MR. DODD: Reading that last sentence again:
“This harsh punishment was acceptable to the local population because previous to this step both families had ridiculed on every hand the duty-conscious people who sent their children partly voluntarily to the labor allocation.”
Turning to Paragraph 2 on Page 2, beginning about two-thirds of the way through the paragraph, I wish to read as follows—in the German text it appears at Page 3, Paragraph 1:
“After initial successes, a passive resistance of the population started, which finally forced me to turn again to arrests, confiscations, and transfers to labor camps. After a whole transport of conscripted laborers overcame the police at the railroad station in Wassilkov and escaped, I saw again the necessity for strict measures. A few ring-leaders, who of course had long since escaped, were located in Plissezkoje and in Mitnitza. After repeated attempts to get hold of them, their houses were burned down.”
And finally, I wish to pass to the last paragraph on Page 3 of that same document. In the German text it appears at Page 5, Paragraph 7. Quoting from that last paragraph on the third page:
“My actions toward fugitive labor draftees were always reported to District Commissioner Döhrer, of the Wassilkov office, and to the Commissioner General in Kiev. Both of them knew the circumstances and agreed with my measures because of their success.”
That is the end of that part of the quotation.
That Generalkommissar in Kiev, as we indicated yesterday and again this morning, was the man Koch—we quoted his statement about the master race.
Another document confirms arson as an instrument of enforcing this labor program in the village of Bielosersk in the Ukraine in cases of resistance to forced labor recruitment. Atrocities committed in this village are related in Document Number 018-PS, which is already in evidence as Exhibit USA-186. But in addition there is Document Number 290-PS, which bears Exhibit Number USA-189. This document consists of correspondence originating within the Rosenberg ministry, which was, of course, the office headquarters of the Defendant Rosenberg; and it is dated the 12th day of November 1943. I wish to quote from Page 1 of the English text, starting with the last line, as follows:
“But even if Müller had been present at the burning of houses in connection with the Reich conscription in Bielosersk, this should by no means lead to the removal of Müller from office. It is mentioned specifically in a directive of the Commissioner General in Luck, of 21 September 1942, referring to the extreme urgency of national conscription, that farms of those who refuse to work are to be burned and their relatives are to be arrested as hostages and brought to forced labor camps.”