In 1942 the fascists threw 100 Red Army prisoners of war, alive, into the village well of Adjimushkray; their bodies were subsequently extracted by the inhabitants and buried in a communal grave in the sacred brotherhood of death. This information is contained in the same report, extracts of which I have just quoted to you.
On 29 January 1946 the witness, Paul Roser, was cross-examined here before the Tribunal. He testified that in the course of 4 months, out of 10,000 Russians, whom he had seen as prisoners of war in the German camp at the city of Rawa-Ruska, only 2,000 remained alive.
We possess evidence from yet another eyewitness of the numerous atrocities and endless tortures inflicted on the prisoners of war at Rawa-Ruska. Witness V. S. Kotchan, who was duly interrogated according to the procedure prescribed by our laws, testified before the captain of the guard of justice, Ryshov, on 27 September 1944—the minutes of his interrogation are hereby submitted to you as Exhibit Number USSR-6(c) (Document Number USSR-6(c)):
“I worked under the Germans as a digger at the prisoner-of-war camp for Red Army soldiers, from December 1941 to April 1942.”
This is on Page 124 of the document book. I omit a few lines irrelevant to the matter, and I quote further:
“This camp was set up by the Germans in the barracks near the railway. The entire area of the camp was surrounded by barbed wire. According to personal statements by the prisoners of war, the Germans drove from 12,000 to 15,000 men into this camp. While we were working, we watched the Germans mock the Red Army prisoners of war. They fed them once a day on unpeeled, frozen potatoes baked in their skins and covered with dirt. They kept the prisoners of war in the cold barracks all through the winter.
“I know for a fact that, when the Germans drove the prisoners of war into this camp, all clothes, overcoats, boots, and shoes which were at all serviceable were taken from the prisoners, leaving them barefoot and in rags. The prisoners of war were taken to work daily under escort from 4 to 5 in the morning and kept working until 10 o’clock at night. Then, worn out, cold, and hungry, the prisoners were marched back to their barracks, where doors and windows had purposely been left open all day so that the frost might enter these barracks and freeze the prisoners to death. In the morning, under the supervision of German soldiers, hundreds of corpses would be taken away in a tractor by the prisoners of war; they were buried in previously-prepared pits in the forest of Volkovitch. When the prisoners were marched off to work in the morning, under escort, the Germans would place a detachment of soldiers armed with rifles and stakes by the exit gates of the camp; they pole-axed them with stakes, stabbed them with bayonets, and chased the hungry and exhausted prisoners who were unable to move properly.”
The same witness describes also some other German atrocities:
“The German camp administration brought out completely-naked prisoners of war, bound them with ropes to a wall surrounded by barbed wire and kept them there, in the cold of the December winter, until they froze to death. The air of the camp resounded continually with the groans and cries of people maimed by rifle butts. Some were pole-axed with rifle butts on the spot.
“When, starving and exhausted, the prisoners were brought to the camp, they would hurl themselves on a heap of rotten and frozen potatoes. This, in turn, would be followed by a shot from the German escort.”