“Usually the execution of the Jews was carried out in the precincts of the labor camp which could not be seen from the outside. For this particular execution I issued orders to choose a site outside on a terrain behind the permanent camp. Concerning the three above-mentioned persons whom I entrusted with the shooting of the prisoners of war, I knew that they had, in Kiev, participated in the mass executions of many thousands of persons and that they had before, that is during my time of service, been entrusted by the local administration with the shooting of many hundreds of victims.”
I should like to invite your attention to another instance which again shows the meaning which the Hitlerites usually attached to the words “execution” and “treatment by special regime.” Here, in one sentence alone, the words “mass execution” and “shooting” are definitely used as synonymous terms, while a little higher up it is made quite clear to us what “transporting by trucks to some place in the neighborhood” and “treatment by special regime” mean. Unquestionably, these four terms have an identical significance.
After this digression I continue my quotation. Having made a few more omissions from the passage already printed in your document book, I proceed to the following paragraph, your Page 165, if only to maintain the sense of the statement:
“They were armed with a German submachine gun, a Russian automatic rifle, an 0.8 pistol, and a carbine. I would point out that I had intended to give these three persons, as an assistant, SS Hauptscharführer Wenzel, but SS Sturmmann Vollprecht declined, remarking that three men were perfectly able to execute this order.
“Concerning the indictment: It never entered my head, to ensure the smooth procedure of an ordinary execution, to send a larger detachment, since the execution ground was hidden from public view and the captives were. . . .”
THE PRESIDENT These words “Concerning the indictment,” are they in the original document?
COL. POKROVSKY: It is the text of the explanation of the evidence which the signatory of the document handed to his police chief. I, with the permission of the Tribunal, shall quote the original German documents of the inquiry. The persons responsible for carrying out the execution were accused of provoking, by their indiscretion and carelessness, that which they called an “incident” and they produced an explanation of the cause of this indictment.
“Concerning the charge: It never entered my head, to ensure the smooth procedure of an ordinary execution, to send a larger detachment, since the execution ground was hidden from public view and the captives were unable to escape by reason of their physical infirmities.
“At about 1500 hours I received a telephone call from the camp to the effect that one of the co-workers in my department, in charge of this special task, had been wounded and that one man had run away. I promptly sent SS Hauptscharführer Wenzel and SS Oberscharführer Fritsch to the execution ground in a horse cart. Some time later I received another telephone call from the camp, informing me that the co-workers of my department had been killed.”
I think it useless to read into the record details of a purely technical nature. I shall omit at this point a considerable part of those references which I had previously intended to quote, and I shall proceed to that part of Knop’s evidence which he had handed to his police chief. You will find the passage in question on Page 166: