“The following day, on the 23rd of October, the bodies of the men who had been shot were put into coffins without any French persons being present, the entrances to the château having been guarded by German sentinels. The dead were then taken to nine different cemeteries in the surrounding communes, that is, three coffins to each commune. The Germans were careful to choose communes where there was no regular transport service, presumably to avoid the population going en masse to the graves of these martyrs.
“I was not present at the departure of the hostages from the camp nor at the shooting in the quarry of Sablière, as the approaches to it were guarded by German soldiers armed with machine guns.”
Almost at the same time, in addition to these 48 hostages who were shot, there were others—those of Bordeaux. You will find in your document book, under Document Number F-400, documents which have been sent to us by the Prefecture of the Gironde, which we submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number RF-286.
One of them comes from the Bordeaux Section of Political Affairs, and is dated 22 October 1941, Document F-400(b).
“In the course of the conference, which took place last night at the Feldkommandantur of Bordeaux, the German authorities asked me to proceed immediately to arrest 100 individuals known for their sympathy with the Communist Party or the Gaullist movement, who will be considered as hostages, and to make a great number of house searches.
“These operations have been in process since this morning. So far no interesting result has been called to my attention. In addition, this morning at 11 o’clock the German authorities informed me of the reprisal measures which they had decided to take against the population.”
These reprisal measures you will find set forth on Page “A” of the same document in a letter addressed by General Von Faber Du Faur, Chief of the Regional Administration of Bordeaux, to the Prefect of the Gironde. I quote: