“The witnesses, L. K. Ostrovski, C. B. Berlandt, W. Y. Davydov, Y. A. Steyuk, and J. M. Brodski, who had escaped the shootings at Baybe-yar on 29 September 1943, testified:
“ ‘As prisoners of war we were interned in the Syretzk Concentration Camp in the outskirts of Kiev. On 18 August 100 of us were sent to Baybe-yar. There we were shackled in chains and ordered to exhume and burn the corpses of Soviet citizens who had been murdered by the Germans. Here the Germans brought granite monuments and iron railings from the cemetery. From these monuments we made platforms on which we placed rails, and on top of these rails we laid the iron grills to act as fire bars. On the iron grills a layer of firewood was placed, and on top of the firewood we placed a layer of corpses. On the corpses we placed a further layer of firewood and poured petroleum over the whole. Following this order the corpses were piled up in several layers and then ignited. About 2,500 to 3,000 corpses were placed in each of these “ovens.” The Germans detailed special crews for the removal of earrings, rings, and also gold teeth from the jaws of the dead.
“ ‘When all the corpses were burned, new “ovens” were stacked, and so on. The bones were smashed into small particles by bulldozers and the ashes strewn over the Yar, so that no traces should be left. The men worked from 12 to 15 hours a day.
“ ‘The Germans used excavators in order to expedite the work. From 18 August until the day of our escape—29 September—approximately 70,000 corpses were burned.’ ”
I interrupt this quotation and invite the attention of the Tribunal to a document on Page 287, Volume II, Paragraph 5 of the document book, second column. This is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes of the German fascist invaders in the territory of the Latvian S.S.R. In the place to which I will draw the attention of the Tribunal it is shown that the Hitlerites systematically carried out executions in the forest of Birkeneck. I make a special point of quoting this because further on we shall present documentary films showing full details of these mass shootings. I begin the quotation:
“In the forest of Birkeneck, on the outskirts of the city of Riga, the Hitlerites shot 46,500 peaceful citizens. The witness, M. Stabulnek, a woman who lived in the vicinity of the forest, stated that:
“ ‘On Friday and Saturday before Easter, 1942, packed busses went from the city to the forest. I saw 41 busses passing my house from the beginning of Friday morning to noon. On Easter Sunday, many inhabitants—I among them—went into the forest to the site of the executions. There we saw one large open pit containing the bodies of women and children who had been shot; they were either naked or in their underwear. There were traces of torture and ill-treatment on the corpses of the women and children, many of whom had black and blue bruises on their faces and cuts on their heads. Some had had their hands and fingers cut off, their eyes gouged out, and their stomachs ripped open.’ ”
I now omit one paragraph and continue:
“The commission discovered, on the execution ground, 55 graves covering a total area of 2,885 square meters.”
I quote one more paragraph from this communication: