Holocaust Survivor Risa Silbert Testifies To Daily Beatings Cannibalism

Speaking via video from her home in Australia, Risa Silbert, 93, told the Itzehoe District Court in Schleswig-Holstein of the daily horrors she and other prisoners faced at the Stutthof concentration camp. “Stuthoff was hell,” he said. “We had cannibalism in the camp. People were hungry and they cut up the bodies and wanted to take out the liver.” Born into a Jewish family in Klaipėda, Lithuania in 1929, Silbert was taken to Stutthoff, Poland, with her mother and sister in August 1944. Her father and brother were murdered by German collaborators in 1941. Risa Silbert was imprisoned in Stutthof (above) as a teenager. News flash While in the camp, prisoners were expected to report at 4 or 5 in the morning. Those too weak to stand were flogged by guards. “None of us were called by name,” Silbert testified. “They called us ‘bastards’.” Former Nazi secretary Irmgard Furchner was charged in court last year.Newsflash A typhus epidemic meant that corpses were everywhere. At one point, Silbert and her sister hid under the corpses to avoid the SS soldiers. Silbert’s mother died of typhus in January 1945 — one of more than 60,000 people who died at the camp since its founding in 1939. In mid-April of that year, as the power of Nazi Germany waned, the remaining prisoners were led 33 miles east to the city of Danzig, where they were then transported across the Baltic Sea to Holstein. The prisoners were freed by British soldiers on 3 May. Furchner around 1944, when he was secretary to camp commandant Paul Werner Hoppe.Newsflash Silbert’s harrowing testimony is the latest development in the trial of Irmgard Furchner, who worked as a secretary at Stutthof from June 1943 to April 1945. Now 97, Furchner is accused of helping to kill more than 11,000 people during her time at the camp. She is being tried as a juvenile because she was under 21 at the time of the alleged crimes. Despite receiving daily letters and radio messages from Stutthof commandant Paul Werner Hoppe, Furchner claims she was unaware of the camp’s murderous plans. Speaking to Der Spiegel last fall, her defense lawyer, Wolf Molkentin, said that “my client worked among SS men who were experienced in violence — but does that mean she shared their knowledge?” “That’s not necessarily obvious,” he argued. Furchner’s alleged ignorance, however, is challenged by the claim that her husband, a former SS soldier, testified in 1954 that he knew that prisoners were being murdered at the camp. Furchner denies any knowledge of Nazi murderous activities.REUTERS Historian Stefan Hoerdler, another prominent voice in the case, claimed that Furchner hid SS soldiers in her apartment after the war, including Hoppe. Hoppe, who died in 1974, served just nine years in prison in the 1950s for being an accessory to murder. Furchner was first expected in court last September. In a handwritten letter to the judge, the non-principal said she wished not to appear “due to my advanced age and physical disabilities.” “I want to avoid embarrassment and I don’t want to be the laughing stock of humanity,” he wrote. Furchner worked at the camp from 1943 to 1945. Newsflash Furchner’s court date was further delayed when she escaped from her nursing home outside Hamburg just hours before the trial was due to begin. Initially escaping in a taxi, Furchner was arrested a few hours later and taken into custody, where a doctor deemed her fit to stand trial. At the time, Christoph Heubner of the International Auschwitz Committee told the press that Furchner’s actions “showed incredible contempt for the rule of law as well as for Holocaust survivors.” According to the Associated Press, the case against Furchner is based on German legal precedent that anyone who helped run Nazi concentration camps can be held liable as an accessory to crimes committed there, even without direct evidence of involvement in a specific incident. Furcher’s particular prosecution was made possible by the 2011 conviction of John Demjanjuk, a former Red Army soldier who was captured by the Germans and trained as an SS guard before settling in the Sobibór death camp. After an 18-month trial – during which a Nazi expert called him “the smallest of small fish” – Demjanjuk was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in aiding and abetting the deaths of 28,060 Jews. Furchner is due in court in October 2021.REUTERS The judge in Demjanjuk’s case ruled that no matter how small a person’s role, they were a “cog” in the “machine of destruction” and should be held accountable. Earlier this month, The Post reported on Germany’s efforts to deal with how the remaining Nazi accomplices — all 90 or older — will face Holocaust justice. Orchestrated by Führer Adolf Hitler, the Nazi reign of terror saw the murder of at least 6 million Jews, as well as 5 million Poles, Soviet citizens and POWs, Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Afro-Germans. Furchner’s trial hinges on German legal precedent allowing the prosecution of former Nazi collaborators.POOL/AFP via Getty Images In June, the Neuruppin District Court sentenced 101-year-old Josef Schütz to five years in prison for his role in the deaths of more than 3,000 prisoners at the Sachsenhausen camp. Like Furchner, Schütz vehemently denied the allegations. He is unlikely to ever serve prison time because of the lengthy appeals process. But while the accused continue to try to avoid justice, the testimonies of survivors paint a vivid picture of the horrors inflicted on the prisoners. Survivor testimony paints a grim picture of the reality of Furchner’s knowledge.REUTERS Speaking at Furchner’s trial last December, Stutthof survivor Joseph Salomonovic, 83, testified that “Maybe [Furchner] he has trouble sleeping at night.” “I know,” he told the court. For her part, Risa Silbert says she still bears physical scars from beatings at the camp. She also insisted that Furchner plead guilty to her crimes. “If he was working as the commander’s secretary, then he knew exactly what happened,” Silbert said.

title: “Holocaust Survivor Risa Silbert Testifies To Daily Beatings Cannibalism Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-10-24” author: “Diana Toribio”

Speaking via video from her home in Australia, Risa Silbert, 93, told the Itzehoe District Court in Schleswig-Holstein of the daily horrors she and other prisoners faced at the Stutthof concentration camp. “Stuthoff was hell,” he said. “We had cannibalism in the camp. People were hungry and they cut up the bodies and wanted to take out the liver.” Born into a Jewish family in Klaipėda, Lithuania in 1929, Silbert was taken to Stutthoff, Poland, with her mother and sister in August 1944. Her father and brother were murdered by German collaborators in 1941. Risa Silbert was imprisoned in Stutthof (above) as a teenager. News flash While in the camp, prisoners were expected to report at 4 or 5 in the morning. Those too weak to stand were flogged by guards. “None of us were called by name,” Silbert testified. “They called us ‘bastards’.” Former Nazi secretary Irmgard Furchner was charged in court last year.Newsflash A typhus epidemic meant that corpses were everywhere. At one point, Silbert and her sister hid under the corpses to avoid the SS soldiers. Silbert’s mother died of typhus in January 1945 — one of more than 60,000 people who died at the camp since its founding in 1939. In mid-April of that year, as the power of Nazi Germany waned, the remaining prisoners were led 33 miles east to the city of Danzig, where they were then transported across the Baltic Sea to Holstein. The prisoners were freed by British soldiers on 3 May. Furchner around 1944, when he was secretary to camp commandant Paul Werner Hoppe.Newsflash Silbert’s harrowing testimony is the latest development in the trial of Irmgard Furchner, who worked as a secretary at Stutthof from June 1943 to April 1945. Now 97, Furchner is accused of helping to kill more than 11,000 people during her time at the camp. She is being tried as a juvenile because she was under 21 at the time of the alleged crimes. Despite receiving daily letters and radio messages from Stutthof commandant Paul Werner Hoppe, Furchner claims she was unaware of the camp’s murderous plans. Speaking to Der Spiegel last fall, her defense lawyer, Wolf Molkentin, said that “my client worked among SS men who were experienced in violence — but does that mean she shared their knowledge?” “That’s not necessarily obvious,” he argued. Furchner’s alleged ignorance, however, is challenged by the claim that her husband, a former SS soldier, testified in 1954 that he knew that prisoners were being murdered at the camp. Furchner denies any knowledge of Nazi murderous activities.REUTERS Historian Stefan Hoerdler, another prominent voice in the case, claimed that Furchner hid SS soldiers in her apartment after the war, including Hoppe. Hoppe, who died in 1974, served just nine years in prison in the 1950s for being an accessory to murder. Furchner was first expected in court last September. In a handwritten letter to the judge, the non-principal said she wished not to appear “due to my advanced age and physical disabilities.” “I want to avoid embarrassment and I don’t want to be the laughing stock of humanity,” he wrote. Furchner worked at the camp from 1943 to 1945. Newsflash Furchner’s court date was further delayed when she escaped from her nursing home outside Hamburg just hours before the trial was due to begin. Initially escaping in a taxi, Furchner was arrested a few hours later and taken into custody, where a doctor deemed her fit to stand trial. At the time, Christoph Heubner of the International Auschwitz Committee told the press that Furchner’s actions “showed incredible contempt for the rule of law as well as for Holocaust survivors.” According to the Associated Press, the case against Furchner is based on German legal precedent that anyone who helped run Nazi concentration camps can be held liable as an accessory to crimes committed there, even without direct evidence of involvement in a specific incident. Furcher’s particular prosecution was made possible by the 2011 conviction of John Demjanjuk, a former Red Army soldier who was captured by the Germans and trained as an SS guard before settling in the Sobibór death camp. After an 18-month trial – during which a Nazi expert called him “the smallest of small fish” – Demjanjuk was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in aiding and abetting the deaths of 28,060 Jews. Furchner is due in court in October 2021.REUTERS The judge in Demjanjuk’s case ruled that no matter how small a person’s role, they were a “cog” in the “machine of destruction” and should be held accountable. Earlier this month, The Post reported on Germany’s efforts to deal with how the remaining Nazi accomplices — all 90 or older — will face Holocaust justice. Orchestrated by Führer Adolf Hitler, the Nazi reign of terror saw the murder of at least 6 million Jews, as well as 5 million Poles, Soviet citizens and POWs, Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Afro-Germans. Furchner’s trial hinges on German legal precedent allowing the prosecution of former Nazi collaborators.POOL/AFP via Getty Images In June, the Neuruppin District Court sentenced 101-year-old Josef Schütz to five years in prison for his role in the deaths of more than 3,000 prisoners at the Sachsenhausen camp. Like Furchner, Schütz vehemently denied the allegations. He is unlikely to ever serve prison time because of the lengthy appeals process. But while the accused continue to try to avoid justice, the testimonies of survivors paint a vivid picture of the horrors inflicted on the prisoners. Survivor testimony paints a grim picture of the reality of Furchner’s knowledge.REUTERS Speaking at Furchner’s trial last December, Stutthof survivor Joseph Salomonovic, 83, testified that “Maybe [Furchner] he has trouble sleeping at night.” “I know,” he told the court. For her part, Risa Silbert says she still bears physical scars from beatings at the camp. She also insisted that Furchner plead guilty to her crimes. “If he was working as the commander’s secretary, then he knew exactly what happened,” Silbert said.

title: “Holocaust Survivor Risa Silbert Testifies To Daily Beatings Cannibalism Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-10-28” author: “Richard Casey”

Speaking via video from her home in Australia, Risa Silbert, 93, told the Itzehoe District Court in Schleswig-Holstein of the daily horrors she and other prisoners faced at the Stutthof concentration camp. “Stuthoff was hell,” he said. “We had cannibalism in the camp. People were hungry and they cut up the bodies and wanted to take out the liver.” Born into a Jewish family in Klaipėda, Lithuania in 1929, Silbert was taken to Stutthoff, Poland, with her mother and sister in August 1944. Her father and brother were murdered by German collaborators in 1941. Risa Silbert was imprisoned in Stutthof (above) as a teenager. News flash While in the camp, prisoners were expected to report at 4 or 5 in the morning. Those too weak to stand were flogged by guards. “None of us were called by name,” Silbert testified. “They called us ‘bastards’.” Former Nazi secretary Irmgard Furchner was charged in court last year.Newsflash A typhus epidemic meant that corpses were everywhere. At one point, Silbert and her sister hid under the corpses to avoid the SS soldiers. Silbert’s mother died of typhus in January 1945 — one of more than 60,000 people who died at the camp since its founding in 1939. In mid-April of that year, as the power of Nazi Germany waned, the remaining prisoners were led 33 miles east to the city of Danzig, where they were then transported across the Baltic Sea to Holstein. The prisoners were freed by British soldiers on 3 May. Furchner around 1944, when he was secretary to camp commandant Paul Werner Hoppe.Newsflash Silbert’s harrowing testimony is the latest development in the trial of Irmgard Furchner, who worked as a secretary at Stutthof from June 1943 to April 1945. Now 97, Furchner is accused of helping to kill more than 11,000 people during her time at the camp. She is being tried as a juvenile because she was under 21 at the time of the alleged crimes. Despite receiving daily letters and radio messages from Stutthof commandant Paul Werner Hoppe, Furchner claims she was unaware of the camp’s murderous plans. Speaking to Der Spiegel last fall, her defense lawyer, Wolf Molkentin, said that “my client worked among SS men who were experienced in violence — but does that mean she shared their knowledge?” “That’s not necessarily obvious,” he argued. Furchner’s alleged ignorance, however, is challenged by the claim that her husband, a former SS soldier, testified in 1954 that he knew that prisoners were being murdered at the camp. Furchner denies any knowledge of Nazi murderous activities.REUTERS Historian Stefan Hoerdler, another prominent voice in the case, claimed that Furchner hid SS soldiers in her apartment after the war, including Hoppe. Hoppe, who died in 1974, served just nine years in prison in the 1950s for being an accessory to murder. Furchner was first expected in court last September. In a handwritten letter to the judge, the non-principal said she wished not to appear “due to my advanced age and physical disabilities.” “I want to avoid embarrassment and I don’t want to be the laughing stock of humanity,” he wrote. Furchner worked at the camp from 1943 to 1945. Newsflash Furchner’s court date was further delayed when she escaped from her nursing home outside Hamburg just hours before the trial was due to begin. Initially escaping in a taxi, Furchner was arrested a few hours later and taken into custody, where a doctor deemed her fit to stand trial. At the time, Christoph Heubner of the International Auschwitz Committee told the press that Furchner’s actions “showed incredible contempt for the rule of law as well as for Holocaust survivors.” According to the Associated Press, the case against Furchner is based on German legal precedent that anyone who helped run Nazi concentration camps can be held liable as an accessory to crimes committed there, even without direct evidence of involvement in a specific incident. Furcher’s particular prosecution was made possible by the 2011 conviction of John Demjanjuk, a former Red Army soldier who was captured by the Germans and trained as an SS guard before settling in the Sobibór death camp. After an 18-month trial – during which a Nazi expert called him “the smallest of small fish” – Demjanjuk was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in aiding and abetting the deaths of 28,060 Jews. Furchner is due in court in October 2021.REUTERS The judge in Demjanjuk’s case ruled that no matter how small a person’s role, they were a “cog” in the “machine of destruction” and should be held accountable. Earlier this month, The Post reported on Germany’s efforts to deal with how the remaining Nazi accomplices — all 90 or older — will face Holocaust justice. Orchestrated by Führer Adolf Hitler, the Nazi reign of terror saw the murder of at least 6 million Jews, as well as 5 million Poles, Soviet citizens and POWs, Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Afro-Germans. Furchner’s trial hinges on German legal precedent allowing the prosecution of former Nazi collaborators.POOL/AFP via Getty Images In June, the Neuruppin District Court sentenced 101-year-old Josef Schütz to five years in prison for his role in the deaths of more than 3,000 prisoners at the Sachsenhausen camp. Like Furchner, Schütz vehemently denied the allegations. He is unlikely to ever serve prison time because of the lengthy appeals process. But while the accused continue to try to avoid justice, the testimonies of survivors paint a vivid picture of the horrors inflicted on the prisoners. Survivor testimony paints a grim picture of the reality of Furchner’s knowledge.REUTERS Speaking at Furchner’s trial last December, Stutthof survivor Joseph Salomonovic, 83, testified that “Maybe [Furchner] he has trouble sleeping at night.” “I know,” he told the court. For her part, Risa Silbert says she still bears physical scars from beatings at the camp. She also insisted that Furchner plead guilty to her crimes. “If he was working as the commander’s secretary, then he knew exactly what happened,” Silbert said.

title: “Holocaust Survivor Risa Silbert Testifies To Daily Beatings Cannibalism Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-01” author: “Jennifer Irvin”

Speaking via video from her home in Australia, Risa Silbert, 93, told the Itzehoe District Court in Schleswig-Holstein of the daily horrors she and other prisoners faced at the Stutthof concentration camp. “Stuthoff was hell,” he said. “We had cannibalism in the camp. People were hungry and they cut up the bodies and wanted to take out the liver.” Born into a Jewish family in Klaipėda, Lithuania in 1929, Silbert was taken to Stutthoff, Poland, with her mother and sister in August 1944. Her father and brother were murdered by German collaborators in 1941. Risa Silbert was imprisoned in Stutthof (above) as a teenager. News flash While in the camp, prisoners were expected to report at 4 or 5 in the morning. Those too weak to stand were flogged by guards. “None of us were called by name,” Silbert testified. “They called us ‘bastards’.” Former Nazi secretary Irmgard Furchner was charged in court last year.Newsflash A typhus epidemic meant that corpses were everywhere. At one point, Silbert and her sister hid under the corpses to avoid the SS soldiers. Silbert’s mother died of typhus in January 1945 — one of more than 60,000 people who died at the camp since its founding in 1939. In mid-April of that year, as the power of Nazi Germany waned, the remaining prisoners were led 33 miles east to the city of Danzig, where they were then transported across the Baltic Sea to Holstein. The prisoners were freed by British soldiers on 3 May. Furchner around 1944, when he was secretary to camp commandant Paul Werner Hoppe.Newsflash Silbert’s harrowing testimony is the latest development in the trial of Irmgard Furchner, who worked as a secretary at Stutthof from June 1943 to April 1945. Now 97, Furchner is accused of helping to kill more than 11,000 people during her time at the camp. She is being tried as a juvenile because she was under 21 at the time of the alleged crimes. Despite receiving daily letters and radio messages from Stutthof commandant Paul Werner Hoppe, Furchner claims she was unaware of the camp’s murderous plans. Speaking to Der Spiegel last fall, her defense lawyer, Wolf Molkentin, said that “my client worked among SS men who were experienced in violence — but does that mean she shared their knowledge?” “That’s not necessarily obvious,” he argued. Furchner’s alleged ignorance, however, is challenged by the claim that her husband, a former SS soldier, testified in 1954 that he knew that prisoners were being murdered at the camp. Furchner denies any knowledge of Nazi murderous activities.REUTERS Historian Stefan Hoerdler, another prominent voice in the case, claimed that Furchner hid SS soldiers in her apartment after the war, including Hoppe. Hoppe, who died in 1974, served just nine years in prison in the 1950s for being an accessory to murder. Furchner was first expected in court last September. In a handwritten letter to the judge, the non-principal said she wished not to appear “due to my advanced age and physical disabilities.” “I want to avoid embarrassment and I don’t want to be the laughing stock of humanity,” he wrote. Furchner worked at the camp from 1943 to 1945. Newsflash Furchner’s court date was further delayed when she escaped from her nursing home outside Hamburg just hours before the trial was due to begin. Initially escaping in a taxi, Furchner was arrested a few hours later and taken into custody, where a doctor deemed her fit to stand trial. At the time, Christoph Heubner of the International Auschwitz Committee told the press that Furchner’s actions “showed incredible contempt for the rule of law as well as for Holocaust survivors.” According to the Associated Press, the case against Furchner is based on German legal precedent that anyone who helped run Nazi concentration camps can be held liable as an accessory to crimes committed there, even without direct evidence of involvement in a specific incident. Furcher’s particular prosecution was made possible by the 2011 conviction of John Demjanjuk, a former Red Army soldier who was captured by the Germans and trained as an SS guard before settling in the Sobibór death camp. After an 18-month trial – during which a Nazi expert called him “the smallest of small fish” – Demjanjuk was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in aiding and abetting the deaths of 28,060 Jews. Furchner is due in court in October 2021.REUTERS The judge in Demjanjuk’s case ruled that no matter how small a person’s role, they were a “cog” in the “machine of destruction” and should be held accountable. Earlier this month, The Post reported on Germany’s efforts to deal with how the remaining Nazi accomplices — all 90 or older — will face Holocaust justice. Orchestrated by Führer Adolf Hitler, the Nazi reign of terror saw the murder of at least 6 million Jews, as well as 5 million Poles, Soviet citizens and POWs, Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Afro-Germans. Furchner’s trial hinges on German legal precedent allowing the prosecution of former Nazi collaborators.POOL/AFP via Getty Images In June, the Neuruppin District Court sentenced 101-year-old Josef Schütz to five years in prison for his role in the deaths of more than 3,000 prisoners at the Sachsenhausen camp. Like Furchner, Schütz vehemently denied the allegations. He is unlikely to ever serve prison time because of the lengthy appeals process. But while the accused continue to try to avoid justice, the testimonies of survivors paint a vivid picture of the horrors inflicted on the prisoners. Survivor testimony paints a grim picture of the reality of Furchner’s knowledge.REUTERS Speaking at Furchner’s trial last December, Stutthof survivor Joseph Salomonovic, 83, testified that “Maybe [Furchner] he has trouble sleeping at night.” “I know,” he told the court. For her part, Risa Silbert says she still bears physical scars from beatings at the camp. She also insisted that Furchner plead guilty to her crimes. “If he was working as the commander’s secretary, then he knew exactly what happened,” Silbert said.