USSR-352), there is a sentence directly relating to my theme. It has
been read into the record. Document 3257-PS is a secret report of the
Armament Inspector in the Ukraine, dated 2 December 1941, and addressed
to the Chief of Armament Section of the OKW. It states—the excerpt
quoted is at the end of Page 45 and the beginning of Page 46 of your
document book:
“Living conditions, food, clothing conditions, and the health of
the prisoners of war are bad; mortality is very high. We may
reckon on the fact that during this winter people will perish at
the rate of tens and even hundreds of thousands.”
I submit a document under Document Number D-339 (Exhibit USSR-350). The
chief camp and factory physician, Jäger, having inspected the camp in
Naeggerath Street, informed the medical department of the Central
Administration of Camps, in a top-secret medical report on 2 September
1944—you will find the excerpt quoted on Page 47 of your document
book—as follows:
“The prisoner-of-war camp in Naeggerath Street is in an
atrocious condition. The men live in dustbins, in kennels, in
ovens no longer used, and in huts made by themselves. Food is
barely sufficient. Krupp is responsible for shelter and the food
supply. Medicine and bandages were so scarce that in many cases
medical treatment was completely impossible. The blame for this
appalling state of affairs rests on the permanent camp.”
In the files of the Defendant Rosenberg was found, among other
documents, one numbered Document 081-PS (Exhibit USSR-353). As far as we
can understand, it is a letter from Rosenberg to Keitel, dated 28
February 1942, on the subject of the prisoners of war. A copy found in
Rosenberg’s files is unsigned, but there is no doubt that such a letter
was either addressed to Keitel or prepared for dispatch to the chief of
the Armed Forces. The letter states that the fate of the Soviet
prisoners of war in Germany is a tragedy on an enormous scale.
I will now read into the record the second sentence of the fifth
paragraph of the Russian text—you will find it on Page 48 of the
document book:
“Out of 3,600,000. . . .”
THE PRESIDENT: I think the United States read this letter, did they not?
COL. POKROVSKY: The document has been partially read, but I would ask
permission to read part of a short excerpt a second time, since it is of
importance to my further report. It will, quite literally, only take a
minute and a half of our time.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, we have been preventing other
prosecuting counsel from reading documents which have already been read
and we are directed by the Charter to conduct an expeditious trial; and
I do not really see how it can be expeditious if documents are read more
than once.
COL. POKROVSKY: This document, which is already known to the Tribunal,
presents a very clear picture of what happened in the camp. The author
of this letter states that attempts had been made by the population to
supply the prisoners with food but that in most cases the attempts were
foiled by the energetic opposition of the camp commanders.
There is no reason to suspect the author of that letter of piling on the
agony, or of having any liking for the Soviet people. On the contrary,
there is every reason to state that the question has not yet been fully
elucidated. This document, addressed by one defendant to another,
enables us to imagine the acts that took place in the camps for Soviet
prisoners of war.
I began by presenting to you documents of German origin, and this with a
definite aim in view. After you have been informed of the attitude of
the Hitlerites themselves towards the Soviet prisoners of war and as
soon as you have learned however briefly, what the camps for the Soviet
prisoners looked like from the words of the Hitlerites themselves, it
will be easier for you to estimate the probative value of the documents
of non-German origin.
I stop, because it seems to me the Tribunal wants to adjourn.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps that would be a convenient time to adjourn.
[_The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours._]
_Afternoon Session_
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel, the Tribunal proposes to adjourn at half past
four this afternoon, as they have some administrative work to do.
COL. POKROVSKY: I return to the report of the Extraordinary State
Commission of the Soviet Union for the investigation of atrocities
committed by the German fascist invaders in Smolensk and in the region
of Smolensk. The greater part of this report is dedicated to the mass
annihilation of prisoners of war by the Germans. I should like to read
into the Record excerpts from this document, submitted to you as Exhibit
Number USSR-56 (Document Number USSR-56), Page 6, Paragraph 4 from the
top; you will find it on Page 58 of our document book. It reads as
follows:
“The German fascist invaders systematically exterminated the
wounded and captured Soviet citizens. Physicians A. N. Smirnov,
A. N. Glasunov, A. M. Demidov, A. S. Pogrebnov, and others,
formerly interned in the war prisoners’ camp, stated that on the
road from Vyasma to Smolensk the Hitlerites shot several
thousand people.
“In the autumn of 1941 the German occupational forces drove a
party of prisoners of war from Vyasma to Smolensk. Many of the
prisoners were unable to stand, as a result of continuous
beating and exhaustion. Whenever the citizens attempted to give
any of the prisoners a piece of bread, the German soldiers drove
the Soviet citizens off, beat them with sticks and rifle butts,
and fatally shot them. On the Bolshaya Sovetskaya Street, on the
Roslavskoye and Kievskoye high roads, the fascist blackguards
opened a disorderly fire on a column of prisoners of war. The
prisoners attempted to escape, but the soldiers overtook and
shot them. In that way nearly 5,000 Soviet people were fatally
shot. The corpses were left lying about the streets for several
days.”
It is not difficult to see that this extract fully coincides with the
statement in Document Number 081-PS, which has already been read into
the Record, the contents of which I once before related to the Tribunal
very briefly and in my own words.
We are completing the document only by factual evidence. On the same
Page 6—which corresponds to Page 58 of the Document Book—two lines
lower down, it is said:
“The German military authorities tortured the prisoners of war.
On the way to Smolensk and especially at the camp, the prisoners
were killed by tens and hundreds. In Prisoner-of-War Camp Number
126, the Soviet people were subjected to torture; sick people
were sent to heavy labor; no medical assistance was rendered.
The prisoners in the camp were tortured, forced to do work
beyond their strength, shot. About 150 to 200 people died every
day of torture, by starvation, typhus and dysentery epidemics,
freezing to death, exhausting work, and bloody terror. Over
60,000 peaceful citizens and prisoners of war were exterminated
in the camp by the German fascist invaders. The facts of the
extermination of the imprisoned officers and men of the Red Army
and of the peaceful citizens were confirmed by the testimony of
physicians imprisoned in the camp; Smirnov, Shmouroff,
Pogrebnov, Erpoulov, Demidov, hospital nurses Shubina and
Lenkovskya, and also by Red Army soldiers and inhabitants of the
city of Smolensk.
“Thousands of prisoners of war were shot in the camp under the
directions of Sonderführer Eduard Gyss.
“Sergeant Gatlyn brutally avenged himself on the prisoners.
Being aware of the fact, they tried to keep out of his way. So
Gatlyn dressed in the uniform of a Red Army soldier, mixed with
the crowd, and, having picked himself a victim, would beat him
half dead.
“Private Rudolf Radtke, a former wrestler from the German
circuses, prepared a special lash made of aluminum wire, with
which he beat the prisoners black and blue. On Sundays he would
come to the camp drunk, throw himself on the first prisoner he
met, torture and kill him.
“Emaciated and exhausted Soviet invalids were forced by the
fascists to work at the Smolensk power plant. Many occasions
were observed when prisoners, worn out by starvation, would
collapse under the strain of work beyond their strength and were
immediately shot by Sonderführer Szepalsky, Sonderführer Bram,
Hofmann Mauser, and Sonderführer Wagner.
“There was, in Smolensk, a hospital for prisoners of war; Soviet
doctors working at that hospital stated: Up to July 1942, the
patients lay unbandaged on the floor. Their clothes and bedding
were covered not only with dirt but with pus. The rooms were
unheated and the floors of the corridors coated with ice.”
A report of a medico-legal examination is appended, Your Honors, to the
statement of the Extraordinary State Commission which I have just
quoted. Experts such as Academician Burdenko, member of the
Extraordinary Commission, Dr. Prosorovsky, chief medico-forensic expert
of the People’s Commissariat for the Care of Public Health in the Union
of the Soviet Socialist Republics, Doctor of Medical Sciences,
Smolianov, Professor of Forensic Medicine at the Second Moscow Medical
Institute, and other specialists, conducted—from 1 to 16 October
1943—numerous exhumations and medico-legal autopsies on the corpses in
Smolensk and the vicinity of Smolensk. A great many mass graves were
opened which contained the corpses of such persons who had been killed
during the German fascist occupation. The number of corpses which were
found in these graves was between 500 and 4,500 at each place where such
mass executions took place.
I shall read into the Record only such excerpts from the findings of the
experts’ investigation as have a direct bearing on my subject. You will
find the paragraph which I am now quoting on Page 61 of your document
book, corresponding to Page 9 of our Exhibit Number USSR-56 (Document
Number USSR-56).
“The corpses found in the pits were for the most part either
partially or completely-naked, or else clothed in worn-out
underwear; only in the minority of cases did the bodies
disinterred wear clothes or military uniforms.”
It is stated in Paragraph 2 on the next page of the Document Number
USSR-56—page 62 of the document book—Paragraph 2:
“Identity documents were found in 16 cases only—3 passports, 1
Red Army book, and 12 military identity ‘medallions.’ By
‘medallions’ I mean the small tube-like cases, not unlike a
needle case in appearance, issued to each soldier in the Red
Army. A document giving the soldier’s name, his father’s name,
surname, and rank, together with his home address, is slipped
into this tube.
“In some cases partly preserved articles of clothing and tattoo
marks alone could help in establishing the identity of the
deceased.”
This circumstance confirms the fact that the Germans endeavored to make
the identification of their victims impossible, as demanded in special
German directives. The first paragraph on Page 11 of Document Number 56,
corresponding to your Page 63 in the document book, says:
“The autopsies performed on corpses taken from graves in the
area of the large and small concentration camps at Plant 35, of
the former German hospital for prisoners of war, of a sawmill,
and of concentration camps near the villages of Becherskaya and
Rakytna, revealed that, according to the data of the autopsies,
death in an overwhelming majority of cases could be ascribed to
hunger, starvation, and acute infectious diseases.
“An objective proof of death from starvation, over and above the
total absence of all subcutaneous fatty tissues, as disclosed
during the autopsies, was the discovery, in a number of cases,
of grassy substances, remains of rough leaves and plant stalks
in the abdominal cavity.”
On the same page, but rather lower down, in Paragraph 4, we read:
“The considerable number of burial-pits opened (87), filled with
masses of corpses, together with the estimated differences in
the time of burial, differences ranging from the second half of
1941, 1942, and 1943, testify to the systematic extermination of
Soviet citizens.
“The victims, in an overwhelming majority of cases, were men and
men mostly in the prime of life, that is, between the ages of 20
and 40.”
Somewhat lower, on the same page:
“Special attention was attracted by the fact that the exhumed
corpses, with few exceptions, regularly lacked footwear.
Clothing, too, was absent, as a rule, or consisted of worn-out
underwear or parts of outer garments. The natural conclusion
drawn from these facts is that the removal of clothes and
footwear of any value had become the usual and officially
recognized procedure preceding the extermination of Soviet
citizens.”
In conclusion, the commission deals with the means of extermination,
that is, shooting, asphyxiation by gas, and so forth. All this is not
new to us and it is not necessary at present to read this part of the
conclusion.
In our document, Exhibit Number USSR-6(c) (Document Number USSR-6(c)),
minutes are quoted from the report of the medico-legal experts as well
as the findings of the board of medical experts. We find them on Pages
9, 10, 11, and 12 of the document. I shall set forth, in brief, the
contents of the minutes and shall quote a few words from the findings.
According to the minutes, the Hitlerites had set up a large camp for
prisoners of war in the town of Rawa-Ruska, 52 kilometers northeast from
the city of Lvov. In this camp a large number of Soviet and French
prisoners of war were interned, and there they perished; they were shot,
died of infectious diseases, or starved to death. The commission of
medico-legal experts opened up a large number of graves. Some of these
graves had been camouflaged by green shrubs and grass. A considerable
number of bodies unearthed were dressed in military or semi-military
clothing. In some cases identity medallions of Red Army soldiers were
discovered inside the clothes. The ages of the prisoners whose bodies
were recovered from the graves ranged from 20 to 40 years.
It is said in the findings—the extract quoted is on Page 70 of the
document book:
“The data of the autopsies performed on the exhumed bodies
justify the conclusion that bodies of Soviet prisoners of war
had, in effect, been buried in the forementioned graves. The
burial was on a mass scale. The bodies were placed in each grave
at a rate of 350-400 corpses (the grave measuring 7 by 4
meters), in layers, one layer on the other. The bodies were
buried in the clothes they had worn at the time of death. The
absence of footwear on all the corpses indicates that the Soviet
prisoners, when alive, were kept unshod or else that their
footwear was removed after death. The prisoners were interned in
appallingly unsanitary conditions, since all the clothing found
was vermin-infested. Judging by the clothes, death, in the
majority of cases, must have occurred during the cold season of
the year. Nevertheless, practically no warm clothing was found
on any of the bodies. To escape the cold, the prisoners of war
had dressed in two or three sets of summer uniforms, had wrapped
themselves up in sacking, towels. . . .”
I omit a few sentences from this statement and wish to read into the
Record the part dealing with the total number of corpses. It is on Page
70 of your document book:
“The number of graves (36), their size, and the number of bodies
discovered justify us in believing that from 10,000 to 12,000
bodies of Soviet prisoners of war were buried in this area. The
degree of their decomposition points to the fact that the
corpses had been buried underground for about 3 years, that is,
the time of burial must be placed somewhere in the late autumn
or in the winter of 1941-1942.”
A special section of the report of the Extraordinary State Commission of
the Soviet Union for the determination and investigation of atrocities
committed by the German fascist invaders in the city and region of
Orel—which I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-46 (Document
Number USSR-46)—records the mass extermination of prisoners of war
carried out over a long period of time.
The prisoner-of-war camp was set up in the city jail of Orel. After the
Hitlerite invaders had been driven from Orel, the Extraordinary
Commission was able to secure the testimony of doctors who had been in
this camp and who had fortuitously escaped with their lives. Included in
this report are the personal observations of a member of the
Extraordinary State Committee, Academician Burdenko, who personally
examined people liberated by the Red Army from the camp, from the camp
premises, and from the so-called camp hospital. The general conclusion
is that in the camp of Orel and in others the Hitlerites bodily
exterminated the Soviet people with characteristic German thoroughness.
The prisoners received 200 grams of bread and a liter of soup made from
rotten soy beans and moldy flour. The bread was baked with an admixture
of sawdust. The camp administration, doctors included, treated the
prisoners atrociously. I should like to quote a few excerpts from the
report of the commission, and I shall start from Paragraph 5, Page 2 of
the document, which you will find on Page 72 of the document book:
“The camp commander, Major Hoffmann, flogged the prisoners and
forced persons exhausted by hunger to carry out heavy manual
work in the local quarries and in the unloading of ammunition.
“Boots and shoes were taken from the prisoners and replaced by
wooden clogs.
“In the winter these clogs became slippery and the prisoners,
when walking, and especially when going up to the 2d and 3rd
floor, would slip on the stairs and be lamed.”
Dr. H. I. Zvetkov, a former inmate of the prisoner-of-war camp,
testified as follows. I quote, and you will find the excerpt quoted on
Page 72 and at the beginning of Page 73:
“I can only describe the attitude of the German Command towards
the prisoners of war, during my stay in the camp at Orel, as one
of deliberate extermination of manpower in the person of the
prisoners. The food ration, which at best contained a maximum of
only 700 calories, led, when work was hard and beyond their
strength, to complete exhaustion of the organism (cachexia) and
to death. . . .
“Despite our categorical protests and our struggle against this
mass murder of the people of the Soviet, the German camp
doctors, Kuper and Beckel, maintained that the diet was
perfectly satisfactory. Moreover, they denied that the oedemata
from which so many of the prisoners suffered were due to
starvation and quite calmly ascribed the condition entirely to
heart or kidney troubles. The very mention of the term ‘hunger
oedema’ was forbidden in the diagnosis. Mortality in the camp
assumed mass proportions. Of the total number of persons
murdered, 3,000 died of starvation and of complications arising
from malnutrition.
“The prisoners lived in indescribably appalling conditions. The
overcrowding was incredible. Fuel and water were completely
lacking. Everything was infested by vermin. From 50 to 80 people
were crammed into a ward 15 to 20 square meters in size.
Prisoners would die at the rate of five or six per ward, and the
living would have to sleep on the dead.”
It is further said that a particularly terrible regime existed for those
included in the category of recalcitrants. They were put into a special
building, named the death block. The inmates of this block were shot on
schedule, five to six persons being taken to execution every Tuesday and
Friday. The German physician Kuper was one of those present at the
shootings. Academician Burdenko established that in the so-called
hospital people were exterminated in the same manner as in the rest of
the camp.
In the penultimate paragraph, on Page 3, we read—members of the
Tribunal will find this passage on Page 73 of the document book:
“The scenes which I had to witness defy all imagination. My joy
at the sight of the liberated people was marred by the fact that
their faces bore an expression of utter stupor. This made me
think, ‘What is the matter here?’ Evidently the sufferings they
had undergone erased from their minds all distinction between
life and death.
“I observed these people for 3 days and bandaged their wounds
while moving them from the camp, but the mental stupor remained.
Something similar could also be seen on the faces of the doctors
during the first few days.
“People perished in the camp from disease, starvation, and
floggings. In the so-called ‘hospital’ prison they died of
wound-infection, sepsis, and starvation.”
On the 2d day of May 1945, there was captured in Berlin a member of the
SS, Paul Ludwig Gottlieb Waldmann. The son of a shopkeeper, Ludwig
Waldmann, he was born in Berlin on 17 October 1914. From information
received, his mother, up to the time of his capture, was living in the
city of Brunswick, Donnerburweg 60.
He testified personally to facts known to him regarding the mass
extermination of Soviet prisoners of war. He witnessed these
exterminations while working as a driver in different camps and himself
participated in the mass killings. His testimony is on Page 9 of Exhibit
Number USSR-52 (Document Number USSR-52), entitled, “Camp Auschwitz.” He
provides more detailed information on the murders in the camp at
Sachsenhausen.
Towards the end of summer 1941, the Sonderkommando of the Security
Police in this camp exterminated Russian prisoners of war daily for a
whole month. Paul Ludwig Gottlieb Waldmann testified—you will find the
excerpt I am quoting on Page 82—that:
“The Russian prisoners of war had to walk about one kilometer
from the station to the camp. In the camp they stayed one night
without food. The next night they were led away for execution.
The prisoners were constantly being transferred from the inner
camp on three trucks, one of which was driven by me. The inner
camp was approximately one and three-quarters of a kilometer
from the execution grounds. The execution itself took place in
the barracks which had recently been constructed for this
purpose.
“One room was reserved for undressing and another for waiting;
in one of them a radio played rather loudly. It was done
purposely so that the prisoners could not guess that death
awaited them. From the second room they went, one by one,
through a passage into a small fenced-in room with an iron grid
let into the floor. Under the grid was a drain. As soon as a
prisoner of war was killed, the corpse was carried out by two
German prisoners while the blood was washed off the grid.
“In this small room there was a slot in the wall, approximately
50 centimeters in length. The prisoner of war stood with the
back of his head against the slot and a sniper shot at him from
behind the slot since the sniper often missed the prisoner.
After 8 days a new arrangement was made. The prisoner, as
before, was placed against the wall; an iron plate was then
slowly lowered onto his head. The prisoner was under the
impression that he was being measured for height. The iron plate
contained a ramrod which shot out suddenly and pole-axed the
prisoner with a blow on the back of the head. He dropped dead.
The iron plate was operated by a foot lever in a corner of the
room. The personnel working in the room belonged to the
above-mentioned Sonderkommando.
“By request of the execution squad, I was also forced to work
this apparatus. I shall refer to the subject later. The bodies
of prisoners thus murdered were burned in four mobile
crematories transported in trailers and attached to motor cars.
I had to ride constantly from the inner camp to the execution
yard. I had to make 10 trips a night with 10 minutes’ interval
between trips. It was during these intervals that I witnessed
the executions. . . .”
It is a long way from these individual murders to the death factories of
Treblinka, Dachau, and Auschwitz, but the tendency, the line of action
are identical. Methods and extent of the killings varied. The Hitlerites
endeavored to discover ways and means for the rapid mass extermination
of human beings. They spent much time on the solution of this problem.
To realize their ambition they began to work on the solution even prior
to their attack on the Soviet Union by inventing different implements
and instruments of murder, while peaceful inhabitants and prisoners of
war alike ended up as victims of Hitler’s executioners.
I present to the Tribunal the report of the Extraordinary Commission on
the German atrocities in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. This
is Exhibit Number USSR-7 (Document Number USSR-7). Here, as in other
places, the mass extermination of Soviet prisoners of war formed part of
the savage plan of the fascist aggressors. I shall quote a few sentences
from Page 6 of this document. In your copy it is marked with pencil, on
Page 86 of the document book:
“In Kaunas, in Fort Number 6, there was a camp, Number 336, for
Soviet prisoners of war. The prisoners in the camp were
subjected to cruel torture and insult, in strict accordance with
the inhuman ‘directions to the supervisors and escorts attached
to labor detachments.’ The prisoners of war in Fort Number 6
were doomed to inanition and death from starvation.
“The witness, Medishevskaja, informed the Commission: ‘The
prisoners of war were terribly starved; I saw them pluck grass
and eat it.’”
I omit a few sentences and read on:
“At the entrance to Camp Number 336, there still exists a board
with the following inscription in German, Lithuanian, and
Russian: ‘All those who maintain contact with prisoners of war,
especially those who try to give them food, cigarettes, or
civilian clothes, will be shot!’
“There was in the camp at Fort Number 6 a ‘hospital’ for
prisoners of war which in reality served as a point of transfer
from the camp to the grave. The prisoners of war thrown into
this ‘hospital’ were doomed to death.
“According to monthly statistics of sickness among the prisoners
of war in Fort Number 6, from September 1941 to July 1942, that
is, over a period of 11 months only, the number of dead Soviet
prisoners amounted to 13,936.”
I shall abstain from reading the list of graves opened; I shall merely
quote the sentence indicating the sum total of the graves. “All told,
35,000 prisoners of war were buried in these graves, according to the
camp documents.”
Besides Camp Number 336, in the same town of Kaunas, there existed
another, unnumbered camp on the southwestern border of the airfield. It
is stated, in connection with this camp, that:
“As in Fort Number 6, starvation, the lash, and the truncheon
reigned in this camp. Exhausted prisoners of war, no longer able
to move, were carried out every day beyond the precincts of the
camp, placed alive in previously prepared pits, and covered with
earth.”
The last three lines of the left column, on Page 6 of the Document.
Number USSR-7—Page 86 of your document book—state as follows:
“The records, documents, and testimonies of witnesses enabled
the commission to establish that here, within the precincts of
the airfield, nearly 10,000 Soviet prisoners had been tortured
to death and buried.”
The report mentions one more camp, Number 133, near the town of Alitus,
and a few more which had been established in July 1941 and existed up to
April 1943. In these camps the prisoners froze to death. When unloaded
from the railway coaches, such prisoners of war who were unable to walk
were shot out of hand. The remaining prisoners were tortured until they
lost consciousness, hanged by their feet on chains, brought back to
consciousness by having cold water dashed over them; then the whole
process would be repeated all over again.
Giving the sum total of prisoners murdered, the commission writes—the
few lines which I am about to quote are likewise on the same page, 86,
of the document book:
“It had been established that no less than 165,000 Soviet
prisoners of war were executed by the Germans in the
above-mentioned camps of the Lithuanian S.S.R.”
The extermination of Soviet prisoners of war was, quite literally,
carried out in every camp. Thousands of Soviet soldiers likewise
perished in the extermination camp of Maidanek. The second paragraph of
Page 5 of the joint Polish and Soviet communiqué of the Extraordinary
Commission, which is presented to you as Exhibit Number USSR-29
(Document Number USSR-29)—corresponding to your Page 92 of the document
book—states that:
“The entire bloodstained history of this camp begins with the
mass shooting of Soviet prisoners of war, organized by the SS in
November and December 1941. Out of a group of 2,000 Soviet war
prisoners, only 80 remained alive. All the rest were shot except
a few who were racked and tortured to death.
“Between January and April 1942 more transports of Soviet
prisoners of war were brought to the camp and shot. Nedzelek
Jan, hired to work in the camp as a truck driver, testified:
“‘About 5,000 Russian prisoners of war were exterminated by the
Germans in the winter of 1942 by the following method: They were
taken from their barracks in trucks and driven to the pits of a
former stone quarry, and in these pits they were shot.’
“Prisoners of war of the former Polish Army, captured as far
back as 1939 and imprisoned in various German camps, were
already concentrated, in 1940, in the Lublin camp on Lipovoja
Street and were soon after transferred, in batches, to the
extermination camp of Maidanek, where they suffered the same
fate: systematic torture, murder, mass shooting, _et cetera_.
“The witness, Reznik, testified as follows:
“‘In January 1941, we, a party of approximately 4,000 Jewish
prisoners of war, were placed into railway coaches and sent to
the East. . . . We were brought to Lublin, unloaded and handed
over to the SS. About September or October 1942, it was decided
that only those people who were qualified as skilled plant and
factory workers, and therefore needed in the town, were to be
left in the camp on Number 7 Lipovoja Street, while the rest,
and I among them, were transferred to Maidanek Camp. All of us
already knew—and knew far too well—that deportation to
Maidanek meant death. Of this party of more than 4,000 prisoners
of war, only a few individuals, who had managed to escape while
engaged in work outside the camp, remained alive.
“‘In the summer of 1943, 300 Soviet officers, including two
colonels, four majors, with the remainder consisting of captains
and senior lieutenants, were brought to Maidanek. The officers
in question were shot in the camp.’”
Huge camps for the extermination of Soviet prisoners of war had been
organized by German fascists in the territory of the Latvian Soviet
Socialist Republic. The report of the Extraordinary State Commission for
the investigation of atrocities committed by the German invaders on the
territory of this republic—we present to the Tribunal this report as
Exhibit Number USSR-41 (Document Number USSR-41)—contains the following
data on the extermination of 327,000 Soviet prisoners of war. I quote
excerpts from Page 7, on the right column of the above-mentioned report.
You, Sir, as well as the other members of the Tribunal, will find the
excerpt on Page 97 of the document book:
“In Riga, the Germans organized a camp, Stalag 350, for Soviet
prisoners of war, on the premises of the former barracks on
Pernovskaja and Rudolf Streets, which existed from July 1941 to
October 1944. There Soviet prisoners of war were kept in inhuman
conditions. The building where they were lodged had neither
windows nor heat. In spite of heavy forced labor from 12 to 14
hours a day, their rations consisted only of 150-200 grams of
bread and so-called soup made of grass, rotten potatoes, leaves
of trees, and other refuse.”
In my opinion, it is necessary to stress the monotony of the rations
issued to the prisoners of war. Testimonies given by witnesses coincide
entirely with the official directive on the quantities of food allotted
to the prisoners of war, which I have already read into the Record
today.
A former prisoner of war, P. F. Yakovenko, who was imprisoned in Stalag
350, testified—this is on Page 97 in your document book; forgive me, I
forgot to mention it:
“We were given 180 grams of bread, half consisting of sawdust
and straw, one liter of unsalted soup made of unpeeled rotten
potatoes. We slept on the bare ground and were eaten up by lice.
Between December 1941 to May 1942, 30,000 prisoners of war
perished in this camp from starvation, cold, flogging, typhus,
and shooting. The Germans daily shot prisoners of war who, owing
to weakness or illness, were unable to go to work; they mocked
at them and beat them without any reason at all.”
G. B. Novitzkis, who had worked as senior nurse in the hospital for
Soviet prisoners of war in Number 1, Gymnastitcheskaya Street, testified
that she had repeatedly seen patients eat grass and tree leaves in order
to quell the pangs of hunger.
“In sections of Stalag 350, on the territory of a former
brewery, and in the Panzer barracks, over 19,000 persons
perished between September 1941 and April 1942 alone, of
starvation, torture, and epidemics. The Germans also shot
wounded prisoners of war. In addition, Soviet prisoners of war
perished en route to the camp, since the Germans left them
without food or water.”
A female witness, A.V. Taukulis testified:
“In the fall of 1941 a transport of Soviet prisoners of war,
consisting of 50-60 coaches, arrived at the station of
Salaspils. When the cars were opened, the stench of corpses
spread over a great distance. Half the men were dead; many were
at the point of death. Men who were able to climb out of the
coaches dashed towards water, but the guards opened fire and
shot a score or two of them.”
I shall not enumerate other facts which took place in Stalag 350, I
shall merely read into the Record the final sentence, referring to this
camp. I fear that there is a misprint in this sentence in your document
book. If I am not mistaken, your document book mentions the shooting of
120,000 Soviet prisoners. This figure is inaccurate; in the original
document, which I shall now read into the Record, another figure is
mentioned, “In Stalag 350 and in its branches, the Germans tortured to
death and shot over 130,000 Soviet prisoners of war.”
On Page 97 of your document book you can find the following part of this
report:
“There was a camp for Soviet prisoners of war, Stalag 340, in
Daugavpilce (Dvinsk), known among the internees and the town’s
inhabitants as the ‘Death Camp,’ where in 3 years over 124,000
Soviet prisoners of war perished from starvation, tortures, and
shootings.”
The butchering of prisoners of war by German executioners usually began
on the way to the camp. In the summer, prisoners of war were transported
in tightly-closed wagons, in winter in freight coaches and on platform
trucks. Masses of prisoners perished from hunger and thirst. They
suffocated in the summer; they froze in the winter.
Witness T.K. Ussenko stated:
“In November 1941 I was on duty, as signalman, at the station of
Most, and I saw a transport, consisting of more than 30 coaches,
move into the ‘Kilometer 217’ siding”—this was the name given
to that particular part of the track—“Not a living soul was
discovered in the coaches. No fewer than 1,500 dead bodies were
unloaded from this transport. They were dressed in nothing but
their underclothes. The corpses lay around the railway track for
nearly a week.”
The hospital attached to the camp was likewise dedicated to the
extermination of prisoners of war. Schoolteacher V. A. Efimova, who
worked at the hospital, told the Commission:
“It was rarely that any one left this hospital alive. Five
shifts of grave-diggers, selected from among the prisoners,
carried the dead to the cemetery in handcarts. It frequently
happened that a man who was still alive would be thrown into the
cart and six to seven corpses or bodies of executed people piled
on top of him. The living were buried with the dead. At the
hospital sick people, tossing in delirium, were bludgeoned to
death.”
When an epidemic broke out in the camp, the Hitlerites drove to the
airfield all the prisoners from any barrack where typhus patients had
been discovered and shot them. About 45,000 Soviet prisoners of war were
thus exterminated.
Appalling facts are quoted in the documents of the Extraordinary State
Commission, which investigated the crimes of the German fascist invaders
in the neighborhood of Sevastopol, Kerch, and at the health resort of
Teberda. I shall read into the Record some data from our Exhibit Number
USSR-63(5) (Document Number USSR-63(5)). At the Sevastopol prison, the
German fascist command organized a hospital for sick and wounded
prisoners of war. Here the Soviet warriors perished in masses. I shall
quote a few sentences, which you will find in your document book on Page
99:
“At the time the hospital was organized, the sick and wounded
were not given any water or bread for 5 or 6 days by the
Germans, who cynically said: ‘This is the punishment for the
specially stubborn defense of Sevastopol by the Russians.’
“The wounded brought in from the battlefield were given no
medical aid. Soldiers and officers were thrown on the cement
floor, where they lay bleeding for 7 and 8 days on end.
“During the defense of Sevastopol, a military hospital and a
medico-sanitary battalion, Number 47, were installed in the
vaults of the champagne factory at Inkermann. After the retreat
of the Red Army, a large number of wounded soldiers and officers
were left behind in Vault Numbers 10, 11, 12, and 13, since
there had been no time to evacuate them. When the German savages
captured the factory, they all became drunk and set fire to the
vaults.”
I omit a whole number of facts, the majority of which, strictly
speaking, should have been specially reported to the Tribunal. I pass on
to the description of the last crime mentioned in the statement of the
commission. I pay special attention to it because it describes the
brutal extermination of a very large number of wounded Red Army
soldiers. You will also find this excerpt on Page 99 of your document
book:
“On 4 December 1943 there arrived at the station of Sevastopol,
from the city of Kerch, three transports of wounded prisoners of
war belonging to the Kerch landing forces. Having loaded them on
a 2,500-ton barge moored in the southern bay near the landing
stage, the Germans set fire to it. The heart-rending screams of
the prisoners filled the air. Women who were not far from the
barge could render no assistance to the wounded, since they were
driven from the site of the fire by gendarmes. Not more than 15
men were saved. Thousands perished in the fire.
“On the following day the same barge was loaded with 2,000 men
from among the wounded brought from Kerch. The barge sailed from
Sevastopol in an unknown direction, and all the wounded in it
were drowned at sea.”
I repeat that I am omitting a considerable number of facts established
by the commission.
There is but little difference in character between the documentary
evidence already read into the Record and the data on the atrocities
perpetrated by the German fascist invaders on Soviet prisoners of war in
the region of Stalino. In our Number USSR-2(a) we find, among a lot of
other documents, two documents about the extermination of Soviet
prisoners of war. The first document is dated Stalino, 22 September
1943, and is submitted by a special commission with the President of the
Stalinozavodsk Regional Council of Workers’ Deputies at its head. I
shall read into the Record that part of the document which contains
items of interest to us. The official report begins in the left-hand
column of Page 3 of Document USSR-2(a), and the extracts which I am
reading into the Record are printed on Page 108 of your document book:
“The circumstances of the case: In the Stalinozavodsk district
of the town of Stalino, in the Lenin Club, the German fascist
invaders organized a camp for Soviet prisoners of war; at times
there were up to 20,000 men in this camp; the camp commandant, a
German officer named Gavbel, established an intolerable diet for
the Soviet prisoners of war.
“Examined as witnesses, Ivan Vasilyetch Plakhoff and Konstantin
Semyonovitch Shatzky, former prisoners of war who had been
interned in this camp and managed to escape, testified that
prisoners of war were starved; a loaf of bread weighing 1,200
grams and made of poor-quality, burned flour was issued to eight
men; once a day one liter of hot liquid food was issued,
consisting of a small quantity of burned bran, occasionally
mixed with sawdust. The premises in which the prisoners of war
were housed had no glass in their windows; in summer and winter
alike, even in the coldest weather, only 5 kilograms of coal per
day were allowed for heating purposes. This amount could not, of
course, heat the vast premises where up to a thousand prisoners
lived in a perpetual draught. Mass cases of frostbite were
observed. There were no baths. Generally speaking, people did
not wash for 6 months and were overrun by enormous quantities of
vermin. In the hot summer months the prisoners suffered from the
heat. They were left without drinking water for 3 to 5 days on
end.”
The regime in the camp organized in the region of Stalinozavodsk was, as
is clear from the extracts read into the Record, precisely the same as
the regime in other German prisoner-of-war camps. This has been proved
beyond all doubt by the discovery of general directives.
The following excerpt shows that, over and above these directives, camp
commanders had opportunities for committing atrocities themselves, each
man according to his own particular method, and yet remained unpunished.
On Page 105 of your document book you will find the following extract
which I am now quoting:
“Prisoners of war were beaten with sticks and rifle butts on the
slightest provocation, and a punishment of 720 strokes with the
lash was imposed for any attempt at escape; the strokes were
administered over a period of 8 days—30 strokes of the lash at
a time—morning, noon, and evening. At the same time, the
culprits were deprived of their bread ration, while the liquid
ration was halved.”
Mortality in the camp following this regime was enormous. In winter, up
to 200 persons died every day. Epidemics broke out in the camp. Numerous
cases of oedemata—the result of hunger and death by starvation—were
registered.
The guards derived much pleasure in degrading the prisoners of war by
setting one against the other. Thus Shatzky testified that he was
flogged by German policemen, receiving 120 strokes with the lash and 15
with sticks, for disobeying the order to flog his fellow prisoners of
war. The floggings were supervised by German officers.
Provisions brought by civilians for handing to the prisoners of war did
not reach them. The commission came to the conclusion that no fewer than
25,000 Soviet prisoners of war were buried in the grounds of the camp
and of the central polyclinic. This conclusion is based on the
measurement and number of graves and on the evidence of witnesses.
Mass killings and murders of prisoners of war were also organized by the
German fascist invaders in another town in the Don Basin, Artemovsk. A
special commission, consisting of the military prosecutor of the town of
Artemovsk, of the priest of the Pokrovskaya Church, Ziumin, of
representatives of the intelligentsia, public organizations, and army
units, drew up an official report on the mass murders of Soviet
prisoners of war organized by the fascist invaders. This official report
is on Page 4 of Exhibit Number USSR-2(a). It is also on Page 105 of your
document book. It is said in the report:
“In November 1941, soon after the occupation of the town of
Artemovsk by German fascist invaders, a prisoner-of-war camp was
established in the territory of the small military town lying
beyond the northern station, housing 1,000 captured Red Army
prisoners of war.”
I omit one paragraph and pass on to the question of living conditions in
the camp:
“In the spring of 1942 prisoners of war, driven desperate by
hunger, used to leave the camp and, creeping on all fours like
animals, plucked and ate grass. In order to deprive the men even
of this modicum of food, the Germans fenced off the camp
building by a double row of barbed wire, with a distance of 2
meters between the rows and barbed wire entanglements placed
between them.”
I omit one paragraph and am preparing to read the conclusions into the
Record:
“Twenty-five graves were discovered near the camp—three of them
mass graves. The first grave measured 20 by 15 meters; it
contained the remains of about 1,000 corpses. The second grave
measured 27 by 14 meters and contained the remains of about 900
corpses. In the third grave, 20 meters by 1, the remains of up
to 500 corpses were discovered; and in the remaining graves,
from 25 to 30 in each, making up, all told, a total of some
3,000 corpses.”
In the neighborhood of the small farm of Vertyatchy, in the
Goroditschtchensky region of the Stalingrad area, the Hitlerites
established a prisoner-of-war camp. Here, as in other camps, and with
their customary and characteristic sadism, they exterminated the war
prisoners of the Red Army.
I present to you, as evidence, our Exhibit Number USSR-63(3) (Document
Number USSR-63(3)), which contains an official report of 21 June 1943.
It is duly drawn up and certified and contains the following
information—this is on Page 110 of the document book:
“As a result of the atrocious regime, at least 1,500 Soviet
prisoners of war perished of starvation, torture, sickness, and
executions in the camp near Vertyatchy, during the 3½ months of
its existence.
“The Germans forced the prisoners to work from 14 to 16 hours
per day, and fed them once a day, the ration consisting of 3 to
4 spoonfuls of stewed rye or a ladleful of unsalted rye soup
together with a piece of horse carrion.
“A few days before the arrival of the Red Army the Germans
ceased to feed the prisoners altogether and condemned them to
death by starvation. Nearly all the prisoners suffered from
dysentery. Many had open wounds, but the prisoners received no
medical assistance whatsoever.”
I omit one paragraph and pass on to the next, which deals with the
humiliating treatment of prisoners of war:
“Germans mocked the patriotism of the Soviet prisoners of war by
forcing them to work on German military constructions, to dig
trenches and dugouts, and to build mud huts and shelters for
military technical equipment. The Hitlerites systematically
humiliated Soviet prisoners of war by making them kneel before
the Germans.”
It is noted in the official report that the commission examined material
evidence: tools used for the torture of Soviet prisoners of war, a
leather thong and dagger, picked up among the disarmed bodies, with the
well-known Hitlerite slogan “Blood and Honor” (“Blut und Ehre”). The
circumstances in which the dagger was discovered give every possibility
of understanding what was meant by German “honor” and for whose blood
the dagger was intended.
The documents of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union
relating to the town of Kerch describe the characteristic crimes of the
Hitlerite invaders. I submit to the Tribunal the documents of the
Extraordinary State Commission as Exhibit Number USSR-63(6) (Document
Number USSR-63(6)), and I shall read several extracts into the Record.
In your copy they are all marked so as to enable the Tribunal to follow
the text quoted—Page 115.
THE PRESIDENT: I think we might break off now.
[_A recess was taken._]
COL. POKROVSKY: On Page 115 of the document book you will find the
excerpt I am about to quote from the testimony of Citizeness P. Y.
Bulytchyeva:
“Citizeness P. Y. Bulytchyeva, born in the city of Kerch in
1894, testified:
“‘I witnessed how our Red Army prisoners of war, both soldiers
and officers, were repeatedly driven along the street and how
the weak and wounded were shot out of hand by Germans in the
street itself when, through sheer debility, they fell out of the
ranks. Many times I witnessed this terrible scene. Once, in the
freezing cold, I saw a group of exhausted, ragged, and
barefooted prisoners driven along. Those who attempted to snatch
the pieces of bread thrown to them by the citizens were beaten
up with rubber truncheons and rifle butts. Those who fell under
the blows were promptly shot.’”
I am omitting a few sentences which, in my opinion, need not be read
into the Record.
“At the time of the second occupation, when the Germans broke
into Kerch again, they began to avenge themselves with even
greater fury on perfectly innocent people.”
The witness testifies that the fascist butchers first of all avenged
themselves on the military personnel and that they beat wounded soldiers
to death with rifle butts. On the same page, 115, you will find the
following excerpt:
“The prisoners of war were driven into large buildings, which
were then set on fire. Thus, the Voikov school was burned down,
together with the club for engineering and technical workers
containing 400 soldiers and officers of the Red Army.
“Not a man succeeded in escaping from the burning building. All
those who attempted to save themselves were mowed down by
machine gun fire.
“Wounded soldiers were savagely tortured to death in the small
fishing village of Mayak.”
Another woman witness who lived in this village, A. P. Buryatchenko,
testified:
“On 28 May 1942 the Germans shot all the peaceful inhabitants
who had remained in the village and had not succeeded in hiding.
The fascist monsters mistreated the wounded Soviet prisoners of
war, beat them with rifle butts, and then shot them. In my home,
the Germans discovered a girl in military uniform, who resisted
the fascists, crying, ‘Shoot, you vipers, I die for the Soviet
people and for Stalin, but you, you monsters, will die a dog’s
death.’ This girl patriot was shot on the spot.”
There is, in the district of Kerch, the stone quarry of Adjimushkaisk.
Red Army soldiers were exterminated and poisoned by gas. N. N. Dashkova,
a woman from the village of Adjimushkaisk, testified:
“I myself saw the Germans, who had caught about 900 Red Army
soldiers in the quarry, first ill-treat and then shoot them. The
fascists used gas.”
I omit several sentences. On the same page, 115, you will find the
following quotation:
“At the time of the occupation a camp for Soviet prisoners of
war, housing over 1,000 captives, was set up in the Engels Club.
The Germans ill-treated them, fed them only once a day, drove
them off to heavy labor beyond their strength, and shot on the
spot all those who, exhausted, fell by the road.”
I consider it essential to quote a few more testimonies. N. J.
Shumilova, a woman from the hamlet of Gorki, testified:
“I myself saw a group of prisoners of war being led past my
courtyard. Three of them were unable to move and were promptly
shot by the German escort.”
P. I. Gerassimenko, a woman living in the hamlet of Samostroy,
testified:
“Many Red Army soldiers and officers were driven to our village.
The area which they occupied was surrounded by barbed wire.
Here, naked and barefoot, they perished from cold and hunger.
They were kept in the most frightful and inhumane conditions. By
the side of the living lay the bodies of the dead, and these
bodies were not moved for days on end. Such conditions rendered
life in the camp still more intolerable. The prisoners were
beaten with rifle butts, flogged by the lash, and fed on refuse.
Any inhabitant who attempted to give food and bread to the
prisoners was beaten up, while prisoners attempting to hand over
these gifts were shot.”
In a Kerch school, Number 24, the Germans set up a camp for prisoners of
war. A. N. Naumova, a school teacher, testified as follows concerning
the regime in the camp:
“There were many wounded in the camp. These unhappy people,
though bleeding profusely, were left without any help. I
collected medicine and bandages for the wounded, and their
wounds were dressed by a medical orderly from among the
captives. The prisoners suffered from dysentery since they were
fed hog-wash instead of bread. People dropped from exhaustion
and disease; they died in agony. On 20 June 1942 three prisoners
of war were given the lash for attempting to escape from the
camp. The wounded were shot. In June one of the escaped
prisoners was caught and executed.”
Koshenikove, a teacher in the Stalin School, in the area of the factory
kitchen and Voikov works, witnessed the execution of a group of Red Army
men and officers. In 1943 the German criminals drove Red Army prisoners
all the way from the Caucasus. The entire road from the ferry to the
town, a distance of some 18 to 20 kilometers, was littered with the dead
bodies of Red Army men. There were many sick and wounded among the
prisoners of war. Whoever was unable to walk, either through exhaustion
or sickness, was shot on the way.
Among other facts there is one which deserves special attention:
In 1942 the fascists threw 100 Red Army prisoners of war, alive, into
the village well of Adjimushkray; their bodies were subsequently
extracted by the inhabitants and buried in a communal grave in the
sacred brotherhood of death. This information is contained in the same
report, extracts of which I have just quoted to you.
On 29 January 1946 the witness, Paul Roser, was cross-examined here
before the Tribunal. He testified that in the course of 4 months, out of
10,000 Russians, whom he had seen as prisoners of war in the German camp
at the city of Rawa-Ruska, only 2,000 remained alive.
We possess evidence from yet another eyewitness of the numerous
atrocities and endless tortures inflicted on the prisoners of war at
Rawa-Ruska. Witness V. S. Kotchan, who was duly interrogated according
to the procedure prescribed by our laws, testified before the captain of
the guard of justice, Ryshov, on 27 September 1944—the minutes of his
interrogation are hereby submitted to you as Exhibit Number USSR-6(c)
(Document Number USSR-6(c)):
“I worked under the Germans as a digger at the prisoner-of-war
camp for Red Army soldiers, from December 1941 to April 1942.”
This is on Page 124 of the document book. I omit a few lines irrelevant
to the matter, and I quote further:
“This camp was set up by the Germans in the barracks near the
railway. The entire area of the camp was surrounded by barbed
wire. According to personal statements by the prisoners of war,
the Germans drove from 12,000 to 15,000 men into this camp.
While we were working, we watched the Germans mock the Red Army
prisoners of war. They fed them once a day on unpeeled, frozen
potatoes baked in their skins and covered with dirt. They kept
the prisoners of war in the cold barracks all through the
winter.
“I know for a fact that, when the Germans drove the prisoners of
war into this camp, all clothes, overcoats, boots, and shoes
which were at all serviceable were taken from the prisoners,
leaving them barefoot and in rags. The prisoners of war were
taken to work daily under escort from 4 to 5 in the morning and
kept working until 10 o’clock at night. Then, worn out, cold,
and hungry, the prisoners were marched back to their barracks,
where doors and windows had purposely been left open all day so
that the frost might enter these barracks and freeze the
prisoners to death. In the morning, under the supervision of
German soldiers, hundreds of corpses would be taken away in a
tractor by the prisoners of war; they were buried in
previously-prepared pits in the forest of Volkovitch. When the
prisoners were marched off to work in the morning, under escort,
the Germans would place a detachment of soldiers armed with
rifles and stakes by the exit gates of the camp; they pole-axed
them with stakes, stabbed them with bayonets, and chased the
hungry and exhausted prisoners who were unable to move
properly.”
The same witness describes also some other German atrocities:
“The German camp administration brought out completely-naked
prisoners of war, bound them with ropes to a wall surrounded by
barbed wire and kept them there, in the cold of the December
winter, until they froze to death. The air of the camp resounded
continually with the groans and cries of people maimed by rifle
butts. Some were pole-axed with rifle butts on the spot.
“When, starving and exhausted, the prisoners were brought to the
camp, they would hurl themselves on a heap of rotten and frozen
potatoes. This, in turn, would be followed by a shot from the
German escort.”
I present to the Tribunal, under the same Number USSR-6(c)—Page 120 of
the document book—the deposition of a French prisoner of war, Emilie
Leger, a soldier of the 43rd Colonial Infantry Regiment, Serial Number
29. In his deposition the camp at Rawa-Ruska is called the “famous camp
of lingering death, Stalag 325.”
It appears to me that this phrase serves, as it were, as a supplement to
the testimonies of witnesses Roser and Kochau. The Soviet Prosecution
has at its disposal a considerable quantity of material disclosing as
well numerous crimes of the Hitlerite invaders perpetrated against
prisoners of war in the territory of the Lvov district.
It seems to me sufficient to read into the Record extracts from the
evidence submitted by D. Sh. Manussevitch, and I wish to state that this
evidence is confirmed by the testimony of two other witnesses: F. G. Ash
and G. Y. Khamaydes. I am presenting all three documents as Document
Number USSR-6(c).
Witnesses Manussevitch, Ash, and Khamaydes worked for some time in the
detachment which cremated the dead bodies of men shot by the Germans in
the region of Lvov and particularly in the Lissenitzky camps. Witness
Manussevitch states—I quote, beginning with Line 20 at the bottom of
Page 2 of our Number 6(c), and on Page 129 of your document book:
“When we (the Brigade of Death) had completed the cremation of
the corpses, we were conveyed at night in cars to the
Lissenitzky forest, opposite the yeast factory at Lvov. There
were about 45 pits in this forest, containing the bodies of
people previously shot in 1941-42. There were between 500 and
3,500 bodies in the pits. These were not only the bodies of
soldiers of the Italian, French, Belgian, and Russian armies,
that is, of prisoners of war, but of peaceful inhabitants as
well. All the prisoners of war were buried in their clothes.
Therefore, when digging them out of the pits, I could recognize
the dead by their uniforms, insignia, buttons, medals, and
decorations, as well as by their spoons and mess cups. All these
were burned once the corpses had been exhumed. As in the camp at
Yanovsky, grass was sown on the site of the pits, and trees and
dead tree trunks were planted so as to erase any trace of the
crimes, which are certainly unprecedented in the history of
mankind.”
In addition to the testimony of the victims and of many Soviet citizens
we have at our disposal the testimonies of members of the German Armed
Forces. I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-62 (Document
Number USSR-62) a document which was signed by more than 60 persons
belonging to different units and branches of the German Army. We find
their signature on written protests addressed to the International Red
Cross in January 1942. We also have a communication of the International
Red Cross acknowledging the receipt of this document. In this letter
they mentioned facts relating to the criminal treatment of Soviet
prisoners of war, of which they had personal knowledge. The persons who
signed this protest were themselves prisoners of war at Soviet Camp
Number 78. Their protest is the result of the comparison made by the
authors of the document between the treatment meted out to Soviet
prisoners, which they had seen for themselves, and the treatment they
received at Camp Number 78. I will quote a few excerpts from this
document—the text with the following words—Page 135 of the document
book:
“We, the German prisoners of war of Camp Number 78, have read
the note by the Peoples’ Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the
Soviet Government, Mr. Molotov, concerning the treatment of
prisoners of war in Germany. We might consider the cruelties
described in that note as impossible had we not witnessed such
atrocities for ourselves. In order that truth should prevail, we
must confirm that prisoners of war—citizens of the Soviet
Union—were often subjected to terrible ill-treatment by
representatives of the German Army and were even shot by them.”
Concrete examples of crimes known to the authors are quoted further on
in the text. Hans Drews, of Regenwalde, a soldier of Company 4 of the
6th Tank Regiment, stated:
“I am acquainted with the order issued by Lieutenant General
Model to the 3rd Tank Division to the effect that prisoners
should not be taken. A similar order was issued by Major General
Nehring, commanding officer of the 18th Tank Division. Two days
prior to the attack on Russia we were told at the briefing
session of 20 June that in the forthcoming campaign wounded Red
Army men should not have their wounds dressed, since the German
Army would have no time to bother with the wounded.”
The fact of the preliminary issuance of this order also has been
confirmed by a soldier of the 18th Tank Division Headquarters, Harry
Marek, a native of the neighborhood of Breslau:
“On 21 June, a day before the beginning of the war against
Russia, we received the following order from our offices:
“‘The commissars of the Red Army are to be shot on the spot,
since there is no need to stand upon any ceremony with them.
Neither is there any necessity to bother ourselves unduly with
the Russian wounded; they must be finished off immediately.’”
Wilhelm Metzick, a soldier of the 399th Infantry Regiment of the 170th
Division, from Hamburg-Altona, quotes the following case:
“On 23 June, when we entered Russia, we came to a small hamlet
near Beltsa. There I saw with my own eyes how two German
soldiers shot five Russian prisoners in the back with submachine
guns.”
Wolfgang Scharte, a soldier in Company 2 of the 3rd Tank Destroyer
Battalion, a native of Gerhardtschagen, near Brunswick, testified
concerning the question of exterminating the Red commissars of the Red
Army:
“On the day before we opened the campaign against the Soviet
Union, the officers told us:
“‘If on the way you should happen to meet Russian
commissars—they can always be recognized by the Soviet star on
their sleeve—and Russian women in uniform, they must be shot
immediately. Anyone failing to do so and to comply with this
order will be held responsible and punished.’
“On 29 June I myself saw representatives of the German Army
shoot wounded Red Army men lying in a field of grain near the
town of Dubno. After this they were run through with bayonets to
make quite sure that they were dead. German officers stood
nearby and laughed.”
Joseph Berndsen of Oberhausen, a soldier of the 6th Tank Division,
stated; “Even before entering Russia we were told, at one of the
briefing sessions, ‘Commissars must be shot.’”
Jacob Korzillias, of Horforst, near Treves, a German officer, a
lieutenant of the 112th Engineer Battalion of the 112th Infantry
Division, certified:
“In a village near Bolva, 15 wounded Red Army men were thrown
out of the hut where they were lying, stripped, and bayonetted
on the order of Lieutenant Kierick, adjutant of the 112th
Engineer Battalion. This was done with the knowledge of the
division commander, Lieutenant General Mitt.”
Alois Goetz, from Hagenbach-am-Rhine, a soldier of Company 8 of the
427th Infantry Regiment, stated, “On 27 June, in a forest near
Augustovo, two Red Army commissars were shot on the order of the
battalion commander, Captain Wittmann.”
On Page 3 of our Exhibit Number USSR-62 we find the following statement
by Paul Sender of Königsberg, a soldier of the 4th Platoon of Company
13, Infantry Field Artillery, attached to the 2d Infantry Regiment—Page
137 of the document book:
“On 14 July, on the road between Porchov and Staraya-Russa,
Corporal Schneider, of Company 1 of the 2d Infantry Regiment,
shot 12 captured Red Army men in the gutter. When I questioned
him on the matter, Schneider answered, ‘Why should I bother with
them? They are not even worth a bullet.’ I also know of another
case.
“During the battles around Porchov, a Red Army man was captured.
Shortly after he was shot by a corporal of Company 1. As soon as
the Red Army soldier fell, the corporal took from his knapsack
all the food in it.”
To conclude the reading of excerpts from the protest of the German
prisoners of war, I should like to quote two more depositions by Fritz
Rummler and Richard Gillig, respectively. We find their depositions at
the bottom of Page 4. Fritz Rummler, a native of Strehlen in Silesia and
a corporal of Company 9, Battalion 3, of the 518th Regiment of the 295th
Infantry Division, reported the following cases—this excerpt is on Page
138 of the document book:
“In August, in the town of Zlatopol, I saw how two officers of
the SS units and two soldiers shot two captured Red Army
soldiers after first taking their army overcoats from them.
These officers and soldiers belonged to the Panzer tank forces
of General Von Kleist. In September the crew of a German tank on
the road to Krasnograd crushed two captured Red Army soldiers to
death with their tank. This act was inspired purely by lust for
blood and murder. The tank commander was a noncommissioned
officer, Schneider, belonging to Von Kleist’s Panzer forces. I
saw how four captured Red Army soldiers were questioned in our
battalion. This happened at Voroshilovsk. The Red Army soldiers
refused to answer questions of a military nature asked by the
battalion commander, Major Warnecke. He flew into a rage and
with his own hands beat the prisoners unconscious.”
Corporal Richard Gillig, of the 9th Transportation Platoon, of the 34th
Division, stated:
“Many a time I witnessed the inhuman and cruel treatment of
Russian prisoners of war. Before my own eyes and on the orders
of their officers, German soldiers removed the boots from the
captured Red Army soldiers and drove them on barefooted. I
witnessed many such facts at Tarutino. I was an eyewitness of
the following incident: One prisoner refused to surrender his
boots voluntarily. Soldiers of the escort beat him till he could
no longer move. I saw other prisoners being stripped, not only
of their boots, but of their uniform clothing, right down to
their underwear.”
I omit a few sentences and go on to the end of the statement.
“I saw, during the retreat of our column, near the town of
Medyn, German soldiers beating up captured Red Army soldiers.
One prisoner was very tired and unsteady on his legs. A soldier
of the escort raced up to the captive and started kicking and
beating him with the butt of his rifle. Other soldiers followed
his example and the prisoner dropped dead when we reached the
town.”
The statement reads on:
“It is no secret that, in the front line of the German Army
division headquarters, specialists existed whose work it was to
torture Red Army soldiers and Soviet officers in order to force
them, in this manner, to disclose military orders and
information.”
I submit to the Tribunal the photostat of this statement. You can see
that there are 60 signatures appended to it by members of the German
Armed Forces, with the indication of the regiments and smaller
subdivisions to which they belonged.
I submit to the Tribunal four photographs of German origin. Each of
these photographs was taken by Germans; time and place when the
photographs were taken are indicated. One photograph shows the
distribution of food; the third and fourth are pictures of the
prisoner-of-war camp at Uman.
THE PRESIDENT: Where are the pictures?
COL. POKROVSKY: If I am not mistaken, you have been given the photostat
of the statement, but not the photographs.
THE PRESIDENT: This is not a copy of the photographs; these are the
signatures of the 60 German prisoners.
COL. POKROVSKY: The photographs will be submitted immediately. They have
evidently, by an oversight, not been included in the document book.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on.
COL. POKROVSKY: It is obvious from the first picture that the food
distributed is insufficient. Men are practically fighting for the right
of getting at it. The second photograph shows hungry Soviet prisoners of
war wandering round an empty barn and eating the oil cakes stored for
cattle food and which they had discovered. As to the third and fourth
photographs, I can submit to the Tribunal important testimony by the
witness, Bingel. Excerpts from his testimony have a direct bearing on
the question of the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war.
I interrogated Bingel myself and I now submit the minutes of his
interrogation to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-111 (Document
Number USSR-111), dated 27 December 1945. Bingel, who formerly commanded
a company in the German Army, testified—I quote an excerpt from Page 8
of the minutes of his interrogation—as follows:
“A: Tn one of my reports I made a statement concerning the
regime inside the prisoner-of-war camp at Uman. . . . This camp
was guarded by a company of our subsection of the 783rd
Battalion, and I was therefore familiar with everything which
occurred in the camp. It was the task of this battalion to guard
the prisoners of war and to control the highways and railroads.
“‘This camp was calculated to hold, under normal conditions,
from 6,000 to 7,000 men; at that time, however, it housed 74,000
men.’
“Q: ‘Were there barracks?’
“A: ‘No. It was formerly a brickyard and consisted exclusively
of low sheds for drying bricks.’
“Q: ‘Were the prisoners of war housed there?’
“A: ‘It can scarcely be said that they were housed, since each
shed, at the utmost, could not contain more than 200 to 300 men;
the rest had to sleep in the open.’
“Q: ‘What was the regime like at that camp?’
“A: ‘The regime in that camp was definitely peculiar. The
existing conditions gave one the impression that the camp
commander, Captain Bekker, was quite unable to handle and feed
so large a number of men. There were two kitchens in the camp,
although they could hardly be called kitchens. Iron barrels had
been placed on stone and concrete floors, and the food for the
prisoners was prepared in these barrels. But the kitchens, even
if operating for 24 hours on end, could only prepare food for
approximately 2,000 people daily. The usual diet for the
prisoner was very insufficient. The daily ration for six men
consisted of one loaf of bread which, again, could scarcely be
described as bread. Disturbances frequently arose during the
distribution of the hot food, for the prisoners—and there were
70,000 of them in the camp—struggled to get at the victuals. In
cases like these the guards resorted to clubs—a usual procedure
in the camp. I obtained the general impression that in all the
camps the club was inevitably the foundation of all things.’”
Please forgive the digression, but I have been told, Your Honor, that
two photographs are attached to the Record and that their authenticity
is certified. I am now submitting them to the Tribunal. The other two
will be handed to you very shortly. I continue to quote from the Record:
“Q: ‘Do you know anything about the death rate at the camp?’
“A: ‘Sixty to seventy men died at the camp daily.’
“Q: ‘From what causes?’
“A: ‘Before the epidemics broke out one mostly spoke of people
being killed.’
“Q: ‘Killed during the distribution of food?’
“A: ‘Both during the distribution of food and during working
hours; generally speaking, people were being killed all day
long.’”
Bingel was interrogated by us for the second time, and he was shown the
photographs of the camp at Uman. These are the same photographs that you
now have in your hands, Your Honors. He was then asked the following
question, “The camp shown here, is it the one you spoke about, or some
other camp?” After this he was shown photographs from a negative, 13×18,
of 14 August 1941 and from a negative, 13×22, of the same date. Bingel
replied:
“Yes, this is the camp of which I spoke. As a matter of fact,
this is not the camp proper but a clay pit belonging to the
camp; here the prisoners were housed as soon as they arrived
from the front. Later on they were assigned to various sections
of the camp.”
“Q: ‘What can you tell us about the second photograph?’
“A: ‘The second one shows the camp photographed from another
angle, that is, from the right side. The buildings shown here
were practically the only brick buildings in the camp. These
brick buildings, though quite empty and undamaged, with
excellent and spacious quarters, were not used for housing the
prisoners of war.’”
It is difficult to say whether or not that what the Hitlerites did to
the Soviet prisoners of war at the so-called “Grosslazarett” of the town
of Slavuta, in the Kamenetzk-Podolsky region, should be considered as
the limit of human vileness. Be that as it may, the extermination of
Soviet prisoners of war by the Hitlerites at the “Grosslazarett” is one
of the darkest pages in the annals of fascist crime.
I submit to the Tribunal, as Exhibit Number USSR-5 (Document Number
USSR-5), the report of the Extraordinary State Commission, and I shall
read into the Record several excerpts from the report itself, as well as
from the appendices thereto.
“On the expulsion of the fascist hordes from the town of
Slavuta, units of the Red Army discovered, on the site of the
restricted military area, the establishment which the Germans
called the ‘Grosslazarett’ for Soviet prisoners of war. Over 500
emaciated, critically sick men were found in the ‘Lazarett.’ The
interrogation of these men and the special investigation carried
out by medico-forensic experts and by experts of the Central
Institute for Food, of the People’s Commissariat for Health in
the U.S.S.R., led to a detailed reconstruction of the
extermination of an immense number of Soviet prisoners of war in
that appalling institution.”
You will find the passage I am about to quote on Page 153 of the
document book:
“In the fall of 1941, German fascist invaders occupied the town
of Slavuta, where they organized a ‘Lazarett’ for wounded and
sick officers and men of the Red Army, under the name of
Grosslazarett, Slavuta, Teillager 301.
“The ‘Lazarett’ was located about 1½ to 2 kilometers to the
southeast of Slavuta and occupied 10 three-storied stone
buildings. The Hitlerites surrounded all these buildings by a
strong barbed wire fence. All along the barbed wire, 10 meters
apart, towers were built, in which guns, searchlights, and
guards were placed.
“The administrative staff, the German doctors and the guard of
the ‘Grosslazarett,’ the latter represented by the commanding
officer, Captain Plank (later replaced by Major Pavlisk), the
deputy commander, Kronsdorfer, Captain Boye, Dr. Borbe, with his
deputy, Dr. Sturm, Master Sergeant Ilseman, and Technical
Sergeant Bekker carried out a mass extermination of Soviet
prisoners of war by imposing a special regime of hunger,
overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions, by torture and direct
murder, by depriving the sick and wounded of all medical
assistance, and by subjecting utterly exhausted men to heavy
labor.”
The Extraordinary State Commission refers to the “Grosslazarett” as the
“Hospital of Death.” I shall quote a short excerpt from a section under
the selfsame name. It is on Page 3 of the Russian original and on Page
153 of the document book:
“The German authorities concentrated at the ‘Grosslazarett’
15,000 to 18,000 severely and slightly wounded Soviet prisoners
of war, together with prisoners suffering from various
contagious and noncontagious diseases.
“To replace the ranks of the dead, fresh batches of sick and
wounded prisoners of war were continually brought in. On the
journey the captives were tortured, starved, and murdered. The
Hitlerites threw out hundreds of corpses from each car of the
incoming transports as they reached the ‘Lazarett.’”
According to data received from the investigating commission, 800 to 900
dead bodies would be thrown out of each train as it unloaded at a branch
line. A further report of the Commission states:
“Thousands of Soviet prisoners on the march perished from
hunger, thirst, lack of care, and the savage club-law of the
German guards . . . as a routine practice the Hitlerites would
greet a group of prisoners at the ‘Lazarett’ gates with blows
from rifle butts and rubber truncheons, after which the new
arrivals would be stripped of their leather footwear, warm
clothing, and personal belongings.”
In the next section, on the same page, the State Commission reports that
infectious diseases were deliberately spread among the prisoners of war
by German medical officers in the “Lazarett”:
“In the ‘Grosslazarett’ the German medical officers artificially
created an incredible state of overcrowding. The prisoners were
forced to stand close to each other; they succumbed to
exhaustion, dropped down, and died.”
The fascists resorted to various methods for reducing the living room in
the “Lazarett”. A former prisoner of war, I.Y. Chuazhev, reported that:
“The Germans reduced the floor space in the ‘Lazarett’ by firing
off submachine guns, since the prisoners, perforce, pressed more
closely to each other; then the Hitlerites pushed in more sick
and wounded and the door was closed.”
The premeditated spreading of infectious diseases in this death camp,
derisively named a “Lazarett,” was achieved by extremely primitive
means:
“Patients suffering from spotted fever, tuberculosis, or
dysentery, severely and lightly wounded cases, were one and all
put in the same block and the same ward.”
In a ward intended, under normal conditions, to hold not more than 400
patients, the number of spotted fever and tuberculosis cases alone
amounted to 1800.
“The rooms were never cleaned. The sick remained, for months on
end, in the same underclothes in which they were captured. They
slept on the bare boards. Many were half-undressed, others
entirely naked. The buildings were unheated, and the primitive
stoves, constructed by the prisoners themselves, fell to pieces.
There was no water for washing in this ‘Lazarett,’ not even for
drinking. As a result of these unsanitary conditions, the
‘hospital’ was, to a monstrous extent, overrun by lice.”
Annihilation by the premeditated spreading of diseases went hand in hand
with starvation. The daily food ration consisted of 250 grams of ersatz
bread and two liters of so-called “Balanda soup.” The flour used for
baking the bread for sick and wounded prisoners of war was brought from
Germany. Fifteen tons of flour were discovered in one of the “Lazarett”
storerooms. The factory-packed paper bags, containing 40 kilos each,
bore a label with the word “Spelzmehl.” Samples of this ersatz flour
were sent for analysis to the Central Food Institute of the People’s
Commissariat for Public Health of the U.S.S.R.
I present the document dealing with the annihilation of Soviet prisoners
of war by the Hitlerites in the “Grosslazarett” as Exhibit Number
USSR-5(a), (Document Number USSR-5(a)). On Pages 9, 10, and 11 of this
document the Tribunal can see the photostat of the Central Food
Institute’s report.
This report was established on the one hand on the basis of an analysis
made by the field military laboratory and, on the other hand, on the
basis of an analysis carried out in the Central Food Institute itself.
Sample bakings of bread were made from the ersatz flour and from the
ersatz flour mixed with a small addition of real flour. It seems that it
was impossible to bake a loaf with ersatz flour alone. The Institute’s
report states:
“It is evident that the bread was made with the addition of a
certain quantity of natural flour for binding the dough. A diet
of this so-called ‘bread,’ in the absence of all other food and
food products of a full dietetic value, inevitably led to
starvation and acute exhaustion.”
The analysis proved that the “flour” consisted of nothing but straw
chopped evenly though rather roughly. Some particles were 2 and some 3
millimeters in length. Under the microscope, in every optical field of
vision—according to the report—we discovered, “Together with food and
vegetable fiber, minute quantities of grains of starch, resembling
grains of oats in structure.” The Institute came to the conclusion that
“The use of this bread, owing to the irritant action of the soft crumb,
resulted in diseases of the digestive tract.”
Anticipating a little, I should like to report the results of the
medico-legal autopsies performed on 112 corpses exhumed from Site Number
1 and of the external examination of approximately 500 bodies. In the
first instance exhaustion was proved to have caused the death of 96
victims. In the second case, as stated in the findings—see Page
7—mentioned in Exhibit Number USSR-5(a), (Document Number USSR-5(a)):
“The statement that exhaustion was the fundamental cause of
mortality in the prisoners’ camp was likewise proved by the
results of the external examinations of some 500 corpses, when
it was disclosed that the proportion of victims dead of acute
exhaustion had approached 100 percent.”
A little further on, in the same report, in Subparagraph “d” of
Paragraph 5, the experts, supported by numerous witnesses, state that
the diet in the Slavuta “Grosslazarett” can be characterized as
completely useless for human consumption. I quote, “Bread contained 64
percent sawdust; ‘Balanda soup’ was made of rotten potatoes with the
addition of refuse, rat-droppings, _et cetera_.”
Such prisoners of war who had survived the tyranny of the Hitler hangmen
and had lived to see the liberation of Slavuta declared—I quote an
excerpt from Page 4 of Exhibit Number USSR-5, Page 153 of the document
book:
“In the ‘Grosslazarett’ we periodically observed outbreaks of a
mysterious disease of an unknown nature, referred to as
‘para-cholera’ by the German doctors. The appearance of
‘para-cholera’ was the result of barbarous experiments by the
German doctors. These outbreaks would vanish as suddenly as they
appeared. The mortality rate in ‘para-cholera’ rose to 60-80
percent. German physicians performed autopsies on the bodies of
some of the victims, and no captured Russian medical officers
were admitted to these autopsies.”
In conclusion, it is stated in Subparagraph 8 of the medico-legal expert
report—Page 7 of Exhibit Number USSR-5(a), Page 159 of the document
book—that:
“No objective circumstances can justify the conditions under
which the prisoners of war were housed in the camp. All the
more, since it has been revealed by thoroughgoing investigations
that there were enormous food supplies in the German military
depots at Slavuta and that both medical supplies and surgical
bandages abounded in the military dispensaries.”
The “Grosslazarett” staff included a considerable number of medical
personnel. Nevertheless, according to the statement of the government
commission, sick and wounded officers and men of the Red Army did not
receive even the most elementary medical attention. And how could there
be any talk of medical attention when the entire object of the
“Grosslazarett” was directly opposed to such assistance? The
administration of the “Grosslazarett” not only strove to destroy the
prisoners of war physically, but they also endeavored to fill the last
days of the sick and wounded with suffering and anguish.
One part of the commission’s statement is entitled “Torture and shooting
of Soviet prisoners of war.” I shall read into the Record a passage
taken from this part. It is on Page 4, Exhibit Number USSR-5, Page 153
of the document book:
“Soviet prisoners of war in the ‘Grosslazarett’ were subjected
to torture and torment, beaten up when food was distributed and
again when setting out to work. Even the dying were not spared
by the fascist murderers. The medico-legal examination of the
exhumed corpses revealed, among a number of other bodies of
prisoners of war, the body of a prisoner who, in his death
agony, had been wounded in the groin with a knife. He had been
thrown into his grave while still alive, with the knife sticking
in the wound, and was then covered over with earth.
“One method of mass torture in the ‘Lazarett’ consisted in
locking the sick and wounded in a detention cell—a room without
heat and with a concrete floor. The prisoners in this cell were
left without food for days on end, and many died there. In order
to exhaust the ill and weak prisoners still further, the
Hitlerites forced the sick and enfeebled patients to run round
the ‘Lazarett’ building; those who could not run were flogged
almost to death. There were many cases where the German guards
murdered the prisoners just for fun.
“A former prisoner of war, Buchtichyuk, reported how the Germans
threw the intestines of dead horses on the barbed wire
surrounding the interior of the camp. When the prisoners,
maddened with hunger, ran up to the barbed wire, the guards
opened fire on them with submachine guns. The witness, Kirsanov,
saw one prisoner of war bayonetted for picking up a potato
tuber. A former prisoner of war, Shatalov, was an eyewitness to
the shooting of a prisoner by his escort merely for trying to
obtain a second helping of ‘Balanda soup.’
“In February 1942 Shatalov saw a sentry wound a prisoner who was
searching the garbage heap for remnants of food left over from
the kitchen of the German personnel; the wounded man was
immediately brought to the pit, stripped, and executed.”
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
[_The Tribunal adjourned until 14 February 1946 at 1000 hours._]
FIFTY-NINTH DAY
Thursday, 14 February 1946
_Morning Session_
THE PRESIDENT: I have an announcement to make which concerns the
defendants’ counsel. The Tribunal will sit in open session on Saturday
morning from 10 o’clock to hear the application of the defendants’
counsel for an adjournment.
They will hear one counsel on either side, that is to say, one counsel
for the Prosecution and one counsel for the Defense, for 15 minutes
each, and after that open session the Tribunal will adjourn into closed
session upon procedural matters.
COL. POKROVSKY: Yesterday, in the course of my representation, I
referred to four photographs in our possession, two of which were
submitted to the Tribunal there and then. These photographs have been
made by the Germans and they show the prisoner-of-war camp at Uman. I
must apologize that yesterday, for technical reasons, we were unable to
produce the remaining two at the proper time. The first of these
photographs shows the distribution of food to the prisoners; the second,
hungry Soviet prisoners searching for and eating oil cakes intended as
cattle food. I now submit the originals of these two photographs
(Document Numbers USSR-358 and 359) as Exhibit Numbers USSR-358 and
USSR-359.
An autopsy of the exhumed bodies, performed during the investigation of
fascist crimes in the so-called “Lager,” Slavuta, confirms that:
“The headquarters command and the camp guards repeatedly
resorted to refined forms of torture. Among the bodies exhumed
on which autopsies were performed, the medico-legal examination
established that the corpses of four prisoners of war, murdered
with cold steel, had received bayonet wounds penetrating the
cavity of the skull.”
You will find this passage, Your Honors, on Page 153 of the document
book.
“The Hitlerites compelled sick and wounded prisoners, despite
their extreme weakness and acute state of exhaustion, to carry
out work which was entirely beyond their strength. The prisoners
had to carry heavy burdens, were forced to shoulder the bodies
of murdered Soviet citizens and carry them out of the camp.
Exhausted prisoners who fell by the way were shot on the spot.
The road to and from work, according to a report of the Roman
Catholic priest at Slavuta, was marked, as by milestones, with
small grave mounds.”
The fascist fanatics did not always have the patience to wait for the
actual death of one or another prisoner of war, and they buried persons
who were still alive. I quote from a document which I have previously
submitted to the Tribunal. You will find this quotation once again on
Page 153 of your document book:
“As a result of the discovery of a considerable quantity of
grains of sand in the lower respiratory tracts of the corpses of
four prisoners, grains which penetrated right down to the very
smallest bronchial tube, and which could not have penetrated
thus far unless propelled by the respiratory movements of
persons smothered by sand, the medico-legal experts found that
at the ‘Gross-Lazarett’ the guards of the commander had buried
the Soviet citizens alive. This was done with the connivance of
the German doctors.”
Prisoner-of-war Pankin, a former inmate of the “Gross-Lazarett,” knew of
one case where, in February 1943, an unconscious patient was brought to
the morgue. There he recovered consciousness, but when it was reported
to the officer in charge of barracks that a live man had been taken to
the morgue, he ordered him to be left there. The sick man was buried.
Some prisoners, spurred by the intolerable regime, ignored the immense
risks attached to the venture and attempted to escape, either singly or
in groups. Such martyrs who succeeded in getting out of the “hospital”
hell sought refuge with the local population of Slavuta and the
surrounding hamlets. The Hitlerite brutes mercilessly shot anybody who
had rendered any kind of assistance to a fugitive.
The town of Slavuta lies in the Shepetov district. On 15 January 1942,
the District Commissioner of Shepetov, Dr. Worbs, issued a special order
to the effect that if those directly responsible for helping escaped
prisoners were not found, 10 hostages would be shot in every case.
Father Dhynkovsky reported that 26 peace-loving citizens were arrested
and shot for helping prisoners of war flee.
A medical examination of the 525 prisoners liberated from the
“Gross-Lazarett” revealed that 435 suffered from extreme exhaustion, 59
from complications following untended, infected wounds, and that 31
suffered from neuro-psychiatric disturbances.
The commission notes, and I quote—with the permission of the
Tribunal—the last and the penultimate paragraphs of the left column, on
Page 5 of our document. In your file this quotation is on Page 154 of
the document book:
“During the 2 years of Slavuta’s occupation, the Hitlerites,
with the connivance of the German doctors Borbe, Sturm, and
other medical personnel in the ‘Gross-Lazarett,’ exterminated
about 150,000 Red Army officers and men.”
The German fascist executioners, perfectly aware of the unbounded
bestiality of their crimes, attempted to conceal by all possible means
the traces of the atrocities committed. They especially endeavored to
camouflage the burial sites of the Soviet prisoners of war. Thus, for
instance, on the cross of Grave Number 623, only eight surnames of
persons buried were indicated, whereas upon excavation 32 bodies were
actually found in that grave. Such, too, was the case when Grave Number
624 was opened up. In other graves, layers of earth were placed between
several rows of corpses. For instance, 10 bodies were found in Grave
Number 625. When a layer of earth, 30 centimeters thick, had been
removed, two further rows of corpses were found in the same grave; the
same occurred at the excavation of Graves Number 627 and 628.
Numerous graves were camouflaged by flower-beds, trees, plants, paths,
_et cetera_, but no disguise can ever hide the bloody crimes committed
by the Hitlerite evildoers.
If I am not mistaken, there was a case when one of the participants in
these trials, evidently forgetting where he was and under what
circumstances, expressed a wish to follow the procedure laid down by
German law. The Tribunal immediately made the necessary inquiries, and
the intention of operating in accordance with the standards of German
law was, of course, promptly rejected. At present I am fully able to
submit to the Tribunal documents which, in my opinion, are of importance
in our case, although they are compiled in complete accordance with the
rules laid down by German law.
Among the numerous documents found in the police archives of the town of
Zhitomir, Red Army troops seized a certain piece of correspondence. This
is a police inquiry. The authors of this document could not foretell
that it would be read into the record at a session of the International
Tribunal for the punishment of the major war criminals. The documents
constituting this correspondence were intended exclusively for the
chiefs of police, and they were compiled in accordance with all the
customary requirements of German law and of the police investigations of
fascist Germany. From this point of view, those who would like to
examine the documentation in question can be well satisfied.
At the same time this correspondence is useful to us. So much has been
said in the comparatively small number of pages that I should have to
analyze the documentation section by section in order that you could
appreciate it fully and from every angle. I submit this correspondence
to you both in the German photostats and in the Russian translation. I
repeat—this is a police inquiry. The document is submitted to the
Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-311 (Document Number USSR-311); and we
have, in accordance with the wishes of the Tribunal, asked for the
original copy which we may possibly receive from Moscow this very day.
On 24 December 1942, 78 prisoners of war from the Berditchev section of
the Educational Labor Camp were to be subjected to “special treatment.”
All the 78 prisoners were Soviet citizens. There is, in the
correspondence, a report addressed to the authorities by SS
Obersturmführer Kuntze, of 27 December 1942. You will find it on Page
170 of your document book. At the end of the first paragraph there is
one sentence which, for greater clarity, has been marked with a red
pencil. It says:
“There is no proof that these prisoners of war had ever
participated in any communistic activities during the time of
the Soviet regime.”
Kuntze’s next sentence fully elucidates the question of how and why
these prisoners of war entered the Educational Labor Camp. He states:
“It seems that the Wehrmacht had, at the time, placed these
prisoners of war at the disposal of our local authorities for
special treatment. . . .”
We became convinced that they had been directed to this camp by the
military authorities. The specialist—in this case undoubtedly
Obersturmführer Kuntze—states that they were sent here especially to be
subjected to the treatment of the “special regime.”
In an attempt to shorten, if ever so slightly, this very abundant
documentation which forms the correspondence, I shall tell you, in my
own words, that the 78 people in question were all that remained of a
far larger group. Sturmscharführer SS Fritz Knop reports—Page 163 of
your document book:
“. . . some of the prisoners at that time were transported in a
truck, to some place in the neighborhood and unloaded. Later on
further unloadings of prisoners of war were suspended, following
objections raised by the Army.”
A little later I shall be more explicit when dealing with the nature of
these transfers and the objections raised by the Army. Please permit me
now to pass over to a brief summary of the gist of the matter. It
appears to me more useful to describe it in the words of one of the
documents. I quote:
“Commander of the Security Police and SD in Zhitomir;
Berditchev, 24 December 1942.
“When summoned to appear, SS Sturmscharführer and Chief
Secretary of the Kripo, Fritz Knop, complied. He was born on 18
February 1897, at Neuklinz, in the district of Köslin. Fritz
Knop testified as follows:
“‘As from the middle of August 1 was head of the Berditchev
field office of the commander of the Security Police and SD in
the town of Zhitomir. On 23 December 1942 the Deputy Commander,
Hauptsturmführer of the SS Kallbach, inspected the local office
and also the Educational Labor Camp which was supervised by my
office. In this Educational Labor Camp, as from the end of
October or the beginning of November, there were 78 former
prisoners of war who had been dismissed from the permanent camp
(Stalag) in Zhitomir as being unfit for work. A considerable
number of prisoners of war had, in the past, been handed over
and placed at the disposal of the Commander of the Security
Police and SD.”
I think there is no necessity to explain in detail that the transfer of
the prisoners of war and the placing of them at the disposal of the
Security Police had been provided for by special directives of the SS
and the SD, especially referring to persons condemned to physical
extermination. I quote further, on the same page of your document book,
163:
“In Zhitomir a few of them, who up to a certain point were fit
for work, had been set aside. The remaining 78 persons were
transferred to the local Educational Labor Camp.”
I omit two more extracts.
“The 78 prisoners of war in the local camp were, one and all,
severely wounded men. Some had lost both legs; others both arms;
others again had lost one or the other of their limbs. Only a
few of them had all their arms and legs, although they were so
mutilated by other kinds of wounds that they were totally unfit
for work. The latter had to nurse the former.
“At the time he was inspecting the Educational Labor Camp on 23
December 1942, SS Hauptsturmführer Kallbach issued an order to
the effect that the surviving 68 or 70 prisoners of war, the
others having died in the meantime, should this very day be
subjected to ‘special treatment.’ For this purpose he assigned a
motor truck, driven by SS man Schäfer from the command division,
who arrived here today at 1130 hours. I entrusted the
preparations for the execution early this morning to my
colleagues in the local administration, SS Unterscharführer
Paal, SS Rottenführer Hesselbach, and SS Sturmmann Vollprecht.”
I shall, with your permission, omit a further part of the quotation
which, in any case, already figures in your files. I think I may safely
do so in order to save time. It is a description of the technical
preparations for the execution. One passage, however, does appear to me
to be of interest; and I quote:
“Usually the execution of the Jews was carried out in the
precincts of the labor camp which could not be seen from the
outside. For this particular execution I issued orders to choose
a site outside on a terrain behind the permanent camp.
Concerning the three above-mentioned persons whom I entrusted
with the shooting of the prisoners of war, I knew that they had,
in Kiev, participated in the mass executions of many thousands
of persons and that they had before, that is during my time of
service, been entrusted by the local administration with the
shooting of many hundreds of victims.”
I should like to invite your attention to another instance which again
shows the meaning which the Hitlerites usually attached to the words
“execution” and “treatment by special regime.” Here, in one sentence
alone, the words “mass execution” and “shooting” are definitely used as
synonymous terms, while a little higher up it is made quite clear to us
what “transporting by trucks to some place in the neighborhood” and
“treatment by special regime” mean. Unquestionably, these four terms
have an identical significance.
After this digression I continue my quotation. Having made a few more
omissions from the passage already printed in your document book, I
proceed to the following paragraph, your Page 165, if only to maintain
the sense of the statement:
“They were armed with a German submachine gun, a Russian
automatic rifle, an 0.8 pistol, and a carbine. I would point out
that I had intended to give these three persons, as an
assistant, SS Hauptscharführer Wenzel, but SS Sturmmann
Vollprecht declined, remarking that three men were perfectly
able to execute this order.
“Concerning the indictment: It never entered my head, to ensure
the smooth procedure of an ordinary execution, to send a larger
detachment, since the execution ground was hidden from public
view and the captives were. . . .”
THE PRESIDENT These words “Concerning the indictment,” are they in the
original document?
COL. POKROVSKY: It is the text of the explanation of the evidence which
the signatory of the document handed to his police chief. I, with the
permission of the Tribunal, shall quote the original German documents of
the inquiry. The persons responsible for carrying out the execution were
accused of provoking, by their indiscretion and carelessness, that which
they called an “incident” and they produced an explanation of the cause
of this indictment.
“Concerning the charge: It never entered my head, to ensure the
smooth procedure of an ordinary execution, to send a larger
detachment, since the execution ground was hidden from public
view and the captives were unable to escape by reason of their
physical infirmities.
“At about 1500 hours I received a telephone call from the camp
to the effect that one of the co-workers in my department, in
charge of this special task, had been wounded and that one man
had run away. I promptly sent SS Hauptscharführer Wenzel and SS
Oberscharführer Fritsch to the execution ground in a horse cart.
Some time later I received another telephone call from the camp,
informing me that the co-workers of my department had been
killed.”
I think it useless to read into the record details of a purely technical
nature. I shall omit at this point a considerable part of those
references which I had previously intended to quote, and I shall proceed
to that part of Knop’s evidence which he had handed to his police chief.
You will find the passage in question on Page 166:
“I wish to point out that the incident I have described took
place during the second execution. It had been preceded by the
shooting of approximately twenty prisoners of war which had
passed without any incident at all. As soon as I returned, I
informed the command headquarters at Zhitomir accordingly.
“I cannot give any further evidence. I declare that my evidence
is absolutely true and I am aware that any false evidence on my
part would result in punishment and in exclusion from the SS.
“Signed: Fritz Knop, SS Sturmscharführer; certified: Kuntze, SS
Obersturmführer.”
Next to be interrogated was the executioner. We have at our disposal a
document on this subject. You will find the extract in question on Page
166 of your document book. I quote the minutes of the inquiry:
“SS Rottenführer of the Waffen-SS, Hesselbach, Friederich, born
24 January 1909 in Freudingen, district of Wittgenstein
(Westphalia), was then summoned and testified as follows:
“‘I have been informed concerning the subject of the forthcoming
interrogation. It has been pointed out to me that any false
statements on my part will result in punishment and expulsion
from the SS.’”
After this routine part of the investigation—where he was warned of the
penalties awaiting him—Hesselbach gave the following testimony on the
matter:
“Yesterday evening I was told by SS Unterscharführer Paal that I
would have to take part in the execution of prisoners of war.
Later on I received a corresponding order from Hauptscharführer
Wenzel, in the presence of SS Sturmscharführer Knop. This
morning, at 0800 hours, SS Hauptscharführer Berger, SS
Unterscharführer Paal, SS Sturmmann Vollprecht, and myself,
drove in a truck lent us by the tannery and driven by a
Ukrainian driver, to a place situated approximately one and a
half kilometers behind the camp, in order to dig a pit, with
eight inmates of our prison.”
Later he describes the digging of the pit. I think that we can skip that
part. Then they returned.
“At the entrance to the camp, Vollprecht, acting on Paal’s
instructions, left the car. By these instructions Paal intended
not to betray our intentions to the prisoners by the presence of
a large number of SS men. Therefore, only I, Paal, and a few
militia men loaded the prisoners onto the truck. On Paal’s
order, the whole first group consisted almost exclusively of the
prisoners who had lost their legs.”
I omit a few extracts which are of no interest to the Tribunal and I
quote from Page 6 of the Russian translation, the underlined passages,
printed on Page 168 of your document book:
“After having executed the first three prisoners I suddenly
heard shouting beyond the pit. Since the fourth prisoner was
already next in line, I shot him on the spot, and looking up, I
noticed a terrific disturbance near the truck. A moment before
already I had heard some shots being fired and I now saw the
prisoners running away in all directions. I cannot give any
precise particulars as to what actually happened near the truck,
since I was about 40 to 50 meters away from the place and
everything was very confusing. I can only say that I saw two of
my comrades lying on the ground, and two prisoners shooting at
me and the driver with the firearms they had seized. When I
realized what was happening, I fired the four remaining
cartridges in my magazine at the prisoners shooting at us, put
in a new clip, and suddenly noticed that a bullet had struck the
ground near me. I had the feeling that I had been hit, but
realized later that I was wrong. I now ascribe this sensation to
nervous shock. Anyway, I was shooting at the fugitives with the
cartridges from my second clip, though I cannot tell whether I
hit any of them.”
I would inform you that the last part of Hesselbach’s testimony deals
with the subject of organizing the search for the scattered cripples, a
search which yielded no results.
Finally, I would like to quote a few excerpts from the last document in
the correspondence. This is a report of SS Obersturmführer Kuntze. It
concludes with the statement that the funeral of the SS men killed took
place at 1400 hours at the Police and SS Heroes’ Cemetery in Hegewalde.
It seems to me that this detail is of a certain interest. I shall now
quote the opening part of the above-mentioned report. I shall omit the
first report already appearing in your document book, in order to
shorten the time taken by my work. He reports that 78 people were
supposed to have been killed after the inspection of the camp by
Kallbach. Because of their inability to work, these prisoners of war
were a burden to the camp.
“For this reason, SS Hauptsturmführer Kallbach ordered the
execution of the former prisoners of war, and that on 24
December. Neither in the local nor in the regional offices could
anybody discover why the former commandant had taken charge of
these crippled prisoners and sent them to the Educational Labor
Camp. In this case there did not exist any data whatsoever
concerning communistic activities of the prisoners in question
during the entire period of the Soviet regime. Evidently the
military authorities have, in their own time, placed these
prisoners at the disposal of the local branch in order to submit
them to the ‘special regime,’ since owing to their physical
condition, they could not be made to work.
“So SS Hauptsturmführer Kallbach ordered the execution for 24
December. On 24 December at about 1700 hours, the head of the
Berditchev regional office, SS Sturmscharführer Knop, telephoned
that during the execution of the ‘special regime’ operation, the
two officials of the branch, SS Unterscharführer Paal and SS
Sturmmann Vollprecht, were assaulted by the prisoners and killed
with their own firearms.”
I shall now omit a considerable part of SS Obersturmführer Kuntze’s idle
talk and shall quote only three more paragraphs. You will find them on
Pages 172 and 173:
“Thus, of the 28 prisoners, 4 were shot in the pit and 2 while
trying to escape; the remaining 22 managed to get away.
“The efforts to recapture the fugitives, promptly undertaken by
SS Rottenführer Hesselbach with the help of the guards from the
neighboring camp, were expedient though unsuccessful. The head
of the Berditchev Department ordered an immediate search for the
fugitives and instructed all the police and military agencies to
this effect. However, the names of the fugitives are unknown and
this fact alone would render the search more difficult. The
records merely contained the names of all the prisoners
subjected to the ’special regime’ and it was therefore necessary
to declare as escapees even those who had already been shot.
“On 25 December, on the same spot, a ‘special regime’ execution
of the 20 surviving prisoners of war was carried out under my
direction. As I feared that the fugitives might already have
established contact with some partisan unit, I again had the
camp send a detachment of 20 men, armed with light submachine
guns and carbines, in order to guard the surrounding territory.
The execution went off without any trouble.”
It is enough to imagine these 20 unfortunate men, without arms, without
legs, being escorted to their death by a strong contingent of SS men and
soldiers, soldiers armed with submachine guns. I continue:
“As a measure of reprisal I ordered the military police to check
up on all released prisoners of war in the adjoining regions to
ascertain their political activities during the entire period of
Soviet rule, so as to arrest and submit to the ‘special regime’
20 activists and members of the Communist Party.”
To conclude the presentation of the evidence pertaining to this
monstrous crime of the Hitlerites, I should like to invite the
Tribunal’s attention to certain facts.
I would, first of all, like to refer to the “objections raised by the
Army,” reported by the member of the SS, Knop. Knop said—you will find
the passage quoted on Page 163:
“In the future all evacuations of prisoners of war will be
suspended due to objections raised by the Army. I do not wish my
words to be misunderstood. The Army did not so much object to
such evacuations, rather it expressed the wish that the
prisoners of war, once they had been released and sent
elsewhere, should be given some kind of shelter.”
It is not difficult to guess what “shelter” he was referring to. It was
the “shelter” provided when, in the words of Knop, they were
“transported in a truck to a place in the neighborhood.”
The second fact which, to me, appears of importance, is the scale of the
outrages committed. Referring to the executioners, Paal, Hesselbach, and
Vollprecht, Knop writes:
“With reference to the three above-mentioned persons whom I
entrusted with the shooting of prisoners of war, I knew that
they had, in Kiev, participated in the mass executions of many
thousands of persons and that they had already before, that is,
during my period of service, been entrusted by the local
administration with the shooting of many hundreds of victims.”
In reference to Hesselbach, I should like to note two not very important
but extremely characteristic traits. The first is his terminology. Here
are his words:
“After having executed the first three prisoners I suddenly
heard shouting beyond the pit; since the fourth prisoner was
already next in line, I shot him on the spot.”
Any bandit, any habitual murderer would, naturally, use such language in
speaking of the destruction of a human being. For the fascist
executioners the murder of a soldier who had honestly fought for his
country and become an invalid, the brief expression “shot on the spot”
is good enough; when occupied in killing, the executioners do not even
consider it necessary to find out whom they really are murdering. Thanks
to this, shame and confusion cover the police. They order a search both
for those who had escaped and for those who were shot.
Secondly, the very sound of a bullet passing nearby gives him a
sensation of being wounded, and people of this type are then called
“heroes” by their superiors.
It would be an omission on my part not to emphasize the exceptional
brutality displayed by Kuntze—this typical representative of the SS.
Twenty persons captured at random, captured anyhow, without any fault on
their part, must be murdered. What for? Only because 22 armless and
legless invalids had succeeded in escaping from death.
The Tribunal, of course, is quite aware of the fact that by all the laws
of God and man these 22 invalids should not have perished by the hand of
the executioner, but should have been placed under the protection of the
German Government as prisoners of war.
The confession of Kuntze, concerning the motives for which the military
authorities directed invalids to the camp for treatment by “special
regime,” is of particular value. He frankly states that the cause of it
was their physical condition which had rendered them unfit for any kind
of work. In this connection I submit a series of documents to the
Tribunal. They show that only from the angle of possibility of obtaining
slaves were the representatives of the German Command and the German
authorities occasionally interested in the prisoners of war. You have in
your possession a circular of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces to
the effect that Soviet prisoners of war should be branded and that this
branding would not be considered as a medical measure. I am submitting
to you another equally shameful document. It bears the following
identifying marks: Az. 2,24.82h, Commander of Camps for Prisoners of
War, Number 3142/42; Berlin-Schöneberg; 20.7.1942; 51, Badensche
Strasse. This document is Exhibit Number USSR-343 (Document Number
USSR-343). I shall not read it into the record. It resembles identically
those which I have already read into the record. But it is
characteristic of the extent to which the Hitlerite conspirators had
abandoned the thesis that “a state can do everything which is necessary
to hold prisoners of war in their own safekeeping, but it cannot do
anything more.”
A regime based on hard labor, on an unending stream of insult and
torture, drove Soviet people to manifestations of stark despair, such as
attacks on camp guards who were armed to the teeth. We know of such
truly heroic deeds. Testimonies of eyewitnesses are in our hands. I am
submitting to you, as Exhibit Number USSR-314 (Document Number
USSR-314), the personally written testimony of the witness, Lampe—you
interrogated him a few days ago in this court—together with the
testimony of the witness, Ribol—our Exhibit Number USSR-315 (Document
Number USSR-315). I shall read out such passages of the testimony as
appear on Page 348 of your document book. These witnesses reported that
in the beginning of February 1945, in the extermination camp of
Mauthausen, 800 Red Army prisoners of war who were interned there, had
broken out of the fascist hell after first disarming the guards and
piercing the electrified barbed wire. Lampe testifies how brutally the
SS treated those whom they were able to recapture. I am quoting a few
lines: