“The Chief of Police in White Ruthenia, despite the difficult situation, has been given orders to solve the Jewish question as soon as possible. All the same, this calls for about two months’ time, according to the weather.
“The distribution of the remaining Jews in special ghettos of White Ruthenia is nearing its end.”
In order to show how mass executions of the Jews by the German criminals were carried out, I present to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-119(a) (Document Number USSR-119(a)) a photostatic copy, certified by the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union of an original German document. This is the conclusive report of the commander of one of the companies of the 12th Regiment of Police, which carried out the mass extermination of the Jews assembled in the ghetto of the town of Pinsk. On 29 and 30 October 1942, the criminal elements from the 15th Regiment of Police murdered 26,200 Jews in Pinsk. This is how Company Commander Sauer described the crime. I shall not quote the document in toto since it is rather long, but I shall quote a few excerpts. The passage I am about to read—and I ask the Tribunal’s permission to read it into the record—is on Page 177 of your document book, Paragraph 3. I begin the quotation:
“The ordered encirclement of the districts was accomplished at 0430 hours; owing to the personal investigations made by the commanders and to the manner in which the secret was kept, the encirclement was carried out in the shortest time imaginable and it was impossible for the Jews to flee.
“The combing of the ghetto was to begin at 0600 hours, but owing to the darkness it was postponed for another half-hour. The Jews had noticed the proceedings and began to assemble voluntarily in all the streets. With the aid of two Wachtmeister (Staff Sergeants) it was possible to bring several thousand Jews to the assembly point within the very first hour. When the remaining Jews realized what was coming, they too joined this column, so that the screening planned by the SD at the assembly point could not be carried out in view of the enormous multitude which had gathered. (For the first day of the comb-out only one to two thousand persons had been counted on.) The first comb-out ended at 1700 hours without any incident. About 10,000 persons were executed on this first day. That night the company was standing by, ready for action, in a soldiers’ club.
“On 30 October 1942 the ghetto was combed a second time. On 31 October it was combed for the third time and on 1 November for the fourth time. About 15,000 Jews were rounded up, all told. Sick Jews and children left behind in the houses were executed on the spot in the yard of the ghetto. About 1,200 Jews were executed in the ghetto.”
I request the permission of the Tribunal to allow me to continue quoting the second page of the document which corresponds to Page 178 of the document book, Paragraph 6. I quote two points from the section “Experiences.” I begin to quote:
“3) Where there are no cellars and a considerable number of persons are huddled together in the small space between the floor and the ground, these places must be broken into from the outside, or else police dogs sent in (one police dog, Asta, put up a remarkably good performance in Pinsk), otherwise a hand grenade should be thrown in, after which the Jews invariably come out into the open.”
I further quote Point 5:
“We recommend persuading half-grown persons to disclose these hiding places by promising to spare their lives. This method has fully justified its application.”