Committee for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes in Baltic Countries

The prosecution of what became known as the 'Riga Ghetto Case' (LG Hamburg vom 29.12.1951, [50] 14/51) was significant because it signalled a change in policy on the prosecution of war crimes trials in Great Britain. The British originally planned to prosecute the five defendants accused of the most serious crimes, in a Control Commission Court (ie for crimes against humanity) and let the 11 lesser accused be tried in a German Spruchkammer for membership of illegal organisations. After some delay, the decision was made in Spring 1948 by the Foreign Office to hand over the prosecution of all the defendants in the Riga Ghetto case to the German authorities, stating that the German courts were perfectly capable of undertaking the work.

The Committee for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes in Baltic Countries, (made up of former inmates of camps in Riga/ Buchenwald and formerly known as the Group of Baltic Survivors in Great Britain), formed a sub-committee, which met in London, to assist in the investigation of crimes for this trial. Its activities consisted of contacting potential witnesses and gathering statements and affidavits in support of the prosecution. At one point, the General Secretary of the Committee, Josef Berman, a Latvian Jew and former inmate of Riga and Buchenwald, was asked to go to Hamburg to meet the investigating judge in the case. Much to the latter's dismay, most of the statements which had been gathered over the past years could not be used by the investigating judge because they apparently did not meet the rigorous criteria demanded by German courts.

...