“Living conditions, food, clothing conditions, and the health of the prisoners of war are bad; mortality is very high. We may reckon on the fact that during this winter people will perish at the rate of tens and even hundreds of thousands.”
I submit a document under Document Number D-339 (Exhibit USSR-350). The chief camp and factory physician, Jäger, having inspected the camp in Naeggerath Street, informed the medical department of the Central Administration of Camps, in a top-secret medical report on 2 September 1944—you will find the excerpt quoted on Page 47 of your document book—as follows:
“The prisoner-of-war camp in Naeggerath Street is in an atrocious condition. The men live in dustbins, in kennels, in ovens no longer used, and in huts made by themselves. Food is barely sufficient. Krupp is responsible for shelter and the food supply. Medicine and bandages were so scarce that in many cases medical treatment was completely impossible. The blame for this appalling state of affairs rests on the permanent camp.”
In the files of the Defendant Rosenberg was found, among other documents, one numbered Document 081-PS (Exhibit USSR-353). As far as we can understand, it is a letter from Rosenberg to Keitel, dated 28 February 1942, on the subject of the prisoners of war. A copy found in Rosenberg’s files is unsigned, but there is no doubt that such a letter was either addressed to Keitel or prepared for dispatch to the chief of the Armed Forces. The letter states that the fate of the Soviet prisoners of war in Germany is a tragedy on an enormous scale.
I will now read into the record the second sentence of the fifth paragraph of the Russian text—you will find it on Page 48 of the document book:
“Out of 3,600,000. . . .”
THE PRESIDENT: I think the United States read this letter, did they not?
COL. POKROVSKY: The document has been partially read, but I would ask permission to read part of a short excerpt a second time, since it is of importance to my further report. It will, quite literally, only take a minute and a half of our time.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, we have been preventing other prosecuting counsel from reading documents which have already been read and we are directed by the Charter to conduct an expeditious trial; and I do not really see how it can be expeditious if documents are read more than once.
COL. POKROVSKY: This document, which is already known to the Tribunal, presents a very clear picture of what happened in the camp. The author of this letter states that attempts had been made by the population to supply the prisoners with food but that in most cases the attempts were foiled by the energetic opposition of the camp commanders.