A Trial Without a Defendant
Dr. Yehudit Dori Deston
The research reveals the records of a mock trial which was conducted in 1985 in Jerusalem for SS officer, Josef Mengele, in the absence of the accused. At the heart of the proceedings stood the testimonies of 30 Auschwitz survivors, which were intended to constitute evidentiary material that would serve as proof of Mengele’s crimes when he would be brought to a "real" criminal trial. The research seeks to examine the difference of a criminal proceedings versus other stages, including semi-legal proceedings, for the purposes of documentation, commemoration and shaping the collective memory of the Holocaust.