Afternoon Session
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Have I your permission to continue?
THE PRESIDENT: Please do.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Continuing the presentation of evidence on atrocities of German fascist criminals with regard to children, I refer to the testimony of the witness, Bespalov, included in the document previously presented to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-32 (Document Number USSR-32). The members of the Tribunal will find the place which I refer to on Page 33, fifth paragraph of the document, Column 1 in the document book. Bespalov testified:
“At the end of June last year I myself saw up to 300 girls and women brought on 10 to 12 trucks to the forest park. The unfortunate women were throwing themselves from side to side, weeping, tearing their hair, and rending their clothes. Many fainted, but the German fascists paid no attention to this. By kicks and beatings with rifle butts and sticks they forced them to get up; the executioners themselves stripped and threw into the pits, those who did not rise. Several girls—among them children—tried to run away, but were killed.
“I saw how, after a burst of machine gun fire, some of the women, swaying and helplessly flinging up their arms, staggered toward the standing Germans with heart-rending cries. At this time the Germans were shooting them with pistols. Maddened with terror and grief, mothers clutched their children to their breasts, running with terrible wails into the forest clearing, seeking help.
“The Gestapo members snatched the children from them, seized them by the arms or legs, and threw them alive into the pit; when the mothers ran after them to the pit, they were shot.”
I quote one paragraph out of Exhibit Number USSR-9 (Document USSR-9), already presented to the Tribunal. This is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union of the crimes of the German fascist invaders in the city of Kiev. The members of the Tribunal will find this document on Page 238, second column of the text, sixth paragraph:
“On 29 September 1941 Hitler’s bandits drove thousands of the peaceful Soviet citizens to the corner of Melnik and Doktorovskaya Streets and from there to Baybe-yar, where they shot them, after taking all their valuables from them.
“Citizens N. F. Petrenko and N. T. Gorbacheva, who lived near Baybe-yar, stated that they had seen how the Germans threw babies at the breast into graves and buried them alive with their dead or wounded parents. One could see the surface of the ground moving over the buried people who were still alive.”
These were not individual occurrences, but a systematic plan. This inhuman terror was practiced on children, since the chiefs of German fascism understood that this form of terrorism would be particularly frightful for the survivors. Compassion for the weak and the defenseless is an inalienable human trait. By applying their particularly barbarous methods to children, the German fascist criminals showed the rest of the population that there was no crime, no cruelty at which they would stop for the purpose of pacifying the occupied territories. Children did not simply share the fate of their parents. The so-called “actions” were frequently directed against the children themselves. They were taken forcibly from their parents, concentrated in one place, then murdered.
I refer to a very brief report of the Extraordinary State Commission, already submitted to the Tribunal, entitled, “Concerning the Crimes of the German Conspirators in Latvia.” The members of the Tribunal will find the place I refer to on Page 286, on the reverse side, in the second column of the document book, Paragraph 5. Here it states, and I quote:
“In the main jail in Riga they murdered over 2,000 children who had been torn from their parents, and in the Salaspil Camp, more than 3,000.”
From the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes of the Hitlerites in Lithuania, the Tribunal will learn of the brutal methods employed by the Germans to separate children from their parents incarcerated in prisons, concentration camps, or ghettos—these methods usually preceded the murder of the children. This document has already been submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-7 (Document USSR-7) to the Tribunal. The members of the Tribunal will find the place referred to on Page 295, first column, sixth paragraph of the document book. I omit the first paragraph, which mentions the organization of the camp. This has no direct relation to children, and I begin with the second paragraph, which shows what was done with them:
“In the beginning of 1944 the Germans in this camp forcibly took children from 6 to 12 years old and carried them off. An inhabitant of the city of Kovno, Vladislav Blum, testified:
“ ‘Heart-rending scenes occurred under my eyes. The Germans took the children away from their mothers and sent them, no one knows where. Many children were shot together with their mothers.’
“On the walls of the camp buildings inscriptions were discovered concerning the crimes of the Hitlerite monsters. Here are some of them:
“ ‘Avenge us! Let the whole world know and understand how savagely our children were exterminated! Our days are counted! Farewell! Let the whole world know and let it not forget to avenge our innocent children! Women of all the world, remember and understand all the atrocities which befell our innocent children in the 20th century! My child is already dead, I am indifferent to everything!’ ”
Further, I refer to the document which has already been presented to the Tribunal under Document Number USSR-63. This is an official report on the torture and shooting of children in the Domachev children’s asylum of the Brest region in the Bielorussian S.S.R. The members of the Tribunal will find this document on the reverse side of Page 223, fifth paragraph, first column. I shall quote three or four paragraphs out of this document, omitting the remainder:
“By order of the German occupational authorities of the district, the Chief of the Prokopchuk district ordered the principal of the children’s home, A. P. Pavliuk, to poison a sick 12-year-old child, Lena Renklach. After Pavliuk refused to carry out the order, the child was shot by policemen in the vicinity of the children’s home, allegedly ‘while trying to escape.’
“In order to save the children from starvation and death, 11 of them were distributed among the local population in 1942, and 16 children were taken by their relatives.”
And this was the further fate of those children. I continue with my quotation:
“On 23 September 1942, at 7 o’clock in the evening, a 5-ton truck appeared in the yard of the children’s home, bringing six armed Germans in military uniform. The group leader, named Max, explained that the children would be taken to Brest and ordered them to be placed in the truck. Fifty-five children and their teacher, Grocholskaya, were placed in the truck. One girl, 9-year-old Tossia Schachmatova, succeeded in climbing out of the truck and escaping. The remaining 54 and the teacher were driven away in the truck in the direction of the station of Dubitz, 1½ kilometers from the village of Leplevka. The car stopped at a frontier gun emplacement, 800 meters from the River West Bug. The children were undressed—which was proved by the fact that the children’s clothes were found in the truck after its return to Domachev—and shot.”
I omit the remaining part of this official report. It has been proved by documents dealing with the shootings that in mass executions of children they were torn in half while still alive and thrown into the flames. To confirm this, I refer to the testimony of the witness, Hamaidas, a native of the village of Lisbenitzky, in the Lvov region, who was confined by the Germans in Yanov Camp at Lvov.
Hamaidas’ occupation in the camp consisted in burning the corpses of those who had been shot. At the same time, he was a witness to the mass shootings of the peaceful population—men, women, and children. The testimony of Hamaidas, together with other documents concerning the Lvov camps, has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-6(c) (Document USSR-6(c)); I quote two lines from the testimony of Hamaidas, from Page 55 of the document book, 11th line from the bottom of the page:
“I was a witness to such facts. The executioner would seize children by the feet, tear them apart while they were still alive, and throw them into the fire.”
Having shot the parents, the German murderers considered it unnecessary to waste ammunition on children. When they did not throw the children into the grave pits they often murdered them simply by hitting them with a heavy object or by pounding their heads against the ground. I refer, in confirmation of this, to the document already presented to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-6(c), in which are other documents on reports of legal-medical experts employed in the exhumation of corpses in Yanov Camp. I shall quote only two lines of the conclusion. The members of the Tribunal will find the place where I refer to the conclusion of the legal-medical experts on Yanov Camp on Page 330 of the document book, second paragraph at the top of the column, reverse of Page 330. I quote this brief excerpt:
“The executioners did not consider it necessary to waste ammunition on children. They simply killed them by hitting them over the head with a blunt instrument.
“Children were often cut in half with rusty saws and subjected to other forms of torture.”
I ask the permission of the Court to read into the record only one paragraph from a note of the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., dated 27 April 1942. The members of the Tribunal will find the place to which I refer on Page 8, reverse side, second column, third paragraph:
“The invaders subjected children and adolescents to the most brutal tortures. Among the 160 wounded and maimed children, victims of the Hitlerite terror in the districts of the now liberated Moscow region, undergoing treatment in the Russakov Hospital in Moscow, there is, for instance, the case of a 14-year-old boy, Vanya Gromov, from the village of Novinki, who had been strapped to a table by the Hitlerites and then had had his right arm sawed off with a rusty saw. The Germans chopped off both hands of 12-year-old Vanya Kryukov, of the village of Kryukovo, in the Kursk region, and drove him, bleeding profusely, toward the Soviet troops.”
I omit the rest of the quotation—two pages—since similar facts are related in the document which confirm the above—mentioned episodes.
Children were the first victims of carbon-monoxide poisoning in the German gas vans. In confirmation I refer to the material already submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-1 (Document USSR-1), which is the report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union on the crimes of the German fascist occupiers in the Stavropol region. The members of the Tribunal will find that brief excerpt on Page 269 in the document book, Paragraph 4:
“It has been established that in December 1942, by order of the chief of the Gestapo for the town of Mikoian-Schachar, Oberleutnant Otto Weber, an extraordinarily cruel massacre was carried out on Soviet children undergoing treatment for bone tuberculosis in the sanatorium of the Teberda health resort. Eyewitnesses to this crime, members of the sanatorium, medical sister, S. E. Jvanova, and medical aide, Polypanova, have testified as follows:
“Before the entrance of the first section of the sanatorium, on 22 December 1942, a German automobile drew up. Seven German soldiers, who had arrived in the vehicle, dragged 54 seriously sick children, ranging in age from 3 years upward, out of the sanatorium (they were too ill to move and therefore were not driven forcibly into the van) and stacked them in layers inside the vehicle. They then closed the door, let in the carbon-monoxide gas, and drove off from the sanatorium. An hour later the vehicle returned to Teberda. All the children had perished. They had been exterminated by the Germans and their bodies thrown into the Teberda ravine near Gunachgir.”
Children were also drowned in the open sea. In confirmation, I refer to the document already submitted, Exhibit Number USSR-63 (Document USSR-63), on the “Indictment of German Atrocities in Sevastopol.” The members of the Tribunal will find the place I am referring to on the reverse side of Page 226, Paragraph 7, second column of the text:
“In addition to the mass shootings, the Hitlerites cruelly drowned peaceful citizens in the open sea.
“Prisoner Corporal Friedrich Heile, of Troop Battalion 2-19 MKA, Naval Transport Detachment, testified as follows:
“ ‘When I was in the port of Sevastopol, I saw large groups of peaceful citizens, including women and children, brought to the harbor by trucks. All the Russians were loaded on barges. Many resisted. However, they were beaten and driven forcibly onto the barges. About 3,000 people, all told, were loaded on. The barges put out to sea. For a long time the crying was heard in the bay. Several hours passed, and the barges slipped again into their moorings. From the ships’ crews I found out that all the people had been thrown overboard.’ ”
Heavy artillery fire was openly directed by the German fascist criminals against schools, children’s asylums, hospitals, and other children’s institutions in Leningrad. I present to the Tribunal the summary report of the Leningrad city commission for the investigation of German crimes. This report is being submitted to the Honorable Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-85 (Document Number USSR-85). I shall not quote any long passage from this report. I shall merely draw the Tribunal’s attention to the fact that on Page 347, Volume II, Paragraph 4, in the document book, the Judges may see for themselves the list of targets exposed to German artillery fire, which is testified to by the logs of the fighting units. The following are some of those targets, “Number 736, a school in Baburinsk Street; number 708, Institute for the Care of Mothers and Infants; number 192, Palace of Pioneers.”
I also shall take the liberty of quoting only a short excerpt from the testimony of the director of School Number 218, which the members of the Tribunal will find on Page 348, Volume II, first paragraph. The director of School Number 218, located at 13 Rubenstein Street, writes:
“On 18 May 1942, School Number 218 underwent artillery fire. A 12-year-old boy, Lenja Isarow, was killed. A little girl, Dona Binamowa, turned white and moaned with pain. ‘Mummy, how can I get along without my leg?’ she said. Leva Gendelev was bleeding to death. He was given aid, but it was too late. He died in the arms of his mother, calling out, ‘Accursed Hitler!’
“Djenia Kutareva, though seriously wounded, begged that his father should not be disturbed because he suffered from heart disease. The teacher and all the pupils assisted the victims.”
I conclude the quotation concerning Leningrad. I omit two pages of the text and draw the Tribunal’s attention to Page 355, Volume II, second column, Paragraph 6. Your Honors will find there a document submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-8 (Document Number USSR-8). This is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on “The Infamous Crimes of the German Government in Auschwitz.” I shall quote several short passages from the second report entitled, “Murderers of Children.” At the same time, however, I would ask Your Honors to pay special attention to Page 47 of the Auschwitz album (Exhibit Number USSR-30), as well as to Pages 48 and 49. The photographs on these pages clearly show how emaciated these children were. I omit the first paragraph, and I quote:
“Investigations have proved that the Germans completely sapped the strength of children between 8 and 10 years of age, by forcing them to do the same heavy work they gave to the adults. Toil beyond their strength, beatings, and torture soon exhausted the children—then they were killed.
“Ex-prisoner Jacob Gordon, a doctor from Vilna, testified:
“ ‘In the beginning of 1943 at Camp Birkenau 164 boys were taken away to the hospital, where they were killed by injections of carbolic acid in the heart.’
“Ex-prisoner Bakasch Waltraut of Düsseldorf, Germany, testified:
“ ‘In 1943 when we worked on the construction of a hedge surrounding Crematorium Number 5, I myself saw SS men throw several living children into bonfires.’ ”
Here is what some of the children, who were saved by the Red Army, themselves testify about the tortures to which they were subjected. I omit the next paragraph and ask the Tribunal, while I read, to refer to Page 50 of the photographic documents of Auschwitz. Here we find the photographs of a 12-year-old boy, Zihmlich, and a boy of 13, Mandel, and the Tribunal can see the deformation of these children from exposure to cold. I continue:
“A 9-year-old boy, Andrasz Lerintsiakosz, a native of the city of Klez, Hungary, testified:
“ ‘After we had been driven to Block 22 of the camp, we were beaten, mainly by German women who were put over us as guards. They beat us with sticks. During my stay in the camp, Dr. Mengele bled me very frequently. In November 1944 all the children were transferred to Camp A, known as the Gypsy Camp. During roll call it was discovered that one child was missing. Thereupon, the leader of the women’s camp, Brandem, and her assistant, Mendel, drove us all into the street at 1 o’clock in the morning and left us standing there in the cold until noon.’ ”
I omit the next three paragraphs of the quotation, and I read into the record the last paragraph of this section:
“There were, among the 180 children liberated from Auschwitz and examined by physicians, 52 under 8 years of age and 128 between the ages of 8 and 15. All arrived in the camp in the second half of 1944, that is, they spent between 3 to 6 months in the camp. All 180 children underwent a medical examination, which established that 72 suffered from tuberculosis of the lungs and glands, 49 suffered from the consequences of malnutrition and elementary dystrophy (complete exhaustion), and 31 from frostbite.”
I submit to the Tribunal and request Your Honors to accept as evidence Exhibit Number USSR-92 (Document Number USSR-92). It is a directive from the Administration of Food and Agriculture, entitled, “Treatment of Pregnant Women of Non-Germanic Origin.” I refer this document to the Tribunal because, in their hatred of the Slav race, the German fascist criminals even attempted to murder babes in the womb. The members of the Tribunal will find the document on Page 362, in Volume II of the document book. I shall read two short paragraphs into the record. I quote:
“There has recently been a considerable increase in the birth rate among women of non-Germanic origin. Difficulties have arisen in consequence, not only in connection with the use of these people for labor but, to a greater extent, with a danger of a social-political nature, which should not be underestimated.”
I omit one paragraph and quote further:
“The simplest method for overcoming these difficulties would be to inform, as soon as possible, the institutions which employ them for labor, of the pregnancy of the non-Germanic women.”
I draw your special attention to the last sentence, “These institutions must attempt to compel the women to get rid of their children by resorting to abortion.”
I conclude my quotation.
The analysis of the material connected with the Hitlerite terror in the countries of Eastern Europe is positive proof that the atrocities perpetrated on children will remain forever the most disgraceful page in the history of German fascism.
I request permission, Your Honor, to present now the photographic documentation which, owing to a technical difficulty, I was unable to show before the luncheon recess. With your consent I shall show it at once. Apparently the presentation will now be more successful than earlier in the day. I should emphasize that in selecting the photographs I was not guided, so to speak, by the horror of their contents, but simply by the fact that they demonstrate typical procedures of the German fascist crimes.
[Pictures were then projected on the screen.][*]
(1) Here we see one person being shot. This snapshot was taken in the Moscow region during the German advance on Moscow. The man was executed in reprisal for the death of a German.
(2) Here we see four persons being shot. The four youths condemned to death are standing on the edge of a pit which they dug. The members of the Tribunal can see for themselves that the German criminals standing on the outskirts of the wood are laughing at the victims.
(3) This snapshot was taken at the time of the execution. The killing is carried out in the typical German style, that is, by a shot in the back of the neck. You will observe that the victims are crying out at the moment of death.
(4) The snapshots, Your Honors, which I am now showing were taken by the German Obergruppenführer Karl Strock, chief of the Nipal Gestapo. It represents a German mass execution. The victims have been ordered to strip on the execution ground. Here you see a young girl seated, already undressed, and next to her her brother Jacob, who has also been ordered to strip. I wish to emphasize the fact that the snapshots were taken in December, when the cold is intense.
(5) In addition to some native women condemned to be shot, this snapshot also shows a very young girl endeavoring to hide behind her mother on the left.
(6) In December naked women in this snapshot have also been taken to the execution ground. Condemned to death, these women were forced by the same Obergruppenführer Strock to pose before the camera.
(7) Here we have a group of men and with them a small child accompanied by his mother. They are going to the execution ground. The child clutches his mother closely.
(8) This is an amateur photograph, albeit a very clear one. Here, Your Honors, you see a group of people and some dead bodies, with machine guns to the right of them. I would ask the Tribunal to observe the disposal of the dead bodies. The photograph is probably taken during the first months of the German occupation because the bodies have been thrown into the pit carelessly; in the latter months orders were given to lay out the bodies tidily in rows.
(9) This is a snapshot of the same group. Here you see both women and young girls condemned to death.
(10) In Yanov Camp the executions are carried out to the strains of the “Death Tango” played by an orchestra conducted by Professor Striks, an internee in the camp, together with his bandmaster, Mundt. I request Your Honors to observe two points of interest in this snapshot. To the right we see the camp commander, Obergruppenführer Gebauer, in white uniform, and behind him his dog, Rex, known to us through many interrogations as having been trained to harass living persons and to tear them to pieces. It is evident that Gebauer is leading the orchestra to the execution ground.
(11) One of the gallows used by the German fascists in their endeavor to establish a regime of terror in the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union. The snapshot was found in the files of the Yanov Gestapo. A woman of sorts is seen laughing at the foot of the gallows.
(12) A second gallows erected in the same market place, at Lvov, also taken from the archives of the Gestapo.
(13) I am showing Your Honors the snapshot of an entire street festooned with bodies of Soviet citizens. This is a street in the city of Lvov, and I beg to remind the Tribunal that according to the records of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs the same hangings also occurred in Kharkov.
(14) The same street in Lvov. The snapshot was taken from the archives of the Lvov Gestapo.
(15) The gallows were not the only means of execution. The guillotine, too, was used on a vast scale. In this snapshot you see the heads of victims guillotined in the prison of Danzig. The snapshot was taken in the Anatomic Institute in Danzig, where the bodies of the victims were brought after execution.
(16) I shall not show you too many snapshots of tortures inflicted. I only wish to show a few typical examples. This snapshot was taken from a dead Gestapo soldier. It shows a young girl being flogged. Later you will see what next they did to her.
(17) It is not quite clear whether the girl is being strung up by the hair or hanged by the neck. Judging by the convulsive movement of her hands, I think that a noose has just been placed round her neck. Observe the bestial face of the scoundrel who is hanging her.
(18) Here is a snapshot taken from a dead Gestapo soldier. I wish to emphasize the manner in which the German fascists mocked the chastity of the Russian women. They had just forced these Ukrainian women to run naked before the German brutes.
(19) This snapshot will help you to understand subsequent events. It represents a machine for grinding human bones. Next to the machine stands the prisoner of war who feeds the machine. It can grind the bones of 200 persons at a time. As has been proved to the commission, it has a constant yield of 200 cubic meters of bone flour.
That is all. Photographs are identified as Exhibits USSR-100, 101, 102, 212, 385, 388, 389, 390, 391.
[*] Mr. Counsellor Smirnov’s explanations of the pictures were not recorded by the Russian stenographers. They were recorded, however, in English and German, and these notes are used in the English and German editions respectively, even though the two texts differ in some respects.
Will you now permit me to submit further documentary evidence?
In the first part of my presentation I dealt with German mass terrorism and spoke specifically about the extermination of children and the infamous methods used by the Germans with regard to them, since terror applied to children—terror most savage, most brutal—is one of the characteristic features of fascist bestiality.
I now present to the Tribunal evidence of mass extermination of the population in various parts of Eastern Europe. I submit to the Tribunal brief excerpts from the report of the Polish Government, which Your Honors will find on Page 127 of the document book, in the second paragraph of the text. It describes the so-called Anin massacre. I quote:
“At the end of December 1939 a Polish policeman was shot in the vicinity of Warsaw by a bandit. Subsequent investigations showed that the murderer was in a restaurant in Vaver, near Warsaw. Two German policemen tried to arrest him. When the police entered the restaurant, the bandit opened fire, killing one policeman and wounding another, that is, he apparently killed one and wounded another.
“In reply the German authorities, on 26 December 1939, ordered mass reprisals, and a punitive expedition made its appearance in the village.
“A detachment of ‘Landesschützen,’ under the command of an officer, was dispatched to Vaver and to the summer resort of Anin. Both of these localities were surrounded by a cordon of soldiers. The proprietor of the restaurant where the event occurred was immediately hanged, and his body suspended in front of his house for 3 days. At the same time the men were dragged out from every house. Having thus rounded up about 170 persons, the Germans made them stand in the railway station, facing the wall and with their hands held above their heads, for several hours. Afterwards their documents were checked and a few were dismissed, but the vast majority were informed that they would be executed. They were then taken to a field, split up into groups of 10 to 14, and executed by volleys from machine guns.
“The number of individual graves discovered on the execution ground amounted to 107. Among those executed were two doctors, 30 youths under 16 years of age, and 12 old men over 60. One was an American citizen of Polish origin. He was shot together with his son.”
I shall omit the next paragraph of the report of the Polish Government dealing with the massacre in Piastoshyn, and I quote only an announcement from a German paper, the Weichsel Zeitung, of 23 October 1939. This announcement was quoted in the Polish report. I read:
“In the Tuchel district, the farm of a Reich citizen, Fritz, in the vicinity of Pretzin, was burned by Polish bandits in the night of 21-22 October. The citizen Fritz had a heart attack in consequence. By order of the chief of the Civil Administration a punitive expedition was dispatched to this locality, in order to teach the guilty bandits a lesson which would show them that acts of this kind would be severely punished. In reprisal 10 Poles, known for their hostile attitude towards Germany, were shot. In addition an order was given to the Polish inhabitants of this locality to rebuild the burned buildings and to pay for the damage done.”
I shall omit half of the following page, and I quote briefly the circumstances of the Yousefouv massacre in Poland. Your Honors will find this quotation on Page 128, Paragraph 2 of the document book:
“In the middle of January 1940 a family of German colonists in the village of Yousefouv was robbed and murdered by bandits, as the Germans themselves stated in the newspapers at a later date. A punitive expedition set out for Yousefouv.”
I omit the next paragraph, and then I continue:
“The expedition started a large-scale massacre. All the males who were caught in Yousefouv and the vicinity, even 11-year-old boys, were arrested and shot on the spot. Altogether 300 people were murdered.”
Mass extermination of the peaceful population in Yugoslavia was of an exceptionally cruel nature. I quote that part of the report of the Yugoslav Government entitled, “Mass Murder of the Civilian Population and the Destruction of Villages.” I beg the Tribunal to accept as evidence a photostat of the order of Lieutenant General Neidtholt, which is presented as Exhibit Number USSR-188 (Document Number USSR-188). I cite this order, which was quoted in the report of the Yugoslav Government:
“The settlements of Zagniezde and Udora must be destroyed, the male population of these settlements hanged, and the women and children taken to Stoliac.”
I omit the next page of the text and begin the quotation regarding the atrocities of the German fascist criminals in Kragujevac. In confirmation of this report of the Yugoslav Government, we submit to the Tribunal a certified photostat copy of a communication from the commander of the garrison at Kragujevac, in which he admitted the shooting of 2,300 people. This document is being submitted to the Tribunal, and I ask the Court to accept this as evidence under Exhibit Number USSR-74 (Document Number USSR-74). I quote from the report of the Yugoslav Government on the mass murder in Kragujevac:
“This was a mass murder committed on 21 October 1941, in Kragujevac, by a German punitive expedition under the command of Major König. Besides König, the regional commander, Bischofshausen, and the commandant of the settlement, Dr. Zimmermann, participated in the organization and realization of this crime.
“Already 10 to 15 days before the crime in Kragujevac was committed, one battalion arrived to reinforce the German garrison. First of all, the following villages were destroyed in the vicinity of Kragujevac: Mechkovac, Marsic, and Groshnic. In Mechkovac the punitive expedition murdered 66 people, in Marsic, 101, and in Groshnic, 100. All the victims were peaceful citizens of the villages in question.
“When, after the perpetration of these crimes, the punitive expedition arrived in Kragujevac, they began by carrying out their plan to exterminate the citizens of Kragujevac, especially the Serbian intelligentsia. As early as the beginning of October the district commandant, Dr. Zimmermann, demanded of the director of schools in Kragujevac the regular attendance of the school children; otherwise they would be considered saboteurs and shot. After such a threat, all the pupils attended school regularly. On 18 October 1941, in conformity with a previously prepared list, all male Jews were arrested, as well as all persons who were considered Communists. They were imprisoned in the barracks of the former Yugoslav auto-transport headquarters in Stanovlensko Polje. They were kept without any food until 20 October, and all were shot at about 6 o’clock in the evening; approximately 60 persons were killed.
“The same day, that is, 20 October, they began to round up the entire male population of Kragujevac. After every exit from the city had been blocked, the Germans went into every public building and drove out all the employees. After that, all the professors and pupils from the fifth grade upward, together with the school masters, were taken from the high schools and seminaries.”
I omit the next two sentences and quote further:
“Together with the others, all the prisoners from the Kragujevac prison were taken off to the barracks. Then the order was given to them to go into the courtyard of the barracks. Here all their personal belongings were taken from them. The first to be shot were those who were originally incarcerated in the prison—approximately 50 persons. The rest were locked up in barracks. The next day, 21 October, as from 7 o’clock in the morning, they were taken off in batches to Stanovlensko Polje, and there shot down by machine gun fire. Those who did not die at once were finished off by the Germans with automatic guns and rifles.”
I conclude this quotation and continue after the next three paragraphs.
“The relatives of the victims of this mass slaughter were forbidden to visit the place of execution until the burial of the victims had been completed and all traces of the crime eliminated. They were also forbidden to hold any requiem masses or religious services for the victims. In the obituary notices in the papers it was forbidden to mention that the victims had met their death in the mass execution.”
I omit the next five paragraphs and invite the attention of the Tribunal to a short part of the report of the Yugoslav Government dealing with the so-called “death march” or “march of blood,” that march of dire fame which took place in the camp of Yarak. I quote that particular part which deals with this atrocious crime of the Hitlerites:
“In the beginning of September 1941 a large German punitive expedition rounded up all the male population between the ages of 14 and 70 years and drove them from Shabatka across the Sava River into the settlement of Yarak in Sirinya. That was the so-called death march. About 5,000 men had to run a distance of 23 kilometers and back again. Those who could not stand the pace and fell by the way were ruthlessly shot on the spot. Because many were old and weak, the number of victims was great, especially while crossing the bridge over the Sava.”
I conclude this, and I continue the next paragraph:
“On the way back they met another group of 800 peasants who had to cover the same distance, but the treatment of this group was still more brutal. They had to run with their arms raised over their heads. They were systematically murdered on the way. Only 300 men of the group reached Yarak alive.”
I interrupt the quotation here. I omit this page and the next, and, concluding my presentation of the mass murders of the civilian population in Yugoslavia, I would ask the Tribunal to accept in evidence the public announcement of the Chief of the German Armed Forces in Serbia. This document is presented to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-200 (Document Number USSR-200). Without making any comment at all, I simply quote this document, using the original text incorporated in the report of the Yugoslav Government. In the report the Commander-in-Chief in Serbia quotes the following facts:
“In the village of Skela, a Communist detachment opened fire at a German military truck. It was established that several of the inhabitants had been watching and had seen the preparations for this attack. It was further established that these inhabitants could have warned the nearest station of the Serbian gendarmerie. It was also established that they could have secretly warned the German military trucks against the pending attempt. The inhabitants did not profit by the opportunity and had thus placed themselves on the side of the criminals. The village of Skela was burned to the ground. Supplies of ammunition exploded in several houses during the fire, and this was accepted as a proof of complicity on the part of the inhabitants. All the male inhabitants of the village whose participation in the attack had been proved were shot, and 50 Communists were hanged on the spot.”
I now omit five pages of my presentation, and I invite the attention of the Tribunal to the brief excerpts from the report of the Greek Government, on Pages 39 and 40 of the Russian text of this report, from which we can see that the same inhuman and criminal methods of mass shootings were used by the Hitler criminals in the temporarily occupied territory of Greece. I begin my quotation:
“As soon as the island of Crete was occupied by the Germans. . . . In compliance with this announcement, the first reprisals were made, and several people, most of them absolutely innocent, were shot, and the villages of Skiki, Brassi, and Kanades”—perhaps I am stressing the wrong syllables, since I do not know how these words should be pronounced in Greek—“all these villages were burned down as a reprisal for an attack by collaborators of the Greek police during the invasion of Crete. On the sites where these villages formerly existed, posts were erected with inscriptions in Greek and in German: ‘Destroyed as a reprisal for the brutal murder of a detachment of paratroopers and half a platoon of sappers by armed men and women in the rear.’
“Measures of reprisal, which at first were of a temporary nature, later grew in intensity, especially after the resistance made by organized partisan detachments throughout the country in the beginning of 1943. The technique was always the same. The day after some act of sabotage or any other action committed by the partisans near a village, the German troops would appear in this village. The inhabitants would be rounded up in the central square or some other place suitable for the occasion, to listen to a public announcement, but in reality to be killed on the spot by machine gun fire. After this the Germans either burned the villages or else, in some cases, they would first plunder a village and then open fire on it. The inhabitants were killed openly in the streets, houses, and fields, regardless of age and sex. There were few cases when only the male population from the age of 16 years and over were executed. In other cases, when the men succeeded in hiding in the mountains, the Germans would execute the old men, women, and children who had remained in the villages, hoping that their age and their sex would protect them. The villages of Arachovo, Kalovryta, Gestamon, Klessoura, Kommeno, and Lissovouni may be considered as typical examples. Some villages were destroyed for the sole reason that they were located in some region where partisans had been active.”
I omit the next sentence since it has a direct bearing on another text of the report. I continue my quotation:
“The number of people murdered amounts to nearly 30,000.”
I am now going over to the presentation of evidence of mass exterminations of the peaceful population in the territory of the U.S.S.R. by the Germans.
As to the circumstances of the mass executions, we may now judge them not only by the testimony of eyewitnesses or of the perpetrators of the atrocities; we may, in part, judge them on the basis of the material collected by the legal and medical commission. I say “in part” because, as from 1943, fearing retribution for the crimes committed, the Hitlerites began to destroy the traces of their crimes. They exhumed and burned corpses, ground bones, and strewed the ashes on the fields; they also used the slag formed by the corpses cremated, as well as the bone flour, for repairing the roads and fertilizing the fields. But notwithstanding the efforts of the criminals to conceal the traces of their crimes, it was impossible to destroy all the corpses of the people murdered.
The first mass “action” of the Germans, when tens of thousands of innocent and peaceful people were murdered at a time, was the “Kiev action.” In order to realize the extent of these atrocities I refer Your Honors to a communication of the Extraordinary State Commission already submitted to the Tribunal as Document Number USSR-9. I quote from Page 238, on the reverse side of the document book, at the end of the third paragraph from the top. I quote:
“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.