DR. KAUFFMANN: Do you perhaps know whether people who received leave, that is, inmates who temporarily were permitted to leave the camp, were permitted to speak about their experiences inside the camp and relate these experiences to the outside world?
BALACHOWSKY: All the concentration camps were, after all, vast transit camps. The inmates were constantly changing, passing from one camp to another, coming and going. Consequently there were always new faces. But most of the time, apart from those whom we knew before our arrest, or a few other comrades, we knew nothing about those who came and went.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Perhaps I did not express myself clearly. I mean the following: As you said before, political prisoners were permitted to leave the camp temporarily from time to time. Did these inmates know about these excesses, and if they did know, were they permitted to speak about these experiments in the rest of Germany?
BALACHOWSKY: The political prisoners (very few and all of German nationality) who ever obtained leave were prisoners whom the SS had entrusted with important posts in the camp and who had been imprisoned for at least 10 years in the camp. This was so, for instance, in the case of Karl, the Kapo, head of the canteen of the Buchenwald Camp, the canteen of the Waffen SS, who was responsible for the canteen. He was given a fortnight’s leave to visit his family at his home in the town of Zeitz. Consequently this Kapo was free for 10 days and was able to tell his family anything he wanted to; but I do not know, of course, what he did. What I can say is that obviously he had to be careful. In any case, the prisoners who were allowed to leave the camp were old inmates, as I have said, who knew approximately everything that was going on, including the experiments.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Now, one last question. If I assume that the people you just described told anything to members of their families, even on the pledge of secrecy, and the leaders of the camp came to know of these indiscretions, do you not believe that the death penalty might have been incurred?
BALACHOWSKY: If there were indiscretions of that kind on the part of the family (for such indiscretions may be repeated among one’s acquaintances), or at least, if such indiscretions came to the knowledge of the SS, it is obvious that those prisoners risked the death penalty.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any other Defense Counsel who wants to ask any questions?
HERR BABEL: I protest against the prosecutor’s declaration that I tried to confuse witnesses with my questions. I am not here to worry about the good opinion or otherwise of the press, but to do my duty as a defense attorney . . .
THE PRESIDENT: You are going too fast.