Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

 

Trials


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The Sobibor Trial       

 

 

 

On 6 September 1965 the German court in Hagen initiated criminal proceedings against twelve former SS men,

accusing them of crimes against humanity.

 

 

On 20 December 1966, the following sentences were handed out:

 

 

Karl Frenzel

 

Carpenter

 

Arrested in 1962, accused of killing 42 Jews and participating in the murder of approximately 250,000 Jews. Found guilty of personally killing 6 Jews and of participation in the mass murder of approximately 150,000 Jews.

 

Sentenced to life imprisonment

 

 

 

Franz Wolf 

 

Warehouse clerk

 

Arrested in 1964, accused in 1964, accused of personally killing one Jew and participating in the mass murder of 115,000 Jews. Found guilty of participation in the mass murder of at least 39,000 Jews.

 

Sentenced to eight years in prison. Lives in Bavaria

 

 

 

Alfred Ittner

 

Labourer

 

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 57,000 Jews. Found guilty of participation of the murder of approximately 68,000 Jews.

 

Sentenced to four years in prison

 

 

Werner Dubois

 

German railroad employee and mechanic

 

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 43,000 Jews. Found guilty of participation in the murder of at 15,000 Jews.

 

Sentenced to three years in prison

 

 

Erich Fuchs

 

Truck driver.

 

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 3,600 Jews. Guilty of participation in the murder of at least 79,000 Jews

 

Sentenced to four years in prison

 

 

 

Erich Lachmann

 

Mason

 

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 150,000 Jews.

 

Acquitted

 

 

 

Heinz – Hans Schutt

 

Salesman

 

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 86,000 Jews.

 

Acquitted

 

 

 

Heinrich Unverhau

 

Male Nurse and professional musician

 

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 72,000 Jews

 

Acquitted

 

 

 

Robert Juhrs

 

Porter – Janitor

 

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 30 Jews.

 

Acquitted

 

 

 

 

Ernst Zierke

 

Sawmill worker

 

Accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 30 Jew.

 

Acquitted

 

 

 

 

Erwin Lambert

 

Ceramic Tile salesman

 

Accused of participating in the mass murder of an unknown number of Jews.

 

Acquitted

 

 

 

 

Kurt Bolender

 

Hotel porter

 

Arrested in 1961, accused of personally killing approximately 360 Jews and of participation in the mass murder of approximately 86,000 Jews.

Committed suicide in prison before sentencing.

 

 

 

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Earlier several key SS officers who had served at Sobibor were tried, such as SS-Oberscarfuhrer Hubert Gomerski, who was arrested but acquitted in a 1947 euthanasia trial.

 

When his participation in the crimes committed at Sobibor were proven, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 August 1950.  SS- Untersturmfuhrer Johann Klier was arrested, but based on the testimony of Sobibor survivors, that Klier was a person who felt compassion for the Jews and secretly tried to help them, he was released.

 

In the 1965/66 trials the accused claimed that once assigned to serve in a death camp, there was no way out, citing the statement made by Christian Wirth, to the personnel at Sobibor, “if you do not like it here, you can leave, but under the earth, not over it.

 

However, Klier who asked to be transferred from Sobibor was not killed but allowed to leave. One of the worst murderers in Sobibor was SS-Oberscharfuhrer Erich Bauer, the gas chamber “meister”, was recognised on the streets of Berlin, by survivor Samuel Lerner.

 

On 8 May 1950 Bauer was sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life in prison, as the death penalty had been abolished. Bauer died in the Tegel prison in Berlin 1n 1980.

 

Werner Dubois admitted during the trial his guilty part in the extermination of the Jews, his court testimony at Hagen read:

 

“it is clear to me that in the extermination camp, murder was committed. What I have done was only to assist in the murder. If I were to be found guilty it would be justified, murder is murder.

 

We are all guilty. The camp had a chain of command and if one link in the chain were to refuse to co-operate then the whole system would collapse. We did not have the courage to disobey orders.”  

 
Franz Stangl the first commander of Sobibor, was tried for his activity at Treblinka, but Sobibor was excluded for administrative purposes.

A few of the Ukrainian guards who served at Sobibor were brought to trial in the Soviet Union, such as:

 

  • B. Bielakow

  • M. Matwijenko

  • I. Nikifor

  • W. Podienko

  • F. Tichonowski

  • Emanuel Schultz

  • J. Zajcew

They were found guilty and executed for their crimes.

In April 1963, at a court in Kiev where Sasha Pechersky was the chief prosecution witness, ten former Ukrainian guards were found guilty and executed, one was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

A third trial was held in Kiev in June 1965, where three former death camp guards from Sobibor and Belzec were executed by firing squad.
 




Sources:

Belzec - The Forgotten Camp, by Robin O’Neil, unpublished account.

Sobibor - The Forgotten Revolt by Thomas (Toivi) Blatt, published by H.E.P 1998.
Into that Darkness by Gitta Sereny, published by Pimlico 1974

 

 

 

Copyright CW  H.E.A.R.T 2007

   

 

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