"I will now tell you the mildest case of their cruelty that I saw, which has been reported—
By Ann Stringer, UP Staff Correspondent, Nuremberg, January 2, 1946 (UP)—
There was no screaming or weeping. A little child cooed with delight. A couple watched him with tears in their eyes. Another boy, 10 years old, fought back his tears while his father talked to him soothingly and softly.
Then they all went to death the same way—naked, piled body against body, the old and the young together. Undignified a death as their persecutors tried to make it, the victims gave it their own dignity.
"That was a pogrom. That was how the Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews, as told in an affidavit submitted to the war crimes tribunal by the American prosecution today.
"The testimony came from Hermann Freiderich Graebe, former manager of a Ukraine construction firm who now works in the United States. Graebe saw the pogrom in Rowno, in the Ukraine, in July, 1942, and again in Dubno in October the same year.
"It was at Dubno that the Germans piled the victims into a mass grave, then machine-gunned them, Graebe said in his affidavits. He swore that 1,500 persons were killed daily.
"The people got off the trucks and undressed upon the orders of an SS man carrying a riding or dog whip," he said. "They had to put down their clothes in piles, sorted according to shoes, top clothing and under clothing.
"I saw a heap of shoes totaling about 800 to 1000.
"Without screaming or weeping these people undressed and stood around in family groups, kissed each other, said their farewells and waited for the SS man who stood near a pit thirty meters long and three meters deep.