Authors: Leon Uris
He was an old-timer who had given hundreds of spinals with and without pre-injection of morphia and supported in essence what Sir Adam had testified.
Brendon O’Conner cross-examined him only briefly.
“Then, a spinal blockage, when properly injected, is a relatively simple piece of business?”
“Yes, in the hands of a physician with the experience of Sir Adam.”
“Provided,” O’Conner said, “one has the full consent and cooperation of the patient. Would you care, Dr. Boland, to speculate if the patient were physically restrained against his will, screaming, kicking, biting for his freedom. Could not the spinal under those circumstances become quite painful?”
“I have never administered one under such circumstances.”
“If the needle slipped because of violent movement of the patient.”
“Then it could be painful.”
A parade of witnesses followed. First, the elder of the Polish community in London, Count Czerny, who recounted Sir Adam’s successful fight against extradition. Then former Colonel Gajnow who conducted the initial investigation of Kelno in Italy, then Dr. August Novak, who had been the executive surgeon of the Polish Hospital in Tunbridge Wells, then three former Polish officers who were prisoners in Jadwiga and members of the Nationalist underground, and then four patients whom Kelno had saved in Jadwiga with particular skill.
O’Conner cross-examined each briefly.
“Are you Jewish?” he asked.
The answer was a uniform, “no.”
But more interesting, “When Dr. Kelno took out your appendix do you remember a sheet before your face?”
“I remember nothing. I was put to sleep.”
“Not injected in the spine?”
“No, I was put to sleep,”
J. J. MacAlister came up from Budleigh-Salterton. He had difficulty in speaking because of a stroke, but his recounting of Kelno’s years in Sarawak were most effective as a former colonial officer speaking the jargon of the jury.
Then another former inmate was called to the witness box
“Sir Robert,” the judge said, “to what point is your next witness addressed?”
“The same point, my Lord.”
“I can understand,” Anthony Gilray said, “that you wish to impress on the jury that Dr. Kelno was a kind man. No one is suggesting he wasn’t kind to certain patients.”
“I do not wish to seem impertinent, my Lord, but I have two more witnesses to this point.”
“Well,” the judge persisted, “no one contests that Dr. Kelno was considerate of Polish men and women. What is suggested is that when it came to Jews, it was an entirely different matter.”
“My Lord, I must confess I have a witness who has just arrived from out of the country, and I shall agree that he will be my final witness if his Lordship would call an early recess today.”
“Well, I don’t think the jury is going to object to an early adjournment.”
Cady, Shawcross, and his people rushed across the hall to the consultation room. In a moment Josephson came with the confirmation and they were shaken. Konstanty Lotaki had arrived from Warsaw to testify for Adam Kelno.
“We shall continue to do our best,” Bannister said.
9
T
HE WORD SPREAD LIKE
a brush fire that Konstanty Lotaki had arrived in London to testify for Kelno. It was a severe blow for Cady.
“I call to the stand as our last witness, Dr. Konstanty Lotaki.”
The associate led him up the three steps into the box and a Polish interpreter stood beside him. The jury was particularly alert at the sight of the new arrival and the press section spilled over into extra tables. The oath was issued to the interpreter.
Bannister arose. “My Lord, since this witness will be testifying through an interpreter and since we have our own Polish interpreter, I should like to request that my learned friend’s interpreter transmit all questions and answers loudly and clearly so that we are in a position to challenge if necessary.
“Do you understand that?” Gilray asked.
The interpreter nodded.
“Would you ask Dr. Lotaki what his religious beliefs are and how he wishes to be sworn in?”
There was an exchange of conversation. “He has no religious beliefs. He is a Communist.”
“Very well,” Gilray said, “you may affirm the witness.”
The heavy-set pumpkin-faced man spoke low key, as though he were in a trance. He gave his name and his address in Lublin, where he was a chief surgeon of a government hospital.
He had been arrested on false charges in 1942 by the Gestapo and learned later the Germans used this method of pressing doctors into concentration camp service. He arrived at Jadwiga and was assigned to Kelno’s section. It was the first time they had ever met. He worked with Kelno in a general way, having his own surgery, dispensary, and hospital wards.
“Did Dr. Kelno run a proper establishment?”
“Under the circumstances, no one could have done better.”
“And he treated his patients well and with personal kindness?”
“Exceptionally.”
“Did he discriminate against Jewish patients?”
“I never saw it.”
“Now, when did you first come into contact with SS Dr. Adolph Voss?”
“From the first day.”
“Do you recall a particular time when Voss ordered you down to his office and told you that you would be doing operations in Barrack V?”
“I will never forget it.”
“Would you tell my Lord and the jury about that.”
“We all know about Voss’s experiments. I was summoned in summer of 1943 after Dr. Dimshits had been sent to the gas chamber. Until then Dimshits had been his surgeon.”
“Did you go with Dr. Kelno?”
“We were called separately.”
“Please continue.”
“Voss told me we were to remove testicles and ovaries of persons he was experimenting on. I told him I didn’t want to take part in this, and he said he would have an SS orderly perform the operations, and I would meet the same fate as Dimshits.”
There was a break down in the translation and a member of the Polish press volunteered a half dozen words.
“Just a moment,” Anthony Gilray said. “I am delighted to have members of the international press in my court, but I do rather they not take part in the proceedings.”
“Sorry, my Lord,” the reporter apologized.
“Mr. Interpreter, if you encounter any difficulty, kindly advise the court. You may continue, Sir Robert.”
“As a result of this meeting with Voss, what did you do?”
“I was distressed and looked to Dr. Kelno as my superior. We decided to call a meeting of all the doctors except Dr. Tesslar, and we decided it would be in the interest of the patients if we operated.”
“And you did.”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“I think fifteen to twenty operations.
“Proper operations.
“With more than usual care.”
“And you had occasion to observe Dr. Kelno and on other occasions he assisted you. Was there ever, I repeat, ever on any occasion any abuse of the patients?”
“No, never.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Dr. Lotaki. In your learned opinion, is there danger to a patient in leaving in an organ that had been X-rayed?”
“I am not a qualified radiologist. I have no opinion. My concern is that the patients should not be operated on by less skilled people.”
“What kind of anesthetic was administered on these occasions?”
“Larocaine by spinal blockage after a preliminary injection of morphia to comfort the patient.”
“Could you tell us who else was in the operating room?”
“A surgical team, someone to look after the instruments. Dr. Kelno and I assisted each other and Voss was present always with one or two other Germans.”
“Did you ever personally meet Dr. Mark Tesslar?”
“Yes, several times.”
“What was the general discussion about his activities?”
“In a concentration camp there are rumors about everything. I stayed clear of this business. I am a doctor.”
“Then you were not a member of the underground, either the so-called international underground or the Nationalist underground.”
“No.”
“So you had no malice toward Dr. Tesslar and he had none toward you?”
“That is right.”
“Did Dr. Tesslar ever attend any operations in Barrack V in which you either performed or assisted?”
“No, never.”
“And were any of these operations done with undue speed or in a haphazard manner?”
“No. They were done by standard procedures with almost no pain to the patient.”
“Now then, you were removed from Jadwiga Concentration Camp in 1944, is that correct?”
“I was taken out by Dr. Flensberg to a private clinic near Munich. He had me do surgery.”
“Were you paid?”
“Flensberg took all the fees.”
“But life was better than in Jadwiga.”
“Anything was better than Jadwiga.”
“You were dressed, fed decently, free to move about?”
“We had better clothing and food, but I was always under guard.”
“And at the end of the war you made your way back to Poland?”
“I have lived and worked there since.”
“Essentially, in Jadwiga you and Dr. Kelno performed the same kind of work for Dr. Voss. Did you know that Dr. Kelno was wanted as a war criminal?”
“Yes, I heard.”
“But you were not involved in the Nationalist underground so no charges were brought against you.”
“I did nothing wrong.”
“Now then, Dr. Lotaki, what is your present political conviction?”
“After what I saw in Jadwiga I have become a determined anti-fascist. I feel the best way to combat fascism is through the Communist party.”
“No further questions.”
Thomas Bannister adjusted his robe carefully, took his set stance, and studied Lotaki with a long period of deliberate silence. Abe passed a note to O’Conner,
ARE WE IN TROUBLE?
YES
, the return reply came.
“Do you agree, Dr. Lotaki, that before Hitler Germany was among the most civilized and cultured countries of the world?”
“Sterilized countries?”
A relief of laughter.
“You shall not laugh at any witness in my court,” Gilray said. “Now, Mr. Bannister, as to this line of questioning ... you know your job and I’m not advising you ... never mind, continue. Explain the question again, Mr. Interpreter.”
“I agree that Germany was civilized before Hitler.”
“And if someone would have told you what this civilized country was going to do in the next decade you would have refused to believe that.”
“Yes.”
“Mass murders, experiments on human guinea pigs, forceful removal of sex organs for the eventual purpose of mass sterilization. You wouldn’t have believed that before Hitler, would you?”
“No.”
“And would you say that any doctor having taken the Hippocratic oath would not have taken part in these experiments?”
“I am going to intervene,” Gilray said. “One of the problems of this case is that of voluntary acts as against involuntary acts in its context with human morality.”
“My Lord,” Thomas Bannister said with his voice rising for the first time. “When I use the words ‘taken part in’ I mean any surgeon who has removed sex organs. I mean that Dr. Lotaki knew what Voss was doing and why he was ordered to cut off testicles and hack out ovaries.”
“I did it under duress.”
“Let me clarify this,” Gilray said. “We are in the Royal Courts of Justice and this case is being dealt with according to the common law of England. Now then, is it your contention, Mr. Bannister, that you are putting a case before the jury on the grounds that an operation performed under duress still amounts to justification against libel?”
“That is my case, my Lord,” Bannister snapped back, “that no doctor, prisoner or otherwise, had any right to perform such operations!”
A gasp floated over the room. “Well then, we know where we stand, don’t we?”
“Now, Dr. Lotaki,” Bannister said. “Did you really believe Voss would have used an inexperienced SS orderly to perform these operations?”
“I had no reason to doubt it.”
“Voss went to Himmler for permission to conduct these experiments. If these testicles and ovaries were not properly removed they were then useless to the experiment. How in the name of God could anyone believe this nonsense about an SS orderly?”
“Voss was not sane,” Lotaki sputtered. “All of it was quite mad.”
“But he was bluffing. He had to submit reports to Berlin, and he had to have qualified surgeons.”
“So he would have sent me to the gas chamber like Dimshits and found another surgeon.”
“Dr. Lotaki, will you be so kind as to describe Dr. Dimshits to my Lord and the jury.”
“He was a Jew, older, perhaps seventy or more.”
“And living in a concentration camp aged him further?”
“Yes.”
“What of his physical appearance?”
“Very old.”
“And feeble and failing?”
“I ... I ... I can’t say.”
“No longer able to function as a surgeon ... no longer of use to the Germans.”
“I ... can’t ... say ... he knew too much.”
“But you and Kelno knew the same things and you didn’t go to the gas chamber. You went to private clinics. I suggest that Dr. Dimshits went to the gas chamber because he was old and useless. I suggest that is the real reason, no other. Now then, Dr. Kelno has testified that he is a victim of a Communist plot. You are a Communist. Would you comment on that?”
“I am in London to tell the truth,” Lotaki cried out shaken. “What makes you think a Communist cannot tell the truth or testify for a non-Communist?”
“Have you heard of Berthold Richter, the high East German Communist?”
“Yes.”
“Are you aware that he and hundreds of Nazis are now in the Communist regime who were former concentration camp officials?”
“Now just a moment,” Gilray said, turning to the jury, “I am certain Mr. Bannister is correct in his last statement but it doesn’t mean that it is evidence unless it is offered as evidence.”
“What I am suggesting, my Lord, is that the Communists have a very convenient way to rehabilitate former Nazis and SS who are useful to them. No matter how black their past, if they throw themselves on the altar of Communism, and if they are of use to the regime, their past is forgotten.”