“In Kiev, over 195,000 Soviet citizens were tortured to death,

shot, and poisoned in the gas vans, as follows:

“(1) In Baybe-yar, over 100,000 men, women, children, and old

people.

“(2) In Darnitza, over 68,000 Soviet prisoners of war and

peaceful citizens.

“(3) In the antitank trench in the vicinity of Syretzk Camp and

in the camp proper, over 25,000 peaceful Soviet citizens and

prisoners of war.

“(4) In the grounds of the Hospital of St. Cyril, 800 insane

patients.

“(5) In the grounds of the Kiev-Pechersk Abbey, about 500

peaceful citizens.

“(6) In the cemetery of Ljukjanousk, about 400 peaceful

citizens.”

I continue to quote from this document, Page 238, second column of the

text, Paragraph 6, and I give two short excerpts from this page. I

begin:

“In 1943, sensing the uncertainty of their position in Kiev, the

occupying forces, in an attempt to conceal the traces of their

crimes, opened up the tombs of their victims and began to burn

the corpses. The Germans relegated the burning of the corpses in

Baybe-yar to the internees of Syretzk Camp. SS officer Topheide

was placed in charge of this work, together with members of the

gendarmerie, Johann Merkel and Vogt, and the commander of the SS

platoon, Rever.

“The witnesses, L. K. Ostrovski, C. B. Berlandt, W. Y. Davydov,

Y. A. Steyuk, and J. M. Brodski, who had escaped the shootings

at Baybe-yar on 29 September 1943, testified:

“‘As prisoners of war we were interned in the Syretzk

Concentration Camp in the outskirts of Kiev. On 18 August 100 of

us were sent to Baybe-yar. There we were shackled in chains and

ordered to exhume and burn the corpses of Soviet citizens who

had been murdered by the Germans. Here the Germans brought

granite monuments and iron railings from the cemetery. From

these monuments we made platforms on which we placed rails, and

on top of these rails we laid the iron grills to act as fire

bars. On the iron grills a layer of firewood was placed, and on

top of the firewood we placed a layer of corpses. On the corpses

we placed a further layer of firewood and poured petroleum over

the whole. Following this order the corpses were piled up in

several layers and then ignited. About 2,500 to 3,000 corpses

were placed in each of these “ovens.” The Germans detailed

special crews for the removal of earrings, rings, and also gold

teeth from the jaws of the dead.

“‘When all the corpses were burned, new “ovens” were stacked,

and so on. The bones were smashed into small particles by

bulldozers and the ashes strewn over the Yar, so that no traces

should be left. The men worked from 12 to 15 hours a day.

“‘The Germans used excavators in order to expedite the work.

From 18 August until the day of our escape—29

September—approximately 70,000 corpses were burned.’”

I interrupt this quotation and invite the attention of the Tribunal to a

document on Page 287, Volume II, Paragraph 5 of the document book,

second column. This is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on

crimes of the German fascist invaders in the territory of the Latvian

S.S.R. In the place to which I will draw the attention of the Tribunal

it is shown that the Hitlerites systematically carried out executions in

the forest of Birkeneck. I make a special point of quoting this because

further on we shall present documentary films showing full details of

these mass shootings. I begin the quotation:

“In the forest of Birkeneck, on the outskirts of the city of

Riga, the Hitlerites shot 46,500 peaceful citizens. The witness,

M. Stabulnek, a woman who lived in the vicinity of the forest,

stated that:

“‘On Friday and Saturday before Easter, 1942, packed busses went

from the city to the forest. I saw 41 busses passing my house

from the beginning of Friday morning to noon. On Easter Sunday,

many inhabitants—I among them—went into the forest to the site

of the executions. There we saw one large open pit containing

the bodies of women and children who had been shot; they were

either naked or in their underwear. There were traces of torture

and ill-treatment on the corpses of the women and children, many

of whom had black and blue bruises on their faces and cuts on

their heads. Some had had their hands and fingers cut off, their

eyes gouged out, and their stomachs ripped open.’”

I now omit one paragraph and continue:

“The commission discovered, on the execution ground, 55 graves

covering a total area of 2,885 square meters.”

I quote one more paragraph from this communication:

“In the forest of Dreilin, 5 to 7 kilometers east of Riga, along

the highway to Luban, the Germans shot over 13,000 peaceful

citizens and prisoners of war. The witness, W. S. Ganus,

testified:

“‘As from August 1944 the Germans organized excavation crews to

open up the graves, and all through the week bodies were burned.

The forest was surrounded by German guards armed with machine

guns. On and after 20 August black, closed cars filled with

citizens, among whom were women and children—so-called

“refugees”—began to arrive; they were shot and their bodies

burned immediately. I had hidden in the bushes and watched this

fearful scene. The screams of the victims were terrible. I heard

shouts of “Murderers,” “Hangmen” and the children crying, “Mama,

don’t leave me.” The bullets of the murderers stopped the

screams.’”

I conclude this document because it now contains only analogous facts. I

wish to invite the Tribunal’s attention to the fact that 38,000 people

were shot in this forest.

I further request the Tribunal to refer to a document already presented

to the Tribunal as Document Number USSR-47, which is the report of the

Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union on crimes committed

by the German and Romanian invaders in Odessa and the region of Odessa.

I shall refer to two very brief excerpts of this report. Your Honors

will find one of the excerpts I wish to quote on Page 283, Volume II of

the document book, first column of the text, Paragraph 5. I begin:

“On 21 December 1941 the Romanian gendarmes proceeded to execute

the internees in the camp. The internees were brought, under

guard, to a half-ruined building on the outskirts of the forest.

There they were forced to kneel by the ravine; then they were

shot. From the edge of the ravine those who were killed—and

often those who were only wounded—fell to the foot of the

ravine, where a gigantic fire of straw, reeds, and wood had been

built. The smaller children were thrown alive into this fire by

the executioners. The burning of the corpses went on for 24

hours on end.”

Here I interrupt my quotation, since details of these crimes will follow

later, and I refer the members of the Tribunal to Page 283 of the

document book, Paragraph 3, Column 2, containing a complete summary of

the data available:

“According to the preliminary figures, as established by the

commission, the Germano-Romanian occupiers shot, tortured to

death, and burned, in Odessa and the region of Odessa, up to

200,000 people.”

In confirmation of the fact that during the mass executions, the

so-called “actions,” the German criminals buried people who were still

alive, I submit to the Tribunal, under Exhibit Number USSR-37 (Document

Number USSR-37), a report of the Extraordinary State Commission, dated

24 June 1943. I quote the act, which the members of the Tribunal will

find on Page 359, in Volume II of the document book. The place that I

refer to will be found on Page 362 of the document book:

“While excavating the pit at the foot of Chalk Hill (Mielovaya

Gora) in the town of Kupiansk, 71 bodies were discovered,

including the bodies of 62 men, eight women, and one infant. All

the victims were unshod and some of them were quite naked.”

I pass to the quotation of Paragraph 4, Page 362:

“The Commission notes that there were many whose wounds were not

fatal; they had evidently been thrown into the pit and buried

alive. This has also been confirmed by citizens who passed near

the pit soon after the shooting; they saw the ground stirring

and heard dull groans emanating from the grave.”

In confirmation of this fact, I would request the Tribunal to read into

the record the original minutes, taken from the report of the

Extraordinary State Commission, on the interrogation of the witness,

Vassilievitch Joseph Ivanovitch, examined by the public prosecutor of

the city of Stanislav at the request of the Extraordinary State

Commission. We submit this document as Exhibit USSR-346 (Document Number

USSR-346). I shall quote only two paragraphs from the minutes of this

interrogation:

“In the beginning of 1943 we burned people there in the

cemetery, to which firewood was brought for this purpose. There

were cases where women and children were thrown alive into the

pits and there buried.

“One woman—I do not know her name—begged an officer not to

shoot her, and he gave her his word that she would not be shot.

He even said, ‘I give you my word as an officer that you will

not be shot.’ After the shooting of the group to which this

woman belonged, this officer himself took her by the hand, threw

her alive into the pit, and she was buried alive.”

Thus, in one whole series of cases, the victims were purposely buried

alive in order to add extra cruelty to the misdeeds of the criminals. In

other cases this was due to the fact that the Germans did not even

consider it necessary to verify whether the people to be liquidated were

dead or not.

An investigation of the data on the exhumation of these bodies, when the

German fascists no longer had the time to destroy the traces of their

crime by burning them, shows that towards the end of 1941 and in 1942

the criminals did not particularly attempt to camouflage the execution

grounds—and this despite the instructions, already known to the

Tribunal, issued by fascist headquarters on the camouflaging of

execution grounds and keeping secret the so-called executions. I am of

the opinion that this can be explained only by the fact that the

Germans, in spite of some set-backs, were convinced of their final

victory, and that, therefore, they hoped that their deeds would not be

punished.

I refer to the document already presented with other documents to the

Tribunal as Document Number USSR-2(a), a report of the Extraordinary

Commission of the Soviet Union on atrocities committed by the German

fascist invaders in the region of Stalinsk. There we find a report of

the medical-legal expert commission on the atrocities committed by the

German fascist invaders in the alabaster quarries near the city of

Artemovsk, in the Stalinsk district. I shall quote only a brief excerpt

from this document. I shall omit the greater part of the indictments.

In the document book, Page 366, fifth paragraph, of the first column of

the text, Your Honors will find the following:

“Two kilometers to the east of the city of Artemovsk, in the

tunnel of the quarry of the alabaster works, 400 meters from the

entrance, there is a small opening walled up with bricks. When

the bricks were removed a continuation of the tunnel was

discovered. This was a narrow passage rising steeply, having at

the end a broad, oval cavern, 20 meters in length, 30 meters in

width, and 3 to 4 meters in height.

“The entire cavern was filled with dead bodies and only a small

area at the entrance and a narrow strip in the center were free

of corpses. The bodies were closely pressed one against the

other, with their backs turned to the entrance to the cavern.

“This is typical because it shows the customary German routine

of shooting in the nape of the neck.

“The corpses were wedged so tightly that, at first glance, it

appeared as though there was just one solid mass of intertwined

bodies. The last layers had been heaped on the first, which were

then closely pressed to the walls of the cavern.”

I omit the two following pages of the report, and I merely quote the

conclusion of the legal-medical expert commission. You will find this on

Page 366, Volume II, second column of the text, Paragraph 15:

“According to the testimony of the inhabitants of Artemovsk, on

9 February 1942 several thousand people were driven into the

abandoned alabaster quarries, carrying their small household

possessions and food.

“As and when the cavern filled up, the people were shot either

when standing or kneeling down; then another batch would be

driven in and shot down on the corpses of the first batch; the

corpses of the victims were piled one on top of another. Some

people tried to flee from the impending murder, trampled one

another down, and died in agony.”

I further omit three pages of my presentation and continue on Page 209.

During the period of the mass executions the German fascist criminals

elaborated a definite technique for the execution of their crimes. I

would like to mention some of the most typical methods employed, because

the Tribunal will realize, on hearing individual instances, how

criminally this technique of atrocities was perfected by the Germans and

how increasingly cynical was the premeditation of these monstrous

crimes. In confirmation of my statement, I should like to present some

documents to the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: We shall have to break off now. It is 4 o’clock.

The Tribunal would be glad to know how much longer your presentation

will be.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I shall finish my presentation of evidence

tomorrow.

[_The Tribunal adjourned until 19 February 1946 at 1000 hours._]

SIXTY-SECOND DAY

Tuesday, 19 February 1946

_Morning Session_

THE PRESIDENT: I have an announcement to make.

The Defense motion for a recess cannot be granted. When a recess at

Christmas was decided upon, the Tribunal informed the Defense Counsel

that no further recess would be granted.

As Counsel for the Prosecution has pointed out, Defense Counsel have

already had several months in which to prepare their defenses to a case

which depends principally upon documents in the German language, written

by the defendants themselves or their associates. They have also had

constant assistance from the Tribunal and the Prosecution in connection

with documentary evidence and witnesses.

The Tribunal has observed that many of the Defense Counsel have already

found it possible, quite properly, to absent themselves from court, and

the Tribunal sees no reason why some of the time which must elapse for

the conclusion of the case for the Prosecution should not be utilized in

preparation of their defenses out of court.

The Tribunal therefore decides that, at the conclusion of the

Prosecution’s case against the individual defendants, the argument on

the groups or organizations alleged to be criminal shall take place and

that thereafter applications for documents and witnesses by those

defendants whose witnesses and documents have not already been decided

upon shall be heard in open session. In this way several days will be

occupied in which many of the Defense Counsel can be absent from court

and they can prepare their defenses out of court.

That is all. You may continue, Colonel.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Your Honor, you asked me yesterday who, in

January 1942, was the chief of the military economy and armament

department of the German Army. I could not answer yesterday but today I

can report to you that General of the Infantry Thomas held this

position.

As to the second question which you put to me, that is, what measures

were taken in regard to the correspondence connected with the report of

Major Roesler, I requested information from Moscow, where this

correspondence is kept. There are only excerpts from this correspondence

in the archives, the rest of the correspondence is in another archive.

We requested information from this archive and as soon as the latest

disposition of this correspondence is ascertained, I will immediately

report to the Tribunal. This will take about a day or two.

Before continuing my statement, I wish to remark that today I should

conclude the presentation of all the evidence concerned with my

statement. I have to submit a considerable number of documents, and

therefore my statement will be rather fragmentary. I will not dwell on

particulars and will endeavor not to repeat what has already been said

by the prosecutors of other countries. This will render my statement

somewhat piecemeal, for which I must beg your indulgence.

I will now proceed with my statement.

The legal-medical expert’s report, drawn up in the city of Smolensk, has

already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-48

(Document Number USSR-48). It was signed by a member of the

Extraordinary State Commission for the Soviet Union, President of the

Medical Academy and eminent Soviet physician, Academician Burdenko, by

the principal legal-medical expert of the Ministry for Health, Dr.

Prozorovsky, and other experts. In addition to the final conclusions

which have already been presented by my colleague, Colonel Pokrovsky, I

now submit to the Tribunal the actual record of these experts’

investigation. From this the Tribunal will be able to judge, not only

the final conclusion but also the methods used for this investigation.

The Tribunal can see for themselves the detailed description of each

burial ground investigated by experts, as well as the detailed

examination of the corpses exhumed from the ditches. I will not repeat

those parts of the account which have already been partially quoted by

Colonel Pokrovsky. Therefore I omit four pages of my statement and pass

on to Page 213. The part which I wish to quote now Your Honors will find

on Page 377 of the document book, Volume II, Paragraph 2 of the page.

The experts describe a typical scene of a burial site of the German

victims in 1941 and the beginning of 1942. I quote:

“The ditches from which the corpses were exhumed were not common

burial grounds. The corpses were not laid out in a row, one next

to the other, but layer upon layer, a solid mass of women’s and

men’s bodies heaped together in confusion. In this mass of

corpses some were bent or half bent, some were lying on their

faces, on their sides, or on their backs, some were on their

knees, with faces down or up, with legs and arms interlinked. It

was impossible to separate the corpses before they were exhumed

from the ditch.”

However, this chaotic manner of burial of the corpses appears to

characterize only the mass burials of victims of the first mass

shootings which were carried out toward the end of 1941 and the

beginning of 1942. During subsequent exhumations the legal-medical

experts discovered very many burial grounds where the corpses were laid

down in orderly fashion, layer on layer.

A typical scene of such a burial ground the Tribunal can find in the

album regarding the Lvov Camp. On Page 15 of this album there is a

picture of a burial ground of the later period. The bodies are lying in

regular layers, and this can be explained by. . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Which album is this?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: It is the album which concerns the Lvov Camp,

Your Honor. It was submitted to the Tribunal yesterday. The picture I am

talking about is on Page 15 of the album. It is a photograph which was

discovered in the Gestapo headquarters at Lvov.

The reason that impelled this regular disposition of bodies will become

clear to the Tribunal from an excerpt of the Extraordinary State

Commission’s report on atrocities.

THE PRESIDENT: Is this a photograph of the bodies as they lay in the

trench or after they had been moved?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: No, it is a photograph taken by some Gestapo

official, Your Honor, and was discovered in the archives of the Lvov

Gestapo. If you will look at this picture, you will see that the corpses

are lying almost in regular rows on the spot of this mass shooting.

What was the reason for this regular laying out of the corpses? The

Tribunal will find the answer to this on Page 290 of the document book,

second column of the text, Paragraph 8. This is a report of the

Extraordinary State Commission on atrocities committed by the German

fascist invaders in the city and region of Rovno. I quote:

“The witness Karpuk, a worker on a German farm near Belaya

Street, testified:

“‘Several times I saw how the Hitlerites exterminated Soviet

citizens, Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, and Jews. This took place

usually in the following manner: The German butchers brought the

doomed people to the place of execution, forced them to dig a

ditch, ordered them to undress, and to lie down in the ditch,

face downward. The Hitlerites fired at the back of the necks of

the victims with automatic pistols. Then another group of people

lay down on top of the bodies of those shot and were finished

off in the same manner, and then a third row, and so on, until

the ditch was filled. Then they poured quicklime over the

corpses and covered them with earth.’”

One can judge how widespread was this infamous and cruel method of mass

execution from an excerpt concerning the executions in Maidanek. I quote

from a Soviet-Polish communiqué already presented to the Tribunal as

Exhibit Number USSR-29 (Document Number USSR-29). The Tribunal will find

this on Page 65 of the document book, first column of the text,

Paragraph 14. I begin the quotation:

“On 3 November 1943, 18,400 people were shot in the camp; 8,400

came from the camp itself, and 10,000 were herded there from the

city and other camps.”

I omit the next sentence.

“The shootings started early in the morning and ceased late in

the evening. The SS brought the people, stripped naked, to the

ditches in groups of 50 or 100 men. They were packed into the

bottom of the ditch face down and shot with automatic rifles.

Then a new group of people were piled on the corpses and shot in

the same manner; and so on until the pits were full.”

I especially concerned myself with determining the exact date when this

method was used for the first time. According to Soviet documents this

started in the second half of 1942. But in general, it may be stated

that similar methods of shooting were already adopted by the German

police detachments in Poland in 1939.

Thanks to the kindness of our British colleagues, I submit to the

Tribunal a document which was received by our delegation from the

British Prosecution. It is a photostat of the document—the original is

in the archives of the British Delegation and I think I am safe in

saying that if the Tribunal requires the original copy, it can be

presented. The authenticity of the information which is contained in

this correspondence cannot be questioned. It is a German report taken

from the archives of Hitler’s aide-de-camp. I quote one place, which the

Tribunal may find on Page 391 of the document book, second volume,

Paragraph 2, (Document USSR-342). The German staff doctors considered it

necessary to report to Hitler about these shootings because “since these

shootings were done publicly, enemy propaganda may derive much

material. . . .”

Out of this correspondence I quote a short excerpt from the record of

Corporal Paul Kluge’s interrogation. Paul Kluge belonged to a medical

detachment stationed in Shwetz. He heard that a shooting of Poles would

take place on Sunday, 8 October 1939, in the Jewish cemetery. Out of

curiosity he decided to visit the place of execution. I quote only that

part of his interrogation which relates the manner of shooting. The

Tribunal will find this quotation on Page 393 of the document book,

second volume, second paragraph (Document Number USSR-42). I start the

quotation:

“We were already of the opinion that we were the victims of

silly rumors and had returned to our barracks, when suddenly a

large bus full of women and children drove into the cemetery. We

returned to the cemetery. Then we saw a party consisting of a

woman with three children, aged from 3 to 8 years, led to an

open grave about 2 meters wide and 8 meters long. The woman was

forced to descend into this grave and took the youngest child

with her in her arms. Two men, members of the punitive

expedition, handed the other two children to her. The woman was

forced to lie, face down, in the grave and beside her three

children, in the same manner, on her left. After that, four men

of the detachment also climbed down into the grave, aimed their

guns so that the barrels were about 30 centimeters away from the

napes of their necks. Thus they shot the woman and her three

children.

“Then the chief of the detachment called on me to help fill in

the grave. I obeyed this order and, being quite near, I could

see the next party of women and children being shot in the same

manner as were the first.

“In all, there were nine or ten groups of women and children,

all shot in the same way, four at a time in the same grave.”

We can therefore see that this method of mass shooting is of very early

origin.

I omit the next page of the report as it contains the minutes of another

interrogation with similar information, and submit to the Tribunal proof

of other, even more cruel methods of mass shootings which the Hitlerite

criminals invented, beginning with 1943 and continuing to the end of the

war.

The Hitlerite criminals, beginning with 1943, began to adopt different

methods to cover the traces of their crimes, in particular, to burn the

bodies. It has been proved by documents that the Hitlerites compelled

their victims, first to prepare the kindlings and logs, then to lie down

on these wood piles. Then the first group was shot. The next party of

condemned persons brought logs, laid them down on the layer of corpses,

and then lay down themselves on these logs and were then executed.

I beg Your Honors to turn to the album concerning the Auschwitz Camp,

where the pictures of another camp, Kloga, are also included. You will

find there a typical example of this cruel manner of shooting. In order

to prove this, I turn to a document which has already been submitted

previously to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-39. The excerpt which

I wish to quote is on Page 233 of the document book, second column of

the text, last paragraph. I start the quotation:

“On 19 September 1944 the Germans began the liquidation of the

Kloga Camp. Unterscharführer of the Camp, Schwarze, and the

chief of the office, Hauptscharführer Max Dalmann, selected 300

people from among the internees, and made them carry firewood to

a clearing in the woods. Seven hundred other men were forced to

build pyres. When these pyres were ready the German butchers

began mass shootings of the internees.

“In the first place, those who carried the wood and built up the

fires were shot and then the remaining victims. The shooting was

carried out in the following manner: At the point of a gun

members of the SD Police units forced the prisoners to lie face

down on the platforms of the pyres and then they shot them with

submachine guns or revolvers. The bodies were burned on the

fires.”

To save time I omit the next part of the quotation. In order to prove

that the methods in other camps were even more cruel but of the same

type as the ones described above, I beg the Tribunal to turn to a

document, which has already been submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-38

(Document Number USSR-38). It is the report on the atrocities of the

German invaders in the town of Minsk. I refer to a quotation which the

Tribunal will find on Page 215 of the document book in the second column

of the text, last paragraph.

In the first part of this quotation you will read how, in order to

conceal the traces of their crimes, the German Hitlerite invaders built

near the camp in Maly Trostianets primitive crematorium installations. I

begin my quotation by that passage of the report which speaks of the

shootings which occurred in the immediate neighborhood of these

primitive crematorium installations. To facilitate the task of the

translators, I inform you that I omitted three pages of the text and I

read now from Page 223 of the Russian text of the speech.

I begin the quotation with the testimony of the witness Savinsky, who

stated as follows:

“Having reached a point 10 kilometers from Minsk, near the

village of Maly Trostianets, the car stopped near one of the

barns. We all understood that we were brought here to be

shot. . . . By order of the German butchers the interned women

were brought out in groups of four from the car. Seeing that it

was my turn, together with Anna Gobubovich, Yulia Semashko, and

another woman whose name I do not know, I climbed on top of the

pile of bodies. Shots were heard. I was slightly injured on the

head and fell.”

I omit the next part of the quotation which described how this woman

saved herself. I quote the last paragraph:

“The legal-medical experts discovered that there were bullet

wounds in the necks of these bodies. In the barn and on the

stacks of logs the Germans shot and burned 6,500 persons.”

I omit the next three pages of the text and next submit to the Tribunal

the proofs of the organization of the German fascist invaders. . . .

THE PRESIDENT: The translation came through to us that 63 people were

killed. The translation in writing is 6,500.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The translation in writing is absolutely

correct, Mr. President. For the confirmation of this, one could turn to

the original document—the report of the Extraordinary State Commission

of the Soviet Union. This was a gross error on the part of the

interpreters. They diminished the number of those shot more than 10,000

times.

So I omit the following three pages of the statement and will present

evidence of the existence of special places of mass executions where the

number of victims was numbered by hundreds of thousands of persons and

where the doomed were brought in not only from the surrounding regions

but from many countries of Europe.

By means of brief excerpts I submit to the Tribunal proof of the

existence of two such centers, which were among the most famous. They

are the center of mass executions of Panary, 8 kilometers from Vilna,

and Fort Number 9, the “Fort of Death” in Kaunas, which has acquired a

particularly grim reputation.

I quote a report which has been submitted to the Tribunal, the report of

the Extraordinary State Commission on the atrocities of the Hitlerite

invaders in Lithuania. The Tribunal will find this quotation on Page

294, second column of the text, last paragraph. For the convenience of

the interpreters I inform you that I am quoting from Page 228. I omit

the first three paragraphs which state that the mass execution place at

Panary was organized in July 1941 and existed until June 1944. I

continue the quotation starting with the fourth paragraph where it is

related how the Hitlerites attempted to cover up the traces of their

crimes in this place of mass executions. I quote:

“In December 1943”—stated witness Saydel Matvey Fedorovich—“we

were forced to exhume and burn the corpses.”

I omit the next sentence and continue the quotation:

“For this purpose, we placed on each pyre about 3,000 corpses,

poured oil over them, placed incendiary bombs on four sides, and

set it on fire.

“The burning of corpses continued from the end of 1943 to June

1944. During this period, more than 100,000 corpses were dug out

from nine pits of a total volume of 21,179 cubic meters and were

burned on fires. The last days before their retreat the

Hitlerites did not have time to burn the bodies of the

shot. . . .”

I omit the next few paragraphs and quote the results of the

medical-legal expert commission:

“The corpses that were examined were, for the most part, those

of the civilian population. A small number of corpses were found

dressed in military uniforms. On some of the corpses were found

objects of religious worship of the Catholic and Greek Orthodox

faith. According to the objects and documents found, it has been

established that among those who were shot, there were

physicians, engineers, students, chauffeurs, mechanics, railroad

workers, tailors, watchmakers, tradesmen, _et cetera_.”

I omit the next three paragraphs and pass on to the concluding sentence:

“The medical-legal expert commission has established that the

German fascist butchers shot and burned in Panary not less than

100,000 people.”

I quote further proof concerning the Fort of Death in Kaunas. I begin

the quotation:

“Fort Number 9 was called by the residents of Kaunas the ‘Fort

of Death.’ This fort, located 6 kilometers northwest of the

city, is an old iron-reinforced concrete fortification. Inside,

there are numerous casements, which were used by the Germans as

cells for prisoners. This fort is surrounded by a concrete wall

and barbed wire.

“In the very first days after their arrival in Kaunas, the

Hitlerites drove some 1,000 Soviet war prisoners into the fort

and forced them to dig ditches in a field of over 5 hectares in

area, at the western wall of the fort. During the months of July

and August 1941, 14 ditches were dug, each of them 3 meters

wide, more than 200 meters long, and more than 2 meters in

depth. Those who entered Fort Number 9 never survived. In

columns of several thousand people, the Hitlerites drove in

there women, children, adolescents, men, and aged persons for

the purpose of shooting them and burning their bodies.”

I omit the next three paragraphs and continue my quotation:

“In Fort Number 9 people of different nationalities were shot:

Russians, Ukrainians, Bielorussians, Lithuanians, Poles, and

Jews. The following people were shot in this fort: a deputy to

the Supreme Soviet Council of the U.S.S.R., Bydzhinskiene; a

deputy to the Supreme Soviet Council of the Lithuanian S.S.R.,

Zhibertas; and others. Besides Soviet citizens the Hitlerites

exterminated French, Austrian, and Czechoslovak citizens in Fort

Number 9.

“A former supervisor of Fort Number 9, the witness Naudjunas,

testified:

“‘The first group of foreigners, numbering 4,000, arrived at the

fort in December 1941. I talked to one of the women, who said

that they were being transported to Russia, allegedly for work.

On 10 December 1941 the extermination of foreigners began. They

were ordered to leave the fort in groups of 100 people,

allegedly for inoculations. Those who left for inoculations did

not return. All 4,000 foreigners were shot. On 15 December 1941

another group arrived, numbering approximately 3,000 persons,

which was also exterminated.’”

I omit the next paragraph on this page, and nearly the whole of the

following page, and quote only the conclusive data:

“The Investigation Commission ascertained that the Hitlerites

had exterminated in Fort Number 9 over 70,000 peaceful

inhabitants.”

In numerous cases the German fascists used methods full of cruel cunning

for the mass extermination of peaceful Soviet citizens. In order to

prove this statement, I refer to the report of the Extraordinary State

Commission for the Stavropol region, which has already been submitted to

the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-1 (Document Number USSR-1). The

Tribunal will find this excerpt on Page 268 of the Document Book; I

quote one paragraph—the second paragraph, of the text:

“It is established that before retreating from the city of

Geozgievsk on 9 and 10 January of this year, by order of the

chief physician of the German hospitals in the city, Baron Von

Heiman, the German soldiers sold alcohol and soda water at the

city market, which proved to be methylated spirit and oxalic

acid. The result consisted in mass poisoning of the inhabitants

of this town.”

Among the crimes perpetrated by the German fascists on Soviet territory

I must mention especially the treatment to which they subjected the

inhabitants of Leningrad. I have already mentioned this in speaking of

the Leningrad children yesterday.

In order to shorten my quotation from the Extraordinary Commission’s

report on Leningrad—although, being a citizen of Leningrad myself, I

would like the Court to have an accurate picture of the sufferings

endured by the great city as a result of the German fascist terror—I

will quote only general data regarding the German destruction and crimes

in the city of Leningrad. The Tribunal will find this quotation on Page

345 of the document book, second volume. I begin the quotation:

“During the 900-day siege of Leningrad, when the German fascist

invaders were in possession of its suburbs, they perpetrated

countless atrocities on the peaceful civilians.

“The Germans dropped on Leningrad 107,000 demolition and

incendiary bombs and 150,000 heavy artillery shells. Every

minute throughout the siege each Leningrad resident was in the

same danger as if he had been on a field of battle. Every

instant he was threatened with death or mutilation. Bombing and

artillery fire killed a total of 16,747 and wounded 33,782

persons.”

I interrupt my quotation, omit the next page of my statement, and beg

the Tribunal to notice Page 347 of the second volume of the document

book, an excerpt from the diary of the German artillery men who shelled

Leningrad. These notes are most cynical and cruel.

I will now give figures of persons who died of hunger in Leningrad in

the terrible winter of 1941-1942. I quote only one line: “As a result of

the hunger blockade of Leningrad, 632,253 people perished.”

I omit the following two pages and pass on to evidence concerning the

adoption by the Hitlerites of special machines for the extermination of

people by monoxide gas—in special machines (Sondermaschinen), by “gas

vans” or “murder vans,” (_dushegubki_) as the Soviet people rightly

named them. The very fact of employing such machines for the mass murder

of people constitutes a very heavy charge against the leaders of German

fascism. The special equipment for mass extermination of people in

hermetically closed automobiles in which the exhaust pipes were

connected to the bodies of the car by means of special movable tubes was

utilized by the German fascists for the first time in the U.S.S.R. in

1942. I would like to remind the Tribunal that these gas vans were

mentioned for the first time in a report which I have already submitted

to the Tribunal concerning the atrocities of the German fascist

aggressors in the town of Kerch. This document was submitted as Document

Number USSR-63 and refers to the spring of 1942.

I remind the Tribunal of an excerpt from the statements of the witness

Darya Demchenko who saw how from two murder vans German military

personnel in Kerch dragged out the bodies of the murdered and dumped

them into an antitank ditch.

However, the mass extermination of people in gas vans was ascertained

without reasonable doubt for the first time in the report of the

Extraordinary State Commission on atrocities of the German occupiers in

the Stavropol region. This document was submitted to the Tribunal by me

earlier as Exhibit Number USSR-1 (Document USSR-1). Investigation of the

crimes committed by the German fascists in the Stavropol region was

directed by a prominent Soviet writer and member of the Extraordinary

State Commission, Academician Alexey Nikolaevitch Tolstoy, who now is

deceased.

This very thorough investigation was undertaken with the assistance of

the most prominent specialists in forensic medicine, inasmuch as human

imagination, having set definite logical limits to any crime, could only

with difficulty then accept the existence of these machines. However,

the results of the investigation corroborate in full the testimony of

surviving witnesses regarding the murder vans and the German fascist

mass murders of peaceful citizens executed by this means.

The report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the Stavropol region

gives the first detailed description of the mechanism of these murder

vans; and I am reading a quotation which the Tribunal will find on Page

268 of the document book, Paragraph 4. I quote this excerpt in full as

the technical matter here detailed coincides with those technical

details which the American Prosecution so fully reported to the

Tribunal. This is corroborative evidence, and is therefore important. I

begin my quotation:

“The mass extermination of peaceful citizens of the U.S.S.R. by

the Germans was done by poisoning them with carbon monoxide in

specially constructed machines or ‘murder vans.’

“Prisoner of war E. M. Fenchel testified:

“‘While working as a motor mechanic, I had the opportunity of

studying in detail the van construction especially adopted for

suffocating and exterminating people with exhaust gases. There

were several such vans in the town of Stavropol at the disposal

of the Gestapo.

“‘Their construction was as follows: The body was approximately

5 meters long by 2½ meters wide by approximately 2½ meters in

height. It was shaped like a railway car without windows. Inside

it was lined with galvanized sheet iron; on the floor, also

covered with galvanized iron, was a wooden grating. The door of

the body was lined with rubber and was tightly closed with an

automatic lock. On the floor of the van, under the grating, were

two metal pipes.’”

I omit the end of the sentence.

“‘These pipes were connected with a transverse pipe of equal

diameter. . . .’”

I omit the next part of the sentence.

“‘These pipes had frequent holes a half centimeter in width.

From the transverse pipe down through a hole in the galvanized

iron floor went a rubber hose with a hexagonal screw at the end,

threaded so as to fit the thread on the end of the engine

exhaust pipe. This hose is screwed on to the exhaust pipe and

when the engine is running all the exhaust gas goes into the

body of this hermetically closed van. From the accumulation of

these gases, a man inside the van died within a short space of

time. The machine could contain approximately 70 to 80 people.

The motor of this machine usually bore the trademark “Sauer.”’”

I omit the following part of the quotation, because the data contained

therein is already known to the Tribunal and I beg the Tribunal to pay

attention to Page 270 of the document book, first paragraph, which says

that in the Stavropol region the murder vans were used for the killing

of 660 people who were ill in the local hospital. Further I draw the

attention of the Tribunal to the report of the Extraordinary State

Commission regarding the Crimes of the German fascist criminals in

Krasnodar. I submit this document to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number

USSR-42 (Document Number USSR-42). It concerns the mass killing of

people in murder vans. I will not quote this document. I pass on to Page

243. I submit to the Tribunal as Document Number USSR-55 the verdict of

the military tribunal of the North Caucasian Front. I wish only to quote

a short excerpt from this verdict in order to save time. The Tribunal

will find this on Page 439 of the document book, Volume II, Paragraph 2.

I begin the quotation:

“The legal investigation has also ascertained as facts the

systematic torture and burning, in the cellars of the Gestapo by

the Hitlerite criminals, of many arrested Soviet citizens, as

well as the extermination by carbon-monoxide gases in specially

built cars (murder vans), that is, the asphyxiation of

approximately 7,000 innocent Soviet people, including more than

700 patients from the hospitals of the town in Krasnodar region;

among them were 42 children, from 5 to 16 years old.”

I omit the pages of the text.

Next I submit to the Tribunal a report of the Extraordinary State

Commission of the Soviet Union on the atrocities of the German fascist

invaders in the town of Kharkov and the Kharkov region. I submit this

document to the Tribunal under Document Number USSR-43. I will not quote

this document, but will go over to another, more comprehensive document,

namely, the verdict of the military tribunal of the 4th Ukrainian Front

which was pronounced in this case. This document has been introduced to

the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-32 (Document Number USSR-32). The

Tribunal will find this excerpt which I would like to quote on Page 222

of the document book, first paragraph. I begin the quotation:

“For the mass executions of Soviet citizens the German fascist

invaders used the so-called gas wagons: Large, closed cars which

were known to the Russians as ‘murder vans.’ Into these gas

wagons the German fascist invaders drove Soviet citizens and

murdered them by special poisonous gas, carbon-monoxide. In

order to hide the traces of the monstrous crimes committed and

the mass extermination of Soviet people by way of asphyxiation

with carbon-monoxide in these gas wagons, the German fascists

burned the bodies of their victims.”

I conclude this quotation and omit the next page of the text and another

page, and go on to Page 252 of my statement.

In order to prove that the murder vans were used not only at places I

mentioned, I now refer to a report of the Extraordinary State Commission

which has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number

USSR-9 (Document Number USSR-9), on the atrocities committed in the town

of Kiev. The Tribunal will find there a proof of the fact that murder

vans were used in Kiev.

THE PRESIDENT: We have just had handed up to us, in the written

translation of your address, Page 234. We already had Page 234. Do you

want this to be 234(a)? Is it just one page that you are handing up now?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: There is a different numbering in the English

text, Mr. President; and it is difficult for me to talk about the text

which is in your possession, because I simply do not know the numbering

of the English translation.

THE PRESIDENT: Maybe it is 234(a)?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I am on Page 251 of the Russian text.

THE PRESIDENT: I think the better course will be to adjourn now and

perhaps the slight muddle in these translations can be cleared up.

[_A recess was taken._]

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I have interrupted my report of the wide

application of murder vans in the temporarily occupied regions of the

U.S.S.R.—that is, I interrupted the report of the Extraordinary State

Commission concerning crimes in Rovno and the Rovno region. The members

of the Tribunal will find reference to this on Page 291, second column

of the text, Paragraph 10 of the document book. I limit myself to one

paragraph only. I begin the quotation:

“The extermination of peaceful citizens and prisoners of war in

the town of Rovno used to take place by means of mass shooting

from tommy-guns and machine guns, murder with carbon-monoxide in

murder vans, while in separate instances people were thrown into

pits and buried alive. Some of the victims, particularly those

executed at the quarries near the village of Vydumka, were

burned on special places prepared in advance.”

I end my quotation and go over to Page 253 of the text, Paragraph 3.

Further, in conjunction with the same matter, I refer to the report of

the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes in Minsk. The members

of the Tribunal will find this quotation on Page 215 of the document

book, second paragraph, second column of the text. I read one quotation

from this report. I begin the quotation, “Thousands of Soviet citizens

have perished in concentration camps at the hands of the German

executioners.”

I omit the following four sentences and pass on to the testimony of

witness Moisievitch. He says—I begin the quotation:

“I was an eyewitness to the manner in which the Germans killed

people in their murder vans. From 70 to 80 people were forced

into a murder van and then driven away to an unknown

destination.”

I end my quotation, and I ask the Tribunal’s permission to draw its

attention to the fact that in Minsk the principle of the murder van was

used for stationary gas chambers, which were installed by the criminals

in common bath houses. It is also mentioned in this report of the

Extraordinary State Commission.

Further, I refer to the verdict of the court-martial of the Smolensk

military region, dated 15-19 December 1945, which the Tribunal will find

on Page 72 of the document book. There it is related that in Smolensk

the Germans also employed special gas automobiles, the so-called murder

vans for killing Soviet people with carbon-monoxide. It seems to me that

it is not merely coincidence that murder vans appeared in the territory

of the U.S.S.R. in the year of 1942. At that time the chief criminals

were still quite convinced of victory and started carrying out in

practice their premeditated plans for the extermination of the people of

Europe. They were not then afraid of responsibility for these crimes.

That is why in 1942 there appeared new links in the long chain of the

crimes committed by the leaders of German fascism. The fascist technique

of extermination was once again in full swing. It created murder vans,

gas chambers in the concentration camps, special electrical appliances

for the mass murder of the doomed, crematoria, and also “Zyklon” banks.

Now, I pass over to the next section of my presentation: “Concentration

camps for the peaceful population.”

Inasmuch as this subject has already been extensively treated by the

members of the Prosecution who presented their cases before me, I shall

try to be as brief as possible; I shall limit myself either only to

absolutely new information or to the text of the documents which serve

as an explanation to the movie films which will be shown today before

the Tribunal.

I beg to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that at the end

of 1941 and in 1942 the scale of German fascist crimes committed in

concentration camps reached vast proportions. In particular, I refer to

the report of the Polish Government in confirmation of this statement.

On Page 138 of the document book the members of the Tribunal will find

the testimony to the effect that in 1942 one of the most terrifying

extermination camps, the Treblinka Camp Number 2, was in rapid process

of erection. The Germans called this “Treblinka B.” Further, I refer to

the report of the extraordinary State Commission on Auschwitz. The

members of the Tribunal will find the extract which I am going to quote

on Page 353 in the document book, Volume II, second column of the text,

Paragraph 2. I quote a short excerpt from Page 257:

“In 1941 the first crematorium for burning the corpses of

murdered people was built in the Auschwitz Camp. This

crematorium had three ovens. Attached to the crematorium was a

so-called ‘special purpose bath-house.’ That was a gas chamber

for asphyxiating people.”

I draw the attention of the Tribunal to the following sentence:

“In the summer of 1942 the Reichsführer SS Himmler inspected

Auschwitz Camp and ordered it to be greatly enlarged and

technically perfected.”

I end my quotation here, and I call the attention of the Tribunal to

Page 136 on the reverse side of the document book; this is from a report

of the Polish Government, which shows that the Camp Sobibur was founded

during the first and second liquidation of the Jewish ghetto. But the

extermination on a large scale in this camp really started at the

beginning of 1943. In this same report, in the last paragraph on Page

136 of the document book, we may read that Camp Belsen was founded in

1940; but it was in 1942 that the special electrical appliances were

built in for mass extermination of people. Under the pretext that the

people were being led to the bath-house, the doomed were undressed and

then driven to the building where the floor was electrified in a special

way; there they were killed.

Usually the concentration camps of German fascism can be divided into

two groups: the labor concentration camps and the extermination camps.

It seems to me that such a differentiation is not quite correct, because

the labor camps also served the purpose of extermination.

I omit two pages of the text and I pass on to the Page 260. In

confirmation of what I said just now, I refer to the report of the

Extraordinary State Commission relative to Yanov Camp in the city of

Lvov. The Tribunal will find this on Page 59 in the document book,

Paragraph 5 of the first column of the text. But at the same time, I ask

the members of the Tribunal to refer to Page 6 of the album of documents

relative to the Lvov Camp. One of them is a picture of “a trench in the

valley of death.” The ground is soaked with human blood to the depth of

1½ meters. On the next pages are shown the belongings taken from the

executed persons. This picture was taken by the experts of legal

medicine about 2 months after the mass shootings.

From the reports of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in the

Yanov Camp it can be seen that here in what was officially a usual work

camp, over 200,000 Soviet citizens were exterminated, according to the

findings of the legal experts. I quote only the first paragraph on Page

261 of the Russian text. I begin the quotation:

“In view of the total area of burial grounds and the area of 2

square kilometers in which the ashes and bones were scattered as

well the expert commission concluded that in the Yanov Camp

there were exterminated over 200,000 Soviet citizens.”

I omit the next part of my presentation, which deals with the regime of

starvation in concentration camps. This was already very well presented

by the representative of the British Prosecution, Sir David

Maxwell-Fyfe. This must be already quite clear to the Tribunal and I

don’t think it will be necessary to give any additional proofs. But I

ask the Tribunal’s permission for a presentation of evidence on a camp

which was created by the German fascists only during the last stage of

the war. I refer to Page 265 of my presentation.

Maidanek and Auschwitz camps served as a means of extermination only for

those who really were sent to these camps. These two camps were not a

direct menace for those people who were outside the walls of the camp;

but, in the course of the war, having already suffered grave defeats,

German fascism began to practice new bestialities for exterminating

peaceful citizens—thus, in Bielorussia camps of death, not only to

exterminate the inmates of the camp itself but, first and foremost, to

spread infectious diseases among the peaceful population and the ranks

of the Red Army. There were no crematoria and gas chambers in these

camps but these camps should in all justice be considered as among the

most brutal concentration camps which were created by fascism for

extermination of people.

I present to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-4 (Document Number

USSR-4) the report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet

Union for the investigation of the murder of people by means of

spreading typhus epidemics. Such evidence was not presented before, and

I shall therefore quote several excerpts from this report. I begin the

quotation on Page 454 of the document book, first column of the text,

first paragraph; last paragraph on Page 266 of the Russian text. I begin

the quotation:

“On 19 March 1944 advancing Red Army units discovered, near the

settlement of Osaritchi in the region of Polesskoy in the

Bielorussian S.S.R., within the limits of German defense lines,

three concentration camps in which there were over 33,000

children, women, and old men incapable of work.”

I interrupt my quotation, and I omit one paragraph.

“The camps were really open squares surrounded by barbed wire.

The approaches to them were mined. There were no buildings

whatever even of the most insignificant type in the camp

grounds.”

I call the Tribunal’s attention to the fact that all this happened in

March, in Bielorussia, when it is really very cold there.

“The inmates were sitting on the ground. Many of them had lost

their ability to move and were lying unconscious in the mud. It

was forbidden to the inmates to build fires, to gather brush or

branches for bedding. The Hitlerites shot Soviet people for the

slightest attempt to violate this order.

“For concentration camps close to the nearest line of defense,

the Germans, in the first place, selected sites in such places

where they did not hope to retain their position. Secondly, they

concentrated large masses of Soviet people in the camps, placing

there primarily women, children, and old men unable to work.

Thirdly, they placed in these camps thousands of typhus patients

who were brought from various temporarily occupied regions of

the Bielorussian S.S.R., especially for this purpose. They were

kept together with the starved, weak inmates who no longer could

serve as labor and who were living there under the most

unhygienic conditions.

“Among those liberated from these camps were 15,960 children up

to the age of 13; 13,072 women incapable of work, and 4,448 old

men.”

I omit the next page and read Page 269 of the Russian text. I quote only

one paragraph which reveals the methods used by the criminals to drive

into the camps peaceful citizens from various regions of Bielorussia.

Witness Mrs. L. Pikarskaya, who was liberated from the camp, testified

before the commission:

“On 12 March 1944 late in the afternoon, we, the inhabitants of

the city of Jlobin, were forced to assemble within half an hour

at the station Jlobin South. Here the Germans selected all the

young ones and took them away. Having herded us into railroad

cars, the Germans closed the doors tightly. Where we were going

we didn’t know, but we all anticipated some evil. . . .

“As we found out later on, we were taken along the Rudobelkovsky

railway and unloaded late in the afternoon on 15 March. During

the night, knee deep in sticky mud, we were driven into a camp.

From this camp were driven into another one. On the way the

Germans beat us, and those who lagged behind were shot. One

woman was walking with three children. One of the children fell

down. The Germans shot at him. Horrified, the mother and the two

other children looked back; the monster soldiers shot them down

one by one. The mother cried out in agony, but her shriek was

interrupted by a direct shot. Another mother and son, the

Bondarews, walked side by side. The child could not stand the

tiring journey and fell down. The mother bent over him, she

wanted to encourage him with a word; but neither the son nor the

mother rose or saw the blue sky again; the Germans shot them.”

I omit the next page of this document and I pass to the presentation of

some evidence testifying to the fact that the Germans purposely

concentrated in this camp the typhus-stricken people. I quote three

paragraphs from Page 271 of this text:

“A. S. Mitrachovich, a resident of the village of Novo-Belitza

who was liberated from the camp, testified:

“‘We who were sick with typhus were driven to the village of

Mikul-Gorodok into a camp surrounded by barbed wire.’

“An inhabitant of the hamlet of Novogrudok, Z. P. Gavrilchik,

testified:

“‘During 3 days typhus-stricken patients were brought in motor

cars into camp, with the result that many who were healthy also

became sick.’”

I omit the next two pages of the document and I pass over to what the

members of the Tribunal will find on Page 254, on the reverse side,

second column of the text, Paragraph 6. I quote:

“The German Army Command used to send their own agents to the

camps near the front line to observe how the typhus was

spreading among the inmates and also among the Red Army units.”

Next there is the testimony of one of such agents, the traitor

Rastorguev. I omit this quotation.

To conclude the presentation of evidence relative to this matter, I

shall only quote a few excerpts from the findings of the medical experts

of epidemical diseases. The Tribunal will find it on the back of Page

454, second column of the text. This is Page 274 of the Russian text. I

begin the quotation:

“(a) The German authorities placed together in concentration

camps both the healthy and the typhus-stricken Soviet citizens.

“(b) In order to expedite the dissemination of typhus in the

camps, the Germans used to transfer the typhus patients from one

camp to another.

“(c) On many occasions when typhus patients refused to go into

the camp, the German authorities used force.

“(d) German aggressors used to move typhus patients from

hospitals into the camps and mixed them with the healthy camp

inmates.”

And the last paragraph:

“(e) The infecting of the Soviet population with typhus began in

second half of February and was practiced to the middle of

March.”

The result of it was mass infection of the people interned in the camp,

and the members of the Tribunal will find proof of this in the next

paragraph where it is said that the Red Army Command sent 4,052 Soviet

citizens to the hospitals, among them 2,370 children below 13 years of

age, all liberated just from one hamlet of Ozarichi, in the Poless

region.

I omit those sections of my presentation where I wanted to give concrete

information as to the terrible conditions under which the inmates of

these concentration camps had to live, and I pass to Page 277 of my

statement where I deal with concentration camps of the “usual type.”

I quote short excerpts only from the report of the Yugoslav Government

dealing with Camp Banyitza, near Belgrade, from which it is evident that

the Yugoslavian camp, so far as bestial conditions are concerned, was

quite identical with the camps in other countries of Eastern Europe. The

members of the Tribunal will find this passage on Page 263 of the

document book, second paragraph. I quote the third paragraph of this

document:

“Camp Banyitza, near Belgrade was established by the German

occupational authorities as far back as June 1941. From the

captured documents of this camp it is evident that 23,637

inmates were registered there. However, from the testimony of

the surviving witnesses, especially the employees of the

quisling authorities who worked in this camp, it was possible to

establish that in reality a much greater number of victims

passed through this camp.”

I omit the next paragraph and continue my quotation:

“The witness Monchilo Demyanóvich”—or Demyánovich, I don’t know

where to put the accent—“at the end of 1943 participated in

burning corpses of the victims from Camp Banyitza.”

I omit the following part of the paragraph and continue my quotation:

“At the interrogation on 7 February 1945, he testified before

the Yugoslav State Commission that during the period of his work

there, he counted 68,000 corpses.”

I omit further five pages of the report, as the information contained

therein is well known to the Tribunal. I pass to Page 283 of the Russian

text. I present to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-193 (Document

USSR-193) an excerpt from an official register of the hospital at Camp

Saimyshte, near Belgrade.

The report of the Yugoslav Government justly states that this hospital

reminds one more of a camp chapel, where the bodies of the dead were

brought for the last rites. On some days—I beg the Tribunal to refer to

the entry Number 1070—there were delivered the bodies of tens and

hundreds of people who had died of starvation. For instance, under the

entry note 1070 are listed 87 corpses delivered to the hospital. Under

Number 1272, 122 bodies are noted, under Number 2041 there were 112

bodies delivered. I don’t consider that these figures need any comment

to illustrate the camp regime, especially as far as living conditions of

the inmates are concerned.

In the camps in the territory of the U.S.S.R. temporarily occupied by

Germans, the living conditions of the inmates at all camps were of

extreme grimness.

I quote a short excerpt from the report of the Extraordinary State

Commission of the Soviet Union on the crimes in the Lithuanian S.S.R. I

begin the quotation:

“In the territories of the Lithuanian S.S.R., the Hitlerites

exterminated in great numbers not only the local population but

also people who were driven here from the Orlov, Smolensk,

Vitebsk, and Leningrad regions. From the summer of 1943 to June

1944, 200,000 people passed through the camp for the evacuated

population near the town of Alitous.”

You will see this camp in the movie document which will be presented

today.

I omit the next part of the quotation and I read two paragraphs further

down:

“Due to the filthy living conditions, the unbelievable crowding,

lack of water, starvation, disease, and mass shootings, about

60,000 Soviet citizens perished during 14 months in this camp.”

I omit the two next pages of the text and I quote from Page 288 of the

report. It is mentioned here that for the families of Red Army soldiers

special concentration camps were set up in the territories of the

Lithuanian S.S.R. The following order was posted in this camp:

“For expressing displeasure with German authorities and for

violation of the camp regime the Soviet people shall be shot

without trial, jailed, or sent on forced labor for life to

Germany.”

I omit one paragraph and continue:

“A German woman in command of four such camps, Elisabeth

Zeeling, frequently announced to the inmates, ‘You are my

slaves; I shall punish you in any way I want.’”

I refer further to the report of the State Extraordinary Commission

relative to the crimes in the city of Kiev. This report describes

murders in the camps which will be also shown in the films today. I

quote only one quotation from this report, which shows the methods of

extermination of people in the Syretzk Camp. I quote Page 289, Paragraph

3, of the Russian text:

“Radomsky and Rieder used all kinds of devices for the

extermination of Soviet citizens. For instance, they invented

the following method of murder: Several Soviet prisoners would

be forced to climb a tree and others had to saw it down. The

prisoners would fall together with the tree and be killed.”

Further, I quote a short excerpt from the report of the Extraordinary

State Commission on crimes in the Estonian S.S.R. This excerpt describes

the very severe regime in the Estonian camps. I quote the last paragraph

on Page 90:

“Daily in the camp there were public floggings of the inmates on

a bench especially built for this purpose. Besides this, for the

smallest offense people were kept without any food for 2 days;

or, in the coldest weather, they were forced to stand tied to a

post for 2 or 3 hours. Not only the SS guards but also the

administration of the camp and the German physicians took part

in torturing the internees. The German doctor, Botmann,

personally beat two inmates, Dr. Salkinson and Dr. Tzetzov.

Besides this, Dr. Botmann systematically poisoned sick inmates,

injecting the poison (evipan) under their skin. The medical

attendant Unterscharführer Gent killed 23 elderly inmates with

an ax. The witness I. M. Ranter testified, ‘In February 1944 two

children were born in the camp at Kloga. Both of them were

thrown alive into the furnace of the crematorium and burned.’”

I interrupt my quotation, as I consider that the regime in these

concentration camps has already been sufficiently described. I pass on

to the presentation of evidence on the camps of extermination, the

so-called “Vernichtungslager.” Numerous proofs on this subject have

already been presented to the Tribunal and therefore I shall limit

myself to the presentation of evidence which is connected with the

documentary films which are to be shown to the Tribunal today. I

consider that the Tribunal has had enough proof of the fact that

citizens of all European countries were exterminated in concentration

camps. People both from Western Europe and from the countries of Eastern

Europe were brought into these camps. This is shown not only by official

reports on these camps, but also from a board with names of inmates of

one of the camp’s sections which Your Honors can find in the album of

documents on Auschwitz. The citizenry of all European countries may be

found.

A special technique was used in the extermination of the people and in

connection with this I draw the attention of Your Honors to one fact,

which I especially investigated when I was analyzing the materials

relating to concentration camps. I decided to ascertain the number of

individual firms in the German fascist state engaged in building

crematoria for the concentration camps.

I shall present to the Tribunal the evidence that in fascist Germany

there were at least three special firms engaged in building crematoria

and crematorium installations for concentration camps. This testifies to

the scale of the crimes committed in these camps. I omit the text from

Pages 295 to 303. I begin the presentation of evidence relating to this

section. I ask the Tribunal to refer to the report of the Extraordinary

State Commission on the crimes of German fascist invaders in Auschwitz.

I quote the documents, which are on Page 353 in the document book of the

Tribunal, and which are quoted in the text of the report. I begin the

quotation:

“Construction of new vast crematoria was entrusted to the German

firm of Topf and Sons of Erfurt, which immediately began to

build four powerful crematoria and gas chambers in Birkenau.

Berlin demanded with impatience that the construction be

expedited and all work completed by the beginning of 1943.

“In the office records of the Auschwitz Camp there was

discovered a voluminous correspondence between the

administration of the camp and the firm of Topf and Sons. Among

them the following letters:

“‘I. A. Topf and Sons, Erfurt; 12 February 1943.

“‘To Central Construction Office of SS and Police, Auschwitz.

“‘Subject: Crematoria 2 and 3 for the camp for prisoners of war.

“‘We acknowledge receipt of your wire of 10 February, as

follows:

“‘We again acknowledge receipt of your order for five triple

furnaces, including two electric lifts for raising the corpses

and one emergency lift. A practical installation for stoking

coal was also ordered and one for transporting the ashes. You

are to deliver the complete installation for Crematorium Number

3. You are expected to take steps to ensure the immediate

dispatch of all the machines complete with parts.’”

I omit the next document which deals with “bathhouses for special

purposes” (gas chambers), and present to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number

USSR-64 (Document Number USSR-64), a document which is appended to the

report of the Yugoslav Government. This is a certified photostat of a

document externally having all the official character of a business

document from a “sound business firm.” The name of the firm is

Didier-Werke. The subject of the correspondence—the construction of

crematoria “designed for a large camp in Belgrade.” The document

presented by me characterized the firm Didier as a firm with

considerable experience in construction of crematoria for concentration

camps and which advertised itself as a firm that understood the demands

of its clients. For placing the bodies into the furnace, the firm

designed a special conveyer with a two-wheeled shaft. The firm claimed

that it could fill this order much better than any other firms, and

asked for a small advance, to draw up draft plans for the construction

of a crematorium in the camp.

I quote a few short excerpts from this document—the first two

paragraphs:

“With reference to your son’s visit and his conversation with

our expert, Herr Storl, we note that the Belgrade SS unit

intends to build a crematorium for a large camp and that you

have received instructions to design and construct the building

in collaboration with local architects.”

I interrupt my quotation and I shall quote one more excerpt:

“For putting the bodies into the furnace, we suggest simply a

metal fork moving on cylinders.

“Each furnace will have an oven measuring only 600 millimeters

in breadth and 450 millimeters in height, as coffins will not be

used. For transporting the corpses from the storage point to the

furnaces we suggest using light carts on wheels and we enclose

diagrams of these drawn to scale.”

I interrupt my quotation here and I present to the Tribunal Exhibit

Number USSR-225 (Document Number USSR-225). This document will be

brought to you presently, Mr. President. May I refer to it? It will be

presented to you within a few minutes.

I submit the new document as Exhibit Number USSR-225; it deals also with

the construction of those crematoria for concentration camps in Belgrade

and contains the correspondence of the firm Kori, G.m.b.H. This is a

well-known firm, which considered that even every business letter must

be ended with “Heil Hitler!” As its clients were well known to it, the

firm Kori once again inquired whether “two furnaces would be

sufficient.” The firm, among other things, mentioned that it had already

built four furnaces for Dachau and five for Lublin; it emphasized that

its technically perfected furnaces gave full satisfaction in practice. I

quote a very short excerpt of this document which the Tribunal will find

on Page 471 in Volume II of the document book. I quote the first

paragraph; this is Page 38, first paragraph of the text:

“Following our verbal discussion regarding the delivery of a

crematorium installation of simple construction, we suggest our

perfected coal-burning furnaces for crematoria which have

hitherto given full satisfaction.

“We suggest two crematoria furnaces for the building planned,

but we advise you to make further inquiries to make sure that

two ovens will be sufficient for your requirements.”

I omit the next paragraph and continue the quotation:

“The area required for the furnaces, including space for the

stokers and other personnel, is shown by the attached diagram.

Sketch J. Number 8998 shows an installation with two furnaces.

Sketch J. Number 9122 shows the arrangement of four furnaces in

the construction projected for Dachau. A further sketch, J.

Number 9080, shows the Lublin installation with 5 crematoria

furnaces and two built-in compartments for stoking.”

I omit the next part of the document. The ending is very typical:

“Awaiting your further news, we will be at your service. Heil

Hitler! C. H. Kori, G.m.b.H.”

And so we have established that the design and construction of the

crematoria ovens for German concentration camps. . . .

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to know, as they have not these

letters before them, to whom they were addressed.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: This letter, Mr. President, was addressed to the

SS units in Belgrade. These documents were taken by the Yugoslav

Government. The SS units in Belgrade considered that the methods of

extermination practiced in Bandetz and Saimyshte, which I have already

described to the Tribunal, were not adequate and they decided to perfect

them. For this purpose they started building, or rather they designed

the construction of crematoria in the concentration camps. This was the

subject of the lively business correspondence between the SS police and

the SS units in Belgrade and the German firms, part of which I have just

presented to you.

THE PRESIDENT: Were the other letters that you referred to also

addressed to SS units?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, Mr. President, they were also addressed to

the SS units. The first letter, addressed to the administration of the

Auschwitz Camp was from the firm Topf and Sons.

I shall now present to the Tribunal evidence of the fact that besides

the stationary crematoria, there existed also movable crematoria. The

Tribunal already knows about the movable gas chambers. These were

“murder vans.” There were also created transportable crematoria. An SS

member, Paul Waldmann, testifies to their existence. He was one of the

participants in the crime perpetrated by the German fascists when

840,000 Russian prisoners of war in Sachsenhausen were annihilated at

one time. The Exhibit Number USSR-52 (Document Number USSR-52) on

Auschwitz has already been presented to the Court. I quote that

particular extract from the testimony of an SS member, Waldmann, which

mentions the mass execution in Sachsenhausen:

“The war prisoners murdered in this way were cremated in four

movable crematoria, which were transported on car trailers.”

I omit the next two pages of my report which deals with gas chambers and

crematoria. I think the Tribunal already has a clear idea of this

question. But I ask the Tribunal to pay attention to the repugnant

methods introduced by the German fascists for industrial utilization of

corpses. Further I shall present to the Tribunal evidence which would

testify to even more repulsive utilization of the corpses. Now I shall

quote from a report on Auschwitz, which the Tribunal will find on Page

353, reverse side, of the document book. Beside this I ask the Tribunal

to refer to the Auschwitz album, where on Pages 34, 35, and 36 they will

see the photographs of 7 tons of hair which was taken from dead women,

packed for shipment to Germany. I begin the quotation:

“From 1943 the Germans, in order to utilize the bones which were

not burned, started to grind them and sell them to the firm

Strem for the manufacture of superphosphates. In the camp there

were found bills of lading, addressed to the firm Strem, of 112

tons and 600 kilograms of bone meal from human corpses. The

Germans also used for industrial purposes hair shorn from women

who were doomed for extermination.”

I omit the next pages of my statement and I want to draw the Tribunal’s

attention to the findings of a commission of technical experts which the

Tribunal will find on Page 65, reverse side, of the document book,

Paragraph 2.

Special research took place in the gas chambers. On the basis of exact

chemical reactions it was established that poisoning in gas chambers was

done by means of hydrocyanic acid, Cyclone A and Cyclone B, and also

carbon-monoxide.

I quote one paragraph from the findings of the technical experts’

commission:

“Technical and medical-chemical analysis of the gas chambers in

the concentration camps in Maidanek”—that is on Page 319 of the

document, third paragraph—“confirms and proves that all those

chambers, especially the first, second, third, and fourth, were

designed and used for systematic and mass extermination of

people by means of poisonous gases, such as hydrocyanic acid and

carbon-monoxide.”

I omit the following extracts of my statement which describe the regime

in the camps of Auschwitz and Maidanek. I consider that the Tribunal has

already a very clear idea of this. Part of the people were sent

immediately to their death in gas chambers, while the one-fifth or

one-sixth which was left in the camp were subjected to starvation and

killed afterwards. I had the intention of presenting many documents and

excerpts from documents which confirm this fact; but to save time, I

omit them, and pass on to Page 324 of my statement. I mention this for

the convenience of the interpreters. I quote several facts which deal

with cynical and repugnant plundering of inmates who were killed in

Maidanek and Auschwitz. I ask the Tribunal to refer simultaneously with

the text I am going to present to the Auschwitz album, where on Page 27

you will see a picture of suitcases, which were the property of the

inmates; on Page 28 suitcases with labels of different countries and on

Page 39 a colossal warehouse of children’s clothes; the same on Page 33.

The document which had not been presented in time, Your Honor, is the

correspondence with the Kori firm—now presented to the Tribunal. I ask

to be excused for the delay. I quote only that particular part of the

report on Auschwitz, which the Tribunal will find on Page 325, on the

reverse side, of the document book, where there is stated what was

discovered by the commission at the warehouses of this camp. I quote one

paragraph; this is on Page 325, second paragraph:

“On the grounds of the Auschwitz Camp there were 35 special

warehouses for sorting and packing the belongings and clothes.

Before the retreat under the pressure of the Red Army, 29 of

these warehouses were burned with the things stored in them. In

the remaining six were discovered:

“1. Men’s clothes and underwear, 348,820 sets; 2. female clothes

and underwear, 836,255 sets; 3. women’s footwear, 5,525 pairs;

4. men’s footwear, 38,000 pairs; 5. rugs and carpets, 13,964

pieces.”

I omit the following two paragraphs and I quote . . . .

THE PRESIDENT: It is time to adjourn.

[_The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours._]

_Afternoon Session_

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Your Honors, the same picture of organized

plundering of the murdered persons was ascertained by the commission

during the investigation of Maidanek. I will not quote in full this part

of the communiqué of the Polish-Soviet Extraordinary Commission, and

will quote only one excerpt of the general economic administration of

the SS which is contained in the communiqué of the Polish-Soviet

Extraordinary Commission, and which the Tribunal will find on the back

of Page 66 of the document book, first column of the text, third

paragraph. I begin the quotation:

“To all commandants of the concentration camps:

“According to a statement received from the Reich Security Main

Office, parcels of clothing were sent from the concentration

camps mainly to the Gestapo administration in Brünn and in some

there were bullet holes and blood stains on the articles. Some

of the parcels were damaged, so that outsiders could see what

was inside them.

“As the Reich Security Main Office will in the near future issue

regulations concerning the utilization of articles of property

belonging to the deceased inmates, the sending of these articles

is to cease immediately until definite regulations have been

issued as to the disposal of property belonging to internees who

have been put to death.

“Signed: Glücks, SS Brigadeführer and major general of the SS.”

I pass on to the presentation of evidence, depicting the scale of the

crimes committed.

In only two camps of death the criminals exterminated 5½ million people.

In proof of this I quote the conclusions of the Extraordinary State

Commission for Auschwitz. I will quote only a short excerpt. It is

preceded by a detailed calculation. The Tribunal will find this

reference on Page 356 of the document book, second column of the text,

fourth paragraph. I begin the quotation:

“However, employing rectified coefficients for the part-time use

of the crematorium ovens and for the periods when they stood

empty, the technical expert commission has ascertained that

during the period of time that the Auschwitz Camp existed the

German butchers exterminated in this camp not less than 4

million citizens of the U.S.S.R., Poland, France, Yugoslavia,

Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Holland, Belgium,

and other countries.”

I quote the corresponding passages from the Polish-Soviet Extraordinary

Commission’s report on Maidanek. The Tribunal will find this quotation

on Page 66, reverse side, of the document book, second column of the

text, Paragraph 6. I begin the quotation:

“The Polish-Soviet Extraordinary Commission has ascertained that

during the 4 years’ existence of the extermination camp at

Maidanek the Hitlerite hangmen, following the direct order of

their criminal government, exterminated by mass shooting and

mass killing in gas chambers approximately 1.5 million persons:

Soviet prisoners of war, prisoners of war of the former Polish

Army, and nationals of various countries—Poles, Frenchmen,

Italians, Belgians, Dutch, Czechs, Serbs, Greeks, Croats, and a

great number of Jews.”

With this document I conclude that section of my statement which

concerns the concentration camps and pass on to the last section

entitled, “Concealment of Traces of Crimes.”

During the period of their temporary military successes, the German

fascist criminals did not bother themselves very much with concealing

the trace of their crimes. They did not even consider it necessary to

camouflage the burial grounds in which they hurled the bodies of the

murdered persons after the shootings.

But after the defeat suffered by the Hitlerite war machine at

Stalingrad, the situation changed. Fearing retaliation, the criminals

began to take urgent measures to conceal the traces of their crimes.

Where possible, they burned the corpses. Where this could not be done,

the burial grounds were carefully camouflaged with moss or green

foliage. The earth which covered the graves of those shot was smoothed

out with special machines and with caterpillar tractors.

However, the main method adopted by the German fascist criminals for

camouflaging their crimes was the burning of the corpses. The ashes from

the burned bodies were strewn over the fields. The bones which had not

been calcinated were crushed in special machines and mixed with manure

for the preparation of fertilizers. In large camps the crushed bones of

the victims were sold to the German firms to be transformed into

superphosphates.

As proof of the enormous scale of the Hitlerites’ criminal activity

directed toward concealing the traces of their crimes, I shall submit to

the Tribunal a series of documents. I will refer, first of all, to the

communiqué of the Polish-Soviet Extraordinary State Commission on

Maidanek. This document was submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number

USSR-29 (Document Number USSR-29). The part of the communiqué to which I

refer will be found by the Tribunal on Page 65 of the document book, on

the other side, Column 2 of the text, last paragraph. In order to save

time, I will allow myself to summarize the contents of this document:

In the beginning of 1942 two ovens for the burning of corpses were

built:

“As there were a great many corpses, the Germans, in 1942, began

building, and by autumn of 1943 had concluded, the building of

powerful crematoria consisting of five ovens. These ovens burned

unceasingly. The temperature in these ovens could reach 1,500

degrees Celsius. In order to be able to put as many bodies as

possible into the ovens, the corpses were dissected and the

limbs hacked off.”

I omit the next paragraphs and beg the Tribunal to pay attention to the

passage which is three paragraphs further down.

The ovens in the crematories proved to be inadequate, so the Germans

were compelled to resort to special primitive cremation installations

which had been made in the following way—I begin the quotation by

Paragraph 1, Page 334 of the text:

“On rails or on automobile frames which served as grates planks

were placed. Corpses were laid on the planks, then more planks,

and again corpses. Five hundred to 1,000 corpses were piled on

one pyre. All that was covered with gasoline and ignited.”

I quote a short excerpt which ascertains the scale of criminal actions

taken to conceal the trace of these crimes, Page 336, first paragraph:

“The commission has ascertained that in the ovens of the

crematoria alone more than 600,000 corpses were burned. More

than 300,000 corpses were burned on the gigantic pyres in the

Krempetz Woods; more than 80,000 corpses were burned in the two

old ovens; not less than 400,000 corpses were burned on pyres in

the camp itself, near the crematoria.”

As a proof of these same circumstances, that is to say, of the scale of

the criminal activity of the Hitlerites in concealing the traces of

their crimes, I refer now to the report of the Extraordinary State

Commission of the Soviet Union for the town of Minsk. The members of the

Tribunal will find this quotation on the back of Page 215, second column

of the text, Paragraph 4. I quote a short excerpt:

“In the Blagovtschchina Woods 34 ditch graves were discovered,

camouflaged with evergreen branches. Some of the graves reached

a length of 50 meters. During a partial excavation of five of

these graves, corpses and a layer of ashes 50 centimeters or 1

meter thick was discovered at a depth of 3 meters. Near the

graves the commission discovered a great number of small human

bones, hair, false teeth, and numerous small personal articles.

The investigation has ascertained that the fascist exterminated

here up to 150,000 persons.

“At a distance of 450 meters from the former hamlet of

Petrashkevichi eight ditch graves have been discovered. Their

size is 21 meters long, 4 meters wide, and 5 meters deep. Before

every ditch grave there are enormous piles of ashes, remainders

of the burned corpses.”

I omit the next page and in proof of this same circumstances I am now

referring to the report of the Extraordinary State Commission concerning

the crimes of the German fascist invaders in the Lvov region. This

document has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Document Number

USSR-6. I quote a very short excerpt from this document. The part which

I will quote will be found by the members of the Tribunal on Page 164,

on the reverse side, second column of the text, Paragraph 5:

“Upon the order of Reich Minister Himmler and of Major General

of Police Katzmann, special measures for exhuming and burning

the corpses of murdered, peaceful citizens, Soviet prisoners of

war, and citizens of foreign countries were carried out in June

1943. In Lvov the Germans created a special Sonderkommando

Number 1005 composed of 126 men. The chief of this Kommando was

Hauptsturmbannführer Scherlack; his assistant,

Hauptsturmbannführer Rauch. The duty of this Sonderkommando was

to exhume and burn the corpses of the civilians and prisoners of

war who had been liquidated by the Germans.”

I dwell on this extract, and I would beg the Tribunal to remember this

number, “Sonderkommando Number 1005.” This Kommando was the prototype of

similar Sonderkommandos created by the Germans. Later, the

Sonderkommandos created for this task received the numbers of 1005-A,

1005-B, _et cetera_.

I terminate the quotation with the conclusion of the medical-legal

experts. I quote the last paragraph on Page 340 of the text:

“Thus the Hitlerite murderers adopted in the territory of the

Lvov region the same methods for concealing their crimes which

they employed earlier in connection with the murder of Polish

officers in the Katyn Forest.

“The expert commission ascertained full similarity of method in

camouflaging the graves in Lissenitzach Forest with those used

to camouflage the graves of the Polish officers killed by the

Germans at Katyn.

“To extend the experiments in exterminating people, cremating

corpses, and camouflaging the crimes, the Germans set up in

Lvov, in the Yanov Camp, a special school for the preparation of

qualified cadre. The commandants of the camps of Lublin, Warsaw,

Kraków, and other cities attended this school. The chief of the

Sonderkommando Number 1005, Scherlack, taught the commandants on

the spot how to organize the exhumation of the corpses from the

graves, how to pile them on stacks, burn them, how to scatter

the ashes, to crush the bones, to fill up the ditches, and how

to plant trees and brush wood on the graves as camouflage.”

I now refer to a document which has already been submitted to the

Tribunal as Document Number USSR-61, which is the report of the

examination in the town of Lvov of the special machine for the crushing

of bones. This record may be found by the members of the Tribunal on

Page 473 of the document book. As I have very little time left at my

disposal, I shall only quote very short excerpts. I quote Paragraph I,

on Page 342:

“The machine for crushing bones was mounted on a special

carriage on the platform of a trailer. It is easily

transportable by automobiles or other means of transportation

without dismounting.”

I omit the next paragraph, and shall read one more short extract:

“The machine will function in any spot and does not require

additional adaptation. It can be transported by automobile or

any other vehicle.

“A machine of these dimensions can produce 3 cubic meters of

calcinated bone powder during 1 hour.”

I omit the next four pages of the report, and submit to the Tribunal as

evidence the original record of the interrogation of Gerhard Adametz

(Exhibit USSR-80, Document Number USSR-80), taken by an American army

lieutenant, Patrick McMahon. Gerhard Adametz was interrogated under

oath. I dwell especially on this document, which has been put kindly at

our disposal by our American colleagues, because Adametz’ testimony, to

use a legal term, in some points corroborates our own evidential

material. The testimony is very lengthy, and I will limit myself to a

few short quotations.

Gerhard Adametz was a member of Sonderkommando 1005-B. I draw the

attention of the Tribunal again to the fact that the first

Sonderkommando was simply 1005; this one is Sonderkommando 1005-B. The

excerpt which I shall quote from the testimony of Gerhard Adametz will

be found by the members of the Tribunal on Page 480 of the document

book, beginning with the second paragraph. Gerhard Adametz said that,

together with 40 other members of the Schutzpolizei, he left

Dniepropetrovsk and was sent to Kiev. I remind the Tribunal of the name

of Baybe-yar, which the Tribunal has already heard. I begin to quote the

testimony of Adametz, Page 347:

“Our Leutnant Winter reported about our column to Oberleutnant

Hanisch, who was the Zugführer of the Schutzpolizei of Group

1005-A. The place smelled of corpses. We felt faint, stopped our

noses, and tried not to breathe. Oberleutnant Hanisch addressed

us. I remember the following excerpts:

“‘You have come to the place where you are to serve and support

your comrades. You already smell an odor coming from the church

behind us. We must all get used to this, and you must all do

your duties. We will have to guard internees and do so very

strictly. Everything that takes place here is the secret affair

of the Reich. Everyone of you answers with his head if ever an

internee under his guard succeeds in escaping; besides this, he

will be subjected to a special regime. The same fate awaits

anyone who lets out anything or is careless in his

correspondence.’”

I omit the next sentence and continue the quotation:

“After this speech of Oberleutnant Hanisch, we were led out so

as to acquaint ourselves with the place where we were to serve.

We left the cemetery and were brought to an adjoining field. The

road which crossed this field was guarded on both sides by

policemen, who chased away all those who tried to approach it.

In the field we saw about 100 internees resting from work. The

legs of each internee were in chains of about 75 centimeters

long. The internees were dressed in civilian clothes.”

I omit the next part of the paragraph and continue the quotation:

“The work of the internees consisted, as we found out later, of

exhuming corpses which were buried here in two common graves,

transporting them, piling them up in two enormous piles, and

burning them. It is difficult to estimate; however, I believe

that on this spot were buried from 40,000 to 45,000 corpses. One

antitank ditch served as a grave and was partially filled with

corpses. This ditch was 100 meters long, 10 meters wide, and 4

to 5 meters deep.”

I interrupt my quotation, and continue with the last paragraph of the

text:

“On the day of our arrival, about 10 September 1943, there were

three or four small piles of corpses on the field.”

It is interesting to note what this fascist expert in the burning of

corpses understood by the words “small piles.” I continue the quotation:

“Every such pile consisted of about 700 corpses. It was about 7

meters long, 4 meters wide, and 2 meters high.”

I interrupt my quotation and continue from the next page:

“Here and in other places I observed the following methods which

were employed (burning of corpses):

“With the aid of iron hooks, the corpses were dragged to certain

spots and then piled on a wooden platform. Then the whole pile

of corpses was surrounded with logs, petroleum was poured on and

ignited.

“We, the policemen of detachment 1005-B, were then led back to

the cemetery to the church. However, not one of us could eat

because of the terrible smell and because of all we had seen.”

Although further on the text is very interesting, I have to leave it out

in order to save time and continue the quotation from Page 351, second

paragraph. I quote this excerpt, as in the report of the Kiev

Extraordinary State Commission I already had the honor to report to the

Tribunal about statements of internees who had fled from these

Kommandos.

Adametz’ testimony gives full confirmation of this episode. I shall only

read a short quotation:

“About 29 September 1943 at 4:15 a.m. during dense fog, about 30

internees escaped. They tore off their foot chains, rushed out

of their barracks with shouts, and ran away in different

directions. Six of them were shot; because of the dense fog the

others succeeded in escaping.”

I interrupt my quotation. I beg the Tribunal to pay attention to the

fact that as soon as the work of burning corpses was completed the

internees were murdered. In proof of this I quote the following excerpt

from Adametz’ statement, Page 352, second paragraph of the text:

“In other places where I also served as guard, the internees

were murdered after their work (exhuming and burning of corpses)

had been concluded. For this purpose they were brought in groups

or individually, under the escort of the policemen chosen for

this purpose, to a spot designated by the SD. The police were

afterwards sent back to bring along more internees. Then the

members of the SD forced the internees to lie, face down, on a

wooden platform, and immediately shot them in the nape of the

neck. The internees in many cases obeyed this order without

resistance and lay down next to their comrades who already had

been shot.”

I draw the attention of the Tribunal to the further career of the

Sonderkommando. You will find information on this subject in the same

record. This Sonderkommandant served in Kryvoy Rog, in Nikolaev, at

Voznessensk, and in Riga. That is to say, it crossed my country nearly

from the extreme south to the Baltic countries; a distance of thousands

of kilometers. Everywhere it carried out the same work. In confirmation

of this I will quote only a short excerpt regarding the last stage on

the Kommando’s work in Riga—Page 357 of the statement. I begin the

quotation, “We members of Kommando 1005-B received an order to go to

several newly built barracks which were situated about 250 meters from

six or seven mass graves.” I quote this passage, as Bikerneksky Forest

will be shown in the documentary film:

“The latter were situated about 4 kilometers from the suburbs of

Riga in the Bikern Forest”—in the record the name of the

Bikerneksky Forest was spelled wrong—“there were about 10 or 12

thousand. A fresh group of 50 or 60 internees was brought there,

and in the middle of June 1944 work began (the exhumation and

burning of corpses) in the same way as I described at the

beginning. This work was completed by the end of July 1944. I

believe that at that period the front was only about 300

kilometers away. These 10,000 to 12,000 corpses were those of

men, women, and children of all ages and had been buried about 2

years ago.”

I remind Your Honors, that the extract from the report of the

Extraordinary State Commission which I quoted mentioned the date of the

shooting as 1942, and this proves that these two testimonies concur with

each other once again. I continue the quotation:

“The policemen believed that these people had been shot by the

SS. However, this was only a supposition. This fresh group of 50

to 60 internees was murdered at the end of July 1944.”

I omit the following part of the document and will only quote the

conclusion of Gerhard Adametz’ record, Page 359, Paragraph 4:

“Afterwards, we were of the opinion that the Nazis were actually

afraid that the mass graves would be discovered by the advancing

Russians and that these monstrous mass killings would become

known to the civilized world. I believe that about 100,000

corpses were exhumed from mass graves by the SD, serving with

the Sonderkommandos 1005-A and 1005-B. I believe that similar

Kommandos also were engaged on the same work, but I do not know

how many. If I had thought or known that I would ever be

compelled to carry out this dirty and degrading work I would

have emigrated somewhere.”

I omit the last part; the record concludes with the text of the oath and

the signature of Gerhard Adametz.

Before submitting to the Tribunal the other evidence of another crime of

the Hitlerites, I beg the Tribunal to allow me to make a few

introductory remarks. The murder of several million people was carried

out by the German fascist out of motives dictated by their

mankind-hating, cannibal theories of racism and of the “right of

masters” to exterminate peoples. All these murders were planned in cold

blood. All these crimes, unprecedented in scale, were carried out at

exact dates set for this purpose. Moreover, as I showed many times

before, a special technique was invented for the mass killings and for

the concealment of the traces of their crimes.

But, besides this, there is another characteristic in the many crimes

committed by the German fascists which makes them even more detestable.

In many cases, the Germans, having killed their victims, did not stop

here, but made the corpses objects of jeers and mockery. Mockery of the

dead bodies of victims was common practice in all extermination camps. I

remind the Tribunal that the bones which had not been calcinated were

sold by the German fascists to the firm Strem. The hair of the murdered

women was cut off, packed in sacks, pressed and sent to Germany.

Among the same crimes are those on which I shall now submit evidence. On

numerous occasions, I have already pointed out that the principal method

used to cover up the traces was to burn the corpses, but the same base,

rationalized SS technical minds which created gas chambers and murder

vans, began devising such methods of complete annihilation of human

bodies, which would not only conceal the traces of their crimes, but

also serve in the manufacturing of certain products.

In the Danzig Anatomic Institute semi-industrial experiments in the

production of soap from human bodies and the tanning of human skin for

industrial purposes were carried out. I submit to the Tribunal, as

Exhibit Number USSR-197 (Document Number USSR-197), the testimony of one

of the direct participants in the production of soap from human fat. It

is the testimony of Sigmund Mazur, who was a laboratory assistant at the

Danzig Anatomic Institute.

I omit two pages of the statement and turn to Page 363. I begin the

quotation—it is rather long, but I think I shall have the necessary

time for the presentation of the evidence, and I beg to draw the

attention of Your Honors to this quotation:

“Q: ‘Tell us how the soap was made out of human fat at the

Danzig Anatomic Institute.’

“A: ‘In the courtyard of the Anatomic Institute a one-story

stone building of three rooms was built during the summer of

1943. This building was erected for the utilization of human

bodies and for the boiling of bones. This was officially

announced by Professor Spanner. This laboratory was called a

laboratory for the fabrication of skeletons, the burning of meat

and unnecessary bones. But already during the winter of 1943-44

Professor Spanner ordered us to collect human fat, and not to

throw it away. This order was given to Reichert and Borkmann.

“‘In February 1944 Professor Spanner gave me the recipe for the

preparation of soap from human fat. According to this recipe 5

kilos of human fat are mixed with 10 liters of water and 500 or

1,000 grams of caustic soda. All this is boiled 2 or 3 hours and

then cooled. The soap floats to the surface while the water and

other sediment remain at the bottom. A bit of salt and soda is

added to this mixture. Then fresh water is added, and the

mixture again boiled 2 or 3 hours. After having cooled the soap

is poured into molds.’”

I will present to the Tribunal these molds into which the soap was

poured. Further I shall prove that this half-finished sample of human

soap was really found in Danzig.

“The soap had an unpleasant odor. In order to destroy this

disagreeable odor, Benzolaldehyd was added.”

I omit the next part of the quotation, which explains from where they

received this preparation. This is of no importance at this stage, and I

continue the quotation on Page 364, Paragraph 4:

“The fat of the human bodies was collected by Borkmann and

Reichert. I boiled the soap out of the bodies of women and men.

The process of boiling alone took several days—from 3 to 7.

During two manufacturing processes, in which I directly

participated, more than 25 kilograms of soap were produced. The

amount of human fat necessary for these two processes was 70 to

80 kilograms collected from some 40 bodies. The finished soap

then went to Professor Spanner, who kept it personally.

“The work for the production of soap from human bodies has, as

far as I know, also interested Hitler’s Government. The Anatomic

Institute was visited by the Minister of Education, Rust; the

Reichsgesundheitsführer, Doctor Conti; the Gauleiter of Danzig,

Albert Forster; as well as professors from other medical

institutes.

“I used this human soap for my personal needs, for toilet and

for laundering. For myself I took 4 kilograms of this soap.”

I omit one paragraph and continue the quotation.

“Reichert, Borkmann, Von Bargen, and our chief professor,

Spanner, also personally used this soap.”

I omit the following paragraphs and conclude the quotation on Page 365,

from where I shall read one paragraph which concerns the industrial

utilization of human skin:

“In the same way as for human fat, Professor Spanner ordered us

to collect human skin, which after having been cleaned of fat

was treated by certain chemical products. The work on human skin

was carried out under the direction of the chief assistant, Von

Bargen and Professor Spanner himself. The ‘finished’ skin was

packed in boxes and used for special purposes which I don’t

know.”

I now submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-196 (Document Number

USSR-196), the copy of the recipe for soap produced from the corpses of

the executed. I will not dwell on this recipe which is identical to that

which has already been described in Mazur’s testimony. But the proof of

the fact that this recipe is correct, Your Honors, can be found in

Mazur’s record, which has already been submitted to the Tribunal under

Document Number USSR-197. I will not quote this record. In order to

prove that the record of Mazur’s interrogation corresponds to reality, I

shall now submit to the Tribunal two documents which have been kindly

put at our disposal. They are records of sworn statements by two British

prisoners of war; in particular that of John Henry Witton, a soldier of

the Royal Sussex Regiment. The document is submitted to the Tribunal as

Exhibit Number USSR-264 (Document Number USSR-264). The members of the

Tribunal will find this quotation in Paragraph 5, Page 495, of the

document book. I quote a very short excerpt from this record, if the

necessary time is granted to me. This is Page 367. I quote:

“The corpses arrived at an average of seven to eight per day.

All of them had been beheaded and were naked. They arrived

sometimes in a Red Cross wagon containing five to six corpses in

a wooden case and sometimes in a small truck which contained

three to four corpses.”

I omit the next sentence.

“The corpses were unloaded as quickly as possible and taken down

into the cellar, which was entered from a side door in the main

entrance hall of the Institute.”

I omit the next sentence.

“They were then put into large metal containers where they were

then left for approximately 4 months.”

I omit the next three sentences and continue the quotation:

“Owing to the preservative mixture in which they were stored,

this tissue came away from the bones very easily. The tissue was

then put into a boiler about the size of a small kitchen

table. . . . After boiling the liquid it was put into white

trays about twice the size of a sheet of foolscap and about 3

centimeters deep.”—These were the basins which I have already

shown the Tribunal—“Approximately 3 to 4 trayfuls per day were

obtained from the machine.”

This witness himself did not witness the application of the soap, but I

am submitting to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-272 (Document

Number USSR-272), the written testimony of a British citizen, William

Anderson Neely, a corporal of the Royal Signals. The members of the

Tribunal will find this excerpt on Page 498 of the document book, Volume

2. I begin the quotation:

“The corpses arrived at an average rate of 2 to 3 per day. All

of them were naked and most of them had been beheaded.”

I interrupt the quotation—I omit two paragraphs and continue the

quotation:

“A machine for the manufacture of soap was completed some time

in March or April 1944. The British prisoners of war had

constructed the building in which it was housed in June 1942.

The machine itself was installed by a civilian firm from Danzig

by the name of AJRD. It consisted, as far as I remember, of an

electrically heated tank in which bones of the corpses were

mixed with some acid and melted down.

“This process of melting down took about 24 hours. The fatty

portions of the corpses and particularly those of females were

put into a crude enamel tank, heated by a couple of bunsen

burners. Some acid was also used in this process.

“I think it was caustic soda. When boiling had been completed,

the mixture was allowed to cool and then cut into blocks for

microscopic examination.”

I continue the quotation from the following paragraph:

“I cannot estimate the quantity produced, but I saw it used by

Danzigers in cleaning tables in the dissecting rooms. They all

told me it was excellent soap for this purpose.”

I submit half-finished and some finished soap. (Exhibit USSR-393) Here

you shall see a small piece of finished soap, which from the exterior,

after lying about a few months, reminds you of ordinary household soap.

I give it over to the Tribunal. Beside this I now submit to the Tribunal

the samples of semi-tanned human skin (Exhibit USSR-394). The samples

which I now submit prove that the process of manufacturing soap was

already completely worked out by the Institute of Danzig; as to the skin

it still looks like a semi-finished product. The skin which resembles

most the leather used in manufacture is the one you see on top at the

left. So one can consider that the experiments on the industrial

fabrication of soap from human fats were quite completed in the Danzig

Institute. Experiments on tanning of human skin were still incomplete

and only the victorious advance of the Red Army put an end to this new

crime of the Nazis.

Gentlemen, I have now to submit to you only one more piece of evidence,

which is the last among the proofs concerning war crimes against the

peaceful population presented by the U.S.S.R. Prosecution. Besides,

certain witnesses may arrive here from the Soviet Union who may testify

concerning the points which I have submitted. I will beg the permission

of the Tribunal to examine these witnesses after the presentation of

further evidence is finished.

Before submitting my last proof, I beg the Tribunal to allow me to make

a few conclusive remarks.

The lengthy list of crimes against the peaceful inhabitants of the

temporarily occupied areas of the U.S.S.R., Czechoslovakia, Poland,

Yugoslavia, and Greece cannot be exhausted even in the most detailed

statement. One can only point out a few very typical cases of cruelties,

of base and systematic methods adopted by the major criminals who had

conceived these crimes, as well as those who executed these crimes.

Those who are now in the dock have freed from “the chimera of so-called

conscience” hundreds of thousands and millions of criminals. They

educated these criminals and created for them an atmosphere of impunity

and drove their bloodthirsty hounds against peaceful citizens. They

mocked at human conscience and self-respect. But those who were poisoned

in murder vans and gas chambers, those who were torn to shreds, those

whose bodies were burned in the ovens of crematoria and whose ashes were

strewn to the winds, appeal to the conscience of the world. Now we

cannot yet name, or even number, many of the burial places where

millions of innocent people were vilely murdered. But on the damp walls

of the gas chambers, in the places of the shootings, in the forts of

death, on the stones and casemates of the prisons, we can still read

brief messages of the doomed, full of agony, calling for retribution.

Let the living ones remember these voices of the victims of German

fascist terror, who before dying appealed to the conscience of the world

for justice and for retribution.

As a last proof I submit to the Tribunal the script and the sworn

affidavit of the persons who assembled and made this documentary film. I

beg the Tribunal to accept as evidence this documentary film (Document

Number USSR-81). I also beg the Tribunal to allow, if possible, a short

recess—about 10 minutes—for the technical preparation of the

demonstration of these documents.

[_A recess was taken._]

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Your Honor, may I have permission to present now

the documentary evidence?

[_The documentary film entitled, “The Atrocities by the German Fascist

Invaders in the U.S.S.R.,” was then shown._]

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, have you finished your address?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I have finished the presentation of my evidence,

Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Can you inform the Tribunal how much longer the Soviet

Delegation is likely to be?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I find it difficult to give you an answer to

this question. I will ask the Chief Prosecutor to do this.

GEN. RUDENKO: Tomorrow we shall begin the presentation of evidence on

spoliation and pillage of communal and private property, and we think

that the speaker on this question will conclude the presentation of the

materials tomorrow. Then there will be presented to the Tribunal the

evidence as to destruction of cities, villages, monuments of national

culture and art. That will take approximately a day and a half. In other

words, I mean half of Thursday’s or Friday’s session, and a half of the

following day’s session, taking into account that on this question we

shall also have to present a documentary film.

Then there will be presented evidence concerning deportation of slave

labor. This will take approximately 3 to 4 hours. The final presentation

deals with evidence of Crimes against Humanity. During the presentation

of the evidence in all the sections we shall call several witnesses,

with the permission of the Tribunal. I could not present to the Tribunal

today a list of the witnesses, because there are difficulties in

bringing them here to Nuremberg. This list will be formulated tomorrow

toward the end of the session.

To sum up, I think that altogether the Soviet Prosecution will conclude

the presentation of evidence either Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. We will adjourn now.

[_The Tribunal adjourned until 20 February 1946 at 1000 hours._]

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Punctuation and spelling have been maintained except where obvious

printer errors have occurred such as missing periods or commas for

periods. English and American spellings occur throughout the document;

however, American spellings are the rule, hence, “Defense” versus

“Defence”. Unlike Blue Series volumes I and II, this volume includes

French, German, Polish and Russian names and terms with diacriticals:

hence Führer, Göring, Kraków, and Ljoteč etc. throughout.

Although some sentences may appear to have incorrect spellings or verb

tenses, the original text has been maintained as it represents what the

tribunal read into the record and reflects the actual translations

between the German, English, French, and, most specifically with this

volume, Russian documents presented in the trial.

An attempt has been made to produce this eBook in a format as close as

possible to the original document presentation and layout.

[The end of _Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International

Military Tribunal Vol. VII_, by Various.]