I omit a few extracts which are of no interest to the Tribunal and I quote from Page 6 of the Russian translation, the underlined passages, printed on Page 168 of your document book:
“After having executed the first three prisoners I suddenly heard shouting beyond the pit. Since the fourth prisoner was already next in line, I shot him on the spot, and looking up, I noticed a terrific disturbance near the truck. A moment before already I had heard some shots being fired and I now saw the prisoners running away in all directions. I cannot give any precise particulars as to what actually happened near the truck, since I was about 40 to 50 meters away from the place and everything was very confusing. I can only say that I saw two of my comrades lying on the ground, and two prisoners shooting at me and the driver with the firearms they had seized. When I realized what was happening, I fired the four remaining cartridges in my magazine at the prisoners shooting at us, put in a new clip, and suddenly noticed that a bullet had struck the ground near me. I had the feeling that I had been hit, but realized later that I was wrong. I now ascribe this sensation to nervous shock. Anyway, I was shooting at the fugitives with the cartridges from my second clip, though I cannot tell whether I hit any of them.”
I would inform you that the last part of Hesselbach’s testimony deals with the subject of organizing the search for the scattered cripples, a search which yielded no results.
Finally, I would like to quote a few excerpts from the last document in the correspondence. This is a report of SS Obersturmführer Kuntze. It concludes with the statement that the funeral of the SS men killed took place at 1400 hours at the Police and SS Heroes’ Cemetery in Hegewalde. It seems to me that this detail is of a certain interest. I shall now quote the opening part of the above-mentioned report. I shall omit the first report already appearing in your document book, in order to shorten the time taken by my work. He reports that 78 people were supposed to have been killed after the inspection of the camp by Kallbach. Because of their inability to work, these prisoners of war were a burden to the camp.
“For this reason, SS Hauptsturmführer Kallbach ordered the execution of the former prisoners of war, and that on 24 December. Neither in the local nor in the regional offices could anybody discover why the former commandant had taken charge of these crippled prisoners and sent them to the Educational Labor Camp. In this case there did not exist any data whatsoever concerning communistic activities of the prisoners in question during the entire period of the Soviet regime. Evidently the military authorities have, in their own time, placed these prisoners at the disposal of the local branch in order to submit them to the ‘special regime,’ since owing to their physical condition, they could not be made to work.
“So SS Hauptsturmführer Kallbach ordered the execution for 24 December. On 24 December at about 1700 hours, the head of the Berditchev regional office, SS Sturmscharführer Knop, telephoned that during the execution of the ‘special regime’ operation, the two officials of the branch, SS Unterscharführer Paal and SS Sturmmann Vollprecht, were assaulted by the prisoners and killed with their own firearms.”
I shall now omit a considerable part of SS Obersturmführer Kuntze’s idle talk and shall quote only three more paragraphs. You will find them on Pages 172 and 173:
“Thus, of the 28 prisoners, 4 were shot in the pit and 2 while trying to escape; the remaining 22 managed to get away.
“The efforts to recapture the fugitives, promptly undertaken by SS Rottenführer Hesselbach with the help of the guards from the neighboring camp, were expedient though unsuccessful. The head of the Berditchev Department ordered an immediate search for the fugitives and instructed all the police and military agencies to this effect. However, the names of the fugitives are unknown and this fact alone would render the search more difficult. The records merely contained the names of all the prisoners subjected to the ’special regime’ and it was therefore necessary to declare as escapees even those who had already been shot.
“On 25 December, on the same spot, a ‘special regime’ execution of the 20 surviving prisoners of war was carried out under my direction. As I feared that the fugitives might already have established contact with some partisan unit, I again had the camp send a detachment of 20 men, armed with light submachine guns and carbines, in order to guard the surrounding territory. The execution went off without any trouble.”