Kerch is a comparatively small town. It is separated from Lvov by many hundred of kilometers. Although the German invaders arrived in Lvov in the beginning of July 1941, they only reached Kerch in November. In January 1942 they had already been driven out by Red Army units.
Thus, the entire period of the first occupation of the city of Kerch—the city of Kerch has been occupied two times—by the Germans was short-lived and did not last more than 2 months. But here are the crimes perpetrated by the German fascists in this town. I begin the quotation. The Tribunal will find the passage in question on Page 227 of the document book, Column 2, Paragraph 5:
“After capturing the city in November 1941, the Hitlerites immediately issued an order to the following effect:
“The inhabitants of Kerch are ordered to deliver all family food stocks to the German Kommandos. Owners of undelivered and detected supplies will be shot.
“By the next order, Number 2, the town council ordered the inhabitants to register immediately all hens, roosters, ducks, chickens, turkeys, geese, sheep, cows, calves, and cattle. Poultry owners were strictly prohibited from using fowl and cattle for their own needs without special permission of the German commandant. After the publication of these orders a wholesale search of all apartments and houses began.
“The members of the Gestapo behaved outrageously. For each kilogram of beans or flour discovered in excess, the head of the family was shot.
“The Germans initiated their monstrous atrocities by poisoning 245 children of school age.”
Later on you will see the small bodies of these children in our documentary film. The infants’ bodies were thrown into the city moat.
“According to instructions issued by the German commandant, all the school children were ordered to appear at the school at a given time. On arrival, the 245 children, school books in hand, were sent to a factory school outside the town, allegedly for a walk. There the cold and hungry infants were offered coffee and poisoned pies. Since there was not enough coffee to go round, those who did not get any were sent to the infirmary where a German orderly smeared their lips with a quick-acting poison. In a few minutes all the children were dead. School children of the higher grades were carried off in trucks and shot down by machine gun fire 8 kilometers outside of the town. The bodies of the first batch of murdered children were brought to the same spot—a very large, very long, antitank trench.”
I continue the quotation: