ROSER: No, I should say that our stay at the punishment camp,
Rawa-Ruska, involved one thing more awful than anything else we
prisoners saw and suffered. We were horrified by what we knew was taking
place all about us. The Germans had transformed the area of
Lvov-Rawa-Ruska into a kind of immense ghetto. Into that area, where the
Jews were already quite numerous, had been brought the Jews from all the
countries of Europe. Every day for 5 months, except for an interruption
of about six weeks in August and September 1942, we saw passing about
150 meters from our camp, one, two, and sometimes three convoys, made up
of freight cars in which there were crowded men, women and children. One
day a voice coming from one of these cars shouted: “I am from Paris. We
are on our way to the slaughter.” Quite frequently, comrades who went
outside the camp to go to work found corpses along the railway track. We
knew in a vague sort of way at that time that these trains stopped at
Belcec, which was located about 17 kilometers from our camp; and at that
point they executed these wretched people, by what means I do not know.
One night in July 1942 we heard shots of submachine guns throughout the
entire night and the moans of women and children. The following morning
bands of German soldiers were going through the fields of rye on the
very edge of our camp, their bayonets pointed downward, seeking people
hiding in the fields. Those of our comrades who went out that day to go
to their work told us that they saw corpses everywhere in the town, in
the gutters, in the barns, in the houses. Later some of our guards, who
had participated in this operation, quite good-humoredly explained to us
that 2,000 Jews had been killed that night under the pretext that two SS
men had been murdered in the region.
Later on, in 1943, during the first week of June, there occurred a
pogrom which in Lvov caused the death of 30,000 Jews. I was not
personally in Lvov, but several French military doctors, Major Guiguet
and Lieutenant Levin of the French Medical Corps, described this scene
to me.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness appears to be not finishing and therefore I
think we had better adjourn now until 2 o’clock.
[_The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours._]
_Afternoon Session_
MARSHAL: I desire to announce that the Defendant Kaltenbrunner will be
absent from this afternoon’s session on account of illness.
M. DUBOST: With the permission of the Tribunal, we shall continue
examining the witness, M. Roser.
M. Roser, this morning you finished the description of the conditions
under which you witnessed the pogrom of Rawa-Ruska and you wanted to
give us some details on another pogrom. You told us that a German
soldier, who had taken a part in it, made a statement to you which you
wanted to relate to us. Is that right?
ROSER: Yes.