Interpreting in the War Crimes Trials in Poland after World War II

The talk presents the work of interpreters during the trials before the Special Criminial Courts and before the National Supreme Tribunal established in Poland in the years 1946-1948 to judge Nazi criminals after the Second World War. Based on archival sources of the Institute of National Remembrance, it identifies the interpreters recruited for this tribunal and examines the interpreting practices during multilingual trials, where simultaneous interpreting was applied for the first time. The paper will raise also the issues of trust and control over the interpreters involved in war crimes tribunals.