dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Babel, I have already pointed out to you that you must have anticipated that the witnesses might be called to state the conditions in concentration camps. You must therefore have had full opportunity during the days the Trial has taken place for making up your mind on what points you would cross- examine, and I see no reason to discuss the matter with you.
HERR BABEL: Thank you for this information. But naturally I cannot know in advance exactly what the witness is going to say, and I cannot cross-examine him until I have heard him. I know, of course, that a witness is going to make a statement about concentration camps but I cannot know in advance which particular points he will discuss.
M. DUBOST: I would ask the Tribunal to note that in questioning the French witness the Defense used certain words the literal translation of which is "for the most part." This applied to the character of the French deportees. The question was, "Were they criminals for the most part?" The witness understood it to be as I did: "Did you say that they were criminals?" and not "that the convoys were for the most part composed of criminals." His reply was the natural one. The Tribunal will allow me to ask the witness to give details. What was the proportion of common-law criminals and patriots respectively among the deportees? Was he himself a common-law criminal or a patriot? Were the generals and other personalities whose names he has given us common-law criminals or patriots, speaking generally?
DUPONT: The proportion of French common-law criminals was very small. The common-law criminals came from Fort Barraut in a convoy. I cannot give the exact figures, but there were only a few hundred out of all the internees. In other incoming convoys the proportion of common-law criminals included was only 2 or 3 per thousand.
M. DUBOST: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire. [The witness left the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, are you proposing or asking to call other witnesses upon concentration camps? Because, as I have already pointed out to you, the evidence, with the exception of Dr. Babel's recent cross-examination, has practically not been cross-examine; and it is supported by other film evidence. We are instructed by Article 18 of the Charter to conduct the Trial in as expeditious a way as possible; and I will point out to you, as ordered under 24e of the Charter , you have the opportunity of calling rebutting evidence, if it were necessary and, therefore, if the evidence which has been so fully gone into as to the condition in concentration camps...
M. DUBOST: The witness whom I propose to ask the Tribunal to hear will elucidate a point which has been pending for several weeks. The Tribunal will remember that when my American colleagues were presenting their e vidence, the question of ascertaining whether Kaltenbrunner had been in Mauthausen arose. In evidence of this, I am going to call M. Boix, who win prove to the Tribunal that Kaltenbrunner had been in Mauthausen. He has photographs of that visit and the Tribunal will see them, as the witness brought them with him.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. [The witness, Boix, took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: What is your name?
M. FRANCOIS BOIX (Witness): Francois Boix.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you French?
BOIX: I am a Spanish refugee.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me. I swear to speak without hate or fear, to say the truth, all the truth, only the truth. [The witness repeated the oath in French.]
THE PRESIDENT: Raise your right hand and say, "I swear."
BOIX: I swear.
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down. M. Dubost, will you spell the name.
M. DUBOST: B-O-I-X. [Turning -to the witness.] You were born on 14 August 1920 in Barcelona?
BOIX: Yes.
M. DUBOST: You are a news photographer, and you were interned in the camp of Mauthausen, since...
BOIX: Since 27 January 1941.
M. DUBOST: You handed over to the commission of *inquiry a certain number of photographs?
BOIX: Yes.
M. DUBOST: They are going to be projected on the screen and you will state under oath under what circumstances and where these pictures were taken?
BOIX: Yes.
M. DUBOST: How did you obtain these pictures?
BOIX: Owing to my professional knowledge, I was sent to Mauthausen to work in the identification branch of the camp. There was a photographic branch, and pictures of everything happening in the camp could be taken and sent to the High Command in Berlin. [Pictures were then projected on the screen.]
M. DUBOST: This is the general view of the quarry. Is this where the internees worked?
BOIX: Most of them.
M. DUBOST: Where is the stairway?
BOIX: In the rear.
M. DUBOST: How many steps were there?
BOIX: 160 steps at first; later on there were 186.
M. DUBOST: We can proceed to the next picture.
BOIX: This was -taken in the quarry during a visit from ReichsFuehrer Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, the Governor of Linz, and some other leaders whose names I do not know. What you see below is the dead body of a man who had fallen from the top of the quarry (70 meters), as happened every day.
M. DUBOST: We can proceed to the next picture.
BOIX: This was taken in April 1941. My Spanish comrades who had sought refuge in France are pulling a wagon loaded with earth. That was the work we had to do.
M. DUBOST: By whom was this picture taken?
BOIX: At that time by Paul Bicken a professor from Essen.
M. DUBOST: We may proceed to the next one.
BOIX: This staged the scene of an Austrian who had escaped. He was a carpenter in the garage and he managed to make a box, a box in which he could hide and so get out of the camp. But after a while he was recaptured. They put him on the wheelbarrow in which corpses were carried to the crematorium. There were some placards saying in German, "Alle Vogel sind schon da," meaning "All the birds are back again." He was sentenced and then paraded in front of 10,000 deportees to the music of a gypsy band playing a song "J'attendrai." When he was hanged, his body swung to and fro in the wind while they played the very well known song, "Bill Black Polka."
M. DUBOST: The next one.
BOIX: This is the scene; in this picture we see on the right and left all the deportees in a row; on the left are the Spaniards, they are smaller. The man in the front with the beret, is a criminal from Berlin by the name of Schultz, who was employed on these occasions. In the background you can see the man who is about to be hanged.
M. DUBOST: Next one. Who took these pictures?
BOIX: By the SS OberscharFuehrer Fritz Kornatz. He was killed by American troops in Holland in 1944. This man, a Russian prisoner of war, got a bullet in the head. They hanged him to make us think he was a suicide and had tried to hurl himself against the barbed wire. The other picture shows some Dutch Jews. That was taken at Barracks C, the so-called quarantine barracks. The Jews were driven to hurl themselves against the barbed wire on the very day of their arrival because they realized that there was no hope to escape for them.
M. DUBOST: By whom were these pictures taken?
BOIX: At this time by the SS OberscharFuehrer Paul Ricken, a professor from Essen.
M. DUBOST: Next one.
BOIX: These are 2 Dutch Jews. You can see, the red star they wore. That was an alleged attempt to escape (Fluchtversuch).
M. DUBOST: What, was it in reality?
BOIX: The SS sent them to pick up stones near the barbed wires, and the SS guards at the second barbed wire fence fired on them, because they received a reward for every man they shot down. The other picture shows a Jew in 1941 during the construction of the so-called Russian camp, which later became the sanitary camp, hanged with the cord which he used to keep up his trousers.
M. DUBOST: Was it suicide?
BOIX: It was alleged to be. It was a man who no longer had any hope of escape. He was driven to desperation by forced labor and torture.
M. DUBOST: What is this picture?
BOIX: A Jew whose nationality I do not know. He was put in a barrel of water until he could not stand it any longer. He was beaten to the point of death and then given 10 minutes in which to hang himself. He used his own belt to do it, for he knew what would happen to him otherwise.
M. DUBOST: Who took that picture?
BOIX: The SS OberscharFuehrer Paul Ricken.
M. DUBOST: And what is this picture?
BOIX: Here you see the Viennese police visiting the quarry. This was in June or July 1941. The two deportees whom you see here are two of my Spanish comrades.
M. DUBOST: What are they doing?
BOIX: They are showing the police how they had to raise the stones, because there were no other appliances for doing so.
M. DUBOST: Did you know any of the policemen who came?
BOIX: No, because they came only once. We had just time to have a look at them. The date of this picture is September 1943, on the birthday of ObersturmbannFuehrer Franz Ziereis. He is surrounded by the whole staff of Mauthausen Camp. I can give you the names of all the people in the picture.
M. DUBOST: Pass the next photo.
BOIX: This is a picture taken on the same day as ObersturmbanniFuehrer Franz Ziereis's birthday. The other man was his adjutant. I forgot his name. It must be remembered that this adjutant was a member of the Wehrmacht and put on an SS uniform as soon as he came to the camp.
M. DUBOST: Who is that?
BOIX: That is the same visit to Mauthausen by police officials in June or July 1941. This is the kitchen door. The prisoners standing there had been sent to the disciplinary company. They used that little appliance on their backs for carrying stones up to a weight of 80 kilos, until they were exhausted. Very few men ever came back from the disciplinary company. This picture shows Himmler's visit to the Fuehrerheim. at Camp Mauthausen in April 1941. It shows Himmler with the Governor of Linz in the background and OBERSTURMBANNFuehrer Ziereis, the commanding officer of Camp Mauthausen, on his left. This picture was taken in the quarry. In the rear, to the left, you see a group of deportees at work. In the foreground are Franz Ziereis, Himmler, and ObergruppenFuehrer Kaltenbrunner. He is wearing the gold Party emblem.
M. DUBOST: This picture was taken in the quarry? By whom?
BOIX: By the SS OberscharFuehrer Paul Ricken. This was between April and May 1941. This gentleman frequently visited the camp at that period to see how similar camps could be organized throughout Germany and in the occupied countries.
M. DUBOST: I have finished. You give us your assurance that it is really Kaltenbrunner.
BOIX: I give you my assurance.
M. DUBOST: And that this picture was taken in the camp?
BOIX: I give you my assurance.
M. DUBOST: Were you taken to Mauthausen as a prisoner of war or as a political prisoner?
BOIX: As a prisoner of war.
M. DUBOST: You had fought as a volunteer in the French Army?
BOIX: Either in infantry battalions or in the Foreign Legion, or in the pioneer regiments attached to the Army to which I belonged. I was in the Vosges with the 5th Army. We were taken prisoners. We retreated as far as Belfort where I was taken prisoner in the night of 20-21 June 1940. 1 was put with some fellow Spaniards and transferred to Mulhouse. Knowing us to be former Spanish Republicans and anti-fascists, they put us in among the Jews as members of a lower order of humanity (Untermensch). We were prisoners of war for 6 months and then we learned that the Minister for Foreign Affairs had had an interview with Hitler to discuss the question of foreigners and other matters. We knew that our status had been among the questions raised. We heard that the Germans had asked what was to be done with Spanish prisoners of war who had served in the French Army, those of them who were Republicans and ex-members of the Republican Army. The answer...
M. DUBOST: Never mind that. So although you were a prisoner of war you were sent to a camp not under Army control?
BOIX: Exactly. We were prisoners of war. We were told that we were being transferred to a subordinate Kommando, like all the other Frenchmen. Then we were transferred to Mauthausen where, for the first time, we saw that there were no Wehrmacht soldiers and we realized that we were in an extermination camp.
M. DUBOST: How many of you arrived there?
BOIX: At the end we were 1,500; altogether 8,000 Spaniards at the time of our arrival.
M. DUBOST: How many of you were liberated?
BOIX: Approximately 1,600.
M. DUBOST: I have no more questions to ask.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you want to ask any questions?
GEN. RUDENKO: I shall have some questions. If the President will permit me I shall present them in tomorrow's session.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now. [The Tribunal adjourned until 29 January 1946 at 1000 hours.]
MARSHAL: May it please the Court, I desire now to say that the Defendant Kaltenbrunner will be absent from this morning's session on account of illness.
M. DUBOST: In my capacity as representative of the French Prosecution, I wish to ask the Tribunal to consider this request. The witnesses that were interrogated yesterday are to be cross-examine by the Defense. The conditions under which they are here are rather precarious, for it takes 30 hours to return to Paris. We would like to know whether we are to keep them here; and, if the Defense really intends to cross-examine them, we should like to proceed with that as quickly as possible in order to ensure their return to France.
THE PRESIDENT: In view of what you said yesterday, M. Dubost, I said on behalf of the Tribunal that Herr Babel might have the opportunity of cross-examining one of your witnesses within the next two days. Is Herr Babel ready to cross-examine that witness now?
HERR BABEL: No, Mr. President, I have not yet received a copy of his interrogation and consequently have not been able to prepare my cross-examination. The time from yesterday to today is, naturally, also too short, Therefore, I cannot yet make a definite statement whether or not I shall want to cross-examine the witness. If I were given an opportunity during the course of the day to get the Record....
THE PRESIDENT: [Interposing] Well, that witness must stay until tomorrow afternoon, M. Dubost, but the other witnesses can go. M. Dubost, will you see, if you can, that a copy of the shorthand notes is furnished to Herr Babel as soon as possible?
M. DUBOST: Yes, Mr. President. [The witness, Boix, took the stand.] I shall have it done, My Lord. We continue. The Tribunal will remember that yesterday afternoon we projected six photographs of Mauthausen which were brought to us by the witness who is now before you and on which he offered his comments. This witness specifically stated under what conditions the photograph representing Kaltenbrunner in the quarry of Mauthausen had been taken. We offer these photographs as a French document, Exhibit Number RF-332. Will you allow me to formulate one more question to the witness? Then I shall be through with him, at least concerning the important part of this testimony. Witness, do you recognize among the defendants anyone who visited the camp of Mauthausen during your internment there?
BOIX: Speer.
M. DUBOST: When did you see him?
BOIX: He came to the Gusen Camp in 1943 to arrange for some constructions and also to the quarry at Mauthausen. I did not see him myself as I was in the identification service of the camp and could not leave, but during these visits Paul Ricken, head of the identification department, took a roll of film with his Leica. which I developed. On this film I recognized Speer and some leaders of the SS as well, who came with him. Speer wore a light-colored suit.
M. DUBOST: You saw that on the pictures that you developed?
BOIX: Yes. I recognized him on the photos and afterward we had to write his name and the date because many SS always wanted to have collections of all the photos of visits to the camp. I recognized Speer on 36 photographs which were taken by SS OberscharFuehrer Paul Ricken in 1943, during Speer's visit to the Gusen Camp and the quarry of Mauthausen. He always looked extremely pleased in these pictures. There are even pictures which show him congratulating ObersturmbannFuehrer Franz Ziereis, then commander of the Mauthausen Camp, with a cordial handshake.
M. DUBOST: One last question. Were there any officiating chaplains in your camp? How did the internees who wanted religious consolation die?
BOIX: Yes, from what I could observe, there were several. There was an order of German Catholics, known as "Bibelforscher," but officially . . .
M. DUBOST: But officially did the administration of the camp grant the internees the right to practice their religion?
BOIX: No, they could do nothing, they were absolutely forbidden even to live.
M. DUBOST: Even to live?
BOIX: Even to live.
M. DUBOST: Were there any Catholic chaplains or any Protestant pastors?
BOIX: That sort of Bibelforscher were almost all Protestants. I do not know much about this matter.
M. DUBOST: How were monks, priests, and pastors treated?
BOIX: There was no difference between them and ourselves. They died in the same way we did. Sometimes they were sent to the gas chamber, at times they were shot, or plunged in freezing water; any way was good enough. The SS had a particularly harsh method of handling these people, because they knew that they were not able to work as normal laborers. They treated all intellectuals of all countries in this manner.
M. DUBOST: They were not allowed to exercise their functions?
BOIX: No, not at all.
M. DUBOST: Did the men who died have a chaplain before being executed?
BOIX: No, not at all. On the contrary, at times, instead of being consoled, as you say, by anyone of their faith, they received, just before being shot, 25 or 75 lashes with a leather thong even from an SS ObersturmbannFuehrer personally. I noticed especially the cases of a few officers, political commissars, and Russian prisoners of war.
M. DUBOST: I have no further questions to ask of the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: General Rudenko?
GEN. RUDENKO: Witness, please tell us what you know about the extermination of Soviet prisoners.
BOIX: I cannot possibly tell you all I know about it; I know so much that one month would not suffice to tell you all about it.
GEN. RUDENKO: Then I would like to ask you, Witness, to tell us concisely what you know about the extermination of Soviet prisoners in the camp of Mauthausen.
BOIX: The arrival of the first prisoners of war took place in 1941. The arrival of 2,000 Russian prisoners of war was announced. With regard to Russian prisoners of war, they took the same precautions as in the case of the Republican Spanish prisoners of war. They put machine guns everywhere around the barracks and expected the worst. As soon as the Russian prisoners of war entered the camp one, could see that they were in a very bad state, they could not even understand anything. They were human scarecrows. They were then put in barracks, 1,600 to a barracks. You must bear in mind these barracks were 7 meters wide by 50 long. They were divested of their clothes, of the very little they had with them; they could keep only one pair of drawers and one shirt. One has to remember that this was in November and in Mauthausen it was more than 10 degrees (centigrade) below zero. Upon their arrival there were already 20 deaths, from walking only the distance of 4 kilometers between the station and camp of Mauthausen. At first the same system was applied to them as to us Republican Spanish prisoners. They left us with nothing to do, with no work. They were left to themselves, but with scarcely anything to eat. At the end of a few weeks they were already at the end of their endurance. Then began the process of elimination. They were made to work under the most horrible conditions, they were beaten, hit, kicked, insulted; and out of the 7,000 Russian prisoners of war who came from almost everywhere, only 30 survivors were left at the end of three months. Of these 30 survivors photographs were taken by Paul Ricken's department as a document. I have these pictures and I can show them if the Tribunal so wishes.
GEN. RUDENKO: You do have these pictures?
BOIX: M. Dubost knows about that, yes. M. Dubost has them.
GEN. RUDENKO: Thank you. Can you show these pictures?
BOIX: M. Dubost has them.
GEN. RUDENKO: Thank you. What do you know about the Yugoslavs and the Poles?
BOIX: The first Poles came to the camp in 1939 at the moment of the defeat of Poland. They received the same treatment as everybody else did. At that time there were only ordinary German bandits there. Then the work of extermination was begun. There were tens of thousands of Poles who died under frightful conditions. The position of the Yugoslavs should be emphasized. The Yugoslavs began to arrive in convoys, wearing civilian clothes; and they were shot in a legal way, so to speak. The SS wore even their steel helmets for these executions. They shot them two at a time. The first transport brought 165, the second 180, and after that they came in small groups of 15, 50, 60, 30; and even women came then. It should be noted that once, among four women who were shot-and that was the only time in the camp of deportees-some of them spat in the face of the camp Fuehrer before dying. The Yugoslavs suffered as few people have suffered. Their position is comparable only to that of the Russians. Until the very end they were massacred by every means imaginable. I would like to say more about the Russians, because they have gone through so much ...
GEN. RUDENKO: Do I understand correctly from your testimony that the concentration camp was really an extermination camp?
BOIX: The camp was placed in the last category, category 3; that is, it was a camp from which no one could come out.
GEN. RUDENKO: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does Counsel for Great Britain desire to cross-examine?
COLONEL H. J. PHILLIMORE (Junior Counsel for United Kingdom): No questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel for the United States?
MR. THOMAS J. DODD (Executive Trial Counsel for the United States): No questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any counsel for the defendants wish to cross-examine?
HERR BABEL: Witness, how were you marked in the camp?
BOIX: The number? What kind of brand?
HERR BABEL: The prisoners were marked by variously colored stars, red, green, yellow, and so forth. Was this so in Mauthausen also? What did you wear?
BOIX: Everybody wore insignia. They were not stars; they were triangles and letters to show the nationality, Yellow and red stars were for the Jews, stars with six red and yellow points, two triangles, one over the other.
HERR BABEL: What color did you wear?
BOIX: A blue triangle with an "S" in it, that is to say "Spanish political refugee."
HERR BABEL: Were you a Kapo?
BOIX: No, I was an interpreter at first.
HERR BABEL: What were your tasks and duties there?
BOIX: I had to translate into Spanish all the barbaric things the Germans wished to tell the Spanish prisoners. Afterwards my work was with photography, developing the films which were taken all over the camp showing the full story -of what happened in the camp.
HERR BABEL: What was the policy with regard to visitors? Did visitors go only into the inner camp or to places where work was being done?