“The German invaders stole more than 4 million volumes from the
book stocks of the Kiev libraries. From the library of the
Ukrainian S.S.R. Academy of Science alone the Hitlerites sent to
Germany over 320,000 various valuable and unique books,
magazines, and manuscripts.”
I beg Your Honors to note that Dr. Förster, SS Obersturmführer, who
served in the special purpose battalion, established on the initiative
of the Defendant Ribbentrop and acting under his orders, testified to
the plunder of the library of the Ukrainian S.S.R., Academy of Science,
in his deposition of 10 November 1942, which I have already read into
the record.
I omit one paragraph and pass on to a further reading from the report of
the Extraordinary State Commission:
“On 5 September 1943 the Germans burned and blew up one of the
most ancient centers of Ukrainian culture, the T. G. Shevtchenko
State University in Kiev, founded in 1834. In the fire perished
the greatest of cultural treasures which for centuries had
represented the scientific and educational bases on which the
work of the university was founded; perished, the priceless
documents from the historical archives of ancient manuscripts;
perished, the library containing over 1,300,000 books;
destroyed, the zoological museum of the university with over 2
million exhibits, together with a whole series of other
museums. . . .
“. . . The German occupiers also destroyed other institutions of
higher learning in Kiev; they burned and looted the majority of
the medical institutions.
“In Kiev the fascist barbarians burned down the building of the
Red Army Dramatic Theater . . . , the Theatrical Institute, the
Academy of Music, where the instruments were burned together
with the very wealthy library and all the equipment; they blew
up the beautiful circus building; they burned down, with its
entire equipment, the M. Gorki Theater for Juvenile Audiences;
they destroyed the Jewish theater. . . .
“In the Museum of Western European and Eastern Art only some
large canvases were left; the robbers had not had time to remove
them from the high walls of the stairway shafts. From the Museum
of Russian Art the Hitlerites carried off, together with all the
other exhibits, a collection of Russian icons of inestimable
value. They looted the Museum of Ukrainian Art; only 1,900
exhibits of the National Art Section of this museum were left of
the original 41,000.”