THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath: “I swear by God—the Almighty and Omniscient—that I will speak the truth, the pure truth—and will withhold and add nothing.”
[The witness repeated the oath.]
THE PRESIDENT: You can sit down if you wish.
MR. DODD: You are Dr. Franz Blaha, a native and a citizen of Czechoslovakia, are you not?
BLAHA: [In Czech.] Yes.
MR. DODD: I understand that you are able to speak German, and for technical reasons I suggest that we conduct this examination in German, although I know your native tongue is Czech; is that right?
BLAHA: [In Czech.] In the interest of the case I am willing to testify in German for the following reasons: 1. For the past 7 years, which are the subject of my testimony, I have lived exclusively in German surroundings; 2. A large number of special and technical expressions relating to life in and about the concentration camps are purely German inventions, and no appropriate equivalent for them in any other language can be found.
MR. DODD: Dr. Blaha, by education and training and profession you are a doctor of medicine?
BLAHA: [In German.] Yes.
MR. DODD: And in 1939 you were the head of a hospital in Czechoslovakia?