In order fully to understand on what a tremendous scale the Hitlerites committed their crimes in connection with the physical extermination of the Soviet people in the territory of the U.S.S.R., I ask the Tribunal to refer to Page 299 in their document book.
THE PRESIDENT: You are now passing away from Greece, are you, Colonel Smirnov?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take a recess then.
[A recess was taken.]
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: With your permission, Mr. President, and in accordance with the instruction of the Tribunal, I shall omit a number of items in my statement. These items, which I shall exclude from the text, amount to a number of pages; and I request your permission to tell the interpreters how many pages I skip. I draw the attention of the Tribunal to a document dealing with the large-scale extermination of Soviet nationals in the temporarily occupied districts of the U.S.S.R. In confirmation of this fact I refer to a document which you, Your Honors, will find on Page 291 of the document book, at the end of the last paragraph of the first column and on the second column of the text. This deals with the report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union concerning the destruction, plundering, and atrocities of the German fascist invaders in the town of Rovno and the Rovno region. I submit this document as Exhibit Number USSR-45 (Document Number USSR-45).
I quote the results of the examination by legal-medical experts concerning the bodies of peaceful Soviet citizens murdered by the Germans and subsequently exhumed:
“1. In all investigated burial places in the city of Rovno and its surroundings, over 102,000 corpses of peaceful citizens and prisoners of war, shot or murdered by other methods, were discovered. Out of this figure:
“a) In the city of Rovno, near the lumber yard on Belaya Street, 49,000 corpses were discovered.
“b) In the city of Rovno, on Belaya Street, in the vegetable gardens, 32,500.