And another thing, there was a barrack called Barrack Number 20. That barrack was inside the camp; and in spite of the electrified barbed wire around the camp, there was an additional wall with electrified barbed wire around it. In that barrack there were prisoners of war, Russian officers and commissars, some Slavs, a few Frenchmen, and, they said, even a few Englishmen. No one could enter that barrack except the two Führer who were in the camp prison, the commanding officers of the inner and outer camps. These internees were dressed just as we were, like convicts, but without number or identification of their nationality. One could not tell their nationality.
The service “Erkennungsdienst” must have taken their pictures. A tag with a number was placed on their chest. This number began with 3,000 and something. There were numbers looking like Number 11 (two blue darts), and the numbers started at 3,000 and went up to 7,000. SS Unterscharführer Hermann Schinlauer was the photographer then in charge. He was from the Berlin region, somewhere outside of Berlin, I do not remember the name. He had orders to develop the films and to do all work personally; but like all the SS of the interior services of the camp, they were men who knew nothing. They always needed prisoners to get their work done. That is why he needed me to develop these films. I made the enlargements, 5 by 7. These were sent to Obersturmführer Karl Schulz, of Cologne, the Chief of the Politische Abteilung. He told me not to tell anything to anybody about these pictures and about the fact that we developed these films; if we did we would be liquidated at once. Without any fear of the consequences I told all my comrades about it, so that, if one of us should succeed in getting out, he could tell the world about it.
THE PRESIDENT: I think we have heard enough of this detail that you are giving us. But come back for a moment to the case you were speaking of. I wish you would repeat the case of the Russian prisoners of war in 1943. You said that the officers were taken to the quarry to carry the heaviest stones.
BOIX: No, just very small stones, weighing not even 20 kilos, and they carried them in fours to show on the pictures that the Russian officers did not do heavy work but on the contrary, light work. That was only for the pictures, whereas in reality it was entirely different.
THE PRESIDENT: I thought you said they carried big, heavy stones.
BOIX: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Were the photographs taken while they were in their uniforms carrying these light stones?
BOIX: Yes, Sir; they had to put on clean uniforms, neatly arranged, to show that the Russian prisoners were well and properly treated.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Is there any other particular incident you want to refer to?
BOIX: Yes, about Block 20. Thanks to my knowledge of photography I was able to see it; I had to be there to handle the lights while my chief took photographs. In this way I could follow, detail by detail, everything that took place in this barrack. It was an inner camp. This barrack, like all the others, was 7 meters wide and 50 meters long. There were 1,800 internees there, with a food ration less than one-quarter of what we would get for food. They had neither spoons nor plates. Large kettles of spoiled food were emptied on the snow and left there until it began to freeze; then the Russians were ordered to get at it. The Russians were so hungry, they would fight for this food. The SS used these fights as a pretext to beat some of them with bludgeons.