For the education of adolescents, the German fascists created a special organization, the so-called Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend). The Defendant Baldur von Schirach was for quite a long time the head of this organization.
What kind of methods were used for the education of German youth by the fascist criminals is described by a French subject, Ida Vasso, the directress of a hostel for aged Frenchmen in Lvov. During the German occupation of Lvov, she had an opportunity of visiting the Lvov ghetto. In her statement to the Extraordinary State Commission, Vasso described the local system for the extermination of human beings.
From Vasso’s statement it is obvious that the Germans educated the Hitler Youth by training these young fascists to shoot at living targets—at children specially handed over to the Hitler Youth to serve as targets.
Vasso’s statement was checked by the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union and fully confirmed. In confirmation of this evidence I will submit to the Court Exhibit Number USSR-6 (Document Number USSR-6), which is a report by the Extraordinary State Commission, entitled, “German Atrocities Perpetrated in the Territory of the Lvov Region.”
I now quote from Vasso’s statement in this connection. It is included in the text of the report as a certified document, on Page 6-c of the document book. The Tribunal will find Vasso’s statement on the reverse side of Page 59, Paragraph 5, beginning from Line 14 from the beginning of the paragraph:
“. . . the little children were martyrs. They were handed over to the Hitler Youth who used them as living targets while learning how to shoot. No mercy for others, all for themselves—this was the motto of the Germans. The whole world must learn of their methods. We, who were the helpless witnesses of these revolting scenes, must speak of those horrors in order that everybody should know of them and, what is more important, should never forget them since no vengeance will ever bring the millions of dead back to life again.”
Your Honors can turn to the same Page 59 of the document book, Line 10 from the beginning of the second paragraph. Here the Tribunal will find the official confirmation of Vasso’s statement. The Extraordinary State Commission established that, in Lvov, the Germans:
“Spared neither men, women, or children. The adults were simply killed on the spot; the children were given to the Hitler Youth for target practice.”
In this manner were created, educated, and trained the amoral monstrosities who were called upon to materialize the program of the major war criminals for the actual destruction of the population in the Eastern European countries. The fascist government had no need to fear that the “Standard Bearers of the National Socialist Revolution” in the East would show any traces of humanity at all.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, I hope you will forgive my interrupting you; but as I had to point out to Colonel Pokrovsky just now, we really don’t want any comment upon each one of these documents. The passage you have just read to us now is nothing but comment upon the frightful document which you have just read. It all takes time. If you could find your way to cut out the comment after these documents and simply to present us with the documents, it will save time.