THE PRESIDENT: Go on.
SUZKEVER: Under the direction of Fincks and Muhrer, the Germans
surrounded the old Jewish quarter of Vilna, taking in Rudnitskaia and
Jewish Streets, Galonsky Alley, the Shabelsky and Strashouna Streets,
where some 8 to 10 thousand Jews were living.
I was ill at the time and asleep. Suddenly I felt the lash of a whip on
me. When I jumped up from my bed I saw Schweichenberg standing in front
of me. He had a big dog with him. He was beating everybody and shouting
that we must all run out into the courtyard. When I was out in the
courtyard, I saw there many women, children, and aged persons—all the
Jews who lived there. Schweichenberg had the Sonderkommando surround all
this crowd and said that they were taking us to the ghetto. But, of
course, like all their statements, this was also a lie. We went through
the town in columns and were led toward Lutishcheva Prison. All knew
that we were going to our death. When we arrived at Lutishcheva Prison,
near the so-called Lutishkina market, I saw a whole double line of
German soldiers with white sticks standing there to receive us. While we
had to pass between them they beat us with sticks. If a Jew fell down,
the one next to him was told to pick him up and carry him through the
large prison gates which stood open. Near the prison I took to my heels.
I swam across the River Vilia and hid in my mother’s house. My wife, who
was put in prison and then managed to escape later on, told me that
there she saw the well-known Jewish scientist Moloch Prilutzky, who was
almost dead, the president of the Jewish Society of Vilna, Dr. Jacob
Wigotzky, and the young Jewish historian, Pinkus Kohn. The famous
artists Hash and Kadisch were lying dead. The Germans flogged, robbed,
then drove away all their victims to Ponari.
On 6 September at 6 o’clock in the morning thousands of Germans, led by
District Commissar Fincks, by Muhrer, Schweichenberg, Martin Weiss, and
others, surrounded the whole town, broke into the Jewish houses, and
told the inhabitants to take only that which they could carry off in
their hands and get out into the street. Then they were driven off to
the ghetto. When they were passing by Wilkomirowskaia Street where I
was, I saw the Germans had brought sick Jews from the hospitals. They
were all in blue hospital gowns. They were all forced to stand while a
German newsreel operator, who was driving in front of the column, filmed
this scene.
I must say that not all the Jews were driven into the ghetto. Fincks did
this on purpose. He drove the inhabitants of one street to the ghetto
and the inhabitants of another street to Ponari. Previously the Germans
had set up two ghettos in Vilna. In the first were 29,000 Jews, and in
the second some 15,000 Jews. About half the Jewish population of Vilna
never reached the ghetto; they were shot on the way. I remember how,
when we arrived at the ghetto. . .
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Just a moment, Witness. Did I understand you
correctly, that before the ghetto was set up, half the Jewish population
of Vilna was already exterminated?
SUZKEVER: Yes, that is right. When I arrived at the ghetto I saw the
following scene: Martin Weiss came in with a young Jewish girl. When we
went in farther, he took out his revolver and shot her on the spot. The
girl’s name was Gitele Tarlo.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Tell us, how old was this girl?
SUZKEVER: Eleven. I must state that the Germans organized the ghetto
only to exterminate the Jewish population with greater ease. The head of
the ghetto was the expert on Jewish questions, Muhrer, and he issued a
series of mad orders. For instance, Jews were forbidden to wear watches.
The Jews could not pray in the ghetto. When a German passed by, they had
to take off their hats but were not allowed to look at him.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Were these official orders?
SUZKEVER: Yes, issued by Muhrer.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Were they posted?
SUZKEVER: Yes, they were posted in the ghetto. The same Muhrer, when he
visited the ghetto, went into the shops where the Jews were working for
him and ordered all workers to fall down on the ground and bark like
dogs. On Atonement Day in 1941 Schweichenberg and the same
Sonderkommando broke into the second ghetto and seized all the old men
who were praying in the synagogues and drove them to Ponari. I remember
when Schweichenberg went to the second ghetto and the man-hunters seized
the Jews.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Who were these hunters?
SUZKEVER: The soldiers of the Sonderkommando who seized the Jews and
whom the population called the hunters.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: So they were soldiers of the Sonderkommando,
whom the population called hunters?
SUZKEVER: Yes, that is so. These hunters dragged the Jews out of the
cellars and tried to drive them to Ponari. But the Jews knew that nobody
returned alive and did not want to go. Then Schweichenberg began to
shoot at the inhabitants of the ghetto. I remember that there was a big
dog at his side; and when this dog heard the shots, it jumped at
Schweichenberg and began to bite his throat like a mad dog. Then
Schweichenberg killed this dog and told the Jews to bury it and to cry
over its grave. We really cried then—we cried because it was not
Schweichenberg but the dog that had been buried.
At the end of December 1941 an order was issued in the ghetto which
stated that the Jewish women must not bear children.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I would like you to tell us how, or in what
form, this order was issued by the German fascists.
SUZKEVER: Muhrer came to the hospital in Street Number 6 and said that
an order had come from Berlin to the effect that Jewish women should not
bear children and that if the Germans found out that a Jewish woman had
given birth, the child would be exterminated.
Towards the end of December in the ghetto my wife gave birth to a child,
a boy. I was not in the ghetto at that time, having escaped from one of
these so-called “actions.” When I came to the ghetto later I found that
my wife had had a baby in a ghetto hospital. But I saw the hospital
surrounded by Germans and a black car standing before the door.
Schweichenberg was standing near the car, and the hunters of the
Sonderkommando were dragging sick and old people out of the hospital and
throwing them like logs into the truck. Among them I saw the well-known
Jewish writer and editor, Grodnensky, who was also dragged and dumped
into this truck.
In the evening when the Germans had left, I went to the hospital and
found my wife in tears. It seems that when she had had her baby, the
Jewish doctors of the hospital had already received the order that
Jewish women must not give birth; and they had hidden the baby, together
with other newborn children, in one of the rooms. But when this
commission with Muhrer came to the hospital, they heard the cries of the
babies. They broke open the door and entered the room. When my wife
heard that the door had been broken, she immediately got up and ran to
see what was happening to the child. She saw one German holding the baby
and smearing something under its nose. Afterwards he threw it on the bed
and laughed. When my wife picked up the child, there was something black
under his nose. When I arrived at the hospital, I saw that my baby was
dead. He was still warm.
On the next day I went to my mother in the ghetto, and I found her room
empty. A prayer book was still open on the table and a glass of tea, not
yet touched. I learned that in the night the Germans had surrounded this
house, seized all the inhabitants, and driven them off to Ponari. In the
last days of December 1941 Muhrer gave a present to the ghetto. A
carload of shoes belonging to the Jews executed at Ponari was brought
into the ghetto. He sent these old shoes as a gift to the ghetto. Among
them I recognized my mother’s.
Shortly afterwards the second ghetto was liquidated, and the German
newspaper in Vilna announced that the Jews from this district had died
of an epidemic.
On 23 December 1941, in the night, Muhrer came and distributed among the
population 3,000 yellow tickets, the so-called Ausweise. Those who had
these tickets were allowed to register their relatives; that meant some
9,000 persons. At that time about 18 to 20 thousand people lived in the
ghetto. Those who had these yellow tickets went to work the next day;
and the others, who remained in the ghetto without these tickets and did
not want to go to their death, were slaughtered in the ghetto itself.
The rest were driven away to Ponari.
I have a document which I found after the liberation of the town of
Vilna, concerning the Jewish clothing from Ponari. If this document
interests you I can show it to you.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have the document?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I do not know of this document either, Mr.
President.
SUZKEVER: [_Continuing._] This document reads as follows—I will read
only a few lines. . .
[_The witness read the document in German, and only part of it was
translated. It was later identified as Document USSR-444._]
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Witness, as you have read this document, you
must hand it over to the Tribunal, as otherwise we cannot judge this
document.
SUZKEVER: Certainly.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you tell us first of all where the document was
found?
SUZKEVER: I found this document at the district commissioner’s building
in Vilna, in July 1944, when our city was already liberated from the
German invaders.
THE PRESIDENT: Where did you say it was found?
SUZKEVER: In the building of the District Commissar in Vilna on the
Gedemino Street.
THE PRESIDENT: Was that the building occupied by the Germans?
SUZKEVER: Yes, it was the headquarters of the German District
Commissioner of Vilna. Hans Fincks and Muhrer lived there.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, read the part of the document you were reading just
now; we did not hear it.
SUZKEVER: Certainly.
“To the District Commissioner at Vilna: Pursuant to your order,
the old Jewish clothing from Ponari is at present being
disinfected by this establishment and delivered to the
administration of Vilna.”
THE PRESIDENT: Will you hand it in, please?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Please, Witness, I am interested in the
following question: You said that at the beginning of the German
occupation 80,000 Jews lived in Vilna. How many remained after the
German occupation?
SUZKEVER: After the occupation about 600 Jews remained in Vilna.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Thus, 79,400 persons were exterminated?
SUZKEVER: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Your Honors, I have no further questions to ask
of the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other Chief Prosecutor want to ask any
questions?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No questions.
MR. DODD: No questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any member of the defendants’ counsel wish to ask
any questions? No? Then the witness can retire.
[_The witness left the stand._]
Yes, Colonel Smirnov.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I would like to modify the plan
of my statement and leave out just now that chapter of my statement
which is entitled, “Religious Persecutions,” to which I shall come back
a little later. I would now like, with your permission, to take up that
part of my statement which is entitled, “Experiments on Living Persons.”
It is on Page 47 of the Russian text.
Before reading this part of my statement, I would like to quote a few
short extracts from a document which has not as yet been read into the
record by our United States colleagues, because the main part of this
document refers to experiments which were described in detail by the
United States Prosecution with the help of other documents. This
document is registered under Document Number 400-PS (Exhibit Number
USSR-435). It refers to experiments by Dr. Rascher. It is submitted to
the Tribunal as a photostat copy, which includes a series of documents.
I quote two paragraphs only from this Document Number 400-PS. These two
paragraphs testify to the predilection of Dr. Rascher for the Auschwitz
Camp. This extract is on Page 149 of the document book, last paragraph:
“It would be simpler if I were soon transferred to the Waffen-SS
and could visit the Auschwitz Camp with Neff, where I could, by
a series of large scale experiments, solve the problem of
reviving people who had been frozen on land. For these
experiments Auschwitz is in every respect better adapted than
Dachau, for the climate is colder there and, as the camp area is
larger, less attention will be attracted. The victims yell when
they are being frozen.
“If it is agreeable to you, esteemed Reichsführer, to have these
experiments—so important for our land forces—quickly carried
out at Auschwitz (or in Lublin or any other Eastern camp), I
would respectfully beg you to give the necessary orders in the
near future so that we could yet profit by the last cold, winter
weather. With most obedient greetings I am, in sincere
gratitude, Heil Hitler, your always devoted servant, S.
Rascher.”
I would like to remind the Tribunal that this special interest of Dr.
Rascher in the Auschwitz Camp—I remind the Tribunal that Auschwitz was
the central section of the camp situated near the town of Oswieczim—was
not accidental. In Auschwitz cruel experiments on live persons were
carried out on a scale greatly exceeding all that was done in Dachau or
other concentration camps of the Reich.
Our Exhibit Number USSR-8 (Document Number USSR-8) has already been
added to the file of the case. It is the report of the Extraordinary
State Commission of the Soviet Union on the monstrous crimes of the
German Government in Oswieczim. The introductory part of this report
contains the following excerpt, which the members of the Tribunal will
find on Page 196 of the document book. I read one paragraph only:
“Special hospitals, surgical blocks, histological laboratories,
and other departments were set up in the camp. But they were
intended not for the treatment but for the extermination of
people. Here German professors and doctors carried out mass
experiments on men, women, and children who were in perfectly
good health. They carried out experiments on sterilization of
women, on castration of men, experiments on children, artificial
infection with cancer, typhus, and malaria, of masses of people
who were afterward subjected to observation. They tested the
action of poisonous substances on living persons.”
I would like to stress that experiments on the sterilization and
castration of women and men were carried out on a particularly large
scale. Whole blocks in the camp were especially designated for
experiments using particularly effective methods of sterilization and
castration.
I will read two short excerpts from the report of the Extraordinary
State Commission, which the Tribunal will find on the back of Page 196
of the document book, Paragraph 5. I quote:
“Experiments on women were carried out in the hospital blocks of
the Oswieczim Camp. Up to four hundred women were detained
simultaneously in Block 10 of the camp, and experiments on
sterilization were carried out on them by means of X-rays and
subsequent removal of the ovaries, experiments in engrafting
cancer in the neck of the uterus and forced abortion, and on
testing countermeasures against injuries to the uterus by
X-ray.”