The most striking example of the continued killings in these institutions, which were under Frick’s jurisdiction and operated under the order of which Frick was a co-author, is the famous Hadamar case.
Your Honor, may I ask you whether I may have 10 more minutes to end this presentation, because the Chief Prosecutors agreed, as I understood, to start tomorrow morning the case of the French, and I have just 10 more minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, very well.
DR. KEMPNER: Thank you, Your Lordship.
I refer to the Hadamar case. I now offer in evidence Document Number 615-PS, Exhibit Number USA-717.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): What is this last report that you spoke about? Whose is it?
DR. KEMPNER: The Czechoslovak War Crimes Commission report. After I have shown the general scheme, of which Frick was a co-author, I would like to show that Frick’s ministry was acquainted with the things that were going on under his organizational authorship; and therefore I am quoting now a letter to the fact that he was acquainted with these killings and that these killings had even become public knowledge. For this reason I offer in evidence Document 615-PS, Exhibit number USA-717. This document is a letter from the Bishop of Limburg of 13 August 1941 to the Reich Minister of Justice. Copies were sent to the Reich Minister of the Interior—this means Frick—and to the Reich Minister for Church Affairs. I quote:
“About 8 kilometers from Limburg, in the little town of Hadamar, on a hill overlooking the town, there is an institution which had formerly served various purposes and of late had been used as a nursing home; this institution was renovated and furnished as a place in which, by consensus of opinion, the above-mentioned euthanasia has been systematically practiced for months, approximately since February 1941. The fact has become known beyond the administrative district of Wiesbaden, because death certificates from a Registry Hadamar-Moenchberg are sent to the home communities. . . .”
And I quote further:
“Several times a week buses arrive in Hadamar with a considerable number of such victims. School children of the vicinity know this vehicle and say, ‘There comes the murder-box again.’ After the arrival of the vehicle, the citizens of Hadamar watch the smoke rise out of the chimney and are tortured with the ever-present thought of the miserable victims, especially when repulsive odors annoy them, depending on the direction of the wind.