“On Oct. 1 a new conscription of labor forces took place. From what has happened, I will describe the most important to you. You can not imagine the bestiality. You probably remember what we were told about the Soviets during the rule of the Poles. At that time we did not believe it and now it seems just as incredible. The order came to supply 25 workers, but no one reported. All had fled. Then the German militia came and began to ignite the houses of those who had fled. The fire became very violent, since it had not rained for 2 months. In addition the grain stacks were in the farm yards. You can imagine what took place. The people who had hurried to the scene were forbidden to extinguish the flames, beaten and arrested, so that 7 homesteads burned down. The policemen meanwhile ignited other houses. The people fell on their knees and kiss their hands, but the policemen beat them with rubber truncheons and threaten to burn down the whole village. I don’t know how this would have ended if I Sapurkany had not intervened. He promised that there would be laborers by morning. During the fire the militia went through the adjoining villages, seized the laborers and brought them under arrest. Wherever they did not find any laborers, they detained the parents, until the children appeared. That is how they raged throughout the night in Bielosirka. The workers which had not yet appeared till then, were to be shot. All schools were closed and the married teachers were sent to work here, while the unmarried ones go to work in Germany. They are now catching humans like the dog-catchers used to catch dogs. They are already hunting for one week and have not yet enough. The imprisoned workers are locked in at the schoolhouse. They cannot even go out to perform their natural functions, but have to do it like pigs in the same room. People from many villages went on a certain day to a pilgrimage to the monastery Potschaew. They were all arrested, locked in, and will be sent to work. Among them there are lame, blind and aged people”. (018-PS)
Rosenberg, nevertheless, countenanced the use of force in order to furnish slave labor to Germany and admitted his responsibility for the “unusual and hard measures” that were employed. The transcript of an interrogation of Rosenberg under oath on 6 October 1945, contains the following admissions:
“* * * Q. You recognized, did you not, that the quotas set by Sauckel could not be filled by voluntary labor, and you didn’t disapprove of the impressment of forced labor; isn’t that right?
“A. I regretted that the demands of Sauckel were so urgent that they could not be met by a continuation of voluntary recruitment and thus I submitted to the necessity of forced impressment.”
* * * * * *
“Q. The letters that we have already seen between you and Sauckel, do not indicate, do they, any disagreement on your part with the principle of recruiting labor against their will; they indicate, as I remember, that you were opposed to the treatment that was later accorded these workers; that you did not oppose their initial impressment.
“A. That is right. In those letters I mostly discussed the possibility of finding the least harsh methods of handling the matter; whereas, in no way, I placed myself in opposition to the orders that he was carrying out for the Fuehrer.”
Moreover, in a letter dated 21 December 1942 Rosenberg stated:
“* * * Even if I do not close my eyes to the necessity that the numbers demanded by the Reichs Minister for weapons and ammunition as well as by the agricultural economy justify unusual and hard measures, I have to ask, due to the responsibility for the occupied Eastern Territories which lies upon me, that in the accomplishment of the ordered tasks such measures be excluded, the toleration and prosecution of which will some day be held against me, and my collaborators.” (018-PS)
Arson was used as a terror device in the Ukraine to enforce conscription measures. One instance is reported in a document from an official of the Rosenberg Ministry dated 29 June 1944, enclosing a copy of a letter from Paul Raab, a district commissioner in the territory of Wassilkow, to Rosenberg. Raab’s letter reads as follows: