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University, who was a former inmate in this concentration camp.74 The final words
of the Czechoslovak charges file proved to be correct – in the following months and
years after June 1945, indeed “a great deal more evidence” appeared on the crimes
committed in Auschwitz and Birkenau.
5. Conclusion
Compared to other institutions dealing with crimes under international law
committed during the Second World War, such as the Nuremberg Tribunal and
tribunals established pursuant to the Control Council Law No. 10,75 the Commission’s
work has not been fully appreciated. This organization, however, left a legacy of an
immense importance, mainly in the following two areas:
First, the Commission assembled the documentation on the above-stated crimes
and their alleged 36,000 perpetrators (sic). Without its records, some historic facts
would be lost forever, as the superpowers – with the start of the Cold War – gave up
on the hunt for the war criminals and chose to employ some of them instead.76 In
this regard, I believe that the Commission closed its business too quickly.
Its documenting role can be demonstrated on the charges in the Auschwitz and
Birkenau case prepared by the Czechoslovak Commissioner Dr. Ečer. Already in
June 1945 he was able to fully understand and describe the systematic pattern of
the Holocaust. In particular, Dr. Ečer was aware that, legally speaking, there was
no difference between killing the Jewish victims in the gas chambers and arresting
them and putting them into the transports. In this context, it is worth noting that
there is now a great project underway to transform the Bubny Railway Station in
Prague, the assembly point from where the transports to the concentration camps
were dispatched, into the “Memorial of Silence”.77
Second, the Commission contributed to the development of international criminal
law, in particular by its debates on concepts of war crimes, crimes against humanity
and crime of aggression, as some of its language was used in the Charter of the
Nuremberg Tribunal.78
At the same time, the Commission has been criticized as a “toothless technical
organization” and a political instrument of the United Kingdom and the United
States to keep the demands of exile Governments under control.79 This criticism is
74 See supra note 35, Enclosure 6, p. 1-2.
75 The Control Council Law No. 10 on Punishment of Persons Guilty of War Crimes, Crimes Against
Peace and Against Humanity, available at:
76 E. Lichtblau, The Nazis Next Door, How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men, New York
2014.
77
78 See supra note 4, p. 169-185.
79 JARDIM, T. Mauthausenský proces: Americká vojenská justice v Německu (The Mauthausen Trial:
American Military Justice in Germany), Prague 2014, p. 20.