Suspected Nazi Acquitted of Slaying Jews
HAMBURG, West Germany — A trial court today acquitted an alleged former Nazi Gestapo member on charges of murdering three Jews and aiding in the deportation of 5,000 others to the Auschwitz death camp.
The court ruled that after more than 40 years, the evidence was not convincing enough to justify convicting 70-year-old Harri Schulz.
Prosecutor Helge Grabitz said she will appeal. She charged that Schulz killed three Jews and helped deport thousands of others from the southern Polish city of Zawiercie to Auschwitz in 1942 and 1943.
Schulz, whose trial began in April, 1984, denied the charges. He also denied he was a Gestapo member, contending he worked only for the Nazi border police in occupied Poland.
Rita Ledor, a Polish-born Jew now living in San Antonio, Tex., told the court last October that Schulz looked on smiling as his German shepherd dog “ate alive†an elderly Jewish man in the summer of 1942.
Prosecutors said some potential witnesses were too old or sick to travel from their homes in Poland, the United States and Israel to repeat what they had told investigators years ago.
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