered co-
prisoners”.
53
In sum, it seems that already in June 1945 the Czechoslovak authorities
were relatively well informed on the command structure of the concentration camps
as a whole and of Auschwitz-Birkenau in particular.
The second part of the Commission’s form, called “Date and Place of Commission
of Alleged Crime” (Enclosure 2), was addressed just by one sentence: “The crimes
under consideration have been continuously committed during the whole time of
the occupation of the Czechoslovak Republic and in all Police Districts.”
54
While the
murders of the Czech Jews took place in Poland, their mass arrests (described in detail
in “Notes on the case”) happened on the territory of Czechoslovakia. As such, the text
entered by Dr. Ečer into the second part is fully in line with the above conclusion that
the crime of Holocaust cannot be geographically restricted to the concentration camps.
The third part of the form, “Number and Description of Crime in War Crimes
List” (Enclosure 3), is perhaps the most interesting one for an international lawyer.
Dr. Ečer qualified the crimes in Auschwitz and Birkenau as: “I. Murder and
Massacres – Systematic Terrorism. III. Torture of Civilians. IV. Deliberate Starvation
of Civilians. VII. Deportation of Civilians. VIII. Internment of Civilians under
Inhuman Conditions. IX. Forces Labour of Civilians in Connection with the
MilitaryOperations of the Enemy. XIV. Confiscation of Property. XXXIII. Indiscriminate
Mass Arrests.”
55
This part is further elaborated under the title “Particulars of Alleged Crime”
(Enclosure 5) that provides a commentary to most of the listed crimes and paints
to its reader the real picture of inferno in Auschwitz and Birkenau. In relation to
the “Indiscriminate Mass Arrests”, it is explained that these arrests corresponded
52
Ibid.
, Enclosure 7, p. 12.
53
Ibid.
, Enclosure 7, p. 12.
54
Ibid.
, Enclosure 2.
55
Ibid.
, Enclosure 3.