![]() Though it was twenty-five years ago, I could still hear the voices of the accused at Nuremberg like distant gongs, their answers by rote: 'just following orders.' Could I possibly get Stangl to go deeper into telling me why? I. Now sixty-three, perhaps he was ready to open up. She hesitated, then nodded her head she'd ask him. I had one more day here to try to get some answers-What was it that drove him? Did he ever feel remorse? I approached Frau Stangl, asked if I might talk with her husband. It came down: Kommendant of Treblinka, guilty of murdering 900,000 people, sentenced to life in prison. He stared into an imaginary wall beyond the courtroom, beyond his wife who'd travelled to hear the verdict. He was seated back from the microphone in the dock, a wooden cube like a pen a soldier stood guard beside him. It was just four months ago that I had seen him in the courtroom. Stangl's wearing a starched white shirt open at the collar, his v-neck sweater, grey, like his thinning hair. I recall the warning of an old friend, a bishop: 'If you expose yourself to the devil, he can invade you.' Earlier in 1967, Brazil extradited Wagners former commanding officer, Franz Stangl, who stood trial in West Germany, was convicted and sentenced to life. Stangl worked at the T4 euthanasia program in Berlin before becoming Commander of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps, overseeing the deaths of approximately 1,000,000 people. Now his fists move across the table toward me my insides shiver, though I know a guard is just outside the door. The case of Franz Stangl is illustrative. Wiesenthal played a key role, for instance, in the capture and bringing to trial of Franz Stangl in 1967, former commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps, who had escaped to Brazil. I can't help but notice the gold cufflinks. The pursuit of Nazis is also associated with Simon Wiesenthal (19082005), an Austrian Jewish Holocaust survivor. ![]() The hands are broad, reddish, workingmen's hands. His deep-set eyes narrow, a frown creases his brow. ![]() Convicted Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk hears Israels Supreme Court in Jerusalem 29 July 1993 read his acquittal more than five years after he. In a small windowless room the size of his cell, Franz Stangl and I sit across from each other, his breath mixing with smoke from my cigarette. Franz Paul Stangl Austrian-born police officer and commandant of the Nazi extermination camps Sobibor and Treblinka. This work was inspired by Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience by Gitta Sereny (Vintage Books, 1974), which was first excerpted in London's Daily Telegraph Magazine and her earlier book, The German Trauma: Experiences and Reflections (Penguin Books, 2001).ĪPRIL, 1971.
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