THE PRESIDENT: General Rudenko?
GEN. RUDENKO: Witness, please tell us what you know about the
extermination of Soviet prisoners.
BOIX: I cannot possibly tell you all I know about it; I know so much
that one month would not suffice to tell you all about it.
GEN. RUDENKO: Then I would like to ask you, Witness, to tell us
concisely what you know about the extermination of Soviet prisoners in
the camp of Mauthausen.
BOIX: The arrival of the first prisoners of war took place in 1941. The
arrival of 2,000 Russian prisoners of war was announced. With regard to
Russian prisoners of war, they took the same precautions as in the case
of the Republican Spanish prisoners of war. They put machine guns
everywhere around the barracks and expected the worst. As soon as the
Russian prisoners of war entered the camp one could see that they were
in a very bad state, they could not even understand anything. They were
human scarecrows. They were then put in barracks, 1,600 to a barracks.
You must bear in mind these barracks were 7 meters wide by 50 long. They
were divested of their clothes, of the very little they had with them;
they could keep only one pair of drawers and one shirt. One has to
remember that this was in November and in Mauthausen it was more than 10
degrees (centigrade) below zero.
Upon their arrival there were already 20 deaths, from walking only the
distance of 4 kilometers between the station and camp of Mauthausen. At
first the same system was applied to them as to us Republican Spanish
prisoners. They left us with nothing to do, with no work.
They were left to themselves, but with scarcely anything to eat. At the
end of a few weeks they were already at the end of their endurance. Then
began the process of elimination. They were made to work under the most
horrible conditions, they were beaten, hit, kicked, insulted; and out of
the 7,000 Russian prisoners of war who came from almost everywhere, only
30 survivors were left at the end of three months. Of these 30 survivors
photographs were taken by Paul Ricken’s department as a document. I have
these pictures and I can show them if the Tribunal so wishes.
GEN. RUDENKO: You do have these pictures?
BOIX: M. Dubost knows about that, yes. M. Dubost has them.
GEN. RUDENKO: Thank you. Can you show these pictures?
BOIX: M. Dubost has them.
GEN. RUDENKO: Thank you. What do you know about the Yugoslavs and the
Poles?
BOIX: The first Poles came to the camp in 1939 at the moment of the
defeat of Poland. They received the same treatment as everybody else
did. At that time there were only ordinary German bandits there. Then
the work of extermination was begun. There were tens of thousands of
Poles who died under frightful conditions.
The position of the Yugoslavs should be emphasized. The Yugoslavs began
to arrive in convoys, wearing civilian clothes; and they were shot in a
legal way, so to speak. The SS wore even their steel helmets for these
executions. They shot them two at a time. The first transport brought
165, the second 180, and after that they came in small groups of 15, 50,
60, 30; and even women came then.
It should be noted that once, among four women who were shot—and that
was the only time in the camp of deportees—some of them spat in the
face of the camp Führer before dying. The Yugoslavs suffered as few
people have suffered. Their position is comparable only to that of the
Russians. Until the very end they were massacred by every means
imaginable. I would like to say more about the Russians, because they
have gone through so much . . .
GEN. RUDENKO: Do I understand correctly from your testimony that the
concentration camp was really an extermination camp?
BOIX: The camp was placed in the last category, category 3; that is, it
was a camp from which no one could come out.
GEN. RUDENKO: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does Counsel for Great Britain desire to cross-examine?
COLONEL H. J. PHILLIMORE (Junior Counsel for United Kingdom): No
questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel for the United States?
MR. THOMAS J. DODD (Executive Trial Counsel for the United States): No
questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any counsel for the defendants wish to cross-examine?
HERR BABEL: Witness, how were you marked in the camp?
BOIX: The number? What kind of brand?
HERR BABEL: The prisoners were marked by variously colored stars, red,
green, yellow, and so forth. Was this so in Mauthausen also? What did
you wear?
BOIX: Everybody wore insignia. They were not stars; they were triangles
and letters to show the nationality. Yellow and red stars were for the
Jews, stars with six red and yellow points, two triangles, one over the
other.
HERR BABEL: What color did you wear?
BOIX: A blue triangle with an “S” in it, that is to say “Spanish
political refugee.”
HERR BABEL: Were you a Kapo?
BOIX: No, I was an interpreter at first.
HERR BABEL: What were your tasks and duties there?
BOIX: I had to translate into Spanish all the barbaric things the
Germans wished to tell the Spanish prisoners. Afterwards my work was
with photography, developing the films which were taken all over the
camp showing the full story of what happened in the camp.
HERR BABEL: What was the policy with regard to visitors? Did visitors go
only into the inner camp or to places where work was being done?
BOIX: They visited all the camps. It was impossible for them not to know
what was going on. Exception was made only when high officials or other
important persons from Poland, Austria, or Slovakia, from all these
countries, would come. Then they would show them only the best parts.
Franz Ziereis would say, “See for yourselves.” He searched out cooks,
interned bandits, fat and well-fed criminals. He would select these so
as to be able to say that all internees looked like these.
HERR BABEL: Were the prisoners forbidden to communicate with each other
concerning conditions in the camp? Communication with the outside was,
of course, scarcely possible.
BOIX: It was so completely forbidden that, if anyone was caught at it,
it meant not only his death but for all those of his nationality
terrible reprisals.
HERR BABEL: What observations can you make regarding the Kapos? How did
they behave toward your fellow internees?
BOIX: At times they were really worthy of being SS themselves. To be a
Kapo, one had to be Aryan, pure Aryan. That means that they had a
martial bearing and, like the SS, full rights over us; they had the
right to treat us like beasts. The SS gave them _carte blanche_ to do
with us what they wished. That is why, at the liberation, the prisoners
and deportees executed all the Kapos on whom they could lay their hands.
Shortly before the liberation the Kapos asked to enlist voluntarily in
the SS and they left with the SS because they knew what was awaiting
them. In spite of that we looked for them everywhere and executed them
on the spot.
HERR BABEL: You said “they had to treat you like wild beasts.” From what
facts do you draw the conclusion that they were obliged to?
BOIX: One would have to be blind in order not to see. One could see the
way they behaved. It was better to die like a man than to live like a
beast; but they preferred to live like beasts, like savages, like
criminals. They were known as such. I lived there four and a half years
and I know very well what they did. There were many among us who could
have become Kapos for their work, because they were specialists in some
field or another in the camp. But they preferred to be beaten and
massacred, if necessary, rather than become a Kapo.
HERR BABEL: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other member of the defendants’ counsel wish to
ask questions of the witness? M. Dubost, do you wish to ask any
questions?