Newspaper clipping from the German newspaper published in Frankfurt in June 1948, titled Auschwitz Ein Augenzeugenbericht drei jahre spater - “Auschwitz An Eyewitness Account Three Years Later” which quotes in full the testimony of Hans Mayer about the horrors committed by the Nazis in Auschwitz. The newspaper clipping was presented to Adolf Eichmann during the trial as part of the attempt to confront him with the facts of Nazi crimes. The page was presented to the court by Nazi hunter Tuvia Friedman, with a note he wrote on the right: "Newspaper clipping presented to Adolf Eichmann at the Jerusalem trial" - from the Tuvia Friedman estate.
In the detailed testimony published here and presented to Eichmann at his trial, Hans Mayer describes what Auschwitz actually was - "Auschwitz served both for forced labor and extermination", he describes the internal structure of the camp - the overcrowding in the barracks of Polish and Jewish women, the exact location of the gas chamber, the activity around the train station - the daily arrival of cattle cars with “flawed human material” from Germany, Austria, France, Holland, Italy Hungary, and Romania, the selection made by camp commander Rudolf Höss, the “night and fog” code of death used by the Nazis in the camp towards prisoners sent to die, the internal structure of the Birkenau sub-camp, experiments on prisoners by Nazis in Block 10, the daily number of executions, the way the Nazis forced prisoners to write letters to their families describing that they were getting along well and that their condition was good, and more. Among other things he reports that he holds a copy of the declaration by Franz Ferdinand Rudolf Höss that he received the order to build Auschwitz on May 4, 1940, how he confessed to the murder of about 6 million people, and more.
During the trial, Eichmann was presented with a lot of historical material as prosecutor Gideon Hausner confronted him with harsh testimonies leaving no room for doubt regarding Eichmann's role in planning and executing the “Final Solution”. In the summer of 1941, mass extermination experiments with gas began, and for this purpose Eichmann visited the Auschwitz extermination camp and discussed the technical aspects with its commander, Rudolf Höss. In the fall of that year, Heydrich updated Eichmann on the intention to kill all Jews in Europe and accordingly in October Himmler issued a decree prohibiting all Jewish emigration from the Reich and the first transports of German Jews to extermination in the east were scheduled. That month Eichmann was promoted to Obersturmbannführer. In the short period between May and July, Eichmann deported about 440,000 Jews from all over Hungary mainly to the Auschwitz extermination camp. At his trial, Eichmann claimed he did not know what was happening at Auschwitz, when he had to repeatedly deal with evidence such as the newspaper clipping before us.
Tuvia Friedman [1922-2011] Survivor of Skolne camp. He worked all his life to capture Nazi war criminals, founder and director of the Documentation Institute. His role in capturing Eichmann was significant. On his initiative, he began publishing ads in foreign newspapers offering a cash prize of 10,000 dollars for information on Eichmann's whereabouts. As a result, Friedman was flooded with a deluge of letters from many countries. One of the letters received in October 1959 that seemed credible claimed Eichmann was residing near Buenos Aires, Argentina. This provided the first lead regarding Eichmann's location in Argentina. On May 23, Ben Gurion announced from the Knesset podium that Eichmann had been captured and brought to Israel. Two days later, Friedman handed over to the Israel Police a 400 page dossier on Eichmann that he had worked on compiling for nearly 15 years. Friedman also worked to repeal the statute of limitations in German law for Nazi crimes. His struggle was crowned with success in 1979, when the Bundestag decided to abolish the statute of limitations for murder and genocide crimes.
[1] Leaf mounted on pages with water marks. 36x20 cm. Very good condition.
