dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MARKOV: We differentiate between an exterior inspection, when the corpse has to be undressed and minutely examined externally, and an internal inspection, when the inner organs of the corpse are examined. This was not done with the hundreds of bodies at Katyn, as it was not physically possible. We were there only one forenoon. Therefore, I consider that there was no actual medicojudicial expert examination of these corpses in the real sense of the word.
DR. STAHMER: A little while ago you talked about the trees that were growing there on these graves, and you said that an expert explained the age of the trees by the rings counted on a trunk. In the protocol and the report the following is set down. I quote: , "According to the opinion of the members of the commission and the testimony of forest ranger Von Herff, who was called in as an expert on forestry, they were small pine trees of at least 5 years of age, badly developed because they had been standing in the shade of large trees and had been transplanted to this spot about 3 years ago." Now, I would like to ask you, is it correct that you undertook a local inspection and that you convinced yourself on the spot whether the statements made by the forestry expert were actually correct?
MARKOV: Our personal impression and my personal conviction in this question only refer to the fact that in the wood of Katyn there were clearings where small trees were growing and that the afore-mentioned expert showed us a cross section of a tree with its circles. But I do not consider myself competent and cannot give an opinion as to whether the deductions which are set forth in the record are correct or not. Precisely for that reason it was judged necessary to call in a forestry expert, for we doctors were not competent to decide this question. Therefore, these conclusions are merely the conclusions of a competent German expert.
DR. STAHMER: But after having had a first-hand view, did you doubt the truth of these statements?
MARKOV: After the German expert had expressed his opinion at the conference of the delegates, neither I nor the other delegates expressed any opinion as to whether his conclusions were correct or not. These conclusions are set down in the record in the form in which the expert expressed himself.
DR. STAHMER: According to your autopsy report the corpse of the Polish officer which you dissected was clothed and you described the clothing in detail. Was this winter or summer clothing that you found?
MARKOV: It was winter clothing including an overcoat and a woolen shawl around the neck.
DR. STAHMER: In the protocol it says further and I quote: "Furthermore, Polish cigarettes and matchboxes were found with the dead; in some cases tobacco containers and cigarette holders, and 'Kosielsk' was inscribed thereon." The question is, did you see these objects?
MARKOV: We actually saw these tobacco boxes with the name "Kosielsk" engraved thereon. They were exhibited to us in the glass case which was shown to us in the peasant hut not far from the Katyn wood. I remember them because Butz drew our attention to them.
DR. STAHMER: In your autopsy report, Witness, there is the following remark, and I quote: "In the clothing documents were found and they were put in the folder Number 827." Now, I should like to ask you: How did you discover these documents? Did you personally take them out of the pockets?
MARKOV: These papers were in the pockets of the overcoat and of the jacket. As far as I can remember they were taken out by a German who was undressing the corpse in my presence.
DR. STAHMER: At that time were the documents already in the envelope?
MARKOV: They were not yet in the envelope, but after they had been taken out of the pockets they were put into an envelope which bore the number of the corpse. We were told that this was the usual method of procedure.
DR. STAHMER: What was the nature of the documents?
MARKOV: I did not examine them at all, as I have already said, and I refused to do so, but according to the size I believe that they were certificates of identity. I could distinguish individual letters, but I do not know whether one could read the inscription, for I did not attempt to do so.
DR. STAHMER: In the protocol the following statement is made, and I quote: "The documents found with the corpses (diaries, letters, and newspapers) were dated from the fall of 1939 until March and April 1940. The latest date which could be ascertained was the date of a Russian newspaper of 22 April 1940." Now, I should like to ask you if this statement is correct and whether it is in accordance with the findings that you made?
MARKOV: Such letters and newspapers were indeed in the glass cases and were shown to us. Some such papers were found by members of the commission who were dissecting the bodies, and if I remember rightly, they described the contents of these documents, but I did not do so.
DR. STAHMER: In your examination just a little while ago you stated that only a few scientific details were contained in this protocol and that this was probably done intentionally. I should like to quote from this record as follows: "Various degrees and types of decomposition were caused by the position of the bodies to one another in the grave. Aside from some mummification on the surface and around the edges of the mass of corpses, some damp maceration was found among the center corpses. The sticking together of the adjacent corpses and the soldering together of corpses through cadaverous acids and fluids which had thickened, and particularly the deformations that obtained from the pressure among the corpses, show that the corpses were buried there right from the beginning. "Among the corpses, insects or remains of insects which might date back to the time of burial are entirely lacking, and from this it may be gathered that the shooting and the burial took place at a season which was cold and free from insects." Now, I should like to ask you if these statements are correct and if they are in line with your findings.
MARKOV: I stated that lithe was said on the condition of the corpses, and indeed as can be judged by the quotation which I had in mind, only a general phraseology is used concerning the various degrees of decomposition of the corpses, but no concrete or detailed description of the condition of the corpses is made. As to the insects and their larvae, the assertion of the general report that none were discovered is in flagrant contradiction to the conclusions of Professor Palmieri, which are recorded in his personal minutes concerning the corpse which he himself dissected. In this protocol, which is published in the same German White Book , it is said that there were traces of remains of insects and their larvae in the mouths of the corpses.
DR. STAHMER: Just a little while ago you spoke of the scientific examination of skulls undertaken by Professor Orsos. The record also refers to this matter, and I quote: "A large number of skulls were examined with respect to the changes they had undergone, which, according to the background and experience of Professor Orsos, would be of great value in fixing the date of death. In this connection, we are concerned with stratified encrustations on the surface of the mush found in the skull as a residue of the brain. These symptoms are not to be found among corpses which have been in their graves for less than 3 years. Such a condition, among other things, was found in a very decided form in the skull of corpse Number 526, which was found near the surface of a large mass grave." I should like to ask you now if it is correct that, according to the report of Professor Orsos, such a condition was discovered not only as is said here on the skull of one corpse, but among other corpses also.
MARKOV: I can answer this question quite categorically. We were shown only one skull, the one precisely mentioned in the record under the Number 526. I do not know that other skulls were examined, as the record seems to imply. I am of the opinion that Professor Orsos had no possibility of examining many corpses in the Katyn wood, for he came with us and left with us. That means he stayed in the Katyn wood just as long as I and all the other members of the commission did.
DR. STAHMER: Finally, I should like to quote the conclusion of the summarizing expert opinion, in which it is stated: "From statements made by witnesses, from the letters and correspondence, diaries, newspapers, and so forth, found on the corpses, it may be seen that the shootings took place in the months of March and April 1940. The following are in complete agreement with the findings made with regard to the mass graves and the individual corpses of the Polish officers, as described in the report." Is this statement actually correct?
THE PRESIDENT: I did not quite understand the statement. As I heard you read it, it was something like this: From the statements of witnesses, letters, and so forth. . .
DR. STAHMER: ". . . in complete agreement with the findings made with regard to the mass graves and the individual corpses of the Polish officers and described in the report." That is the end of the quotation.
THE PRESIDENT: It doesn't say that the following persons are in complete agreement, but that the following facts are in complete agreement. Is that right?
DR. STAHMER: No. My question is "Is this statement approved by you? Do you agree with it?"
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I know, but you read out certain words, which were these: "The following are in complete agreement." What I want to know is whether that means that the following persons are in complete agreement, or whether the following facts are in complete agreement.
DR. STAHMER: Special facts had been set down, and this is a summarizing expert opinion signed by all the members of the commission. Therefore, we have here a scientific explanation of the real facts.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you just listen to what I read out from what I took down? "From the statements of witnesses, letters, and other documents, it may be seen that the shooting took place in the months of March and April 1940. The following are in complete agreement." What I am asking you is this- [Dr. Stahmer attempted to interrupt.] Just a moment, Dr. Stahmer, listen to what I say. What I am asking you is: Does the statement mean that the following persons are in complete agreement, or that the following facts are in complete agreement?
DR. STAHMER: No, no. The following people testify that this fact, the fact that the shootings took place in the months of March and April 1940, agrees with the results of their investigations of the mass graves and of individual corpses. That is what is meant and that is the conclusion. What has been found here is in agreement with that which has been set down and determined scientifically. That is the meaning.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on.
DR. STAHMER: Is this final deduction in accord with your scientific conviction?
MARKOV: I have already indicated that this statement regarding the condition of the corpses is based on the date resulting from testimony by the witnesses and from the available documents, but it is in contradiction to the observations I made on the corpse which I dissected. That means I did not consider that the results of the autopsies corroborated the presumable date of death to be taken from the testimony or the documents. If I had been convinced that the condition of the corpses did indeed correspond to the date of decease mentioned by the Germans, I would have given such a statement in my individual protocol. When I saw the signed protocol I became suspicious as to the last sentence of the record-the sentence which precedes the signatures. I always had doubts whether this sentence was contained in that draft of the protocol which we saw at the conference in Smolensk. As far as I could understand, the draft of the protocol which had been elaborated in Smolensk only stated that we actually were shown papers and that we heard witnesses; and this was supposed to prove that the killings were carried out in March or April of 1940. I was of the opinion that the fact that the conclusion was not based on medical opinion and not supported absolutely by medical reports and examination, was the reason why the signing of the protocol was postponed and why the record was not signed in Smolensk.
DR. STAHMER: Witness, at the beginning of my examination you stated that you were fully aware of the political significance of your task. Why, then, did you desist from protesting against this report which was not in accord with your scientific conviction?
MARKOV: I have already said that I signed the protocol as I was convinced that the circumstances at this isolated military airfield offered no other possibility, and therefore I could not make any objections.
DR. STAHMER: Why did you not take steps later on?
MARKOV: My conduct after the signing of the protocol corresponds fully to what I am stating here, I repeat. I was not convinced of the truth of the German version. I was invited many times to Berlin by Director Dietz. I was also invited to Sofia by the German Embassy. And in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Foreign Office also invited me to make a public statement over the radio and to the press; and I was requested to say what conclusions we had come to during our investigation. However, I did not do so, and I always refused to do so. Because of the political situation in which we found ourselves at that moment, I could not make a public statement declaring the German version was wrong. Concerning that matter there were quite sharp -words exchanged between me and the German Embassy in Sofia. And when, a few months later, another Bulgarian representative was asked to be sent as a member of a similar commission for the investigation of the corpses in Vinnitza in the Ukraine, the German Ambassador Beckerly stated quite openly to the Bulgarian Foreign Office that the Germans did not wish me to be sent to Vinnitza. That indicated that the Germans very well understood my behavior and my opinion on that matter. Concerning this question, Minister Plenipotentiary Saratov, of our Foreign Office, still has shorthand records about conversations which, if the Honored Tribunal considers it necessary, can be sent here from Bulgaria. Therefore, all my refusals, after I had signed the protocol, to carry on any activity for the purpose of propaganda, fully correspond to what I said here, namely that the conclusions laid down in the collective protocol do not answer my personal conviction. And I will repeat that if I had been convinced that the corpses were buried for 3 years, I would have testified this after having dissected a corpse. But I have left my personal protocol incomplete and this is a quite unusual thing in the case of medico-judicial examination.
DR. STAHMER: The protocol was not signed by you alone, but on the contrary it carries the signatures of 11 representatives of science, whose names you gave yesterday, some of them of world renown. Among these men we find a scientist of a neutral country, Professor Naville. Did you take the opportunity to get in touch with one of these experts in the meantime with a view of reaching a rectification of the report?
MARKOV: I cannot say on what considerations the other delegates signed the protocol. But they also signed it under the same circumstances as I did. However, when I read the individual protocols, I notice that they also refrained from stating the precise date of the killing of the man whose corpse they had dissected. There was one exception only, as I have already said. That was Professor Niloslavich, who was the only one who asserted that the corpse which he had dissected was that of a man buried for at least 3 years. After the signing of the protocol, I did not have any contact with any of the persons who had signed the collective protocol.
DR. STAHMER: Witness, you gave two versions, one in the protocol which we have just discussed, and another here before the Court. Which version is the correct one?
MARKOV: I do not understand, which two versions you are speaking about. Will you please explain it?
DR. STAHMER: In the first version, in the protocol, it is set forth that according to the conclusion which had been made, the shooting must have taken place 3 years ago. Today you testified that the findings were not correct, and between the shooting and the time of your investigations there could only be a space of perhaps 18 months.
MARKOV: I stated that the conclusions of the collective protocol do not correspond with my personal conviction.
DR. STAHMER: "Did not correspond" or "do not correspond with your conviction"?
MARKOV: It did not and it does not correspond with my opinion then and now.
DR. STAHMER: I have no further questions.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I have no further questions to put to this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, were any of the bodies which were examined by the members of this delegation exhumed from the ground in your presence?
MARKOV: The corpses which we dissected were selected among the top layers of the graves which had been already exhumed. They were taken out of the graves and given to us for dissection.
THE PRESIDENT: Was there anything to indicate, in your opinion, that the corpses had not been buried in those graves?
MARKOV: As far as traces are concerned, and as far as the layers of corpses were preserved, they were stuck to each other; so that if they had been transferred, I do not believe that this could have been done recently. This could not have been done immediately before our arrival.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean that you think the corpses had been buried in those graves?
MARKOV: I cannot say whether they were put into those graves immediately after death had come, as I have no data to confirm this, but they did not look as if they had just been put there.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it possible, in your opinion as an expert, to fix the date of March or April or such a short period as that, 3 years before the examination which you have made?
MARKOV: I believe that if one relies exclusively on medical data, that is to say, on the state and condition of the corpses, it is impossible, when it is a question of years, to determine the date with such precision and say accurately whether they were killed in March or in April. Therefore, apparently the months of March and April were not based on the medical data, for that would be impossible, but on the testimony of the witnesses and on the documents which were shown us.
THE PRESIDENT: When you got back to Sofia, you said that the protocol was sent to you for your observations and for your corrections and that you made none. Why was that?
MARKOV: We are concerned with the individual protocol which I compiled. I did not supplement it by making any conclusion, I did not add any conclusion because it was sent to me by the Germans and because in general at that time the political situation in our country was such that I could not declare publicly that the German version was not a true one.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you mean that your personal protocol alone was sent to you at Sofia?
MARKOV: Yes, only my personal protocol was sent to Sofia. As to the collective protocol, I brought that back myself to Sofia and handed it over to our Foreign Minister.
THE PRESIDENT: Is your personal protocol, in the words that you drew it up, incorporated in the whole protocol and signed by all the delegates?
MARKOV: In my personal protocol there is only a description of the corpse and of the clothing of the corpse which I dissected.
THE PRESIDENT: That is not the question I asked.
MARKOV: In the general protocol a rough description only is made, concerning the clothing and the degree of decomposition.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, do you mean that your personal protocol . . .
MARKOV: I consider that the personal protocols are more accurate regarding the condition of the corpses, because they were compiled during the dissection and were dictated on the spot to the stenographers.
THE PRESIDENT: Just listen to the question, please. Is your personal protocol, in the words in which you drew it up, incorporated in the collective protocol in the same words?
MARKOV: My own protocol is not included in the general record, but it is included in the White Book which the Germans published together with the general record.
THE PRESIDENT: It is there, then, in the report, is it? It is in the White Book?
MARKOV: Yes, quite right. It is included in this book.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire. Yes, Colonel Smirnov, do you have another witness?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, Mr. President. I beg you to allow me to call as a witness, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence Prosorovski. [The witness Prosorovski took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name, please. VICTOR IL'ICH PROSOROVSKI (Witness): Prosorovski, Victor Il'ich.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I, citizen of the U.S.S.R.-called as a witness in this case- solemnly promise and swear before the High Tribunal-to say all that I know about this case-and to add and withhold nothing. [The witness repeated the oath.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Witness, just before questioning you, I beg you to adhere to the following order. After my question, please pause in order to allow the interpreters to make the translation, and speak as slowly as possible. Will you give the Tribunal very briefly some information about your scientific activity, and your past work as a medico-judicial doctor.
PROSOROVSKI: I am a doctor by profession; professor of medical jurisprudence and a doctor of medical science. I am the Chief Medical Expert of the Ministry of Public Health of the Soviet Union. I am the Director of the Scientific Research Institute for Medical Jurisprudence at the Ministry of Public Health of the U.S.S.R.; my business is mainly of a scientific nature; I am President of the Medico-Judicial Commission of the Scientific Medical Council of the Ministry of Public Health of the U.S.S.R.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: How long did you practice as a medico-judicial expert?
PROSOROVSKI: I practiced for 17 years in that sphere.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: What kind of participation was yours in the investigation of the mass crimes of the Hitlerites against the Polish officers in Katyn?
PROSOROVSKI: The President of the Special Commission for investigation and ascertaining of the circumstances of the shootings by the German Fascist aggressors of Polish officers, Academician Nicolai Ilych Burdenko, offered me in the beginning of January 1944 the chairmanship of the Medico-Judicial Commission of experts. Apart from this organizational activity, I participated personally in the exhumations and examination of these corpses.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, perhaps that would be a good time to break off. [The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.] Afternoon Session
THE MARSHAL: May it please the Tribunal, the Defendants Hess, Fritzsche, and Von Ribbentrop are absent.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: May I continue the examination of this witness, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Please tell me, how far from the town of Smolensk were the burial grounds where the corpses were discovered?
PROSOROVSKI: A commission of medico-legal experts, together with members of the special commission, Academician Burdenko, Academician Potemkin, Academician Tolstoy, and other members of this commission, betook themselves on 14 January 1944 to the burial grounds of the Polish officers in the so-called Katyn wood. This spot is located about 15 kilometers from the town of Smolensk. These burial grounds were situated on a slope at a distance of about 200 meters from the Vitebsk high road. One of these graves was about 60 meters long and 60 meters wide; the other one, situated a small distance from this first grave, was about 7 meters long and 6 meters wide.