“In Kraków the trial of the principal culprits for the Auschwitz concentration camp came to an end before a Polish court. The Defendants were German camp guards or members of the German camp administration staff.

Unheard-of atrocities against the camp inmates, particularly against female prisoners, were proved against them. Altogether nearly 300,000 people from the most different nations died in the Auschwitz concentration camp. The court sentenced 23 of the accused to death, six to life sentences and 10 to lengthy jail terms; one was acquitted.

“The Auschwitz concentration camp remains as it stands today, as a monument of shame to the lasting memory of its 300,000 victims.”

Source: A post-war German newsreel from January 1948, regarding the Auschwitz trial where a number of defendants, rather as at Nuremberg, had been prosecuted by the Polish Government for crimes against humanity. Sentence was passed a week or two before this newsreel was shown.

The lengthy trial, which ended with the execution of a number of people, included the hearing of evidence, the hearing of witness statements, the taking of depositions, and the forensic examination of the site. At the time of this newsreel, Germany was still under Allied occupation, and each media outlet in Germany had to be licensed by the Allied authorities.