re: Nuremberg trailer - Rami Malek & Russell Crowe

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Taking the second relay on his first day there proved to be a little intimidating for Cumoletti. “When I got to the second relay, I faced these massive bronze doors with heavy security,” he said. “And the police opened up the doors just so I alone could walk into this courtroom, packed with dignitaries from all over the world, prosecutors and judges and the 21 Nazis sitting right up there. “It’s difficult to explain the thrill of that, to just walk in there, and the presence of everybody, and the proceedings were going on at the time, by the way, so there was a momentary disruption as everyone looked to see who’s this guy coming in,” he continued. “And you hoped that you don’t drop your pencil or your book or anything else, and you hope you do your job right.”

Until the trials concluded, he spent his days listening, writing, typing … and learning. While digesting overwhelming amounts of information and details of the Holocaust, he was not permitted to speak or offer opinion. He said it was difficult not to be emotionally affected by the sheer amount of evidence presented at the trials. “It changed my whole philosophy of life and thinking,” Cumoletti said. “I couldn’t believe what I saw. I see this human lampshade, a lamp made from human skin, it’s hard to believe. You say to yourself, is this a new world? What is this all about? A city 95 percent leveled. And here’s the evidence, it’s staggering. You can’t believe that humans would do these things.”

While testifying about an incident where German soldiers killed a group of prisoners to avoid having to feed them, a Nazi officer justified this as a youthful prank. “The Nazis were tremendous for taking pictures, while these things were occurring, never believing they would lose the war,” Cumoletti said. “And they didn’t have time to destroy them, so the evidence was there, the films were there as people were getting slaughtered. The thing that I didn’t like, the one thing sometimes stands out more than others, is to have these kids in the pit – that’s what bothered me – little children with their mothers, trying to hide under their mothers’ skirts, for example, and have them machine-gunned.”

Sitting 10 feet away from defendants such as Rudolph Hess, Hermann Goering and Albert Speer, Cumoletti could look into their eyes and watch their reactions throughout the trials. “None of them showed any compassion – they sat there sullen and quiet mostly,” he said. “The seriousness of this thing didn’t come across.” Hans Frank, the Nazi governor general of Poland, said that if he were to write down all the names of people he was responsible for having killed, all the forests in Poland would not be sufficient to furnish the paper for this list. “He wrote that in his diary,” Cumoletti said.

Cumoletti could not believe the way Goering kept his composure during the trial, giving no hint that he was prepared to die by suicide instead of accepting a death sentence from the guilty verdict. “He knows that you’re not going to hang him, because he is going to kill himself,” he said. “He has this plan all the way, and he never displayed any emotion along those lines.” Cumoletti said that the trials were not limited to convicting only the high-level Nazi leaders, but also a number of other party members, the Gestapo and medical personal. He was asked to remain in Nuremberg for the subsequent trials, but Cumoletti declined. “I saw enough, I wanted to come home,” he said. “I missed my family.”

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He was the most affable of the High Command for sure.

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