We will ask the Tribunal to be good enough to grant us a few minutes.
Our duty is to expose in rather more detail the conditions at this camp,
because a considerable number of Belgians were interned there and their
internment took a rather special form.
The Germans occupied this fort in August 1940, and they brought the
internees there in September. They were Jews. The Belgian Government has
not been able to find out how many people were interned from September
1940 to August 1944, when the camp was evacuated and Belgium liberated.
Nevertheless, it is thought that about 3,000 to 3,600 internees passed
through the camp of Breendonck. About 250 died of privation, 450 were
shot, and 12 were hanged.
But we must bear in mind the fact that the majority of the prisoners in
Breendonck were transferred at various times to camps in Germany. Most
of these transferred prisoners did not return. There should, therefore,
be added to those who died in Breendonck, all those who did not survive
their captivity in Germany. Various categories of prisoners were taken
into the camp: Jews—for whom the regime was more severe than for the
others—Communists and Marxists, of which there were a good many, in
spite of the fact that those who interrogated them had nothing definite
against them; persons who belonged to the resistance, people who had
been denounced to the Germans, hostages—among them M. Bouchery, former
minister, and M. Van Kesbeek, who was a liberal deputy, were interned
there for ten weeks as a reprisal for the throwing of a grenade on the
main square of Malines. These two died after their liberation as a
result of the ill-treatment which they endured in that camp.
There were also in that camp some black market operators, and the
Belgian Government says of them that “they were not ill-treated, and
were even given preferential treatment.” That is in Paragraph (e) of
Page 2.
The prisoners were compelled to work. The most repugnant collective
punishments were inflicted on the slightest pretext. One of these
punishments consisted in forcing the internees to crawl under the beds
and to stand up at command; this was done to the accompaniment of
whipping. You will find that at the top of Page 10.
In the same page is a description of the conditions of the prisoners who
were isolated from the others and kept in solitary confinement. They
were forced to wear hoods every time they had to leave their cells or
when they had to come in contact with other prisoners.
THE PRESIDENT: This is a long report, is it not?
M. DUBOST: That is why I am summarizing it rather than reading it; and I
do not think I can make it any shorter, as it was given to me by the
Belgian Government, which attaches a great importance to the
brutalities, excesses, and atrocities that were committed by the Germans
in the Camp of Breendonck and suffered by the whole of the population,
especially the Belgian elite.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, I understand. You are summarizing it?
M. DUBOST: I am now summarizing it, Mr. President. I had reached, in my
summary, the description of the life of these prisoners who had been put
into cells and who sometimes wore handcuffs and had shackles on their
feet attached to an iron ring in the wall. They could not leave their
cells without being forced to wear hoods.
One of these prisoners, M. Paquet, states that he spent eight months
under such a regime; and when, one day, he tried to lift the hood to see
his way, he received a violent blow with the butt of a gun which broke
three vertebrae in his neck.
Page 12 concerns the following: discipline, labor, acts of brutality,
murders. We are told that the work of the prisoners consisted in
removing the earth covering the fort and carrying it outside the moat.
This work was done by hand. It was very laborious and dangerous and
caused the loss of a great many human lives. Small trucks were used. The
trucks were hurled along the rails by the SS and often broke the legs of
the prisoners who were not warned of their approach. The SS made a game
of this, and at the slightest stoppage of work they would rush at the
internees and beat them.
On the same page we are told that frequently, for no reason at all, the
prisoners were thrown into the moat surrounding the fort. According to
the report of the Belgian Government, dozens of prisoners were drowned.
Some prisoners were killed after they had been buried up to their necks,
and the SS finished them off by kicking them or beating them with a
stick. Food, clothing, correspondence, and medical care—all this
information is given in this report as in all the other similar reports
which I have already read to you.
The conclusion is important and should be read in part—second
paragraph:
“The former internees of Breendonck, many of whom have had
experience of the concentration camps in Germany—Buchenwald,
Neuengamme, Oranienburg—state that, generally speaking, the
conditions prevailing at Breendonck in regard to discipline and
food were worse. They add that in the camps in Germany, which
were more crowded, they felt less under the domination of their
guards and had the feeling that their lives were less in
danger.”
The figures given in this report are only minimum figures. To give but
one example (last paragraph of the last page), M. Verheirstraeten
declares that he put 120 people in their coffins during the two months
of December 1942 and January 1943. If one bears in mind the executions
of the 6th and 13th of January, each of which accounted for the lives of
20 persons, we see that at that time, that is to say, over a period of
two months, 80 persons died of disease or ill-treatment. From these
camps the internees were transported to Germany in convoys, and a
description of these should be given to the Tribunal.
The Tribunal should know, first of all, that from France alone,
excluding the three Departments of the Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin, and Moselle,
326 convoys left between 1 January 1944 and 25 August of the same year,
that is to say, an average of ten convoys a week. Now each convoy
transported from 1,000 to 2,000 persons; and we know now, from what our
witness said just now, that each truck carried from 60 to 120
individuals. It appears that there left from France, excluding the
above-mentioned three northern departments, 3 convoys in 1940, 19
convoys in 1941, 104 convoys in 1942, and 257 convoys in 1943. These are
the figures given in the documents submitted under Number F-274, Exhibit
Number RF-301, Page 14. These convoys nearly always left from the
Compiègne Camp where more than 50,000 internees were registered and from
there 78 convoys left in 1943 and 95 convoys in 1944.
The purpose of these deportations was to terrorize the populations. The
Tribunal will remember the text already read; how the families, not
knowing what became of the internees, were seized with terror and
advantage was taken of this to round-up more workers to help German
labor which had become depleted owing to the war with Russia.
The manner in which these deportations were carried out not only made it
possible more or less to select this labor; but it constituted the first
stage of a new aspect of German policy, that is, purely and simply the
extermination of all racial or intellectual categories whose political
activity appeared as a menace to the Nazi leaders.
These deportees, who were locked up 80 or 120 in each truck, in any
season, could neither sit nor crouch and were given nothing whatsoever
to eat or drink during their journey. In this connection we would
particularly like to bring Dr. Steinberg’s testimony taken by Lieutenant
Colonel Badin of the Office for Inquiry into War Crimes in Paris,
Document Number F-392, which we submit as Exhibit Number RF-330, which
is the 12th in your document book. We will read only a few paragraphs on
Page 2:
“We were crowded into cattle trucks, about 70 in each. Sanitary
conditions were frightful. Our journey lasted two days. We
reached Auschwitz on 24 June 1942. It should be noted that we
had been given no food at all when we left and that we had to
live during those two days on what little food we had taken with
us from Drancy.”
The deportees were at times refused water by the German Red Cross.
Evidence was taken by the Ministry of Prisoners and Deportees, and this
appears in Document RF-301, Page 18. It is about a convoy of Jewish
women which left Bobigny station on 19 June 1942:
“They travelled for three days and three nights, dying of
thirst. At Breslau they begged the nurses of the German Red
Cross to give them a little water, but in vain.”
Moreover, Lieutenant Geneste and Dr. Bloch have testified to the same
facts and other different facts; and in Document Number F-321, Exhibit
Number RF-331, entitled “Concentration Camps,” which we have been able
to submit to you in French, Russian, and German, the English version
having been exhausted, on Page 21, you will find, “In the station of
Bremen water was refused to us by the German Red Cross, who said that
there was no water.” This is the testimony by Lieutenant Geneste of
O.R.C.G. Concerning this conduct of the German Red Cross and to finish
dealing with the subject, there is one more word to be said. Document
RF-331 gives you, on Page 162, the proof that that was an ambulance car
bearing a red cross which carried gas in iron containers destined for
the gas chambers of Auschwitz Camp.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now until Monday.
[_The Tribunal adjourned until 28 January 1946 at 1000 hours._]
FORTY-FOURTH DAY
Monday, 28 January 1946
_Morning Session_
M. DUBOST: With the authorization of the Court, I should like to proceed
with this part of the presentation of the French case by hearing a
witness who, for more than 3 years, lived in German concentration camps.
[_The witness, Mme. Vaillant-Couturier, took the stand._]
THE PRESIDENT: Would you stand up, please? Do you wish to swear the
French oath? Will you tell me your name?
MADAME MARIE CLAUDE VAILLANT-COUTURIER (Witness): Claude
Vaillant-Couturier.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I swear that I will
speak without hate or fear, that I will tell the truth, all the truth,
nothing but the truth.
[_The witness repeated the oath in French._]
THE PRESIDENT: Raise your right hand and say, “I swear.”
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: I swear.
THE PRESIDENT: Please, will you sit down and speak slowly. Your name is?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: Vaillant-Couturier, Marie, Claude, Vögel.