Forgotten Trials of the Holocaust

by Michael J. Bazyler, Frank M. Tuerkheimer

Overview

In the wake of the Second World War, how were the Allies to respond to the enormous crime of the Holocaust? Even in an ideal world, it would have been impossible to bring all the perpetrators to trial.
Nevertheless, an attempt was made to prosecute some.





This book uncovers ten “forgotten trials” of the Holocaust,
selected from the many Nazi trials that have taken place over the course of the last seven decades. It showcases how perpetrators of the Holocaust were dealt with in courtrooms around the world, revealing how different legal systems responded to the horrors of the Holocaust. The book provides a graphic picture of the genocidal campaign against the Jews through eyewitness testimony and incriminating documents and traces how the public memory of the
Holocaust was formed over time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781479886067
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	10/10/2014
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Michael J. Bazyler is Professor of Law and The “1939” Society Law Scholar in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies at the Dale E. Fowler School of Law, Chapman University.

Frank M. Tuerkheimer is a trial lawyer and Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin. He has taught a course on Holocaust trials both in the United States and Germany. He had previously been a federal prosecutor in New York, United States Attorney in Madison, Wisconsin, and an Associate Special Watergate Prosecutor in Washington.

Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. The Kharkov Trial of 1943: The First Trial of the Holocaust?
2. The Trial of Pierre Laval: Criminal Collaborator or Patriot? 45
3. The Dachau Trial under U.S. Army Jurisdiction 75
4. The Trial of Amon Göth in Postwar Poland: 101 Poland’s “Nuremberg”
5. The Hamburg Ravensbrück Trials in British-Occupied 129 Germany: Women as Perpetrators, Women as Victims
6. The Einsatzgruppen Trial at Nuremberg: Did Anyone Have 159 to Follow Orders to Kill?
7. The Jewish Kapo Trials in Israel: Is There a Place for the 195 Law in the Gray Zone?
8. The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial: The Germans Trying 227 Germans under German Law
9. The Trial of Feodor Fedorenko: Treblinka Relived in 247 a Florida Courtroom
10. The Trial of Anthony Sawoniuk at the Old Bailey: 275 The Holocaust in the British Courtroom Conclusion 303 Notes 313 Bibliography 355 Index 361 About the Authors

Editorial Reviews

"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 for 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

"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 either been treated 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

"Brings to the reader important trials that have fallen beneath the general publics 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, 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 compelling reading for anyone interested in both."

Robert M. Morgenthau

"Few of these trials are widely remembered. Forgotten Trials of the Holocaust, by legal scholars Michael J. Bazyler and Frank M. Tuerkheimer, is thus especially welcome. . . . Bazyler and Tuerkheimer have made a good start."

New York Review of Books - Richard J. Evans

"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

"Michael J. Bazyler, a law professor, and Frank M. Tuerkheimer, a trial lawyer, have written an indispensable account of ten & forgotten trials of the Holocaust."

Jewish Book Council

"Few of these trials are widely remembered. Forgotten Trials of the Holocaust, by legal scholars Michael J. Bazyler and Frank M. Tuerkheimer, is thus especially welcome. . . . Bazyler and Tuerkheimer have made a good start."-Richard J. Evans,New York Review of Books

"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

"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 either been treated 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

“Provides an exceptionally clear, fair-minded, and helpful discussion of the efforts of far-flung jurists to bring perpetrators of the Holocaust to justice. Bazyler and Tuerkheimer bring impressive scholarly acumen and hardboiled lawyerly insight to the task of assessing the successes and shortcomings of trials that sought to submit the most unspeakable crimes to legal judgment."-Lawrence Douglas,James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence & Social Thought, Amherst College

From the Publisher

"Despite having to take into account as well the differences among ten legal and political systems, Bazyler and Tuerkheimer have demonstrated clear threads in court room evidence that help us better understand the Holocaust."

Holocaust and Genocide Studies

"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

"Provides an exceptionally clear, fair-minded, and helpful discussion of the efforts of far-flung jurists to bring perpetrators of the Holocaust to justice. Bazyler and Tuerkheimer bring impressive scholarly acumen and hardboiled lawyerly insight to the task of assessing the successes and shortcomings of trials that sought to submit the most unspeakable crimes to legal judgment."

Lawrence Douglas