If the Court please, at this time I would like to arrange for the showing of a very short motion picture, perhaps one of the most unusual exhibits that will be presented during the Trial. With the Court’s permission I would like to call upon Commander Donovan to assist.
THE PRESIDENT: Need we adjourn for it or not?
MAJOR WALSH: No, Sir. The movie itself is very, very short, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
COMMANDER DONOVAN: May it please the Tribunal, the United States now offers in evidence Document Number 3052-PS, Exhibit Number USA-280, entitled “Original German 8-millimeter Film of Atrocities against Jews.”
This is a strip of motion pictures taken, we believe, by a member of the SS and captured by the United States military forces in an SS barracks near Augsburg, Germany, as described in the affidavits now before the Tribunal.
We have not been able to establish beyond doubt in which area these films were made, but we believe that to be immaterial.
The film offers undeniable evidence, made by Germans themselves, of almost incredible brutality to Jewish people in the custody of the Nazis, including German military units.
It is believed by the Prosecution that the scene is the extermination of a ghetto by Gestapo agents, assisted by military units. And, as the other evidence to be presented by the Prosecution will indicate, the scene presented to the Tribunal is probably one which occurred a thousand times all over Europe under the Nazi rule of terror.
This film was made on an 8-millimeter home camera. We have not wished even to reprint it, and so shall present the original, untouched film captured by our troops. The pictures obviously were taken by an amateur photographer. Because of this, because of the fact that part of it is burned, because of the fact that it runs for only 1½ minutes, and because of the confusion on every hand shown on this film, we do not believe that the Tribunal can properly view the evidence if it is shown only once. We therefore ask the Tribunal’s permission to project the film twice as we did before the Defense Counsel.