Vilis HāznersDOJ INS Post-Trial Brief—Annotated

The INS misrepresents and omits testimony. Hāzners was placed at Elizebetes street, being dispatched to pursue retreating Red Army. The INS calls this a lie. Well, not exactly, they just say the witness didn't follow Hāzners to see if he went where he was ordered to go, therefore that testimony did not verify Hāzners's location and was voided for that purpose. You would think that the men who had been placed under Hāzners's command would have noticed if Hāzners had disobeyed his orders. The INS's argument is specious at best.

This sort of derision is typical of the INS's attempting to taint the court's perception of Hāzners. While the INS does not engage in the Soviet procurator model, that is, refer to Hāzners each time as "the war criminal Hāzners," it is worth nothing that is how the Israeli investigator introduced his photo to potential witnesses.

That the retreating Soviets sabotaged the phone in central Rīga has no bearing on the case here. Hāzners indicates in his memoir his own surprise that the phone was still working across the river. The INS also contended Hāzners would have deserted his post had he gone home, as he would have done so without communicating to his commanding officer because the phone "was not working." More logical contortions, since Hāzners messaged Veiss and received permission. Moreover, the same witness who testified the phone was not working in central Rīga also testified that it was functioning between Rīga and the suburbs—the INS simply ignored exculpatory testimony which did not fit its narrative of guilt.

The 100 kilometers certainly appears problematic at first glance. It is less speculative than many of the INS's contentions to suggest Vilips translated time into distance—after living in exile for 30 years, "100 km" is as far as one can drive in an hour on the highway. It certainly felt like it was 100 km away. Even in today's Rīga, Bolderāja is a half hour drive from the center of Rīga. It surely took far, far, longer on bombed out roads swarming with troops, equipment, and checkpoints in the invasion aftermath, not to mention that the retreating Russians had destroyed the bridges over the Daugava to slow the German advance; getting to Bolderāja from central Rīga necessitated crossing the river over temporary bridging—competing with German military heading in the opposite direction. We expect it took hours for Vilips to reach his position. Hāzners also mentions Vilips and their action along the Daugava in his memoir. There is no basis for the INS to discount Vilips' testimony.

That the witnesses for the defense were not monolithic in their origin and not perfect in their recollections after so many years is far more genuine and believable than the INS's monolithic witness steamroller trapped out with the INS's logical contortions, speculations, and historical lies in an attempt to construct a scenario where the INS's witnesses were not mistaken in their identification of Hāzners. A handful of witnesses out of some 150 to 200 interviewed who would have had opportunity to encounter Hāzners at the Prefecture or Ghetto picked out Hāzners's picture; the most likely explanation that so few "recognized" him is that it was a case of mistaken identity.

That the same individual was seen multiple times, even by multiple witnesses, does not lend credibility to it being Hāzners. As Mendelkorn's testimony conclusively demonstrated—assuming Mendelkorn was being truthful—there is no impediment to being convinced, convincing, and mistaken.