MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: If I understood you rightly you were also medico-legal expert in the case of other shootings in the district of Smolensk?
PROSOROVSKI: In the district of Smolensk and its environs I have exhumed and examined together with my assistants another 1,173 corpses, besides those of Katyn. They were exhumed from 87 graves.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: How did the Germans camouflage the common graves of the victims which they had shot?
PROSOROVSKI: In the district of Smolensk, in Gadeonovka, the following method was used:
The top layer of earth on these graves was covered with turf, and in some cases, as in Gadeonovka, young trees were planted as well as bushes; all this with a view to camouflaging. Besides, in the so-called Engineers’ Garden of the town of Smolensk, the graves were covered with bricks and paths were laid out.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: So you exhumed more than 5,000 corpses in various parts of the Soviet Union.
PROSOROVSKI: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: What were the causes of death of the victims in most cases?
PROSOROVSKI: In most cases the cause of death was a bullet wound in the head, or in the nape of the neck.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Were the causes of death at Katyn similar to those met with in other parts of the Soviet Union? I am speaking of mass-shootings.