MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Were these official orders?
SUZKEVER: Yes, issued by Muhrer.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Were they posted?
SUZKEVER: Yes, they were posted in the ghetto. The same Muhrer, when he visited the ghetto, went into the shops where the Jews were working for him and ordered all workers to fall down on the ground and bark like dogs. On Atonement Day in 1941 Schweichenberg and the same Sonderkommando broke into the second ghetto and seized all the old men who were praying in the synagogues and drove them to Ponari. I remember when Schweichenberg went to the second ghetto and the man-hunters seized the Jews.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Who were these hunters?
SUZKEVER: The soldiers of the Sonderkommando who seized the Jews and whom the population called the hunters.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: So they were soldiers of the Sonderkommando, whom the population called hunters?
SUZKEVER: Yes, that is so. These hunters dragged the Jews out of the cellars and tried to drive them to Ponari. But the Jews knew that nobody returned alive and did not want to go. Then Schweichenberg began to shoot at the inhabitants of the ghetto. I remember that there was a big dog at his side; and when this dog heard the shots, it jumped at Schweichenberg and began to bite his throat like a mad dog. Then Schweichenberg killed this dog and told the Jews to bury it and to cry over its grave. We really cried then—we cried because it was not Schweichenberg but the dog that had been buried.
At the end of December 1941 an order was issued in the ghetto which stated that the Jewish women must not bear children.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I would like you to tell us how, or in what form, this order was issued by the German fascists.