“It has been incontrovertibly established that the German Command, desiring to take revenge for the defeats inflicted on its army in the last few months, has everywhere introduced the practice of physical extermination of Soviet prisoners of war.
“Along the entire length of the front, from the Arctic to the Black Sea, bodies of slain Soviet war prisoners and tortured war prisoners have been discovered. In almost every case these corpses bear traces of the horrible torture which precedes murder. In dugouts from which Red Army troops have driven the Germans, in fortifications, and also in populated centers, bodies of Soviet prisoners are found who have been murdered after savage torture. Facts like the following, recorded in affidavits signed by eye-witnesses, are being uncovered with increasing frequency.
“On 2 and 6 March 1942, on the Crimean front, in the Lilly region at 66.3, village of Jantora, the bodies of nine Red Army men who had been taken prisoner were found so brutally tortured by the fascists that only two of the corpses could be identified. The nails had been drawn from the fingers of the tortured prisoners of war, their eyes had been gouged out and the right breast of one corpse had been completely cut out; there were traces of torture by fire, numerous knife wounds, and broken jaws.
“In Theodosia scores of bodies of tortured Azerbaijanian Red Army men were found. Among them were Ismail-Zadch Jafarov, whose eyes had been gouged out and ears slashed off by the Hitlerites; Kuli-Zadch Alibekov, whose arms had been dislocated by the Hitlerites, after which he had been bayonetted; Corporal Ali Ogly Islom-Mahmed, whose stomach had been ripped open by the Hitlerites; Mustafa Ogly Asherov, who had been bound to a post with wire and died of his wounds in this position.”
And then, in the same note, is cited:
“In the village of Krasnaperovo, (Smolensk region) attacking units of the Red Army found 29 dead and two naked bodies of captured Red Army men and officers, none of whom had a single bullet wound. All the prisoners had been knifed to death. In the same district, in the village of Babaevo, the Hitlerites placed 58 captive Red Army men and two women ambulance workers in a haystack and then set fire to the hay. When the people who had been doomed to death attempted to escape from the flames, the Germans shot them.
“In the village of Kuleshovka, the Germans captured 16 severely wounded men and officers, stripped the prisoners, tore the dressings from their wounds, tormented them with hunger, stabbed them with bayonets, broke their arms, tore open their wounds, and subjected them to other tortures, after which those who were still alive were locked up in a house, which was then set on fire.
“In the village of Strenevo of the Kalinin region, the Germans locked 50 wounded captive Red Army men in a school building and burnt them to death.
“In the town of Volokolamsk the invaders forbade Red Army men who had been locked on the fifth floor of house Number 3/6 Proleterskaja Street to leave the house when a fire broke out. Those who attempted to leave or to jump from the windows were shot. Sixty prisoners perished in the flames or were killed by bullets.
“In the village of Popovka (Tula region), the Germans drove 140 captive Red Army men into a barn and set fire to it. Ninety five perished in the flames. Six kilometers from Pegostye Station, in the Leningrad region, the Germans, in the course of their retreat, under pressure of the Red Army troops, used explosive bullets to kill over 150 Soviet war prisoners after frightful beatings and savage torture. On most of the bodies the ears had been slashed off, the eyes gouged out, and the fingers chopped off, while several had had one or both hands hacked off and their tongues torn out. Stars had been cut out on the backs of three Red Army men. Not long before the liberation of the town of Kondrovo, Smolensk region, by units of the Red Army in December 1941, the Germans executed over 200 Red Army prisoners of war whom they had taken through the city, naked and barefoot, to the outskirts, shooting on the spot those who were exhausted and unable to walk any further, as well as those local citizens who gave them bread on their way through the city.”