London - A man claiming to be an eyewitness of atrocities committed against Jews during the second World War described to an Old Bailey jury yesterday the persecution they faced in Belarus after the German invasion of 1941. Mr Ben Zion Blustein said there were many deaths in his home town of Domachevo, Belarus, when the German army arrived on June 22nd, 1941. Ninety per cent of the population was Jewish at the time.
Mr Blustein, now 76, is the first full witness to give evidence in the trial of Mr Anthony Sawoniuk (77), a retired British Rail ticket inspector, who is alleged to have led local search-and-kill police squads which hunted down Jews following the German invasion.
Mr Blustein described a series of murders, including the horror of how one man was forced to bury his son alive after watching the Germans shoot three of his boys.