DUPONT: Yes, in Paris. A very highly cultured and brilliantly
intelligent man. In January 1945 I learned that he had just arrived from
Monovitz. I found him in Block 58, a block which in normal circumstances
would hold 300 men, and into which 1,200 had been crowded—Hungarians,
Poles, Russians, Czechs, with a large proportion of Jews in an
extraordinary state of misery. I did not recognize Léon Kindberg because
there was nothing to distinguish him from the usual type to be found in
these blocks. There was no longer any sign of intellect in him and it
was hard to find anything of the man that I had formerly known. We
managed to get him out of that block but his health was unfortunately
too much impaired and he died shortly after his liberation.
M. DUBOST: Can you tell the Tribunal, as far as you know, the “crimes”
committed by this man?
DUPONT: After the armistice Léon Kindberg settled in Toulouse to
practice the treatment of pulmonary consumption. I know from an
absolutely reliable source that he had taken no part whatsoever in
activities directed against the German occupation authorities in France.
They found out that he was a Jew and as such he was arrested and
deported. He drifted into Buchenwald by way of Auschwitz and Monovitz.
M. DUBOST: What crime had General Duval committed that he should be
imprisoned along with pimps, moral degenerates, and murderers? What had
General Vernaud done?
DUPONT: I know nothing about the activities of General Duval and General
Vernaud during the occupation. All I can say is that they were certainly
not asocial.