FORGOTTEN TRIALS OF THE HOLOCAUST
PRAISE FOR FORGOTTEN TRIALS OF THE HOLOCAUST
“Takes the reader on a journey across nearly six decades, seven countries, and ten different judicial settings to examine a wide variety of ways in which attempts were made to bring Holocaust perpetrators to justice. The authors do not shy from assessing the strengths, weaknesses, and difficulties of each trial and the degree to which justice was served. An important contribution to the history of the judicial aftermath of the Holocaust.”
—Christopher R. Browning, author of Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave Labor Camp
“Provides lucid summaries of ten lesser-known trials of participants in Nazi war crimes, along with acute and balanced conclusions about the legal legitimacy and legacy of each proceeding. The authors bring fresh and illuminating perspectives to a matter of urgent concern: understanding how the claims of law and justice should interact in the aftermath of atrocity.”
—Peter Hayes, Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor of History, Northwestern University
“Brings to the reader important trials that have fallen beneath the general public’s radar. The authors, as both academics and practicing lawyers, bring a fresh and incisive approach to these trials, dissecting the strategies of the trial lawyers as well as the decision making by the presiding judges. They manage, in each of these trials, to focus on the defendants, the victims, and the players in the courtroom scene. They present a vivid picture of the Holocaust in operation, which is an essential undertaking as the survivor generation decreases in number. This book is worth reading for anyone interested in trials and for anyone interested in the Holocaust, and it is compulsory reading for anyone interested in both.”
—Robert M. Morgenthau, Former District Attorney, New York County
“For too long, lawyers and legal academics have relegated the Shoah to the margins and shadows of legal discourse. The killing of six million European Jews has been treated either as an extraordinary and unique circumstance beyond law or, more recently, as little more than a precursor event to the development of international criminal law. Michael J. Bazyler and Frank M. Tuerkheimer have rendered an invaluable service to legal practice and scholarship by bringing the Holocaust to the center of the legal profession and discipline. This extraordinary book, by examining the intersections and encounters between law and the Shoah in a number of jurisdictions, across a significant time period, makes it impossible for us to ignore or forget the intimate and complex relationship between law and the Holocaust.”
—David Fraser, author of Law after Auschwitz: Towards a Jurisprudence of the Holocaust
“An invaluable book about significant trials conducted by the United States, certain European countries, and Israel against German government officials, military officers, and non-German collaborators with the Holocaust. It will educate, expand, and enlighten every reader’s knowledge about one of the most tragic events in human history, perpetrated by one of the most culturally, medically, scientifically, artistically, and politically advanced civilizations the world has ever known. Bazyler and Tuerkheimer have made a most significant contribution to the study of the Holocaust, and the world’s response.”
—Stan Levy, Founding National Director of the Bet Tzedek Holocaust Survivors Justice Network
Forgotten Trials of the Holocaust
Michael J. Bazyler and Frank M. Tuerkheimer
New York and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
© 2014 by Michael J. Bazyler and Frank M. Tuerkheimer
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Bazyler, Michael J., author.
Forgotten trials of the Holocaust / Michael J. Bazyler and Frank M. Tuerkheimer.
pages ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4798-8606-7 (hardback)
1. War crime trials—History—20th century. 2. War crime trials—Europe—History—20th century. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) 4. War criminals—Europe—Trials, litigation, etc.. I. Tuerkheimer, Frank M., author. II. Title.
KZ1174.5.B39 2014
341.6’90268—dc23
2014017283
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Also available as an ebook
publication of trial histories
made possible by a grant:
Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford
CONTENTS
1. The Kharkov Trial of 1943: The First Trial of the Holocaust?
2. The Trial of Pierre Laval: Criminal Collaborator or Patriot?
3. The Dachau Trial under U.S. Army Jurisdiction
4. The Trial of Amon Göth in Postwar Poland: Poland’s “Nuremberg”
5. The Hamburg Ravensbrück Trials in British-Occupied Germany: Women as Perpetrators, Women as Victims
6. The Einsatzgruppen Trial at Nuremberg: Did Anyone Have to Follow Orders to Kill?
7. The Jewish Kapo Trials in Israel: Is There a Place for the Law in the Gray Zone?
8. The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial: The Germans Trying Germans under German Law
9. The Trial of Feodor Fedorenko: Treblinka Relived in a Florida Courtroom
10. The Trial of Anthony Sawoniuk at the Old Bailey: The Holocaust in the British Courtroom
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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