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Acquital of Nazi Judge Unleashes
Protest; Jew Terms It `Atrocious'
BERLIN (JTA)—A West Berlin
court's acquittal of a former Nazi
judge who pronounced death sen-
tences on 250 political prisoners in
1943 and 1944 has aroused a storm
of protest in this city.
The ex -judge, Hans -Joachim
Rehse, who presided over one of
Hitler's notorious Peoples Courts
during World War II, was freed
by Judge Ernst Jurgen Oske on
grounds that he was only carry-
ing out the laws of the time.
Heinz Galinski, chairman of the
West Berlin Jewish Community,
described the judgment as - the
"most atrocious" to have been de-
livered by a German court since
1945. An official of the West Ger-
man Interior Ministry said it
would be hard for people abroad
to understand why West German
courts today were incapable of
handling cases involving "a judi-
ciary which had been debased to
a point where it was an instru-
ment of terror."
Mayor Karl Schnetz of West
Berlin said he hoped that an
appeal against the verdict would
be allowed and that another
court would administer justice.
A member of Chancellor Kurt
Georg Kiesinger's Christian
Democratic Union, Bert Even,
chairman of the Bundestag
(lower house) interior commit-
tee, said the decision was "in-
furiating because it lacks any
trace of legal spirit."
Judge Oske based his acquittal
decision on an earlier ruling by
West Germany's federal court that
judges could not be convicted of
having deliberately manipulated
the law "if they were blinded by
the Nazi ideology and legal philo-
sophy of the time."
He said that while the verdicts
of the peoples courts are inhuman
by present standards, in wartime
Germany the maintenance of secu-
rity was of highest importance.
The victims of Judge Rehse's sen-
tences and those of other Nazi
judges were convicted of making
"defeatist" statements and crack-
ing jokes about Nazi leaders or
talking to friends critically about
the Nazi regime. They were all
Germans.
The prosecution demanded a life
sentence—the most severe punish-
ment under West German law.
The case against him was based
on seven of those sentences which
he signed. Two of them were
Roman Catholic priests and one
was a demented 16-year-old youth.
The cases were regarded as the
most arbitrary and most offen-
sive of Judge Rehse's "crimes in
office." Rehse was sentenced to a
five-year term last summer but
It was reversed on technical
grounds and a new trial led to
last Friday's acquittal.
Judge Rehse testified that as a
judge he was "bound to the law of
Hitler and was convinced of the
justification of that law."
He said that the situation in
Germany during the fourth and
fifth years of World War II called
for "severe action"and that he
was only executing "the letter of
the law."
Meanwhile, four former SS
officers went on trial in Stutt-
gart for the 1943 murder of 530
Jewish slave laborers whom
they had forced to exhume and
burn the bodies of 33,000 Jews
massacred by the Nazis in the
Babi Yar ravine in the Ukraine
two years earlier. The purpose
of the exhumations was to de-
stroy evidence that might be
discovered by advancing Rus-
sian armies.
The accused are Hans Sohns,
62, Fritz Zietlow, 66, Ernst Hels-
gott, 57, a former police commis-
sar in Dusseldorf, and Fritz Kirs-
tein, 60. Twenty-seven witnesses
will be heard at the trial which is
expected to last until the end of
next month.
The prosecution charged that
the defendants, members of the
special SS task force IV-A, super-
vised the exhumations which were
carried out on direct orders from
Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler.
The slave laborers removed the
earth that the earlier executioners
had dynamited over the mass
graves, saturated the remains with
gasoline and burned them.
According to the indictment, the
laborers, Jews and Russians, were
subsequently murdered to prevent
disclosure of their work. Several
other former members of the ex-
humation squads have been tried
over the years. Three were sen-
tenced last February to life im-
prisonment at hard labor.
Ambassador Carl Her mann
Knocke, West Germany's envoy to
Israel, expressed sympathy with
demonstratous who picketed his
embassy Tuesday to protest
against the light sentences meted
out by West German courts to ex-
Nazis who were involved in the
Babi Yar massacre.
A delegation representing the
demonstrators, members of the
Israel Resistance Fighters and the
War Victims League, was receiv-
ed by the ambassador.
He said he had read Yevtu-
shenko's poem, Babi Yar; and
fully appreciated their feelings,
which he would relay to his gov-
ernment in Bonn. He told the dele-
gation that while everything was
being done to punish those respon-
sible for war crimes, it was dif-
ficult after 25 years to gather
evidence.
Center Tries to Ignite Young Adults' Interest
The
RICHMOND Va (JTA)
Richmond Jewish Center has acted
to stem the outflow of single young
Jewish adults from the Richmond
area with its subsequent loss of
young leadership for the Jewish
community. Concern over the ris-
ing rate nationally of intermarri-
age also has been reflected in the
special Jewish Center program.
HURRY
...
Under direction of Saul Cohen,
assistant director, the Jewish Cen-
ter is developing activities aimed
at providing opportunities for Jew-
ish young adults between the ages
of 18 through 30 to meet for pro-
grams of interest to them. Center
membership is not required for
participation.
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A Poll on Who's a Jew
TEL AVIV (ZINS)—According to
a recent poll on the controversial
question "Who is a Jew?" 12 per
cent of those polled have declared
they consider a person a Jew
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among 1,500 Israeli Jewish fami-
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Friday, December 13, 1968-9
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