Table of Contents Table of Contents
Previous Page  313 / 536 Next Page
Information
Show Menu
Previous Page 313 / 536 Next Page
Page Background

299

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.