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302
PETR VÁLEK
CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ
to cover the crimes against humanity. Due to the doubts within the Commission,
this draft resolution was set aside and the matter was raised with the member States.
The British Government responded in November 1944 that, regarding persecution
on religious, racial or political grounds, the Commission should work within the
limits of the notion of war crimes and, therefore, deal with crimes against Allied
nationals only.
65
As such, Dr. Ečer, when preparing the Czechoslovak charges in June 1945,
had to follow the updated 1919 war crimes list and could not qualify the atrocities
according to his own understanding of international law at that time. Nevertheless,
the crimes against humanity were finally added to the competence of the Commission
in January 1946 under the influence of the London Agreement.
66
The fourth part of the Commission’s form was the “Short Statement of Facts”
(Enclosure 4), where Dr. Ečer wrote that “[t]he Oswiecim Camp was built in 1939
especially for the extermination of enslaved citizens of occupied countries of Europe.”
67
This sentence was followed by short description of Auschwitz and Birkenau and the
war crimes committed there. Although this summary is technically correct, I found
striking that there is nothing specific about the tragedy of the European Jews, i.e.,
about what we call today
Shoah
or Holocaust, just the “extermination of enslaved
citizens”. Possible explanation might be that Dr. Ečer, being the representative
of State, regarded the victims of
Shoah
from Czechoslovakia to be primarily the
Czechoslovak citizens rather than Jews (which is probably how many of them might
have felt themselves). The fifth part, the “Particulars of Alleged Crime” (Enclosure 5),
was already summarized above in relation to the list of the alleged war criminals
(Enclosure 1).
The sixth part deals with the “Particulars of Evidence in Support” (Enclosure 6).
Here Czechoslovakia refers to the sources of its information, in particular to
a document “drawn up at Bratislava by two Slovak Jews who managed to escape
from the aforesaid camps in April 1944… supplemented by further information
given by a Polish Major.”
68
Although no names are provided, the former document
is undoubtedly the report written by two Czechoslovak nationals Rudolf Vrba and
Alfred Weczler,
69
while the latter is most likely the report of Jerzy Tabeau. It is further
stated, that “[t]he Czechoslovak Government has informed the Governments of the
United Nations of the substance of these documents with the Report on Conditions
in the Concentration Camps of Oswiecim and Birkenau”
70
which is attached to the
charges as Enclosure 6a. This Report is perhaps not relevant from the legal point of
65
Ibid.
, p. 174-176.
66
Ibid.
, p. 177.
67
See supra note 35, Enclosure 4.
68
Ibid.
, Enclosure 6, p. 1.
69
Their story can be found,
e.g.
, in: R. E. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg, New York 2000, p. 3-9.
70
Ibid.