Eichmann Trial -- Session 51 -- Diaries of Yekuel & Klepper; Hungary documents; testimony of Pinhas Freudiger

Eichmann Trial -- Session 51 -- Diaries of Yekuel & Klepper; Hungary documents; testimony of Pinhas Freudiger 

Eichmann Trial -- Session 51 -- Diaries of Yekuel & Klepper; Hungary documents; testimony of Pinhas Freudiger 

Footage begins with a shot of the courtroom in the middle of Session 51. The judges are looking over a set of documents. Judge Landau notes that they have decided to admit into evidence selections from the diary of Advocate Yomtov Yekuel and an affidavit from Advocate Asher Rafael Moissis (00:02:00). State Attorney Yaacov Bar-Or addresses the court with excerpts from Yekuel's diary pertaining to the experience of the Jews in Salonika, Greece. Footage cuts out from 00:07:54 to 00:08:06, but nothing is missing from the proceedings. Shots of Eichmann in the booth looking at documents. Bar-Or submits excerpts from the diary of German poet Jochen Klepper, who married a Jewish woman with a daughter. The excerpts describe how he tried, through Interior Minister Frick, to obtain exit visas for himself and his family. Frick arranged an interview with Eichmann, but the Kleppers could not obtain the visas and all three committed suicide. There are shots of Eichmann and the prosecution's table. Hausner, Bar-Or and Bach are visible. Bach is smiling (00:14:23). Bach asks the court to look at documents from the interrogation of Eichmann's deputy, Dieter Wisliceny, in which Wisliceny states that he received orders from Günther and Eichmann to model the Slovak anti-Jewish legislation on the German laws (00:16:24). Bach reads quotes from the text in English. The prosecution turns to the topic of Hungary (00:20:11). This section covers the submission of several documents pertaining to pre-March 1944 Hungary (before the German occupation) and the Hungarian government. This duplicates footage from Tape 2063 (at 00:35:46) but is more complete on this tape and continues with the proceedings on the submission of documents. Bach calls to the stand Pinhas Freudiger (spelled Pinchas on the Nizkor version of the transcripts), formerly known as Fulop von Freudiger (his name is mentioned in reference to deportations/rescues in Tape 2181). Freudiger states that he is a native of Budapest and worked in a textile factory owned by his grandfather. This duplicates footage found on Tape 2061 (at 00:41:52) but this tape is more complete. Freudiger testifies to the approximate number of Jews in Hungary at the start of the war, how the Hungarian borders changed, and the effect of these changes on the Jewish population (00:46:19). He then recounts the relationship between the Hungarian government and the Jewish population before March 1944 and afterwards. He discusses anti-Semitism following World War I (00:48:47). Various shots of the judge's bench, Eichmann, and the prosecution, but the camera focuses primarily on Freudiger. Footage repeats the last minute or so of testimony from the previous section and continues with an account of the period after the Anschluss in Austria and the implementation of anti-Jewish laws in Hungary. Some of these were based on the Nuremberg Laws. Freudiger then gives an account of the first deportations from Hungary in 1941 (00:55:23). Bach asks whether there was a radical change in anti-Jewish legislation between 1941 and 1944. Freudiger speaks about the establishment of labor camps and the labor service.