Q: Guards at the Auschwitz concentration camp have been tried and convicted for their crimes. Were any of the prisoners who assisted the Nazis ever tried?
—Fred Rosas, Lawrenceville
A: There were several trials in the 1950s-60s involving Jewish prisoners who collaborated with their German captors, a spokeswoman with Jerusalem's Yad Vashem, which describes itself as the "World Center for Holocaust Research, Education, Documentation and Commemoration," told Q&A on the News in an email. Auschwitz kapos – including Emil Bednarek, Josef Windeck and Bernhard Bonitz – were convicted of many crimes, including murder, in the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials in the 1960s. Bednarek was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of 14 counts of murder. Windeck and Bonitz also received life sentences. Kapos are described by the Jewish Virtual Library as "trustee inmates who supervised the prisoners. … These trustees carried out the will of the Nazi camp commandants and guards, and were often as brutal as their SS counterparts." An article titled "Punishing International Crimes Committed by the Persecuted: The Kapo Trials in Israel (1950s–1960s)," published in the Journal of International Criminal Justice in March 2006, states there were about 40 trials of kapos from 1951-64. The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service brought charges against three Jewish men, who had been in other camps, in the mid-1950s, The New York Times reported in 1987. One was ordered deported to his native Poland, although he didn't leave the U.S.
Andy Johnston wrote this column. Do you have a question about the news? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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