{"product_id":"9781621900498","title":"Eyewitness to Genocide: The Operation Reinhard Death Camp Trials, 1955-1966","description":"\u003cbr\u003eOne of the deadliest phases of the Holocaust, the Nazi regime’s “Operation Reinhard”\u003cbr\u003e produced three major death camps—Belzec, Treblinka, and Sobibor—which claimed the\u003cbr\u003e lives of 1.8 million Jews. In the 1960s, a small measure of justice came for those victims\u003cbr\u003e when a score of defendants who had been officers and guards at the camps were convicted\u003cbr\u003e of war crimes in West German courts. The conviction rates varied, however. While all but\u003cbr\u003e one of fourteen Treblinka defendants were convicted, half of the twelve Sobibor defendants\u003cbr\u003e escaped punishment, and only one of eight Belzec defendants was convicted. Also,\u003cbr\u003e despite the enormity of the crimes, the sentences were light in many cases, amounting to\u003cbr\u003e only a few years in prison.\u003cp\u003eIn this meticulous history of the Operation Reinhard trials, Michael S. Bryant examines\u003cbr\u003e a disturbing question: Did compromised jurists engineer acquittals or lenient punishments\u003cbr\u003e for proven killers? Drawing on rarely studied archival sources, Bryant concludes\u003cbr\u003e that the trial judges acted in good faith within the bounds of West German law. The key\u003cbr\u003e to successful prosecutions was eyewitness testimony. At Belzec, the near-total efficiency\u003cbr\u003e of the Nazi death machine meant that only one survivor could be found to testify. At Treblinka\u003cbr\u003e and Sobibor, however, prisoner revolts had resulted in a number of survivors who\u003cbr\u003e could give firsthand accounts of specific atrocities and identify participants. The courts,\u003cbr\u003e Bryant finds, treated these witnesses with respect and even made allowances for conflicting\u003cbr\u003e testimony. And when handing down sentences, the judges acted in accordance with\u003cbr\u003e strict legal definitions of perpetration, complicity, and action under duress.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet, despite these findings, Bryant also shows that West German legal culture was\u003cbr\u003e hardly blameless during the postwar era. Though ready to convict the mostly workingclass\u003cbr\u003e personnel of the death camps, the Federal Republic followed policies that insulated\u003cbr\u003e the judicial elite from accountability for its own role in the Final Solution. While trial\u003cbr\u003e records show that the “bias” of West German jurists was neither direct nor personal, the\u003cbr\u003e structure of the system ensured that lawyers and judges themselves avoided judgment.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Tennessee Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47042326397168,"sku":"9781621900498","price":69.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781621900498_p0.jpg?v=1763860867","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781621900498","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}