[Page 420]

At two trials of German mass-murderers the sadism, murder and evil that the Germans committed against the Jewish population of Ciechanow was exposed: at the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and in the court case in Warsaw regarding Erik Kokh, the former Gauleiter Ober-president for eastern Prussia and former chief of civil service of the areas including Bialystok and Ciechanow. In both trials Ciechanower Jews were witnesses, survivors of the German extermination.

At the Eichmann process in Jerusalem, Noah Zabludowicz was the witness. His testimony, recorded at the court proceedings, under the number 1-43/BF 41 file 06 -- takes up 12 typewritten pages. Zabludowicz's oral testimony at the Jerusalem court case was greatly condensed, but in the condensed form as well the witness presented the whole sadistic cruelty, murder and killing that the Germans committed against the Ciechanow Jews.

A particularly strong impression was made by Zabludowicz's telling of how the German hangmen carried out the act of once hanging four Jewish men publicly in the marketplace, and a second time seven Jews. The prosecutor, Hausner, asked the witness for exact information about the German hangings of the innocent Jews, their names and the exact dates when the beastly murders were carried out.

After Zabludowicz's testimony, Hausner took out from the files two telegrams that were sent from Berlin to Ciechanow and read them for the court.

The first telegram, dated April 17 1942:

“To Gestapo office in Ciechanow: According to the order of Reichsfuhrer of the S.S., the sonderbahandlung of the Jews Zalman Lipski; Moishe Bayman, Dovid Tzimmerman and Abraham Itscovich must be carried out.

Signed: Obersturmbahnfuhrer

Eichmann”

[Page 421]

The second telegram dispatched from Berlin, May 23, 1942:

“The Reichsfuhrer of the S.S. orders the hanging of the following Jews in the ghetto of Ciechanow: Shmerl Goldberg, Yona Eliaf, Raphael Braun, Mendl Rubinshtein, Moishe Levin, Dovid Brikovsky and Dovid Zemliadin. They must be hung in the presence of their race-brothers.

“I request a report about the execution of the hanging.”

Signed: In auftrag -- Eichmann, S.S. Obersturmfuhrer*

*The names of those who were hung, given in the two telegrams, are definitely different than those hung in Ciechanow as given in the previously-given memoirs.

The declarations of witness Noah Zabludowicz were widely commented on by the press in Israel and abroad.

Immediately at the start of the German occupation of Poland Erikh Kokh, one of the leaders of Hitler's “National-Socialist Workers' Party” and Himmler's confidant, with the rank of Gauleiter, was appointed by the German powers as Oberpresident of the so-called eastern-Prussia. In the area of east-Prussia there were included the Polish regions of Bialystok and Ciechanow. Erik Kokh became the chief of Bialystok and Ciechanow region. Ciechanow became an east-Prussian city with the name Tzikhenow.

[Page 422]

The Gauleiter and Nazi, Erikh Kokh, started to Germanize Ciechanow with all the means of the German extermination. All the acts of murder, robbery and killing of the Jewish population of Ciechanow were organized and led by Erikh Kokh. He ruled over the life and death of Ciechanow Jews.

At the court case in Warsaw one of the miraculously surviving Jews of Ciechanow -- Fianka, proved, with his testimony, the mass-murderer's activity that Erik Kokh carried out in Ciechanow. He himself, the Gauleiter and Nazi, tortured and shot men, women and children, Jews and non-Jews.

The Warsaw Polish court sentenced to death the German mass-murderer.

(signed) A. V. Y.

The mass-murderer, Erik Kokh, during his trial in Warsaw

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