THE PRESIDENT: Why not the pictures?
M. DUBOST: At that moment we did not have them to submit. In our exposé
we have not mentioned the photographs.
THE PRESIDENT: The German counsel ought to have the same documents as
are submitted to the Tribunal. The photographs have been submitted to
the Tribunal; therefore they should have been deposited in the
Information Center.
M. DUBOST: Mr. President, the French text, including the pictures, was
deposited in the Defense Information Center; and, in addition, a certain
number of texts in German, to which the pictures were not added because
we had that translation prepared for the use of the Defense. But there
are French copies of the book that you have before you which include the
pictures.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
M. DUBOST: We have here four copies of the picture which was shown
yesterday afternoon, which we shall place before you. It shows
Kaltenbrunner and Himmler in the quarry of Mauthausen, in accordance
with the testimony given by Boix. One of these pictures will also be
delivered to the Defense, that is, to the lawyer of the Defendant
Kaltenbrunner.
THE PRESIDENT: Now the photograph has been handed around to the
defendants’ counsel. Do any members of the defendants’ counsel wish to
ask any questions of the witness about this photograph? No question? The
witness can retire.
BOIX: I would like to say something more. I would like to note that
there were cases when Soviet officers were massacred. It is worth noting
because it concerns prisoners of war. I would like the Tribunal to
listen to me carefully.
THE PRESIDENT: What is it you wish to say about the massacre of the
Soviet prisoners of war?
BOIX: In 1943 there was a transport of officers. On the very day of
their arrival in the camp they began to be massacred by every means. But
it seems that from the higher quarters orders had come concerning these
officers saying that something extraordinary had to be done. So they put
them in the best block in the camp. They gave them new prisoner’s
clothing. They gave them even cigarettes; they gave them beds with
sheets; they were given everything they wanted to eat. A medical
officer, Sturmbannführer Bresbach, examined them with a stethoscope.
They went down into the quarry, but they carried only small stones, and
in fours. At that time Oberscharführer Paul Ricken, chief of the
service, was there with his Leica taking pictures without stopping. He
took about 48 pictures. These I developed and five copies of each, 13 by
18, with the negatives, were sent to Berlin. It is too bad I did not
steal the negatives, as I did the others.
When that was done, the Russians were made to give up their clothing and
everything else and were sent to the gas chamber. The comedy was ended.
Everybody could see on the pictures that the Russian prisoners of war,
the officers, and especially the political commissars, were treated
well, worked hardly at all, and were in good condition. That is one
thing that should be noted because I think it is necessary.
And another thing, there was a barrack called Barrack Number 20. That
barrack was inside the camp; and in spite of the electrified barbed wire
around the camp, there was an additional wall with electrified barbed
wire around it. In that barrack there were prisoners of war, Russian
officers and commissars, some Slavs, a few Frenchmen, and, they said,
even a few Englishmen. No one could enter that barrack except the two
Führer who were in the camp prison, the commanding officers of the inner
and outer camps. These internees were dressed just as we were, like
convicts, but without number or identification of their nationality. One
could not tell their nationality.
The service “Erkennungsdienst” must have taken their pictures. A tag
with a number was placed on their chest. This number began with 3,000
and something. There were numbers looking like Number 11 (two blue
darts), and the numbers started at 3,000 and went up to 7,000. SS
Unterscharführer Hermann Schinlauer was the photographer then in charge.
He was from the Berlin region, somewhere outside of Berlin, I do not
remember the name. He had orders to develop the films and to do all work
personally; but like all the SS of the interior services of the camp,
they were men who knew nothing. They always needed prisoners to get
their work done. That is why he needed me to develop these films. I made
the enlargements, 5 by 7. These were sent to Obersturmführer Karl
Schulz, of Cologne, the Chief of the Politische Abteilung. He told me
not to tell anything to anybody about these pictures and about the fact
that we developed these films; if we did we would be liquidated at once.
Without any fear of the consequences I told all my comrades about it, so
that, if one of us should succeed in getting out, he could tell the
world about it.
THE PRESIDENT: I think we have heard enough of this detail that you are
giving us. But come back for a moment to the case you were speaking of.
I wish you would repeat the case of the Russian prisoners of war in
1943. You said that the officers were taken to the quarry to carry the
heaviest stones.
BOIX: No, just very small stones, weighing not even 20 kilos, and they
carried them in fours to show on the pictures that the Russian officers
did not do heavy work but on the contrary, light work. That was only for
the pictures, whereas in reality it was entirely different.
THE PRESIDENT: I thought you said they carried big, heavy stones.
BOIX: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Were the photographs taken while they were in their
uniforms carrying these light stones?
BOIX: Yes, Sir; they had to put on clean uniforms, neatly arranged, to
show that the Russian prisoners were well and properly treated.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Is there any other particular incident you
want to refer to?
BOIX: Yes, about Block 20. Thanks to my knowledge of photography I was
able to see it; I had to be there to handle the lights while my chief
took photographs. In this way I could follow, detail by detail,
everything that took place in this barrack. It was an inner camp. This
barrack, like all the others, was 7 meters wide and 50 meters long.
There were 1,800 internees there, with a food ration less than
one-quarter of what we would get for food. They had neither spoons nor
plates. Large kettles of spoiled food were emptied on the snow and left
there until it began to freeze; then the Russians were ordered to get at
it. The Russians were so hungry, they would fight for this food. The SS
used these fights as a pretext to beat some of them with bludgeons.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you mean that the Russians were put directly into
Block 20?
BOIX: The Russians did not come to the camp directly. Those who were not
sent to the gas chamber right away were placed in Block 20. Nobody of
the inner camp, not even the Blockführer, was allowed to enter this
barrack. Small convoys of 50 or 60 came several times a week and always
one heard the noise of a fight going on inside.
In January 1945, when the Russians learned that the Soviet Armies were
approaching Yugoslavia, they took one last chance. They seized fire
extinguishers and killed soldiers posted under the watch tower. They
seized machine guns and everything possible as weapons. They took
blankets with them and everything they could find. They were 700, but
only 62 succeeded in passing into Yugoslavia with the partisans.
That day, Franz Ziereis, camp commander, issued an order by radio to all
civilians to co-operate, to “liquidate” the Russian criminals who had
escaped from the concentration camp. He stated that everyone who could
produce evidence that he had killed one of these men would receive an
extraordinary sum of marks. This was why all the Nazi followers in
Mauthausen went to work and succeeded in killing more than 600 escaped
prisoners. It was not hard because some of the Russians could not drag
themselves for more than 10 meters.
After the liberation one of the surviving Russians came to Mauthausen to
see how everything was then. He told us all the details of his painful
march.
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think the Tribunal wants to hear more details
which you did not see yourself. Does any member of the Defense Counsel
wish to ask any question of the witness upon the points which he has
dealt with himself.
HERR BABEL: One question only. In the course of your testimony you gave
certain figures, namely 165, then 180, and just now 700. Were you in a
position to count them yourself?
BOIX: Nearly always the convoys came into the camp in columns of five.
It was easy to count them. These transports were always sent from the
Wehrmacht, from the Wehrmacht prisons somewhere in Germany. They were
sent from all prisons in Germany, from the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the
SD, or the SS.
THE PRESIDENT: Just answer the question and do not make a speech. You
have said they were brought in in columns of five and it was easy to
count them.
BOIX: Very easy to count them, particularly for those who wanted to be
able to tell the story some day.
HERR BABEL: Did you have so much time that you were able to observe all
these things?
BOIX: The transports always came in the evening after the deportees had
returned to the camp. At this time we always had two or three hours when
we could wander about in the camp waiting for the bell that was the
signal for us to go to bed.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may now retire.
[_The witness left the stand._]
M. DUBOST: If the Tribunal permits, we shall now hear Mr. Cappelen, who
is a Norwegian witness. The testimony of Mr. Cappelen will be limited to
the conditions that were imposed on Norwegian internees in Norwegian
camps and prisons.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
[_The witness, Hans Cappelen, took the stand._]
THE PRESIDENT: I understand that you speak English.