“In the main jail in Riga they murdered over 2,000 children who had been torn from their parents, and in the Salaspil Camp, more than 3,000.”
From the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes of the Hitlerites in Lithuania, the Tribunal will learn of the brutal methods employed by the Germans to separate children from their parents incarcerated in prisons, concentration camps, or ghettos—these methods usually preceded the murder of the children. This document has already been submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-7 (Document USSR-7) to the Tribunal. The members of the Tribunal will find the place referred to on Page 295, first column, sixth paragraph of the document book. I omit the first paragraph, which mentions the organization of the camp. This has no direct relation to children, and I begin with the second paragraph, which shows what was done with them:
“In the beginning of 1944 the Germans in this camp forcibly took children from 6 to 12 years old and carried them off. An inhabitant of the city of Kovno, Vladislav Blum, testified:
“ ‘Heart-rending scenes occurred under my eyes. The Germans took the children away from their mothers and sent them, no one knows where. Many children were shot together with their mothers.’
“On the walls of the camp buildings inscriptions were discovered concerning the crimes of the Hitlerite monsters. Here are some of them:
“ ‘Avenge us! Let the whole world know and understand how savagely our children were exterminated! Our days are counted! Farewell! Let the whole world know and let it not forget to avenge our innocent children! Women of all the world, remember and understand all the atrocities which befell our innocent children in the 20th century! My child is already dead, I am indifferent to everything!’ ”
Further, I refer to the document which has already been presented to the Tribunal under Document Number USSR-63. This is an official report on the torture and shooting of children in the Domachev children’s asylum of the Brest region in the Bielorussian S.S.R. The members of the Tribunal will find this document on the reverse side of Page 223, fifth paragraph, first column. I shall quote three or four paragraphs out of this document, omitting the remainder:
“By order of the German occupational authorities of the district, the Chief of the Prokopchuk district ordered the principal of the children’s home, A. P. Pavliuk, to poison a sick 12-year-old child, Lena Renklach. After Pavliuk refused to carry out the order, the child was shot by policemen in the vicinity of the children’s home, allegedly ‘while trying to escape.’
“In order to save the children from starvation and death, 11 of them were distributed among the local population in 1942, and 16 children were taken by their relatives.”
And this was the further fate of those children. I continue with my quotation: