“Between 26th and 30th March 1944 these officers were interrogated at the Kripo headquarters in Görlitz and then returned to the gaol there. During the interrogation Casey was told that ‘he would lose his head,’ Wiley that ‘he would be shot,’ and Leigh that ‘he would be shot.’ Hake was suffering from badly frostbitten feet and was incapable of traveling for any distance on foot. On 30th March the officers left Görlitz in three motor cars accompanied by 10 German civilians of the Gestapo type. The urns later received at the Stalag bear their names and show them to have been cremated at Görlitz on 31st March 1944.
“Flight Lieutenants Humpreys, McGill, Swain, Hall, Langford, and Evans; Flight Officers Valenta, Kolanowski, Stewart, and Birkland.
“These officers were interrogated at the Kripo headquarters in Görlitz between 26th and 30th March. Swain was told that ‘he would be shot,’ Valenta was threatened and told that ‘he would never escape again.’ Kolanowski was very depressed after his interview. On 31st March these officers were collected by a party of German civilians, at least one of whom was in the party which had come on the previous day. The urns later received at the Stalag bore their names and show them to have been cremated at Liegnitz on a date unspecified.”
I wish to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that similar data also relate to different groups of British officers slain by the Germans in Stalag Luft III.
The following page of the text includes identical data relating to Flight lieutenants Grisman, Gunn, Williams, and Milford, Flight Officer Street and Lieutenant McGarr. Similar information is given concerning Flight Lieutenant Long, Squadron Leader J. E. Williams, Flight Lieutenants Bull and Mondschein, and Flight Officer Kierath. The same information is given with reference to Flight Officer Stower, Flight Lieutenant Tobolski, Flight Officer Krol, Flight Lieutenants Wallen, Marcinkus, and Brettell, Flight Officer Picard and Lieutenants Gouws and Stevens, Squadron Leader Bushell and Lieutenant Scheidhauer, Flight Officer Cochran, Lieutenants Espelid and Fugelsang, Squadron Leader Kirby-Green and Flight Officer Kidder, Squadron Leader Catanach and Flight Officer Christensen, and Flight Lieutenant Hayter.
I shall, with your permission, read into the record one more paragraph from this official report. I refer to Paragraph 6 of the official British report and also to Paragraph 5, because it is of essential importance.
THE PRESIDENT: I was going to suggest you should read Paragraph 5.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I am going to read Paragraph 5 of the British text:
“According to the evidence of the survivors there was no question of any officers having resisted arrest or of the recaptured officers having attempted a second escape. All were agreed that the weather conditions were against them and that such an attempt would be madness. They were anxious to be returned to the Stalag, take their punishment, and try their luck at escaping another time.
“6. The Swiss representative (M. Gabriel Naville) pointed out on 9th June 1944 in his report on his visit to Sagan that the cremation of deceased prisoners of war was most unusual (the normal custom being to bury them in a coffin with military honors) and that was the first case known to him where the bodies of deceased prisoners had been cremated. Further it may be noted that if, as the Germans alleged, these 50 officers who were recaptured in widely scattered parts of Germany had resisted arrest or attempted a second escape, it is probable that some would have been wounded and most improbable that all would have been killed. In this connection it is significant that the German Foreign Office refused to give to the protecting power the customary details of the circumstances in which each officer lost his life.”