dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Shootings followed by burnings of the corpses in 1943, and shootings in the jail occurred in 1944. I skip the next page, and draw the attention of the Tribunal to that part of the document which is on Page 240, second column of the text; a description of the methodical destruction of the inmates in Rovno prison. I dwell on this point because similar methods of extermination of Soviet people are typical of the terrorist regime established by the Hitlerite invaders in the temporarily occupied territories of the U.S.S.R. I begin my quotation on Page 240 of the document book: "On 18 March 1943 the Rovno paper Volyn of the German occupational troops published the following announcement: " 'On 8 March 1943 inmates of Rovno prison attempted to escape, whereby they killed one German prison official and one guard. The escape was thwarted by the energetic action of the prison guard. By order of the commandant of the German Security Police and the SD, all the prison inmates were shot on that same day.' "In November 1943 the German district judge was murdered by a person unknown. As a measure of retaliation, the Hitlerites again shot over 350 inmates of Rovno prison." I will not quote any further examples of the executions in the prisons, since in those documentary films which will be submitted to the Tribunal, Your Honors will find a series of similar crimes committed by the Hitlerite invaders on the territories of the U.S.S.R. I pass on to the following part of my statement: "The retaliatory destruction of village populations." In the infinite chain of German fascist crime, there are some which will remain for a long time, perhaps forever, in the memory of indignant mankind, even though mankind will have learned about still graver crimes perpetrated by the Nazis. One of the crimes that will thus be remembered is the destruction of a small Czechoslovak village called "Lidice" and the bestial reprisal against the population of that village.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Many times and in even more cruel forms, the fate of Lidice was suffered on the territory of the Soviet Union, of Yugoslavia, and of Poland; but mankind will remember Lidice and will never forget it, for this lime village became a symbol of Nazi criminality. The destruction of Lidice was a retaliation by the Nazis for the just execution of the Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, Heydrich, by Czechoslovak patriots. The Chief Prosecutor of the U.S.S.R., when speaking of Lidice, quoted an official German report concerning this act of terror, which was published in the paper Der Neue Tag on 11 June 1942. I will quote a very short extract from the report of the Czechoslovak Government, which the Tribunal will find on Page 172 of the document book: "On 9 June 1942 the village of Lidice was surrounded, on the order of the Gestapo, by soldiers who arrived from the hamlet of Slany in 10 large trucks. They allowed anyone to enter the village, but no one was permitted to leave. A 12-year-old boy tried to escape; a soldier shot him on the spot. A woman tried to escape; a bullet in the back mowed her down, and her corpse was found in the fields after the harvest. 18 Feb. 46 "The Gestapo dragged the women and children to the school. "The 10th of June was the last day of Lidice and of its inhabitants. The men were locked up in the cellar, the barn, and the stable of the Horak family farm. They foresaw their fate and awaited it calmly. The 73-year old priest, Sternbeck, strengthened their spirit by his prayers." I omit the following two paragraphs and pursue my quotation: "The men were led out of the Horak farm into the garden behind the barn, in batches of 10, and shot. The murders lasted from early morning until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Afterwards the executioners were photographed with the corpses at their feet." I skip the following four paragraphs and pass on to the fate of the population of Lidice: "The fate of the men of Lidice has been described. One hundred seventy-two adult men and youths from 16 years upwards were shot on 10 June 1942.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Nineteen men who worked on 9 and 10 June in the Kladno mines were arrested later on in the collieries or nearby woods, taken to Prague and shot. "Seven women from Lidice were shot in Prague as well. The remaining 195 women were deported to the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Forty-two died of ill treatment; seven were gassed; three disappeared. Four of these women were taken from Lidice to a maternity hospital in Prague where their newly born infants were murdered; then the mothers were sent to Ravensbruck. "The children of Lidice were taken from their mothers a few days after the destruction of the village. Ninety children were sent to Lodz, in Poland, and thence to Gneisenau concentration camp, in the so-called Wartheland. So far no trace of these children has been found. Seven of the youngest, less than a year old, were taken to a German hospital in Prague. After examination by 'racial experts' they were sent to Germany, there to be brought up as Germans and under German names. Every trace of them has been lost. "Two or three infants were born in Ravensbruck concentration camp. They were killed at birth." The fate of Lidice was repeated in many Soviet villages. Many peaceful citizens of these villages perished in even greater torment: They were burned alive or died, victims of still more brutal forms of execution. I have considerably reduced the volume of the examples which I wished to quote, and I omit the next page of the text, drawing the attention of the Tribunal to the text on Page 295, second column of the text. This document, already submitted to the Tribunal by my colleague, Colonel Pokrovsky, is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union on the crimes of the Hitlerite invaders in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. I quote one paragraph only: "On 3 June 1944 in the village of Perchyoupa of the Trakai district, the Hitlerites broke into the village, surrounded and plundered it completely, after which, having driven all the men into one house and the women and children into three others, they set fire to the buildings.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Those who attempted to flee were caught by the fascist monsters and thrown back into the burning houses. In this manner the entire population of the village, 119 souls in all, 21 men, 29 women"-and I stress-"69 children, were burned to death." I close the quotation and beg the Tribunal to turn to another document, which I submit as Exhibit Number USSR-279 (Document Number USSR-279). It is a communiqué of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes of the German fascist invaders in the cities of Viazma, Gjatsk, and Sychev, of the Smolensk region, and also in the city of Rjev in the Kalinin region. I would have liked to dwell more fully on this report but I will now summarize it in order to shorten my statement. I skip two pages of the text and pass on to Page 145 of my text. I quote the sixth paragraph: "In the village of Zajtschiki, members of the Gestapo drove into one house the following persons: Michael Zaikov, age 61; Nikifor Belyakov, age 69; Catherine Begorova, age 70; Catherine Golubeva, age 70; Jegor Dadonov, age 5; Myra Zernova, age 7; and others-23 persons all told. The Gestapo set fire to the house and burned all the victims alive." I omit two paragraphs and quote one more paragraph: "In retreating from the village of Gratschevo in the district of Geschatsk, in March 1943, the assistant chief of the German Field Police, Lieutenant Boss, drove 200 inhabitants into the house of the peasant woman Chistyakowa."-The names of still more villages are then given.-"He locked the doors, set fire to the house, and all the 200 were burned alive." I will not enumerate the names of the people, but I wish to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that some of these people were 63 and 70 years old, some of the children were 3, 4, and 5 years old. I omit two paragraphs and quote another excerpt: "The fascists burned all the inhabitants, both young and old, of the villages of Kulikovo and Kolesniki, of the Geschatsk district, in one farmhouse." I conclude the reading of this document.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I now ask the Tribunal to accept in evidence a German document, submitted in evidence as Exhibit Number USSR-ll9 (Document Number USSR-ll9). This is a certified photostat of an operational report and other documents of the 15th Police Regiment. Among them we find one entitled, "Summary of a Punitive Expedition to the Village of Borysovka, 22 and 26 of September 1942." The Tribunal will find this document on Page 309 of the document book. I quote in brief from this document, which proves beyond doubt that under the guise of the anti-partisan struggle the Hitlerite criminals mercilessly annihilated the peaceful population of the Soviet villages. I quote the first part under the heading: "1. Mission: The 9th Company must destroy the village of Borysovka, which is infested by partisans. "2. Forces: Two platoons of the 9th Company of the 15th Police Regiment, one platoon of gendarmes of the 16th Motorized Regiment, and one tank platoon from Beresy-Kartuska." I emphasize, Your Honors, that the expedition included a tank platoon from Beresy-Kartuska. Against whom were these tanks and the two platoons supposed to operate? We find an answer to this question in the following item of this report: "3. Execution of mission: The company assembled in the evening on 22 September 1942 in Dyvin. During the night from 22 to 23 September 1942, they marched from Dyvin in the direction of Borysovka. The village was encircled from the north to the south by two platoons at 4 a.m. At daybreak the entire population of the village was collected by the village elder of Borysovka. After an investigation of the population with the assistance of the Security Police and the SD from Dyvin, five families were resettled in Dyvin. The remainder were shot by a specially detailed squad and buried 500 meters to the northeast of Borysovka. Altogether 169 persons were shot consisting of 49 men, 97 women, and 23 children." I consider that these figures are so eloquent that I can conclude the reading of this document and, omitting two pages, pass on to the next part of my statement.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I beg the Tribunal to look at Page 316 of the document book, which contains the report of the Extraordinary State Commission . on the destruction caused by the German fascist invaders in the Stalinsk region. Hitherto I have submitted proof of the fact that in the villages the German fascist invaders criminally exterminated the Soviet population by burning their victims alive. In this report we find a confirmation of the fact that people were burned alive equally in the cities and towns. This document is submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-2 (Document Number USSR-2). I quote from Page 316 of the document book: "In the city of Stalino, the German invaders drove the residents of a professor's house into a barn, closed the entrance, blocked it, poured oil on the barn, and set it on fire. All those in the barn lost their lives, with the exception of two lithe girls, who saved themselves by pure chance. "On It November 1943 the members of this commission"-I omit the next part containing the composition of this commission-"made excavations on the site of the barn and while investigating it, they discovered 41 charred human corpses." From the very first days of the war against the U.S.S.R. the German fascist terror toward the peaceful population assumed monstrous proportions. This was noted in the reports of several German officers, who had participated in the first World War and who stressed the fact that even in the cruelty of the first World War they had never witnessed anything similar. I again refer to a German document and submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-293 (Document Number USSR-293), an authenticated photostat of a report from the former commander of the 528th Regiment, Major Roesler, and a report by Schirwindt, who was chief of the 9th Military District. Since this document is of sufficient interest I will read it into the record in full. You, Your Honors, will find the extract on Page 319 of the document book. I quote: "Kassel, 3 January '42; Major Roesler; Report.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: "The matter entrusted to me by the 52d Reserve Regiment, entitled 'Attitude towards the Civilian Population in the East,' prompts me to report the following: "At the end of July 1941 the 528th Infantry Regiment, then under my command, was on its way from the West to their rest area in Zhitomir. After I had moved with my staff into the staff quarters, on the afternoon of the day of our arrival, we heard rifle volleys, at a short distance from us, at regular intervals, followed a lithe later by pistol shots. I decided to find out what was happening and started out with my adjutant and the courier (First Lieutenant Von Bassevitz and Lieutenant Muller-Brodmann) in the direction of the rifle shots. We soon had the impression that something was happening, since after some time we saw numerous soldiers and civilians streaming toward the railway embankment behind which, as we were told, executions were taking place. We could not, at first, reach the other side of the embankment for a long time. After a certain definite interval, however, we heard the sound of a whistle followed by a volley of about 10 rifles, which in turn was followed, some time later, by pistol shots. When we finally scrambled over the embankment a picture of horror was revealed to us. A pit, about seven to eight meters long and perhaps four meters wide, had been dug in the ground. The upturned earth was piled on one side of the pit. This pile of earth and the side of the pit were completely soaked in blood. The pit itself was filled with numerous corpses of all ages and sexes. There were so many corpses that one could not even ascertain the depth of the pit. "Behind the pile of earth stood a police detachment under the command of a police officer. The uniforms of the police bore traces of blood. Many soldiers from the troops just billeted in the area stood around. Some of them wore shorts and lounged about as spectators. There were also a number of civilians; women and children. I approached the grave as near as possible in order to get a picture, which I was never able to forget.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: "In this grave lay, among others, an old man with a white beard, clutching a cane in his left hand. Since this man, judging from his sporadic breathing, still showed signs of life, I ordered one of the policemen to kill him off. He smilingly replied, 'I have already shot him seven times in the stomach. He can die on his own now.' "The bodies lay in the grave, not in rows, but as they had fallen from the top of the pit. All these people had been killed by rifle shots in the nape of the neck and then in the pit were granted the coup-de-grace of a pistol shot. "I have never seen anything of the kind, either in the first World War, in the Russian, or in the French campaigns of the present war. I have witnessed many disagreeable things in the volunteer detachments in 1919, but I have never witnessed a similar scene." I omit one paragraph and continue: "I wish to add that according to the testimony of soldiers who have often watched these executions, apparently several hundred persons were shot by these methods every day. "Signed: Roesler." Characteristic is the comment in the covering note from the deputy commander of the IXth Army Corps and commanding officer of the 9th Military District, who forwarded Roesler's report to the chief of the army armament and equipment department, Berlin. I quote this document which the Tribunal will find on Page 318 of the document book. I quote: "Subject: Atrocities perpetrated on the civilian population of the East. "With regard to the news of mass executions in Russia, which we are receiving, I was at first convinced that they had been unduly exaggerated. I am forwarding herewith a report from Major Roesler which fully confirms these rumors."-The last sentence is also typical: "If these things are done openly, they will become known in the fatherland and give rise to criticism. "Signed: Schirwindt."
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, do you know who was the deputy commander of the IXth Army Corps and commander of the 9th Military District and do you know who was the chief of the armament and equipment department in Berlin? Do you know whether any reply was made to this report?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I can only give an answer on this subject at a later date. These questions are unknown to me and must be elucidated in a supplementary report. I shall shortly clarify them and give the Tribunal the additional information and will submit the documents dealing with this matter. I beg to be allowed, in presenting this evidence, to submit to the Tribunal a photostatic copy of a document. I present two albums certified by the Extraordinary State Commission; they will be submitted to each member of the Tribunal. (Exhibits Numbers USSR-387 and 391). I beg the permission of the Tribunal to show certain photographs on the screen. I must admit these documents have not been selected on the basis of the impressiveness of the atrocities shown-the Tribunal will find even more monstrous episodes of mass atrocities in the document book-but rather, all these photographs have been selected because of their typical character. Before presenting these documentary photographs, I ask the permission of the Tribunal to submit another German document as Exhibit Number USSR-297 (Document Number USSR-297). It is a certified photostatic copy of one of the reports of the chief of the Security Police and SD, prohibiting the photographing of mass executions. It is very typical that in many of these cases the photographs were taken by the Germans themselves. This attracted the attention of the chief of police and therefore photographing was prohibited to the German fascist criminals.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I quote only a short excerpt from this report-Page 321 of the document book: "The Reichsfuehrer SS has forbidden the photographing of executions by an order of 12 November 1941, Journal Number 1 1461/41 Ads., and has ordered that insofar as such pictures are needed for official purpose that the entire exposed material be collected in archives." I omit the following paragraph and quote the third paragraph: "The leader of the Einsatzkommando or Sonderkommando or the company commander of the Waffen-SS and the section leader of the war correspondents are charged with the responsibility that plates, films, and prints of these photographs do not remain in the hands of individual members of these task force units." I skip the following part of the document in its entirety, as I consider that the quotations which have been presented are sufficient proof that the police authorities were uneasy about the fact that frequent photographing of mass executions by the German fascists gave confirmation of these executions. I beg the Tribunal for permission to start the showing of several of these photo-documents. Would you permit me to do so, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: What are you waiting for, Colonel Smirnov?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The lights should be turned off but apparently there are some technical difficulties which are unfamiliar to me. Therefore I cannot start with the showing of the photo-documents.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you think you can go on with your statement and do the photographs after the adjournment? How long do you think the photographs will take?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I fully agree with you, Mr. President. I beg your permission to present evidence concerning the second part of the statement, namely, the mass annihilation by the German fascists of the citizens of the U.S.S.R., Poland, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. The mass extermination of peaceful populations of the Soviet Union and of the countries of Eastern Europe was carried out by the German fascist criminals everywhere, as can be seen from both the official orders and the reports about the carrying out of these executions. In this regard they had the following objectives in mind: 1. Physical elimination of those sections of the population which were capable of resistance; 2. For racial reasons, that is, for the materialization of racial theories inculcating hatred of mankind; 3. For purposes of retaliation; 4. Supposedly "for the struggle against the partisans" whom the German fascists could neither catch nor destroy, and for this reason they vented the full force of their retaliatory measures on the peaceful population. The execution of children was a particularly cruel method of Hitlerite terrorism. The use especially of torture devices for killing children was one of the prime and most despicable characteristics of the Hitlerite terror regime in the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union. Immediately after the seizure of power by the fascists, Hermann Goering began to issue laws against vivisection. He pitied dogs, guinea pigs, and rabbits subjected to scientific experiment for the benefit of humanity. In confirmation I refer to Goering's book Speeches and Articles, published in 1940 by Erich Gritzbach at Munich. (Document Number USSR-377). On Page 80 of this book we find Goering's speech, "The Struggle Against Vivisection." I shall not quote any lengthy extract from this book and shall only mention one sentence which testifies that for motives, so to speak, of love for animals, Hermann Goering widely exercised his right to intern human beings in concentration camps.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: At a certain meeting of SS-Gruppenfuehrer at Posen, as the Tribunal knows, Himmler stated, Document Number 1919-PS, "We Germans are the only people who treat animals kindly." But these criminals-from Himmler to Keitel-who sentimentally discussed the tortures of animals, persistently instructed their subordinates to exterminate children senselessly, inhumanly, and cruelly. At the meeting in question Himmler also stated: "If anyone would come to me and say, 'You cannot build antitank trenches with children and women, it is inhuman 
since they will die,' I should reply, 'You are the murderers of your own blood."' Numerous investigations on the German fascist atrocities in the Soviet Union have shown without any doubt that on occasion of mass shootings many children have been thrown into the grave when still alive. In confirmation of these facts I am referring to official documents, "The German criminals threw into the grave children who were still alive." I invite the attention of the Tribunal to a document which has already been submitted by my colleague, Colonel Pokrovsky, as Exhibit Number USSR-46. It is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes of the German fascist invaders in the city and region of Orel. The Tribunal will find it on Page 334 of the document book, the last three lines of the page, and on Page 335. I quote: "Those shot in the city were collected and thrown into ditches, preferably in forest areas. In jail the executions took place as follows: The men had to stand facing a wall while the gendarme fired his pistol into the nape of their necks. The shot penetrated the vital centers and death was instantaneous. In most cases women had to lie face downward on the ground and the gendarme shot them through the base of their neck. "A second method was to herd people in groups into a ditch, with their faces turned to one side. Then they were killed likewise by shots in the nape of the neck with machine guns.