MR. DODD: No questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any member of the defendants’ counsel wish to ask any questions? No? Then the witness can retire.
[The witness left the stand.]
Yes, Colonel Smirnov.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I would like to modify the plan of my statement and leave out just now that chapter of my statement which is entitled, “Religious Persecutions,” to which I shall come back a little later. I would now like, with your permission, to take up that part of my statement which is entitled, “Experiments on Living Persons.” It is on Page 47 of the Russian text.
Before reading this part of my statement, I would like to quote a few short extracts from a document which has not as yet been read into the record by our United States colleagues, because the main part of this document refers to experiments which were described in detail by the United States Prosecution with the help of other documents. This document is registered under Document Number 400-PS (Exhibit Number USSR-435). It refers to experiments by Dr. Rascher. It is submitted to the Tribunal as a photostat copy, which includes a series of documents. I quote two paragraphs only from this Document Number 400-PS. These two paragraphs testify to the predilection of Dr. Rascher for the Auschwitz Camp. This extract is on Page 149 of the document book, last paragraph:
“It would be simpler if I were soon transferred to the Waffen-SS and could visit the Auschwitz Camp with Neff, where I could, by a series of large scale experiments, solve the problem of reviving people who had been frozen on land. For these experiments Auschwitz is in every respect better adapted than Dachau, for the climate is colder there and, as the camp area is larger, less attention will be attracted. The victims yell when they are being frozen.
“If it is agreeable to you, esteemed Reichsführer, to have these experiments—so important for our land forces—quickly carried out at Auschwitz (or in Lublin or any other Eastern camp), I would respectfully beg you to give the necessary orders in the near future so that we could yet profit by the last cold, winter weather. With most obedient greetings I am, in sincere gratitude, Heil Hitler, your always devoted servant, S. Rascher.”
I would like to remind the Tribunal that this special interest of Dr. Rascher in the Auschwitz Camp—I remind the Tribunal that Auschwitz was the central section of the camp situated near the town of Oswieczim—was not accidental. In Auschwitz cruel experiments on live persons were carried out on a scale greatly exceeding all that was done in Dachau or other concentration camps of the Reich.
Our Exhibit Number USSR-8 (Document Number USSR-8) has already been added to the file of the case. It is the report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union on the monstrous crimes of the German Government in Oswieczim. The introductory part of this report contains the following excerpt, which the members of the Tribunal will find on Page 196 of the document book. I read one paragraph only: