“With the aid of iron hooks, the corpses were dragged to certain spots and then piled on a wooden platform. Then the whole pile of corpses was surrounded with logs, petroleum was poured on and ignited.
“We, the policemen of detachment 1005-B, were then led back to the cemetery to the church. However, not one of us could eat because of the terrible smell and because of all we had seen.”
Although further on the text is very interesting, I have to leave it out in order to save time and continue the quotation from Page 351, second paragraph. I quote this excerpt, as in the report of the Kiev Extraordinary State Commission I already had the honor to report to the Tribunal about statements of internees who had fled from these Kommandos.
Adametz’ testimony gives full confirmation of this episode. I shall only read a short quotation:
“About 29 September 1943 at 4:15 a.m. during dense fog, about 30 internees escaped. They tore off their foot chains, rushed out of their barracks with shouts, and ran away in different directions. Six of them were shot; because of the dense fog the others succeeded in escaping.”
I interrupt my quotation. I beg the Tribunal to pay attention to the fact that as soon as the work of burning corpses was completed the internees were murdered. In proof of this I quote the following excerpt from Adametz’ statement, Page 352, second paragraph of the text:
“In other places where I also served as guard, the internees were murdered after their work (exhuming and burning of corpses) had been concluded. For this purpose they were brought in groups or individually, under the escort of the policemen chosen for this purpose, to a spot designated by the SD. The police were afterwards sent back to bring along more internees. Then the members of the SD forced the internees to lie, face down, on a wooden platform, and immediately shot them in the nape of the neck. The internees in many cases obeyed this order without resistance and lay down next to their comrades who already had been shot.”
I draw the attention of the Tribunal to the further career of the Sonderkommando. You will find information on this subject in the same record. This Sonderkommandant served in Kryvoy Rog, in Nikolaev, at Voznessensk, and in Riga. That is to say, it crossed my country nearly from the extreme south to the Baltic countries; a distance of thousands of kilometers. Everywhere it carried out the same work. In confirmation of this I will quote only a short excerpt regarding the last stage on the Kommando’s work in Riga—Page 357 of the statement. I begin the quotation, “We members of Kommando 1005-B received an order to go to several newly built barracks which were situated about 250 meters from six or seven mass graves.” I quote this passage, as Bikerneksky Forest will be shown in the documentary film:
“The latter were situated about 4 kilometers from the suburbs of Riga in the Bikern Forest”—in the record the name of the Bikerneksky Forest was spelled wrong—“there were about 10 or 12 thousand. A fresh group of 50 or 60 internees was brought there, and in the middle of June 1944 work began (the exhumation and burning of corpses) in the same way as I described at the beginning. This work was completed by the end of July 1944. I believe that at that period the front was only about 300 kilometers away. These 10,000 to 12,000 corpses were those of men, women, and children of all ages and had been buried about 2 years ago.”
I remind Your Honors, that the extract from the report of the Extraordinary State Commission which I quoted mentioned the date of the shooting as 1942, and this proves that these two testimonies concur with each other once again. I continue the quotation: