Before submitting my last proof, I beg the Tribunal to allow me to make a few conclusive remarks.
The lengthy list of crimes against the peaceful inhabitants of the temporarily occupied areas of the U.S.S.R., Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Greece cannot be exhausted even in the most detailed statement. One can only point out a few very typical cases of cruelties, of base and systematic methods adopted by the major criminals who had conceived these crimes, as well as those who executed these crimes. Those who are now in the dock have freed from “the chimera of so-called conscience” hundreds of thousands and millions of criminals. They educated these criminals and created for them an atmosphere of impunity and drove their bloodthirsty hounds against peaceful citizens. They mocked at human conscience and self-respect. But those who were poisoned in murder vans and gas chambers, those who were torn to shreds, those whose bodies were burned in the ovens of crematoria and whose ashes were strewn to the winds, appeal to the conscience of the world. Now we cannot yet name, or even number, many of the burial places where millions of innocent people were vilely murdered. But on the damp walls of the gas chambers, in the places of the shootings, in the forts of death, on the stones and casemates of the prisons, we can still read brief messages of the doomed, full of agony, calling for retribution. Let the living ones remember these voices of the victims of German fascist terror, who before dying appealed to the conscience of the world for justice and for retribution.
As a last proof I submit to the Tribunal the script and the sworn affidavit of the persons who assembled and made this documentary film. I beg the Tribunal to accept as evidence this documentary film (Document Number USSR-81). I also beg the Tribunal to allow, if possible, a short recess—about 10 minutes—for the technical preparation of the demonstration of these documents.
[A recess was taken.]
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Your Honor, may I have permission to present now the documentary evidence?
[The documentary film entitled, “The Atrocities by the German Fascist Invaders in the U.S.S.R.,” was then shown.]
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, have you finished your address?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I have finished the presentation of my evidence, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you inform the Tribunal how much longer the Soviet Delegation is likely to be?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I find it difficult to give you an answer to this question. I will ask the Chief Prosecutor to do this.