In order to ascertain what happened to the Jewish population in the town
of Kislovodsk—the same happened to the Jews in many other towns—I
would request the Tribunal to refer to the contents of a document which
has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-1
(Document Number USSR-1). It is a report of the Extraordinary State
Commission of the Stavropol region.
The part which I wish to read, in brief, is on Page 187 of your document
book. It states there that the 2,000 Jews who had assembled at the
Kislovodsk station were sent to the station of Mineralniye Vody and shot
in an antitank trench 2½ kilometers distant from the town. Here too,
thousands of Jews, transferred from the towns of Essentuki and
Piatigorsk, were shot on the same site.
In order to show the extent of the criminal extermination of the
peaceful Jewish population in Eastern Europe, I now refer to the
contents of reports received from the governments of the respective
Eastern European countries, which have already been submitted to the
Tribunal.
I quote a report of the Polish Government, on Page 136 of the Russian
text of this document. I begin the quotation:
“The official statistical yearbook of Poland, in 1931, estimates
the number of Jews at 3,115,000.
“According to unofficial figures collected in 1939 there were in
Poland 3,500,000 Jews.
“After the liberation of Poland the Jews in that country
numbered less than 100,000, and 200,000 Polish Jews are still in
the U.S.S.R.
“Thus, about 3 million Jews perished in Poland.”
In Czechoslovakia, as seen from the data published on Pages 82-83 of the
Russian text of the report, the Jews numbered 118,000. At present, in
the entire country, they number only 6,000 all told. Of the total number
of 15,000 Jewish children, only 28 have returned.
THE PRESIDENT: Can we leave off here?
[_The Tribunal adjourned until 27 February 1946 at 1000 hours._]
SIXTY-NINTH DAY
Wednesday, 27 February 1946
_Morning Session_
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: May it please the Tribunal, I wonder if the
Tribunal would allow me to make a very short explanation as to the
source of the document with regard to Stalag Luft III which the Tribunal
discussed yesterday.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: The position was that when evidence for this
Trial was being collected, each government that might be concerned was
written to and asked if they would produce government reports, and they
have produced government reports which have been put before the Tribunal
by the various sections of the Prosecution.
The document with regard to the shooting of the prisoners in Stalag Luft
III was a British Government report of the same type. It was compiled
from various information, which is included in the appendices; that
information included the interrogation of General Westhoff, which had
been sent to the United Nations War Crimes Commission as thousands of
other documents were sent, for that Commission to consider whether any
action should be taken from the matters disclosed.
That document was then sent from the United Nations War Crimes
Commission to the British Government and dealt with as part of the
material on which the British Government report was based. The British
Government report is certified by myself to be a Government report, and
I have specific authority from His Majesty’s Government in Britain to
perform such certification. It is very short, and it might be convenient
if I read it so that it appears in the record. I have the copy, which
was sent to me on the official Cabinet paper, purporting to be signed by
Sir Edward Bridges, the Secretary to the Cabinet. The original was sent
to the Attorney General, and the document is jointly to us both; but
there is no doubt as to its authenticity; and the original can be
produced, if necessary. The document reads:
“His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland has authorized the Right Honorable Sir
Hartley Shawcross, K. C., M. P., the Chief Prosecutor for the
United Kingdom, appointed under Article 14 of the Charter,
annexed to the agreement dated the 8th day of August 1945, and
the Right Honorable Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, K. C., M. P., the
Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom, to certify those
documents to be produced at the trial of war criminals before
the International Military Tribunal which are documents of His
Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom.”
My respectful submission is, therefore, that on my certification the
document becomes a governmental document within Article 21, and it is
thereupon a mandatory injunction to the Tribunal that it shall take
judicial notice of such a document. At that point the document, in my
respectful submission to the Tribunal, should be taken into evidence.
And it is then, of course, a matter for the Defense, if they wish to
call any witness, to make such application as they desire and for the
Tribunal to rule on it.
But as a point of construction, I respectfully submit that once a
document is certified as a government document, as all these government
reports are, the Charter enjoins the Tribunal to take judicial notice of
them.
THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, the Tribunal did admit the document yesterday;
but they are glad of your explanation. Nothing in the order that they
made is in any way inconsistent with what you have now said.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If Your Lordship pleases.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: May I continue, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Colonel Smirnov.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Your Honors, I would like to recall to you
certain figures which I mentioned yesterday afternoon. I am speaking
about the number of Jews who were exterminated in Poland and
Czechoslovakia. I allow myself to remind the Tribunal that the figures I
mentioned yesterday, which were based on the report of the Polish
Government, show that 3 million Jews in Poland have been exterminated.
In Czechoslovakia out of 118,000 Jews only 6,000 remain.
I would now like to pass on to the report of the Yugoslav Government and
will quote one paragraph, which the Tribunal will find on Page 75 of the
document book, third paragraph:
“Out of 75,000 Yugoslav Jews and about 5,000 Jewish emigrées
from other countries who were in Yugoslavia at the time of the
attack—that is to say, out of a total number of about 80,000
Jews—only some 10,000 persons survived the German occupation.”
I beg the Tribunal to call to this Court a witness who will confirm
these data. He is Abram Gerzevitch Suzkever, a Jewish writer, who
together with his family became a victim of the German fascist criminals
who had temporarily occupied the territory of the Lithuanian Soviet
Republic. I beg the Tribunal to allow me to question this witness.
[_The witness, Suzkever, took the stand._]
THE PRESIDENT: What is your name?
ABRAM GERZEVITCH SUZKEVER (Witness): Suzkever.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you a Soviet citizen?
SUZKEVER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat after me: I—and mention your
name—citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—summoned as a
witness in this Trial—do promise and swear—in the presence of the
Court—to tell the Court nothing but the truth—about everything I know
in regard to this case.
[_The witness repeated the oath in Russian._]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down, if you wish.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Please tell me, Witness, where did the German
occupation find you?
SUZKEVER: In the town of Vilna.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You stayed in this town for a long time during
the German occupation?
SUZKEVER: I stayed there from the first to nearly the last day of the
occupation.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You witnessed the persecution of the Jews in
that city?
SUZKEVER: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I would like you to tell the Court about this.
SUZKEVER: When the Germans seized my city, Vilna, about 80,000 Jews
lived in the town. Immediately the so-called Sonderkommando was set up
at 12 Vilenskaia Street, under the command of Schweichenberg and Martin
Weiss. The man-hunters of the Sonderkommandos, or as the Jews called
them, the “Khapun,” broke into the Jewish houses at any time of day or
night, dragged away the men, instructing them to take a piece of soap
and a towel, and herded them into certain buildings near the village of
Ponari, about 8 kilometers from Vilna. From there hardly one returned.
When the Jews found out that their kin were not coming back, a large
part of the population went into hiding. However, the Germans tracked
them with police dogs. Many were found, and any who were averse to going
with them were shot on the spot.
I have to say that the Germans declared that they were exterminating the
Jewish race as though legally.
On 8 July an order was issued which stated that all Jews should wear a
patch on their back; afterwards they were ordered to wear it on their
chest. This order was signed by the commandant of the town of Vilna,
Zehnpfennig. But 2 days later some other commandant named Neumann issued
a new order that they should not wear these patches but must wear the
yellow Star of David.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And what does this yellow Star of David mean?
SUZKEVER: It was a six-pointed patch worn on the chest and on the back,
in order to distinguish the Jews from the other inhabitants of the town.
On another day they were ordered to wear a blue band with a white star.
The Jews did not know which insignia to wear as very few lived in the
town. Those who did not wear this sign were immediately arrested and
never seen again.
On 17 July 1941 I witnessed a large pogrom in Vilna on Novgorod Street.
The inciters of this pogrom were the forenamed Schweichenberg and Martin
Weiss, a certain Herring, and Schönhaber, a German Gestapo chief. They
surrounded this district with Sonderkommandos. They drove all the men
into the street, told them to take off their belts and to put their
hands on their heads like this [_demonstrating_]. When that order had
been complied with, all the Jews were driven along into the Lukshinaia
prison. When the Jews started to march off, their trousers fell down and
they couldn’t walk. Those who tried to hold up their trousers with their
hands were shot then and there in the street. When we walked in a column
down the street, I saw with my own eyes the bodies of about 100 or 150
persons who had been shot in the street. Blood streamed through the
street as if a red rain had fallen.
In the first days of August 1941 a German seized me in the Dokumenskaia
Street. I was then going to visit my mother. The German said to me,
“Come with me, you will act in the circus.” As I went along I saw that
another German was driving along an old Jew, the old rabbi of this
street, Kassel, and a third German was holding a young boy. When we
reached the old synagogue on this street I saw that wood was piled up
there in the shape of a pyramid. A German drew out his revolver and told
us to take off our clothes. When we were naked, he lit a match and set
fire to this stack of wood. Then another German brought out of the
synagogue three scrolls of the Torah, gave them to us, and told us to
dance around this bonfire and sing Russian songs. Behind us stood the
three Germans; with their bayonets they forced us toward the fire and
laughed. When we were almost unconscious, they left.
I must say that the mass extermination of the Jewish people in Vilna
began at the moment when District Commissar Hans Fincks arrived, as well
as the referant, or reporter on the Jewish problems, Muhrer. On 31
August, under the direction of District Commissioner Fincks and
Muhrer. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Which year?