Afternoon Session
COL. POKROVSKY: Point 7 of the general conclusions of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union, on which I reported in the preceding session, states:
“The conclusions reached, after studying the affidavits and medico-legal examinations concerning the shooting of Polish military prisoners of war by Germans in the autumn of 1941, fully confirmed the material evidence and documents discovered in the Katyn graves.
“8. By shooting the Polish prisoners of war in Katyn Forest, the German fascist invaders consistently realized their policy for the physical extermination of the Slav peoples.”
Here follow the signatures of all the members of the Commission.
The Katyn massacres did not exhaust the Hitler crimes against the soldiers of the Polish Army. In the report of the Polish Government, submitted by me to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-93 (Document Number USSR-93), we find a series of proofs confirming the breach by the Hitlerite conspirators of the elementary rules of international law governing the customs and laws of war; on Page 36 of this report by the Polish Government—it is on Page 285 of your document book—we find, as an outstanding part of the material collected, the ill-treatment of prisoners of war and their extermination. It is said in the report—and I quote:
“As and when the Polish officers and other ranks returned from German prisoner-of-war camps, we learn further details concerning conditions prevailing in the German camps. All these details undeniably prove the existence of a line of policy, instructions, and orders concerning the Polish prisoners of war. Ill-treatment, hardship, and inhuman conditions were of common occurrence. Murders and grievous bodily injuries were frequently encountered. A few examples confirmed by witnesses under oath are submitted later on.”
I take the liberty of reading into the record some of the examples quoted in the Polish report. As a first example, I shall quote the description of an incident which occurred in a temporary prisoner-of-war camp in the city of Belsk. This material figures on Page 285 of your document book:
“On 10 October 1939 the camp commandant assembled all the prisoners and ordered those who had joined the Polish Army as volunteers to raise their hands. Three prisoners obeyed his order. They were immediately led out of the rank and placed at a distance of 25 meters from a detachment of German soldiers armed with machine guns. The commandant gave the order to open fire. He then spoke to the remaining prisoners and told them that the three volunteers had been shot as an example to the others.”