Eichmann Case Exposes Nazi Crimes:
Eyes of Entire World on Jerusalem
Courthouse Where Case Opens Tuesday
THE JEWISH NE S
F2 CD IT
.
NA I C I-1 I G A. N4
Events
o
A Weekly Review of Jewish
Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper, Incorporating The Jewish Chronicle
VOL.
XXXIX—No.
6
17100 W.
April 7, 1961
7 Mile Rd., Detroit 35
Threats to Jews in Brazil
Argentina Linked to Nazis'
Anger Over Eichmann Trial
(Direct JTA Teletype Wire to The Jewish News)
A summary of police reports from various Brazilian
RIO DE JANEIRO
cities indicated Tuesday that anti-Semitic acts and anonymous threats to Jews
Were growing as the April 11 opening date of the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann
came closer.
Several Jewish families in Porto Alegre told police they had received
threatening letters from an "Anti-Jewish Union" which promised there would
be "reprisals" for the trial.
Swastikas and such slogans as "freedom for Eichmann, Death to the JeWs,"
were•reported to have been daubed on walls and painted on or near the homes of
Jewish families in Sao Paulo.
(In Buenos Aires, police said that an arson attempt on a synagogue here
Thursday night might have been inspired by Nazis in connection with the forth-
coming Eichmann trial in Israel. The fire was put out by neighbors and police
who estimated damages at about six thousand dollars.)
—
Cologne Court Upholds Refusal
to • Pay -Fees of Dr.. Servatius
(Direct JTA Teletype Wire to The Jewish News)
COLOGNE — The Cologne Administrative Court Tuesday upheld the stand
of the West German Government in refusing to pay the fee of Dr. Robert Servatius
for the legal defense of Nazi Adolf Eichmann..
Dr. Servatius had filed a complaint against the legal section of the West
German Foreign Office which had refused to pay 120,000 marks ($30,800) for
Eichmann's defense. The West German Government said Eichmann was not eli-
gible for legal aid because his crimes were committed "outside the scope of war
duties."
The Cologne court, sustaining the government's position, also ordered Dr.
Servatius to pay the court costs of his suit.
Dr. Servatius received - a commitment from the government of Israel to pay
him a fee of $20,000. He said later that if the West German government accepted
his claim, he would return the Israeli. payments.
The Evangelical Press Service published a report in Bonn that the Federal
Government had refused to pay . for Eichmann's- defense "to show all the world
that this man by his crimes has excluded himself from the community of the
German people."
The church publication also indicated a belief that official help was denied
to avoid "the least impression that Eichmann is regarded in the Federal Republic
as a fellow citizen, even of the most degenerate sort."
Report of Capture of Nazi
Criminal Dr. Josef Mengele
Denied by Israeli Officials
JERUSALEM, (JTA)—The Government of Israel
formally denied this week reports circulated through-
out the-world that Dr. Josef Mengele, the notorious and
long.-hunted "selection doctor" at the Auschwitz murder
factory, had been hunted down in Argentina and sent
by boat to ISrael by Israeli secret agents.
The report, initially carried in the Paris Presse, a
French newspaper, stated that ; I‘lerigele, who had the
task lof selecting inmates for the gas chambers in the
Nazi 'death camp, had been placed on a Panamanian
freighter to arrive in Israel in time to be a surprise
witness in the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann next week.
The Paris report went into considerable detail on
the alleged trackdown and seizure, prompting the
Israel Government press office to issue a "categorical
denial" of the reports. The Government statement said
flatly that "this rumor is absolutely without foundation."
Ben-Gurion States Burden of
Holocaust Rests on Mankind
T'-'.e entire world has its eyes on Jerusalem, where
the historic trial of the Nazi mass murderer Adolf
Eichmann, who engineered the brutal death of six mil-
lion Jews will open on Tuesday, at the Beth Ha-Am.
All preparations have been completed for the pro-
ceedings. A panel of three judges will be in charge,
with Israel's Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau as
presiding judge. Sitting with him will be Judge Benja-
min Halevi, president of the Jerusalem District Court,
and Judge Yitzhak .Raveh, of Tel Aviv District Court.
Israel's Attorney General Gideon Hausner is the
prosecutor. The chief defense attorney is Dr. Robert
Servatius, of Cologne. Dieter Wechtenbruch is the as-
sistant defense counsel.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on Tues-
day that the building in which the trial will be held
and the area around the building have been completely
sealed off by police. A special police detail, separated
from the unit guarding the courtroom area, will guard
Eichmann.
An indication as to the line of defense which
will be taken by Servatius, was seen in his subpoena-
ing of two Israelis to appear as defense witnesses on
The proceedings of the Eichmann trial
will be covered for The Jewish News
by its Editor and its staff of JTA and
other guest correspondents.
April 12. The two are Zvi Tohar, chief pilot of the El
Al Israel Airlines plane that brought Eichmann here
last May, and Yaacov Shimony, then El Al chief of
operations.
In summoning these two as witness for the de-
fense, Eichmann's lawyer obviously wants to claim
that the holding of the trial is "illegal" under inter-
national law because Eichmann was "kidnaped" in
Argentina and also because he committed his crimes
against humanity on non-Israeli soil during a period
when Israel was not yet in existence.
Against the opposition of Attorney General Haus-
ner, the three-judge court that will try Eichmann
- granted Dr. Servatius' application for permission to
call Tohar and Shimony. The court held that the men
may appear as defense witnesses, granting both the
prosecution and the defense the right to argue dur-
ing the trial, "whether the testimony of these wit-
nesses is likely to concern matters that will be .de-
cided during the trial."
(It was recalled this week, at the United Nations
that the judgments of the Nuremberg War Crimes Com-
mission were formally affirmed by the General As-
sembly in 1946. The following year, the Assembly or-
dered the International Law Commission to formulate
principles concerning war crimes and to prepare a
draft code of offenses against the peace and security
of mankind. By July, 1950, the ILC adopted seven
principles, holding that: "The perpetrator of a crime -
Continued on Page 3
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Former SS Men Refuse to Come to Aid of
Eiehmann: Fear Arrest Under Israeli Law
(Direct JTA Teletype Wire to The Jewish News)
TEL AVIV—All of the former SS men approached in West Germany to
come to the defense of former Gestapo Colonel Adolf Eichmann have refused to
have anything to do with the case, one cf the Nazi's defense attorneys reported
Tuesday.
Dieter Wechtenbruch, the assistant defense counsel in the Nazi's trial
which opens in Jerusalem Tuesday, returned here from his hunt for defense
witnesses in West Germany. He said that both he and Dr. Servatius, the chief
defense counsel, had approached such prospective witnesses and that they had
refused to come to Israel, fearing they - might be arrested and held for trial under
the same Israeli law under which Eichmann will be tried.
Dr. Wechtenbruch said the former SS men refused even to give testimony
before a German notary public and that they expressed opposition to being
involved in Eichmann's case in any way. Among those approached by the two
attorneys were former SS men who either testified before the Nuremberg trial
courts or who had been tried by these courts.
The young West German attorney disclosed also that the defense intended
to call on other Israelis to testify, in addition to Zvi Tohar and Yaacov Shimony.
He did not give any names of such additional Israeli witnesses.
It was learned here meanwhile that West German authorities had financed
the expenses of a seven-man delegation which will attend the trial as observers for
the West German government.
The Israel government press office opened a special liaison office at Lydda
Airport Tuesday as the number of foreign correspondents arriving to cover the
trial began to mount.