by Helen Burko
“Mathilda Krause is a typical example of the German nation as far as I was able to acquaint myself with it in the war and after. The Germans will stop at nothing to attain their goal, and the goal will justify the means!
“Didn’t Mathilda Krause know that to send Betty Grasolska to that munitions factory was like sending her to her death? She could have set Betty free when she saw that Betty was intelligent and innocent and that her only crime was that she was Polish. No! Mathilda didn’t set her free, just as thousands of the SS women who, with a little consideration, could have done a lot to ease the suffering of the pitiful prisoners instead of torturing them.
“What then, made Mathilda Krause fall in love with a Jew? She said she loves her husband and loves the Jews. She loves other nations, too. I don’t like to hurt Mr. Barder’s feelings, but it’s very clear why Mathilda had such a great love for her husband.
“She knew very well she couldn’t return to her country and her home, which was in the area the Russians had control of. As a former German spy in Russia, she was in danger, so what did she care if, in the meantime, she would live a life of luxury with a man who loved her and would do anything for her…even defend her!”
Laughter in the courtroom.
Now the prosecutor analyzed the testimony of the witnesses, especially that of Hannah Rubin. “This woman cannot give birth. The man she is in love with and who loves her is miserable… Both of them are miserable even though they love each other.
“And the gypsy Bazilia! How did they sin, these people who loved nature and going to the fairs and playing violin and dancing and everything else good in life?
“Members of the jury! The defense has put questions to the witnesses such as, Why do you think they beat you? Or tortured you? Or shot you? And other foolish questions like about why the wolf attacked the lamb. Hannah was justified in replying the way she did: Because the wolves felt they were the master race. Mathilda Krause was one of these wolves. I would like to add, however, that there were good Germans like Heinrich Heine and Mendelsohn and others…”
General laughter.
“Members of the jury! In light of the facts; and in the name of the millions who were massacred—the widows, the orphans; in the name of humanity and so that the atrocities and demonic practices of the SS in particular, and of the German nation as a whole, will never return; for the innocent; and for justice for the generations to come; we demand the only possible sentence for Mathilda Krause: a sentence of death!”
The word “death” was like a shower of heavy lead on the shoulders of the spectators. It seemed the heartbeats of the many people could be heard in the stillness that followed.
All eyes were fixed on Mathilda, who sat pale and listless. The spectators felt it was one of the most crushing statements that had ever been heard in a courtroom. It was clear the speech had strongly affected the jury, and the prevailing opinion was that any further statement from Jacob would be superfluous. There was nothing to say in favor of those world destroyers! The tension mounted. Perhaps Jacob would rise and state, “I have nothing to say!” as he had done before.
And then there were those who thought he would give one of the most sensational closing statements ever heard. “I am of the same opinion as the prosecutor: Death!”
But that isn’t what Jacob thought. He rose to his feet, and everybody almost stopped breathing. All eyes were on him, curious eyes, piercing eyes, and angry eyes.
He stood there, silent for a moment, and then said, “Members of the jury! Your Honor! I only want to add a few details to the closing statement of the prosecution, a few important details the prosecutor forgot. Yes, I will add just a few, not to disagree with him and not to invalidate his statement, but to clarify a few things he did not say.”
Jacob’s words astounded all the people in the court; even Mathilda gave him a look of surprise. She expected him to oppose the prosecutor’s words, which had been so full of hate for the German nation and for Nazism, but when she heard what he had to say, she was disappointed.
“Yes,” Jacob raised his voice a little, “these are very important details that could affect the outcome of the trial. If he had added them, then I would not have had to say anything and the trial would have ended.
“Members of the jury! What I have to say to you now I want you to receive without unnecessary emotion and with cold logic, and by these words to judge the defendant, Mathilda Krause. I want to emphasize that I have no intention of speaking to your emotions as the prosecutor has done. I want to speak to your intelligence—and only to your intelligence—because feelings can err. Feelings can be false, although the word ‘emotion’ is fine.
“In my opinion, this is a trial that should be judged by the conscious mind and not the subconscious. We have no need to count all the victims! No one will deny there were millions. I asked the witnesses what they would do if they met the murderers who had tortured them. I think you heard the answers, and I think any person with any feeling would have answered exactly the way they did: They would have taken vengeance on the Nazis, because vengeance is an emotion that expresses the need to give some punishment for suffering. You heard one of the partisans, Grisha Magnus, tell us what he did to any Nazi he caught in the forest, so we have to come to the conclusion that those who retaliate are also barbarians even though they act with full consciousness, thinking that what they are doing is right and justified.”
Everyone was listening intently, although they couldn’t understand his intentions from the first part of his statement.
Jacob continued. “If I had a true criterion, although a true criterion doesn’t exist, even then I wouldn’t take upon myself to estimate the extent of the tragedy caused by the war. No, there is no true criterion, and no statistics can number the deaths, nor weigh the evil and atrociousness enacted in this war by Nazis and non-Nazis!”
Applause broke out in the audience, and the judge called them to order again and told them they were not sitting in a theater and to please be silent. If they wanted theater, they should go to Broadway. Jacob’s face wore a very grave expression, and he seemed far away, unaware of the applause.
“Now that the prosecutor has finished his speech, I want to add to it and to ask his forgiveness for doing so.”
Everyone was again puzzled by Jacob’s intentions.
“Members of the jury! I want to ask you: What would this woman, Mathilda Krause, have been if it had not been for the war? What were the real reasons she joined first the Hitler Youth and then the SS? What were the real reasons she became a spy? I put these questions before you because they are the most important ones in this trial, and no one has considered them.
“For generations, we have blamed the criminals for directly or indirectly committing crimes, but we have paid little attention to the reasons for their behavior.
“Mathilda is the daughter of a farmer who, until Hitler appeared, lived quietly on his land. He wasn’t active in politics, and his only interest was in his crops. If not for the war, Mathilda would have been like all other women. Sooner or later she would have married, had children, and continued a normal life and related normally to other men and women.”
Mathilda shot him a grateful glance.
“Forgive me if I sound banal, but a normal life is banal. Through her answers to the questions and my knowledge of her as her husband, we can believe that, if the war had not occurred, she would have remained an intelligent and talented young woman who might have become a ballet dancer, a songstress, a pianist, or a teacher of linguistics.”
“Maybe a teacher of murder and spying!” one of the spectators suddenly shouted out.
“She’s talented—and how!” shouted out another one.
But Jacob continued as though he had heard nothing. “No, Mathilda is not different from other women in the world. She wasn’t born a criminal and a spy! She loved her country as I and all of you love ours, but she had the bad luck to be born at a time when a person with sick ideas was the leader
of her country, and he educated the youth according to these ideas!
“Any person educated to believe that all the other countries are trying to wipe Germany off the map and according to the ideas expressed in Mein Kampf and with the talents of Mathilda Krause would have followed the same path in any other country that had the same regime!
“Members of the jury! Didn’t Mathilda Krause behave the way she did because of the propaganda she was fed daily that Germany was in economic ruin because of the Jews? And that all the other nations, too, were enemies of the Third Reich?
“Every day they pounded into her that Germany was in such a bad condition because the Americans, the English, and the French had, after the first World War, taken away her lands. I am certain that anyone, educated and brainwashed as she was, would have turned out exactly like her!
“I was in a concentration camp during the war. I, too, suffered hunger, deprivation, and pain. I grabbed a piece of bread from another prisoner to ease my hunger. He had received more bread than I and didn’t want to share it.
“Yes, I saw another prisoner torture one of his fellow prisoners… Why? They should have lived together in harmony bound by common suffering as they all shared the same fate—death! I have come to believe that the instincts of men are not bad by nature, and he behaved the way he did, good or bad, because of the circumstances, because of his environment. In other words, he behaved as he did because of physical factors beyond his control!
“I want to ask a question: Can you blame a person for behaving the way they do when it is clear the person would not have become what he is without those physical factors beyond his control? I’m not talking about all the sadists who would not have led quiet, respectable lives.
“If, as the prosecutor claims, the Germans are by nature evil and criminal, why didn’t they commit all those horrible acts in peacetime? This observation should be taken into consideration when we judge all criminals, Germans or others.
“When we come to judge the war criminals, we must, in my opinion, first analyze the era and the causes for World War I and World War II and the reasons for war in general, for only in that way can we wipe out war and crime, which is my object!
“I don’t want to talk about psychology, about who is man, but only his nature, and if we think for a moment what a soldier or a hero is, we find he is a man whom we have taught to kill the enemy… And who is the enemy? That enemy is just another man who doesn’t agree with his convictions. And who is the hero? A hero in the eyes of one country is a criminal in the eyes of another country!
“When I came back to this country, I thought that after this horrible war, man would stop killing, but to my surprise, when I began my work as a lawyer again, I saw nothing had changed. Men were still killing each other, robbing and deceiving each other, and I began to reflect as I had before the war. These criminals were not born that way. When they were innocent children, their mothers watched over them anxiously. So maybe it was the environment or other hidden factors that we are not taking into consideration?
“Yes, at times it was the street, and sometimes it was the home, the wrong education by the parents or by society. Have you ever considered, members of the jury and all of you sitting here in this courtroom, have you ever speculated how an innocent child becomes a criminal? Why shouldn’t we blame the parents and all the other factors in his environment? Why shouldn’t we try to eliminate all the causes for his crime?
“The prosecutor correctly stated that the German nation was responsible for Hitler gaining leadership. They were to blame that the author of Mein Kampf became their leader, their messiah, and it will take many generations to erase that gory blot that stains the whole German nation.
“The prosecutor also correctly stated that there is no price that Germany can pay that will recompense for their actions in this war. After much study and thought about what happened in this war, I still feel that I cannot comprehend what happened! I cannot describe it in words!
“This was not a war! No! No! No!” Jacob pounded the table. “You cannot call it a war when millions of people died—not as soldiers on the battlefield and not as civilians from bombing. Then what name can we give it? And the most important question for me is: How did this monstrosity that has no name happen? Who is to blame for what happened? Who made Hitler a leader and brought the Nazis to power? The whole sick world of the twentieth century! By world I mean all the other quiet nations; they are the ones to blame! What did all the other nations of the world do when every day in the newspapers and on the radio they heard the terrible propaganda spreading throughout Germany? You could say that, according to international law, other nations cannot interfere in a foreign nation.
“Of course! Well maybe that law should be altered so that something like this cannot happen again! They should not have kept silent, though. They could have screamed to the high heavens, and then maybe it would have stopped. But the English capitulated, the Vatican was silent, and the other nations like America didn’t want to become involved.
“All the nations announce loudly that they want peace… Then why are they all so busy inventing and making more and more sophisticated weapons?”
Jacob was quiet for a few seconds, and the silence in the courtroom became oppressive.
“The prosecutor demanded the death sentence for Mathilda Krause, and I’m sure that thousands agree with him that this is justice and the law, but I want to ask: What is justice and the law? In my opinion, the law is just a purge for a chronic disease. The court that swears a witness on the Bible must follow God’s law of ‘Thou must not kill!’ in that Bible!
“I turn to all the people in this courtroom—all the lawyers, judges, people of the press, psychologists, and intellectuals present here—and ask you to tell me: How is it that the people of the SS could execute women, children, the old, and the sick and, at the same time, love their wives, their children, their old parents, and their friends? If he was an animal as was claimed in this court, why didn’t he kill his own wife, children, parents, and friends?
“I have only one answer to that: because he was educated that way! Educated to think that all but the German people were inferior to him and could do him harm, and this became part of his nature…a reflex…
“Allow me to tell you something I personally experienced in the war.” Jacob lowered his voice, and the spectators hung on every word. “In one of the Russian prisons, I was in a cell with a young man, a modest young man, who was quiet and even sentimental. He had none of the physical or mental characteristics of a criminal. Because I had some experience in defending criminals, I tried to learn in depth the nature of this young man. I asked him what his reasons were for killing a man, and this young murderer, his name was Alexey, told me he was a member of a youth group in a Komsomol. He said he had been taught to hate the enemy, ‘imperialism,’ and also taught to uproot it whenever he could. That death was nothing in comparison with honor and respect in the Komsomol. He had swallowed these lessons until they were in his subconscious. He was taught to shoot, use a knife, and defend his honor by any means, and so when a friend of his insulted him, he took out his knife and stabbed him!
“I’m not a psychologist.” Jacob smiled his bitter smile. “But I would dare say that if Alexey had been taught that in certain circumstances it is not permissible to kill, he would not have been so quick to kill his friend.
“Now, if the gentlemen of the press will excuse me, I want to say a few harsh words to all your members who have such mania for sensationalism and don’t understand they are encouraging sensationalism. So much is written daily about murder, rape, and robbery that it weakens the shock. It also gives the criminal’s ego satisfaction and soothes his inferiority complex by giving him publicity and making him something of a ‘hero.’”
When the judge announced that because of the length of the closing statements, they would have to recess and continue the next day, people stayed in their seats, talking in a whisper that quickly grew into a hubbu
b.
One man finally rose and, as he left, he remarked, “He’s going to win this case!”
“This is the first time in my life I have ever heard a speech like that.”
“He may be right, that young lawyer.”
“It’s difficult to understand him.”
“And I say Mathilda Krause is not guilty! He’s right! If it weren’t for the war, she’d be like everybody else!”
“Nonsense! Who asked Germany to start the war?”
“He’s right, that Barder. Why did the world let the animal out of his cage?”
“Was there a choice?”
“An ultimatum could have been presented to Hitler at the beginning that he must stop his atrocious behavior or else he would be bombed.”
“That would also have caused the war the world tried to avoid!”
“No, that would have been all the world against him! Barder was right!”
“What would happen if another Hitler should rise tomorrow in another country?”
“Were the eyes of the world blindfolded?”
“Politics, ahh, politics!”
When the crowd had dispersed and Claude Alrist had finished with all the newspapermen, Betty Grasolska, Hannah Rubin, and Grisha Magnus approached him.
“Is it possible that Mathilda Krause will be freed?” Hannah was very worried.
“It’s difficult to guess what the twelve jurors will decide,” he replied. “It’s true, though, that Barder’s closing statement made an impression on them!”
“He’s a demagogue!” said Grisha with hate in his eyes. “He’s inconsistent. A shame he wasn’t at Majdanek; he’d speak differently if he had been there.”
“What do you think the sentence will be?” asked Betty.
“Hard to say,” explained Claude.
“You don’t think she’ll get the electric chair?”
“I don’t think the sentence will be death,” said Claude truthfully.
*****
Four people didn’t sleep at all that night: the prosecutor, Claude Alrist; Jacob, who was scanning all kinds of books; Mathilda, who lay awake in expectation of her fate the next day; and Hannah Rubin, whose brain was churning with the thought that Mathilda, as a former member of the SS who helped slaughter millions of innocent people, must be punished. She mustn’t be permitted to go free!