BELSEN CAMP FILMS

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 September 1945, Page 5

BELSEN CAMP FILMS

SCREENED AT TRIAL ACCUSED UNMOVED (Recd. 1.5 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 20. Scenes at the Belsen concentration camp, so horrible that they were deleted from the films shown to the public, were screened at the Belsen trial at Luneburg to-day. Irma Grese, the most notorious of the camp’s female sadists, sat bolt upright. Her face was expressionless as the horrors of Belsen appeared before her. The public gallery was again packed. The British military authorities are issuing admission tickets in different towns each day, so that as many Germans as possible will witness the trial.‘British army officers who are checking public opinion on the trial report that the method of conducting the trial is making a deep impression on the people. Kramer and his fellow prisoners remained immobile throughout the film even when they themselves appeared on the screen. Kramer took lengthy notes. Irma Grese hurriedly scribbled a message which was handed down to the defending officer. The claim of Kramer that he did ■everything in his power to help the internees was exploded to-day by Major Adolphus Berney. He told the Court that at the German Army store a few miles from Belsen, he found six hundred tons of potatoes, 120 tons of meat, eighty tons of sugar, twenty tons of dried meat and huge quantities of wheat. There was also a comoletely staffed and equipped bakery, capable of delivering sixty thousand loaves a clay. He said that this disproved Kramer’s plea that he could not give his thirst-crazed prisoners anything to drink but corpse-fouled water from static tanks. He said that in five days, using only the materials found at the camp, and with S.S. guards as mechanics, he had obtained a running water supply from the river.

ALLIES’ DISAGREEMENT (N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent) LONDON, 'September 20. “A sudden disagreement between the United Nations on where Goering, Ribbentrop, and the other 22 major war criminals are to be tried has again postponed the trial,” says the Berlin correspondent of' the “Daily Express.” “The new delay has been caused by the Russians, who had demanded that the' trial should begin in Berlin and then, if necessary, move to Nuremberg. They made this demand recently after the Americans, in whose zone the trial was to take place, had made all preparations for it at Nuremberg. “The British, American, • and French representatives refused at first to agree, but finally gave way. The Americans felt bitter about all their wasted labour at Nuremberg. If the Russians wanted the trials in Berlin, they said, they could make the arrangements themselves—find a suitable courtroom and accommodation for the judges, counsel, witnesses, accused, and newspaper men in blitzed Berlin and provide the intricate system of interpreting lhe proceedings in four languages. The Russians so far have made no reply.” NUR EM BERG TRIALS. (Rec. 11.10 a.m.) LONDON, September 20. The trial of major war criminals is still scheduled for Nuremberg in October, states the British War Crimes Executive, in denying that there is any disagreement between the four Governments or that there is any question of the Russians insisting on the trials at Berlin instead of Nuremberg.

The Executive adds: The four-na-tion agreement expressly provided tor a meeting of the chief prosecutors and members of the International Tribunal at Berlin. After the Berlin preliminaries the members of the Tribunal will adjourn to Nuremberg. Although the task of selecting evidence, collecting, examining ana translating many tons of documents is very heavy, it is intended to press forward to the trial by the end of Octber.