dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
COL. POKROVSKY: as a routine practice the Hitlerites would greet a group of prisoners at the 'Lazarett' gates with blows from rifle butts and rubber truncheons, after which the new arrivals would be stripped of their leather footwear, warm clothing, and personal belongings." In the next section, on the same page, the State Commission reports that infectious diseases were deliberately spread among the prisoners of war by German medical officers in the "Lazarett": "In the 'Grosslazarett' the German medical officers artificially created an incredible state of overcrowding. The prisoners were forced to stand close to each other; they succumbed to exhaustion, dropped down, and died." The fascists resorted to various methods for reducing the living room in the "Lazarett". A former prisoner of war, I.Y. Chuazhev, reported that: "The Germans reduced the floor space in the 'Lazarett' by firing off submachine guns, since the prisoners, perforce, pressed more closely to each other; then the Hitlerites pushed in more sick and wounded and the door was closed." The premeditated spreading of infectious diseases in this death camp, derisively named a "Lazarett," was achieved by extremely primitive means: "Patients suffering from spotted fever, tuberculosis, or dysentery, severely and lightly wounded cases, were one and all put in the same block and the same ward." In a ward intended, under normal conditions, to hold not more than 400 patients, the number of spotted fever and tuberculosis cases alone amounted to 1800. "The rooms were never cleaned. The sick remained, for months on end, in the same underclothes in which they were captured. They slept on the bare boards. Many were half-undressed, others entirely naked. The buildings were unheated, and the primitive stoves, constructed by the prisoners themselves, fell to pieces. There was no water for washing in this 'Lazarett,' not even for drinking.
COL. POKROVSKY: As a result of these unsanitary conditions, the 'hospital' was, to a monstrous extent, overrun by lice." Annihilation by the premeditated spreading of diseases went hand in hand with starvation. The daily food ration consisted of 250 grams of ersatz bread and two liters of so-called "Balanda soup." The flour used for baking the bread for sick and wounded prisoners of war was brought from Germany. Fifteen tons of flour were discovered in one of the "Lazarett" storerooms. The factory-packed paper bags, containing 40 kilos each, bore a label with the word "Spelzmehl." Samples of this ersatz flour were sent for analysis to the Central Food Institute of the People's Commissariat for Public Health of the U.S.S.R. I present the document dealing with the annihilation of Soviet prisoners of war by the Hitlerites in the "Grosslazarett" as Exhibit Number USSR-5(a), (Document Number USSR-5(a)). On Pages 9, 10, and 11 of this document the Tribunal can see the photostat of the Central Food Institute's report. This report was established on the one hand on the basis of an analysis made by the field military laboratory and, on the other hand, on the basis of an analysis carried out in the Central Food Institute itself. Sample bakings of bread were made from the ersatz flour and from the ersatz flour mixed with a small addition of real flour. It seems that it was impossible to bake a loaf with ersatz flour alone. The Institute's report states: "It is evident that the bread was made with the addition of a certain quantity of natural flour for binding the dough. A diet of this so-called 'bread,' in the absence of all other food and food products of a full dietetic value, inevitably led to starvation and acute exhaustion." The analysis proved that the "flour" consisted of nothing but straw chopped evenly though rather roughly. Some particles were 2 and some 3 millimeters in length.
COL. POKROVSKY: Under the microscope, in every optical field of vision-according to the report-we discovered, "Together with food and vegetable fiber, minute quantities of grains of starch, resembling grains of oats in structure." The Institute came to the conclusion that "The use of this bread, owing to the irritant action of the soft crumb, resulted in diseases of the digestive tract." Anticipating a little, I should like to report the results of the medico-legal autopsies performed on 112 corpses exhumed from Site Number 1 and of the external examination of approximately 500 bodies. In the first instance exhaustion was proved to have caused the death of 96 victims. In the second case, as stated in the findings-see Page 7-mentioned in Exhibit Number USSR-5(a), (Document Number USSR-5(a)): "The statement that exhaustion was the fundamental cause of mortality in the prisoners' camp was likewise proved by the results of the external examinations of some 500 corpses, when it was disclosed that the proportion of victims dead of acute exhaustion had approached 100 percent." A lithe further on, in the same report, in Subparagraph "d" of Paragraph 5, the experts, supported by numerous witnesses, state that the diet in the Slavuta "Grosslazarett" can be characterized as completely useless for human consumption. I quote, "Bread contained 64 percent sawdust; 'Balanda soup' was made of rotten potatoes with the addition of refuse, rat-droppings, et cetera." Such prisoners of war who had survived the tyranny of the Hitler hangmen and had lived to see the liberation of Slavuta declared-I quote an excerpt from Page 4 of Exhibit Number USSR-5, Page 153 of the document book: "In the 'Grosslazarett' we periodically observed outbreaks of a mysterious disease of an unknown nature, referred to as 'pare-cholera' by the German doctors. The appearance of 'pare-cholera' was the result of barbarous experiments by the German doctors. These outbreaks would vanish as suddenly as they appeared. The mortality rate in 'pare-cholera' rose to 60-80 percent.
COL. POKROVSKY: German physicians performed autopsies on the bodies of some of the victims, and no captured Russian medical officers were admitted to these autopsies." In conclusion, it is stated in Subparagraph 8 of the medicolegal expert report-Page 7 of Exhibit Number USSR-5(a), Page 159 of the document book-that: "No objective circumstances can justify the conditions under which the prisoners of war were housed in the camp. All the more, since it has been revealed by thoroughgoing investigations that there were enormous food supplies in the German military depots at Slavuta and that both medical supplies and surgical bandages abounded in the military dispensaries." The "Grosslazarett" staff included a considerable number of medical personnel. Nevertheless, according to the statement of the government commission, sick and wounded officers and men of the Red Army did not receive even the most elementary medical attention. And how could there be any talk of medical attention when the entire object of the "Grosslazarett" was directly opposed to such assistance? The administration of the "Grosslazarett" not only strove to destroy the prisoners of war physically, but they also endeavored to fill the last days of the sick and wounded with suffering and anguish. One part of the commission's statement is entitled "Torture and shooting of Soviet prisoners of war." I shall read into the Record a passage taken from this part. It is on Page 4, Exhibit Number USSR-5, Page 153 of the document book: "Soviet prisoners of war in the 'Grosslazarett' were subjected to torture and torment, beaten up when food was distributed and again when setting out to work. Even the dying were not spared by the fascist murderers. The medico-legal examination of the exhumed corpses revealed, among a number of other bodies of prisoners of war, the body of a prisoner who, in his death agony, had been wounded in the groin with a knife. He had been thrown into his grave while still alive, with the knife sticking in the wound, and was then covered over with earth.
COL. POKROVSKY: "One method of mass torture in the 'Lazarett' consisted in locking the sick and wounded in a detention cell-a room without heat and with a concrete floor. The prisoners in this cell were left without food for days on end, and many died there. In order to exhaust the ill and weak prisoners still further, the Hitlerites forced the sick and enfeebled patients to run round the 'Lazarett' building; those who could not run were flogged almost to death. There were many cases where the German guards murdered the prisoners just for fun. "A former prisoner of war, Buchtichyuk, reported how the Germans threw the intestines of dead horses on the barbed wire surrounding the interior of the camp. When the prisoners, maddened with hunger, ran up to the barbed wire, the guards opened fire on them with submachine guns. The witness, Kirsanov, saw one prisoner of war bayonetted for picking up a potato tuber. A former prisoner of war, Shatalov, was an eyewitness to-the shooting of a prisoner by his escort merely for trying to obtain a second helping of 'Balanda soup.' "In February 1942 Shatalov saw a sentry wound a prisoner who was searching the garbage heap for remnants of food left over from the kitchen of the German personnel; the wounded man was immediately brought to the pit, stripped, and executed."
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now. [The Tribunal adjourned until 14 February 1946 at 1000 hours.]
THE PRESIDENT: I have an announcement to make which concerns the defendants' counsel. The Tribunal win sit in open session on Saturday morning from 10 o'clock to hear the application of the defendants' counsel for an adjournment. They will hear one counsel on either side, that is to say, one counsel for the Prosecution and one counsel for the Defense, for 15 minutes each, and after that open session the Tribunal will adjourn into closed session upon procedural matters.
COL.POKROVSKY: Yesterday, in the course of my representation, I referred to four photographs in our possession, two of which were submitted to the Tribunal there and then. These photographs have been made by the Germans and they show the prisoner-of-war camp at Oman. I must apologize that yesterday, for technical reasons, we were unable to produce the remaining two at the proper time. The first of these photographs shows the distribution of food to the prisoners; the second, hungry Soviet prisoners searching for and eating oil cakes intended as cattle food. I now submit the originals of these two photographs (Document Numbers USSR-358 and 359) as Exhibit Numbers USSR-358 and USSR-359. An autopsy of the exhumed bodies, performed during the investigation of fascist crimes in the so-called "Lager," Slavuta, confirms that: "The headquarters command and the camp guards repeatedly resorted to refined forms of torture. Among the bodies exhumed on which autopsies were performed, the medico-legal examination established that the corpses of four prisoners of war, murdered with cold steel, had received bayonet wounds penetrating the cavity of the skull." You will find this passage, Your Honors, on Page 153 of the document book. "The Hitlerites compelled sick and wounded prisoners, despite their extreme weakness and acute state of exhaustion, to carry out work which was entirely beyond their strength. The prisoners had to carry heavy burdens, were forced to shoulder the bodies of murdered Soviet citizens and carry them out of the camp. Exhausted prisoners who fell by the way were shot on the spot. The road to and from work, according to a report of the Roman Catholic priest at Slavuta, was marked, as by milestones, with small grave mounds." The fascist fanatics did not always have the patience to wait for the actual death of one or another prisoner of war, and they buried persons who were still alive. I quote from a document which I have previously submitted to the Tribunal.
COL.POKROVSKY: You will find this quotation once again on Page 153 of your document book: "As a result of the discovery of a considerable quantity of grains of sand in the lower respiratory tracts of the corpses of four prisoners, grains which penetrated right down to the very smallest bronchial tube, and which could not have penetrated thus far unless propelled by the respiratory movements of persons smothered by sand, the medico-legal experts found that at the 'Gross-Lazarett' the guards of the commander had buried the Soviet citizens alive. This was done with the connivance of the German doctors." Prisoner-of-war Pankin, a former inmate of the "Gross-Lazarett," knew of one case where, in February 1943, an unconscious patient was brought to the morgue. There he recovered consciousness, but when it was reported to the officer in charge of barracks that a live man had been taken to the morgue, he ordered him to be left there: The sick man was buried. Some prisoners, spurred by the intolerable regime, ignored the immense risks attached to the venture and attempted to escape, either singly or in groups. Such martyrs who succeeded in getting out of the "hospital" hell sought refuge with the local population of Slavuta and the surrounding hamlets. The Hitlerite brutes mercilessly shot anybody who had rendered any kind of assistance to a fugitive. The town of Slavuta lies in the Shepetov district. On 15 January 1942, the District Commissioner of Shepetov, Dr. Worbs, issued a special order to the effect that if those directly responsible for helping escaped prisoners were not found, 10 hostages would be shot in every case. Father Dhynkovsky reported that 26 peaceloving citizens were arrested and shot for helping prisoners of war flee. A medical examination of the 525 prisoners liberated from the "Gross-Lazarett" revealed that 435 suffered from extreme exhaustion, 59 from complications following untended, infected wounds, and that 31 suffered from neuro-psychiatric disturbances.
COL.POKROVSKY: The commission notes, and I quote-with the permission of the Tribunal-the last and the penultimate paragraphs of the left column, on Page 5 of our document. In your file this quotation is on Page 154 of the document book: "During the 2 years of Slavuta's occupation, the Hitlerites, with the connivance of the German doctors Borbe, Sturm, and other medical personnel in the 'Gross-Lazarett,' exterminated about 150,000 Red Army officers and men." The German fascist executioners, perfectly aware of the unbounded bestiality of their crimes, attempted to conceal by all possible means the traces of the atrocities committed. They especially endeavored to camouflage the burial sites of the Soviet prisoners of war. Thus, for instance, on the cross of Grave Number 623, only eight surnames of persons buried were indicated, whereas upon excavation 32 bodies were actually found in that grave. Such, too, was the case when Grave Number 624 was opened up. In other graves, layers of earth were placed between several rows of corpses. For instance, 10 bodies were found in Grave Number 625. When a layer of earth, 30 centimeters thick, had been removed, two further rows of corpses were found in the same grave; the same occurred at the excavation of Graves Number 627 and 628. Numerous graves were camouflaged by flower-beds, trees, plants, paths, et cetera, but no disguise can ever hide the bloody crimes committed by the Hitlerite evildoers. If I am not mistaken, there was a case when one of the participants in these trials, evidently forgetting where he was and under what circumstances, expressed a wish to follow the procedure laid down by German law. The Tribunal immediately made the necessary inquiries, and the intention of operating in accordance with the standards of German law was, of course, promptly rejected. At present I am fully able to submit to the Tribunal documents which, in my opinion, are of importance in our case, although they are compiled in complete accordance with the rules laid down by German law.
COL.POKROVSKY: Among the numerous documents found in the police archives of the town of Zhitomir, Red Army troops seized a certain piece of correspondence. This is a police inquiry. The authors of this document could not foretell that it would be read into the record al a session of the International Tribunal for the punishment of the major war criminals. The documents constituting this correspondence were intended exclusively for the chiefs of police, and they were compiled in accordance with all the customary requirements of German law and of the police investigations of fascist Germany. From this point of view, those who would 1lke to examine the documentation in question can be well satisfied. At the same time this correspondence is useful to us. So much has been said in the comparatively small number of pages that I should have to analyze the documentation section by section in order that you could appreciate it fully and from every angle. I submit this correspondence to you both in the German photostats and in the Russian translation. I repeat-this is a police inquiry. The document is submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-311 (Document Number USSR-311); and we have, in accordance with the wishes of the Tribunal, asked for the original copy which we may possibly receive from Moscow this very day. On 24 December 1942, 78 prisoners of war from the Berditchev section of the Educational Labor Camp were to be subjected to "special treatment." All the 78 prisoners were Soviet citizens. There is, in the correspondence, a report addressed to the authorities by SS Obersturmfuehrer Kuntze, of 27 December 1942. You will find it on Page 170 of your document book. At the end of the first paragraph there is one sentence which, for greater clarity, has been marked with a red pencil. It says: "There is no proof that these prisoners of war had ever participated in any communistic activities during the time of the Soviet regime." Kuntze's next sentence fully elucidates the question of how and why these prisoners of war entered the Educational Labor Camp.
COL.POKROVSKY: He states: "It seems that the Wehrmacht had, at the time, placed these prisoners of war at the disposal of our local authorities for special treatment...." We became convinced that they had been directed to this camp by the military authorities. The specialist-in this case undoubtedly Obersturmfuehrer Kuntze-states that they were sent here especially to be subjected to the treatment of the "special regime." In an attempt to shorten, if ever so slightly, this very abundant documentation which forms the correspondence, I shall tell you, in my own words, that the 78 people in question were all that remained of a far larger group. Sturmscharfuehrer SS Fritz Knop reports-Page 163 of your document book: ". . . some of the prisoners at that time were transported in a truck, to some place in the neighborhood and unloaded. Later on further unloadings of prisoners of war were suspended, following objections raised by the Army." A little later I shall be more explicit when dealing with the nature of these transfers and the objections raised by the Army. Please permit me now to pass over to a brief summary of the gist of the matter. It appears to me more useful to describe it in the words of one of the documents. I quote: "Commander of the Security Police and SD in Zhitomir; Berditchev, 24 December 1942. "When summoned to appear, SS Sturmscharfuehrer and Chief Secretary of the Kripo, Fritz Knop, complied. He was born on 18 February 1897, at Neuklinz, in the district of Koslin. Fritz Knop testified as follows: " 'As from the middle of august I was head of the Berditchev field office of the commander of the Security Police and SD in the town of Zhitomir. On 23 December 1942 the Deputy Commander, Hauptsturmfuehrer of the SS-Kallbach, inspected the local office and also the Educational Labor Camp which was supervised by my of lice. In this Educational Labor Camp, as from the end of October or the beginning of November, there were 78 former prisoners of war who had been dismissed from the permanent camp (Stalag) in Zhitomir as being unfit for work.
COL.POKROVSKY: A considerable number of prisoners of war had, in the past, been handed over and placed at the disposal of the Commander of the Security Police and SD." I think there is no necessity to explain in detail that the transfer of the prisoners of war and the placing of them at the disposal of the Security Police had been provided for by special directives of the SS and the SD, especially referring to persons condemned to physical extermination. I quote further, on the same page of your document book, 163: "In Zhitomir a few of them, who up to a certain point were fit for work, had been set aside. The remaining 78 persons were transferred to the local Educational Labor Camp." I omit two more extracts. "The 78 prisoners of war in the local camp were, one and all, severely wounded men. Some had lost both legs; others both arms; others again had lost one or the other of their limbs. Only a few of them had all their arms and legs, although they were so mutilated by other kinds of wounds that they were totally unfit for work. The latter had to nurse the former. "At the time he was inspecting the Educational Labor Camp on 23 December 1942, SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Kallbach issued an order to the effect that the surviving 68 or 70 prisoners of war, the others having died in the meantime, should this very day be subjected to 'special treatment.' For this purpose he assigned a motor truck, driven by SS man Schafer from the command division, who arrived here today at 1130 hours. I entrusted the preparations for the execution early this morning to my colleagues in the local administration, SS Unterscharfuehrer Paal, SS Rottenfuehrer Hesselbach, and SS Sturmmann Vollprecht." I shall, with your permission, omit a further part of the quotation which, in any case, already figures in your files. I think I may safely do so in order to save time. It is a description of the technical preparations for the execution.
COL.POKROVSKY: One passage, however, does appear to me to be of interest; and I quote: "Usually the execution of the Jews was carried out in the precincts of the labor camp which could not be seen from the outside. For this particular execution I issued orders to choose a site outside on a terrain behind the permanent camp. Concerning the three above-mentioned persons whom I entrusted with the shooting of the prisoners of war, I knew that they had, in Kiev, participated in the mass executions of many thousands of persons and that they had before, that is during my time of service, been entrusted by the local administration with the shooting of many hundreds of victims." I should like to invite your attention to another instance which again shows the meaning which the Hitlerites usually attached to the words "execution" and "treatment by special regime." Here, in one sentence alone, the words `'mass execution" and "shooting" are definitely used as synonymous terms, while a little higher up it is made quite clear to us what "transporting by trucks to some place in the neighborhood" and "treatment by special regime" mean. Unquestionably, these four terms have an identical significance. After this digression I continue my quotation. Having made a few more omissions from the passage already printed in your document book, I proceed to the following paragraph, your Page 165, if only to maintain the sense of the statement: "They were armed with a German submachine gun, a Russian automatic rifle, an 0.8 pistol, and a carbine. I would point out that I had intended to give these three persons, as an assistant, SS Hauptscharfuehrer Wenzel, but SS Sturmmann Vollprecht declined, remarking that three men were perfectly able to execute this order. "Concerning the indictment: It never entered my head, to ensure the smooth procedure of an ordinary execution, to send a larger detachment' since the execution ground was hidden from public view and the captives were..." THE PRESIDENT These words "Concerning the indictment," are they in the original document?