dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
COL. POKROVSKY: Kotchan, who was duly interrogated according to the procedure prescribed by our laws, testified before the captain of the guard of justice, Ryshov, on 27 September 1944- the minutes of his interrogation are hereby submitted to you as Exhibit Number USSR-6(c) (Document Number USSR-6(c)): "I worked under the Germans as a digger at the prisoner-of-war camp for Red Army soldiers, from December 1941 to April 1942." This is on Page 124 of the document book. I omit a few lines irrelevant to the matter, and I quote further: "This camp was set up by the Germans in the barracks near the railway. The entire area of the camp was surrounded by barbed wire. According to personal statements by the prisoners of war, the Germans drove from 12,000 to 15,000 men into this camp. While we were working, we watched the Germans mock the Red Army prisoners of war. They fed them once a day on unpeeled, frozen potatoes baked in their skins and covered with dirt. They kept the prisoners of war in the cold barracks all through the winter. "I know for a fact that, when the Germans drove the prisoners of war into this camp, all clothes, overcoats, boots, and shoes which were at all serviceable were taken from the prisoners, leaving them barefoot and in rags. The prisoners of war were taken to work daily under escort from 4 to 5 in the morning and kept working until 10 o'clock at night. Then, worn out, cold, and hungry, the prisoners were marched back to their barracks, where doors and windows had purposely been left open all day so that the frost might enter these barracks and freeze the prisoners to death. In the morning, under the supervision of German soldiers, hundreds of corpses would be taken away in a tractor by the prisoners of war; they were buried in previously-prepared pits in the forest of Volkovitch.
COL. POKROVSKY: When the prisoners were marched of 35 to work in the morning, under escort, the Germans would place a detachment of soldiers armed with rifles and stakes by the exit gates of the camp; they pole-axed them with stakes, stabbed them with bayonets, and chased the hungry and exhausted prisoners who were unable to move properly." The same witness describes also some other German atrocities: "me German camp administration brought out completely naked prisoners of war, bound them with ropes to a wall surrounded by barbed wire and kept them there, in the cold of the December winter, until they froze to death. The air of the camp resounded continually with the groans and cries of people maimed by rifle butts. Some were pole-axed with rifle butts On the spot. "When, starving and exhausted, the prisoners were brought to the camp, they would hurl themselves on a heap of rotten and frozen potatoes. This, in turn, would be followed by a shot from the German escort." I present to the Tribunal, under the same Number USSR-6(c)- Page 120 of the document book-the deposition of a French prisoner of war, Emilie Leger, a soldier of the 43rd Colonial Infantry Regiment, Serial Number 29. In his deposition the camp at Rawa-Ruska is called the "famous camp of lingering death, Stalag 325." It appears to me that this phrase serves, as it were, as a supplement to the testimonies of witnesses Roser and Kochau. The Soviet Prosecution has at its disposal a considerable quantity of material disclosing as well numerous crimes of the Hitlerite invaders perpetrated against prisoners of war in the territory of the Lvov district. It seems to me sufficient to read into the Record extracts from the evidence submitted by D. Sh. Manussevitch, and I wish to state that this evidence is confirmed by the testimony of two other witnesses: F. G. Ash and G. Y. Khamaydes. I am presenting all three documents as Document Number USSR-6(c).
COL. POKROVSKY: Witnesses Manussevitch, Ash, and Khamaydes worked for some time in the detachment which cremated the dead bodies of men shot by the Germans in the region of Lvov and particularly in the Lissenitzky camps. Witness Manussevitch states-I quote, beginning with Line 20 at the bottom of Page 2 of our Number 6(c), and on Page 129 of your document book: "When we (the Brigade of Death) had completed the cremation of the corpses, we were conveyed at night in cars to the Lissenitzky forest, opposite the yeast factory at Lvov. There were about 45 pits in this forest, containing the bodies of people previously shot in 1941-42. There were between 500 and 3,500 bodies in the pits. These were not only the bodies of soldiers of the Italian, French, Belgian, and Russian armies, that is, of prisoners of war, but of peaceful inhabitants as well. All the prisoners of war were buried in their clothes. Therefore, when digging them out of the pits, I could recognize the dead by their uniforms, insignia, buttons, medals, and decorations, as well as by their spoons and mess cups. All these were burned once the corpses had been exhumed. As in the camp at Yanovsky, grass was sown on the site of the pits, and trees and dead tree trunks were planted so as to erase any trace of the crimes, which are certainly unprecedented in the history of mankind." In addition to the testimony of the victims and of many Soviet citizens we have at our disposal the testimonies of members of the German Armed Forces. I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-62 (Document Number USSR-62) a document which was signed by more than 60 persons belonging to different units and branches of the German Army. We find their signature on written protests addressed to the International Red Cross in January 1942. We also have a communication of the International Red Cross acknowledging the receipt of this document. In this letter they mentioned facts relating to the criminal treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, of which they had personal knowledge.
COL. POKROVSKY: The persons who signed this protest were themselves prisoners of ever at Soviet Camp Number 78. Their protest is the result of the comparison made by the authors of the document between the treatment meted out to Soviet prisoners, which they had seen for themselves, and the treatment they received at Camp Number 78. I will quote a few excerpts from this document-the text with the following words- Page 135 of the document book: "We, the German prisoners of war of Camp Number 78, have read the note by the Peoples' Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Government, Mr. Molotov, concerning the treatment of prisoners of war in Germany. We might consider the cruelties described in that note as impossible had we not witnessed such atrocities for ourselves. In order that truth should prevail, we must confirm that prisoners of war- citizens of the Soviet Union-were often subjected to terrible ill-treatment by representatives of the German Army and were even shot by them." Concrete examples of crimes known to the authors are quoted further on in the text. Hans Drews, of Regenwalde, a soldier of Company 4 of the 6th Tank Regiment, stated: "I am acquainted with the order issued by Lieutenant General Model to the 3rd Tank Division to the effect that prisoners should not be taken. A similar order was issued by Major General Nehring, commanding officer of the 18th Tank Division. Two days prior to the attack on Russia we were told at the briefing session of 20 June that in the forthcoming campaign wounded Red Army men should not have their wounds dressed, since the German Army would have no time to bother with the wounded." The fact of the preliminary issuance of this order also has been confirmed by a soldier of the 18th Tank Division Headquarters, Harry Marek, a native of the neighborhood of Breslau: "On 21 June, a day before the beginning of the war against Russia, we received the following order from our offices: " 'The commissary of the Red Army are to be shot on the spot, since there is no need to stand upon any ceremony with them.
COL. POKROVSKY: Neither is there any necessity to bother ourselves unduly with the Russian wounded; they must be finished off immediately.' " Wilhelm Metzick, a soldier of the 399th Infantry Regiment of the 170th Division, from Hamburg-Altona, quotes the following case: "On 23 June, when we entered Russia, we came to a small hamlet near Beltsa. There I saw with my own eyes how two German soldiers shot five Russian prisoners in the back with submachine guns." Wolfgang Scharte, a soldier in Company 2 of the 3rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, a native of Gerhardtschagen, near Brunswick, testified concerning the question of exterminating the Red commissars of the Red Army: "On the day before we opened the campaign against the Soviet Union, the officers told us: " 'If on the way you should happen to meet Russian commissars-they can always be recognized by the Soviet star on their sleeve-and Russian women in uniform, they must be shot immediately. Anyone failing to do so and to comply with this order will be held responsible and punished.' "On 29 June I myself saw representatives of the German Army shoot wounded Red Army men lying in a field of grain near the town of Dubno. After this they were run through with bayonets to make quite sure that they were dead. German officers stood nearby and laughed." Joseph Berndsen of Oberhausen, a soldier of the 6th Tank Division, stated; "Even before entering Russia we were told, at one of the briefing sessions, 'Commissars must be shot.' " Jacob Korzillias, of Horforst, near Treves, a German officer, a lieutenant of the 112th Engineer Battalion of the 112th Infantry Division, certified: "In a village near Bolva, 15 wounded Red Army men were thrown out of the hut where they were lying, stripped, and bayonetted on the order of Lieutenant Kierick, adjutant of the 112th Engineer Battalion.
COL. POKROVSKY: This was done with the knowledge of the division commander, Lieutenant General Mitt." Alois Goetz, from Hagenbach-am-Rhine, a soldier of Company 8 of the 427th Infantry Regiment, stated, "On 27 June, in a forest near Augustovo, two Red Army commissars were shot on the order of the battalion commander, Captain Wittmann." On Page 3 of our Exhibit Number USSR-62 we find the following statement by Paul Sender of Konigsberg, a soldier of the 4th Platoon of Company 13, Infantry Field Artillery, attached to the 2d Infantry Regiment-Page 137 of the document book: "On 14 July, on the road between Porchov and Staraya-Russa, Corporal Schneider, of Company 1 of the 2d Infantry Regiment, shot 12 captured Red Army men in the gutter. When I questioned him on the matter, Schneider answered, 'Why should I bother with them? They are not even worth a bullet.' I also know of another case. "During the battles around Porchov, a Red Army man was captured. Shortly after he was shot by a corporal of Company 1. As soon as the Red Army soldier fell, the corporal took from his knapsack all the food in it." To conclude the reading of excerpts from the protest of the German prisoners of war, I should like to quote two more depositions by Fritz Rummier and Richard Gillig, respectively. We find their depositions at the bottom of Page 4. Fritz Rummler, a native of Strehlen in Silesia and a corporal of Company 9, Battalion 3, of the 518th Regiment of the 295th Infantry Division, reported the following cases-this excerpt is on Page 138 of the document book: "In August, in the town of Zlatopol, I saw how two officers of the SS units and two soldiers shot two captured Red Army soldiers after first taking their army overcoats from them. These officers and soldiers belonged to the Panzer tank forces of General Von Kleist. In September the crew of a German tank on the road to Krasnograd crushed two captured Red Army soldiers to death with their tank. This act was inspired purely by lust for blood and murder.
COL. POKROVSKY: The tank commander was a noncommissioned officer, Schneider, belonging to Von Kleist's Panzer forces. I saw how four captured Red Army soldiers were questioned in our battalion. This happened at Voroshilovsk. The Red Army soldiers refused to answer questions of a military nature asked by the battalion commander, Major Warnecke. IIe flew into a rage and with his own hands beat the prisoners unconscious." Corporal Richard Gillig, of the 9th Transportation Platoon, of the 34th Division, stated: "Many a time I witnessed the inhuman and cruel treatment of Russian prisoners of war. Before my own eyes and on the orders of their officers, German soldiers removed the boots from the captured Red Army soldiers and drove them on barefooted. I witnessed many such facts at Tarutino. I was an eyewitness of the following incident: One prisoner refused to surrender his boots voluntarily. Soldiers of the escort beat him till he could no longer move. I saw other prisoners being stripped, not only of their boots, but of their uniform clothing, right down to their underwear." I omit a few sentences and go on to the end of the statement. "I saw, during the retreat of our column, near the town of Medyn, German soldiers beating up captured Red Army soldiers. One prisoner was very tired and unsteady on his legs. A soldier of the escort raced up to the captive and started kicking and beating him with the butt of his rifle. Other soldiers followed his example and the prisoner dropped dead when we reached the town." The statement reads on: "It is no secret that, in the front line of the German Army division headquarters, specialists existed whose work it was to torture Red Army soldiers and Soviet officers in order to force them, in this manner, to disclose military orders and information." I submit to the Tribunal the photostat of this statement. You can see that there are 60 signatures appended to it by members of the German Armed Forces, with the indication of the regiments and smaller subdivisions to which they belonged.
COL. POKROVSKY: I submit to the Tribunal four photographs of German origin. Each of these photographs was taken by Germans; time and place when the photographs were taken are indicated. One photograph shows the distribution of food; the third and fourth are pictures of the prisoner-of-war camp at Uman.
THE PRESIDENT: Where are the pictures?
COL. POKROVSKY: If I am not mistaken, you have been given the photostat of the statement, but not the photographs.
THE PRESIDENT: This is not a copy of the photographs; these are the signatures of the 60 German prisoners.
COL. POKROVSKY: The photographs will be submitted immediately. They have evidently, by an oversight, not been included in the document book.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on.
COL. POKROVSKY: It is obvious from the first picture that the food distributed is insufficient. Men are practically fighting for the right of getting at it. The second photograph shows hungry Soviet prisoners of war wandering round an empty barn and eating the oil cakes stored for cattle food and which they had discovered. As to the third and fourth photographs, I can submit to the Tribunal important testimony by the witness, Bingel. Excerpts from his testimony have a direct bearing on the question of the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. I interrogated Bingel myself and I now submit the minutes of his interrogation to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-111 (Document Number USSR-111), dated 27 December 1945. Bingel, who formerly commanded a company in the German Army, testified-I quote an excerpt from Page 8 of the minutes of his interrogation-as follows: "A: 'In one of my reports I made a statement concerning the regime inside the prisoner-of-war camp at Uman.... 13 Feb. 4e This camp was guarded by a company of our subsection of the 783rd Battalion, and I was therefore familiar with everything which occurred in the camp. It was the task of this battalion to guard the prisoners of war and to control the highways and railroads. " 'This camp was calculated to hold, under normal conditions, from 6,000 to 7,000 men; at that time, however, it housed 74,000 men.' "Q: 'Were there barracks?' "A: 'No. It was formerly a brickyard and consisted exclusively of low sheds for drying bricks.' "Q: 'Were the prisoners of war housed there?' "A: 'It can scarcely be said that they were housed, since each shed, at the utmost, could not contain more than 200 to 300 men; the rest had to sleep in the open.' "Q: 'What was the regime like at that camp?' "A: 'The regime in that camp was definitely peculiar. The existing conditions gave one the impression that the camp commander, Captain Berker, was quite unable to handle and feed so large a number of men. There were two kitchens in the camp, although they could hardly be called kitchens.
COL. POKROVSKY: Iron barrels had been placed on stone and concrete floors, and the food for the prisoners was prepared in these barrels. But the kitchens, even if operating for 24 hours on end, could only prepare food for approximately 2,000 people daily. The usual diet for the prisoner was very insufficient. The daily ration for six men consisted of one loaf of bread which, again, could scarcely be described as bread. Disturbances frequently arose during the distribution of the hot food, for the prisoners-and there were 70,000 of them in the camp-struggled to get at the victuals. In cases like these the guards resorted to clubs-a usual procedure in the camp. I obtained the general impression that in all the camps the club was inevitably the foundation of all things."' Please forgive the digression, but I have been told, Your Honor, that two photographs are attached to the Record and that their authenticity is certified. I am now submitting them to the Tribunal. The other two will be handed to you very shortly. I continue to quote from the Record: "Q: 'Do you know anything about the death rate at the camp?' "A: 'Sixty to seventy men died at the camp daily.' "Q: 'From what causes?' "A: 'Before the epidemics broke out one mostly spoke of people being killed.' "Q: 'Killed during the distribution of food?' "A: 'Both during the distribution of food and during working hours; generally speaking, people were being killed all day long.'" Bingel was interrogated by us for the second time, and he was shown the photographs of the camp at Oman. These are the same photographs that you now have in your hands, Your Honors. He was then asked the following question, "The camp shown here, is it the one you spoke about, or some other camp?" After this he was shown photographs from a negative, 13X18, of 14 August 1941 and from a negative, 13X22, of the same date. Bingel replied: "Yes, this is the camp of which I spoke. As a matter of fact, this is not the camp proper but a clay pit belonging to the camp; here the prisoners were housed as soon as they arrived from the front.
COL. POKROVSKY: Later on they were assigned to various sections of the camp." "Q: What can you tell us about the second photograph?' "A: 'The second one shows the camp photographed from another angle, that is, from the right side. The buildings shown here were practically the only brick buildings in the camp. These brick buildings, though quite empty and undamaged, with excellent and spacious quarters, were not used for housing the prisoners of war.'" It is difficult to say whether or not that what the Hitlerites did to the Soviet prisoners of war at the so-called "Grosslazarett" of the town of Slavata, in the Kamenetzk-Podolsky region, should be considered as the limit of human vileness. Be that as it may, the extermination of Soviet prisoners of war by the Hitlerites at the "Grosslazarett" is one of the darkest pages in the annals of fascist crime. I submit to the Tribunal, as Exhibit Number USSR-5 (Document Number USSR-5), the report of the Extraordinary State Commission, and I shall read into the Record several excerpts from the report itself, as well as from the appendices thereto. "On the expulsion of the fascist hordes from the town of Slavuta, units of the Red Army discovered, on the site of the restricted military area, the establishment which the Germans called the 'Grosslazarett' for Soviet prisoners of war. Over 500 emaciated, critically sick men were found in the 'Lazarett.' The interrogation of these men and the special investigation carried out by medico-forensic experts and by experts of the Central Institute for Food, of the People's 13 Feb. 4S Commissariat for Health in the U.S.S.R., led to a detailed reconstruction of the extermination of an immense number of Soviet prisoners of war in that appalling institution." You will find the passage I am about to quote on Page 153 of the document book: "In the fall of 1941, German fascist invaders occupied the town of Slavuta, where they organized a 'Lazarett' for wounded and sick officers and men of the Red Army, under the name of Grosslazarett, Slavuta, Teillager 301.
COL. POKROVSKY: "The 'Lazarett' was located about ll/s to 2 kilometers to the southeast of Slavuta and occupied 10 three-storied stone buildings. The Hitlerites surrounded all these buildings by a strong barbed-wire fence. All along the barbed wire, 10 meters apart, towers were built, in which guns, searchlights, and guards were placed. "The administrative staff, the German doctors and the guard of the 'Grosslazarett,' the latter represented by the commanding officer, Captain Plank (later replaced by Major Pavlisk), the deputy commander, Kronsdorfer, Captain Boye, Dr. Borbe, with his deputy, Dr. Sturm, Master Sergeant Ilseman, and Technical Sergeant Bekker carried out a mass extermination of Soviet prisoners of war by imposing a, special regime of hunger, overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions, by torture and direct murder, by depriving the sick end wounded of all medical assistance, and by subjecting utterly exhausted men to heavy labor." The Extraordinary State Commission refers to the "Grosslazarett" as the "Hospital of Death." I shall quote a short excerpt from a section under the selfsame name. It is on Page 3 of the Russian original and on Page 153 of the document book: "The German authorities concentrated at the 'Grosslazarett' 15,000 to 18,000 severely and slightly wounded Soviet prisoners of war, together with prisoners suffering from various contagious and noncontagious diseases. "To replace the ranks of the dead, fresh batches of sick and wounded prisoners of war were continually brought in. On the journey the captives w ere tortured, starved, and murdered The Hitlerites threw out hundreds of corpses from each car of the incoming transports as they reached the 'Lazarett.' " According to data received from the investigating commission, 800 to 900 dead bodies would be thrown out of each train as it unloaded at a branch line. A further report of the Commission states: "Thousands of Soviet prisoners on the march perished from hunger, thirst, lack of care, and the savage club-law of the German guards...