Suchergebnisse

Describes the deportation of 45,000+ Jews from Vienna to ghettoes & extermination sites in Poland, Bohemia, Belorussia, & the Baltic states, 1941/42. The bureaucratic organization required to carry out the deportations is described, along with attempts by the Austrian judiciary to avenge war crimes committed against Jews. Johann Rixinger, a leader of the so-called Jewish division of the Viennese Gestapo, was prosecuted by the Viennese people's court in 1947 & sentenced to 10 years in prison. Other court cases are examined, noting that perpetrators who stole the property of deportees, but did not torment them, faced a more lenient judiciary. All persons involved in the deportation process had a good chance of escaping punishment if they were not sentenced before the people's courts were discontinued in Dec 1955. The case of the many trials of Franz Novak, who was arrested in 1961 for committing murder by "organizing the transport of Jews to concentration camps," is detailed to explore issues surrounding superior orders, crimes of obedience, & claims of ignorance about the Final Solution. J. Lindroth