Crimes of the Holocaust

Examines four cases of prosecution of Nazi war criminals: the Nuremberg Trials; the trials of Adolf Eichmann and of John Demjanjuk, both held in Israel; and the trial of Imre Finta in Canada in 1989-94. In the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials, the perpetrators were punished; however, the agendas focused on the crimes of Nazism and the Holocaust as such rather than on the defendants' own crimes. Contends that therefore the procedure was flawed. Too much weight was given to witnesses' testimonies, hearsay, and irrelevant material, which, especially at the Eichmann trial, had little to do with the defendants' actions and, together with films and other visual materials, aimed more to create an appropriate emotional atmosphere in the courtroom rather than to ascertain the truth. The two other cases involved minor perpetrators. The Demjanjuk case, which began in the USA and continued in Israel, and the Finta case, held in Canada, ended with acquittal of the accused. At the Finta trial, the defense counsel resorted to antisemitic remarks and to arguments of Holocaust deniers, questioned the authenticity of Nuremberg documents, and used the trial as a forum to attack the IMT's condemnation of Nazism and the Third Reich. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)