TRIAL AND PUNISHMENT Crestapo Commandant Gustav Friedl’s trial took place in the Bialystok Appeals Court at the end of October 1949. Approximately twenty witnesses, who had suffered under the Nazis, gave testimony against Fried! at the trial, which lasted several days. Among them were: Chackel Fendzuch, Awrom Ostroburski, Dowid Kolesznik, Szlojme Blas, Chaim Wrubel, Isroel Bramson, Mira Knaziew, Efrajim Kisler, Fanja Lipin- ska, Dr. Tobtjasz Cytron, Rochel Zacharijasz, Berta Knaziew and others. The prosecution’s expert witness was the well-known historian and chronicler of the de- struction of Bialystok, Dr. Szymon Datner. In a special report by I. Bialostocki, from Bialy- stok, published in the January-February 1950 issue of the Bialystoker Stimme, Friedl’s trial was described: “The courtroom filled up at the appointed hour. People spoke in hushed tones, as if the master of life and death of thousands of Jews in the Bialystok ghetto and in the provinces were about to enter with his mighty forces — not the Friedl of today, clad in prison garb and guarded by four military police. Today Friedl would be called to justice, to render an account of his murderous activities in the Bialystok region. Spectators were reliving once again those days of Bialystoker Jew- ry’s destruction, flashbacks of nightmarish experiences, hundreds of gory details returning to consciousness — all triggered by this criminal, Friedl, and his Nazi henchmen. That is why people sat in the courtroom with bowed heads waiting for Friedl to be led inside. Everywhere in the large room, people were quietly talk- ing about those days, when the accused decided the fate of their loved ones — fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, children and grandparents — who had per- ished not so long ago. For everyone, Friedl was the symbol of death, the death of all, of a quarter million Jews of Bialystok and its provinces. “The waiting was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps. The accused was brought into the courtroom by the four military guards. The Jewish faces blanched; voices exclaimed, ‘There he is! The murderer of the Bialystoker Jews.’ But one thing could not be understood: how one man could possess such animalistic brutality to carry out so many murders. “Exactly at 9:30 in the morning, the judges took their seats behind the bench. The proceedings com- menced with swearing in the witnesses, who were to give their testimony during the first day of the trial. the indictment, Friedl was accused of commit-‏ חזײ ting many war crimes while Commandant of the Ge-‏ stapo in Bialystok from November 1942 until 1945,‏ resulting in the murder of thousands of people. As the‏ officer in charge of Jewish affairs, he was responsible‏ for the liquidation of 13,000 Jews in Zabludowa; the‏ 104 murder of 2,000 Jews in the Bialystok ghetto, many of whom he personally shot; the transfer of 13,000 Jews from the Bialystok ghetto; and finally, its liquidation, transporting 50,000 of its Jewish inhabitants to the con- centration camps. He personally issued orders to hang, shoot and kill several thousand people. Moreover, in November 1942, when Jews from Zabludowa and other towns were brought to Bialystok, Friedl instructed that their food rations be reduced and he personally shot thirteen members of the Zabludowa Judenrat. In November 1942 he shot two Partisans. In December 1942 he threw a Jewish man through the window of his office on the second floor. In the winter of 1942-43, he hanged three Jews for allegedly stealing sunflower seeds from an oil factory. In February 1943, during the first liquidation action, he shot an eighty-year-old woman in the street because she was unsuitable for labor. He directed and participated in the execution of a hundred hostages in retaliation for the Malmed incident. He shot Izchok Malmed after the latter’s body fell from the gal- lows. On May 4, 1943, he murdered a group of butchers, and in that same month shot 150 men cap- tured during a police raid. On August 20, 1943, he liq- uidated the ghetto hospital and personally shot 300 patients near the previously excavated pits in the Zabia cemetery. At Gestapo headquarters he personally shot three Partisans because they refused to stand with their hands raised. In November 1943, he took away a group of sixty children from their parents in prison and killed them. In 1944, he shot a group of lawyers. In the pri- son, he conducted two selections every week, resulting in the deaths of scores of people. During a visit to the Grodno prison he shot twenty-five Jews. He terrorized the Jewish population and robbed their possessions. ‘During the first liquidation action in the ghetto in February 1943, despite the fact that Chairman Barasz had agreed to evacuate 6,000 Jews from the ghetto and had prepared the required lists of those to be trans- ferred, Friedl took action that resulted in the death of 2,000 Jews and the deportation of 13,000 to the concen- tration camps.