THE PRESIDENT: One moment; the Tribunal will adjourn now for fifteen minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, the Tribunal has been considering the question of the evidence which you have presented on the concentration camps; and they are of opinion that you have proved the case for the present, subject, of course, to any evidence which may be produced on behalf of the defendants and, of course, subject also to your right under Article 24-c of the Charter to bring in rebutting evidence, should the Tribunal think it right to admit such evidence. They think, therefore, that it is not in the interests of the Trial, which the Charter directs should be an expeditious one, that further evidence should be presented at this stage on the question of concentration camps, unless there are any particular new points about the concentration camps to which you have not yet drawn our attention; and, if there are such points, we should like you to particularize them before you present any further evidence upon them.
M. DUBOST: I thank the Tribunal for this statement. I do not conceal from the Tribunal that I shall need a few moments to select the points which it seems necessary to stress. I did not expect this decision.
With the authorization of the Tribunal, I shall pass to the examination of the situation of prisoners of war.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, possibly you could, during the adjournment, consider whether there are any particular points, new points, on concentration camps which you wish to draw our attention to and present them after the adjournment, in the meantime proceeding with some other matter.
M. DUBOST: The 1 o’clock recess?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, that is what I meant.
M. DUBOST: I shall, therefore, consider as established provisionally the proof that Germany, in its internment camps and in its concentration camps, pursued a policy tending towards the annihilation and extermination of its enemies, while at the same time creating a system of terror which it exploited to facilitate the realization of its political aims.
Another aspect of this policy of terror and extermination appears when one studies the war crimes committed by Germany on the persons of prisoners of war. These crimes, as I shall prove to you, had two motives, among others: To debase the captives as much as possible in order to sap their energy; to demoralize them; to cause them to lose faith in themselves and in the cause for which they fought, and to despair of the future of their country. The second motive was to cause the disappearance of those of them who, by reasons of their previous history or indications given since their capture, showed that they could not be adapted to the new order the Nazis intended to set up.