dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I quote the section entitled, "Measures for the restoration of full working capacities." I think that the boundless cynicism and the cruelty of this document require no further comment: "The Soviet prisoners of war are, almost without exception, in a state of acute malnutrition, which currently renders them unfit for a normal output of work." The General Staff of the German Armed Forces was particularly concerned over two questions: Firstly, with blankets for Soviet prisoners of war, and secondly, in what form the mercilessly murdered Soviet victims of the concentration camps should be buried. Both questions found their solution in one document. I submit it to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-429 (Document Number USSR-429), and request that it be added as evidence to the record. Your Honors will find it on Page 162 of the document book. This is a directive of the 8th Military District, dated 28 October 1941. I begin the quotation: "Re: Soviet Russian prisoners of war. The following arrangements were decided during a conference of the OKW: "1. Blankets. The Soviet Russians will receive paper blankets, which they will have to manufacture themselves, in the form of quilts, from paper tissue, filled with crumpled paper and similar material. The material will be procured by the OKW." The second part, as Your Honors will notice, is as follows -- the heading reads, "Burial of Soviet Russians": "Soviet prisoners of war are to be buried naked, without a coffin, wrapped in packing paper. Coffins will be used only for transports. In the labor commands the burial will be attended to by the competent authorities. Burial expenses will be met by the competent M-Stalag for prisoners of war. The stripping of the bodies will be done by the camp guards.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Signed: by order, Grossekettler." But not only the administration of the military district was concerned with the methods for burying Soviet prisoners of war; the Ministry of the Interior was also concerned with this question, and an urgent letter was addressed to the camp specially marked, "Not for publication in the press, even in excerpts." I request the Tribunal to accept this document in evidence as Exhibit Number USSR-430. The members of the Tribunal can find this passage on Page 276 of the document book. I quote a few sentences from this fairly voluminous document -- five sentences. I begin to quote: "For the transport of the bodies (procurement of vehicles) offices of the Wehrmacht should be contacted. For transportation and burial a coffin is not to be requested. The bodies should be completely wrapped up in paper, preferably in oiled paper, tarpaulin, corrugated paper, or some other suitable material. Both transportation and burial should be done unostentatiously. When many corpses come in at the same time, burial should take place in a common grave. The corpses should be laid at the usual depth, side by side, not overlapping each other. As a site for the burial a distant part of the cemetery should be chosen. Any burial service and any decoration of the graves should be disallowed." I omit the following sentence: "It is necessary to keep expenses as low as possible." But even in the special organizations of German fascism, specially created for the extermination of human life, the criminals still continued in their policy of racial and political discrimination. Actually, this discrimination could mean one thing only, namely, that one part of the camp prisoners came to their, inevitable end, death, more rapidly than the other part. And the criminals even tried to make the inevitable end more of a torment for those of their victims whom they, following the Nazi man-hating theories, designated as subhumans or considered capable of active resistance.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I request the permission of the Tribunal to read into the record one paragraph from a document already submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-415. This is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union on the "Crimes at Lamsdorf Camp" and the quotation will testify to the extent of the criminal Hitlerite activities. It concludes the presentation of evidence regarding this camp. Your Honors will find the passage in question on Page 146 of the document book, Paragraph 3. I quote: "According to the findings of the special commission during the existence of the Lamsdorf Camp, the Germans tortured to death more than 100,000 Soviet prisoners of war. Most of these died in the mines, in the various economic enterprises, or during transportation back to the camp. Some were crushed to death in the dugouts, many were killed during the evacuation of the camp. Forty thousand prisoners of war were tortured to death in the Lamsdorf Camp proper." Mr. President, the Soviet Prosecution begs to present one more witness, Doctor Kivelisha. He is a physician and his evidence is particularly important in establishing that there existed a special regime for Soviet prisoners of war in the camps. The Soviet Prosecution requests your permission to question this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Colonel Smirnov. [The witness Kivelisha took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: What is your name?
DR. EUGENE ALEXANDROVICH KIVELISHA (Witness): Kivelisha, Eugene Alexandrovich.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I, and then state your name -- a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics -- summoned as witness in this Trial -- do promise and swear -- in the presence of the Court -- to tell the Court nothing but the truth about everything I know in regard to this case. [The witness repeated the oath.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down, if you wish. Will you spell your name; will you spell your surname?
KIVELISHA: It is K-i-v-e-l-i-s-h-a.
THE PRESIDENT: Please, Colonel Pokrovsky.
COLONEL Y. V. POKROVSKY (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): What was your position in the ranks of the Red Army at the time of the attack on the Soviet Union by Hitlerite Germany?
KIVELISHA: At the time of the attack on the Soviet Union by Hitlerite Germany I was junior physician in the 305th Regiment of the 44th Rifle Division.
COL. POKROVSKY: Did your unit of the 305th Regiment of the 44th Rifle Division take part in battles against the Germans?
KIVELISHA: Yes, our 305th Regiment of the 44th Rifle Division participated in the battles from the first day of the war.
COL. POKROVSKY: On what date and under what circumstances were you captured by the Germans?
KIVELISHA: I was captured by the Germans on 9 August 1941, in the district of the City of Uman, in the Kirovograd region. I was captured at the moment when our unit and two Russian armies to which our unit belonged were surrounded by the Germans after prolonged fighting.
COL. POKROVSKY: What do you know about the treatment applied by the Germans to Red Army soldiers who were captured by the Hitlerite troops? What was the position of these prisoners of war?
KIVELISHA: I know only too well every form of barbarous mockeries applied to the Russian prisoners of war by the Hitlerite authorities and the Army, for the reason that I was a prisoner of war myself, for a very long time. On the day I was captured, I was sent in convoy in a large column of prisoners of war to one of the transient camps. En route, talking to the prisoners with whom I marched -- I stress the fact that this was on the very first day -- I learned that the greater part of the prisoners had been captured 3 or 4 days before the small group to which I myself belonged. During these 3 or 4 days the prisoners had been kept in a shed, under a reinforced German guard and were given nothing at all to eat or drink. Later, when we passed through the villages, the prisoners, on seeing wells and water, passed their tongues over their parched lips and made involuntary swallowing movements when their eyes fell on the water. Later on in the same day we finished the march toward nighttime and the column of prisoners, 5,000 strong, was billeted in a farm yard where we had no possibility of resting after the long journey, and we were forced to spend the night in the open. This continued on the following day, and on this day too we were deprived of food and water.
COL.POKROVSKY: Was there no case when the prisoners, passing by water tanks or wells, stepped two or three paces out of line and tried to get at the water themselves?
KIVELISHA: Yes, I remember a few such cases and shall tell you of one particular incident which occurred on the first day of our march. It happened like this: We were passing the outskirts of a little village. The peaceful civilian population came to meet us, and tried to supply us with water and bread. However, the Germans would not allow us to approach the citizens, nor would they let the population approach the column of prisoners. One of the prisoners stepped 5 or 6 meters out of the column, and without any warning was killed by a German soldier shooting from a tommy gun. Several of his comrades rushed to help him thinking that he was still alive, but they too were immediately fired on without warning. Some of them were wounded and two of them were killed.
COL..POKROVSKY: Was that the only incident you witnessed, or, during your transfer from one place to another, did you observe other cases of a similar nature?
KIVELISHA: No, this was not an individual occurrence. Almost every transfer from one camp to another was accompanied by the same kind of shootings and murders.
COL. POKROVSKY: Did they shoot only the prisoners of war, or were measures of repression adopted toward the peaceful citizens as well, toward the citizens who had tried to give bread and water to the captives?
KIVELISHA: Measures of repression were applied not only to the prisoners of war; they were also applied to the peaceful citizens. I remember once, during one of our transfers, a group of women and children attempted to give us bread and water, like the others, only the Germans would not allow them to come anywhere near us. Then one woman sent a little girl, about 5 years old, evidently her daughter, to the prisoners' column. This little child came quite close to the place where I had passed and when she was five or six steps away from the column, she was killed by a German soldier.
COL. POKROVSKY: But perhaps the prisoners of war didn't need the food which the population tried to give them; perhaps they were sufficiently well fed by the German authorities?
KIVELISHA: The prisoners of war on the transfer marches suffered from hunger to an exceptional extent. The Germans provided no food whatsoever en route from one camp to the other.
COL. POKROVSKY: So that these gifts from the local population were the only practical means possible to sustain the strength of the soldiers in German captivity?
KIVELISHA: Yes.
COL. POKROVSKY: Did the Germans shoot them?
KIVELISHA: You understand me correctly.
COL. POKROVSKY: In which prisoner-of-war camps were you interned? Name some of them.
KIVELISHA: The first camp in which I was interned was in the open, in a field, in the district of the small hamlet of Tarnovka. The second camp was situated on the site of a brick yard and former poultry farm on the outskirts of the town of Uman. The third camp was situated in the suburbs of Ivan-Gora. The fourth camp was situated on the territory pertaining to the stables of some military unit or other in the region of the town of Gaisen. The fifth camp was in the region of the small garrison town of Vinnitza. The sixth camp was in the suburbs of the small town of Dzemerinka and the last camp, where I stayed the longest time, was in the village of Rakovo, 7 kilometers from the town of Proskurov, in the Kamenetz-Podolsk district.
COL. POKROVSKY: So that you yourself, from your own personal experience, could realize the state of affairs prevalent in this series of camps? KIVELISHA. Yes, in all the camps I was personally and completely acquainted with all the conditions.
COL. POKROVSKY: Are you a physician by profession?
KIVELISHA: I am a physician by profession.
COL. POKROVSKY: Tell the Tribunal how matters stood insofar as medical attention and food for the prisoners of war were concerned in the camps you have just enumerated.
KIVELISHA: When I was transported under convoy to the camp near the hamlet of Tarnovka, I was, for the first time and in company with other Russian doctors, separated from the rest of the prisoners' column, and sent to the so-called infirmary. This infirmary was in a shed with a concrete floor, without any equipment for the care of the wounded. And on this concrete floor 26 Feb. 4B lay a large number of wounded Soviet prisoners, mostly officers. Many had been captured to 12 days before my arrival at Tarnovka. During all that time they had received no medical attention although many of them were in need of surgical aid, with simultaneous and frequent dressings and a number of drugs. They were systematically left without water; food too was administered without any system at all; at least, at the time of my arrival in the camp there was no equipment to prove that food had ever been prepared or cooked for these wounded soldiers. There were about 15,000 to 20,000 wounded in Uman Camp where I found myself on the second day after my arrival in Tarnovka. They were all lying in the open, dressed in their summer uniforms and a great many of them were incapable of moving. Food and water were supplied to them in the same way as to the other captives in the camp. There they lay, without any medical attention, their dust-covered dressings soaked in blood, often in pus. Dressings, surgical instruments, equipment for an operating theater just did not exist in the camp at Uman. In Gaisen prisoners of war, sick and wounded, were herded into one of the stables. This stable had no wooden floors and lacked every facility for human habitation. The prisoners of war were lying on the earthen floor, and here, too, as in the preceding camp, they did not have even an iota of medical attention. As before, dressings, drugs, and surgical instruments were unobtainable.
COL.POKROVSKY: You mentioned the Uman Camp. Look at this photograph and tell me, is it a photograph of one of the camps where you were interned?
KIVELISHA: I see on this photograph the camp which was situated in the grounds of the brick yard at the city of Uman. I know this picture very well.
COL. POKROVSKY: I must report to the Tribunal that the photograph I have just shown the witness is a photograph of Uman Camp and was submitted by me to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-345. It shows the camp concerning which witness Bingel has already testified. [Turning to the witness.] This means that you recognize Uman Camp situated in the grounds of the brick yard from this photograph?
KIVELISHA: Yes, in the grounds of the brick yard. It is a part of the camp.
COL.POKROVSKY: What was the prevailing regime in Uman Camp? Tell us just the main points, very briefly.
KIVELISHA: Almost all the captives in the camp were kept in the open air. The food was extremely bad. In the grounds of the Uman Camp, where I spent 8 days, twice a day a few fires would be lit out of doors and a thin pea soup was cooked in vats over these fires. There was no special routine for distributing food to the prisoners of war, and the boiled soup would then be set down amongst the whole mass of people. No control whatsoever was exercised over the distribution. The starving prisoners rushed up in the hope of obtaining even a minute portion of this thin, unsalted soup, cooked without fat and served without bread. Disorder and crowding arose. The German guards, all armed with clubs as well as with rifles and automatic guns, beat up all the prisoners of war within range of their blows for the purpose of maintaining order. The Germans would often intentionally set down a small barrel of soup among a great number of people, and once again, to restore order, they would beat up the absolutely innocent people with laughter, oaths, insults, and threats.
COL. POKROVSKY: Please tell me, Witness: In the camp situated in the village of Rakovo, was the quality of the food better or was it approximately the same as in other camps? And how did the food situation affect the health of the prisoners? KIVELISHA In the camp of Rakovo the food was exactly the same in quality as that of the other camps where I had been previously interned. It consisted of beets, cabbage, and potatoes frequently served half-cooked. Owing to this poor quality of food the prisoners developed severe gastric trouble accompanied by dysentery, which rapidly exhausted them and resulted in a very high rate of mortality from hunger.
COL. POKROVSKY: You talked about the guards often beating the prisoners on the slightest provocation and time and again without any provocation at all.
KIVELISHA: Yes.
COL.POKROVSKY: What kind of traumatic lesions did the prisoners receive as a result of these beatings? Were there any cases of severe traumatic injuries caused by heavy beatings or did the whole matter result in a few kicks only?
KIVELISHA: In Rakovo Camp I was in the so-called hospital, where I worked in the surgical section. Frequently, after dinner or supper in the hospital, prisoners were brought in with most grievous physical injuries. I frequently had to do all I could to help people who were so terribly injured by these beatings that they would die without regaining consciousness. I remember a second case when two prisoners were beaten over the head with some hard object till the brains oozed out from the gaping head wound. I remember yet another incident, only too well, when an athlete from Moscow had an eye knocked out with a whip. The athlete then contracted meningitis and died soon after.
COL.POKROVSKY: How high was the mortality rate among the prisoners of war in Rakovo Camp?
KIVELISHA: The history of Rakovo Camp can be divided into two periods. There was the first which lasted about 2 years and ended in November 1941. At that time the number of prisoners was not very great and consequently the rate of mortality was not so high. Then there was the second period, from November 1941 to March 1942, at which time I was in Rakovo myself. During this second period the mortality rate was exceptionally high: there were days when 700, 900, and even 950 persons died in the camp.
COL. POKROVSKY: What disciplinary measures were there in Rakovo Camp and for what reasons were the prisoners punished? Do you know?
KIVELISHA: Yes. I know that there was, in the camp grounds, a cell for prisoners condemned to solitary confinement. Prisoners of war guilty of attempting to escape from the terrible conditions created for them in captivity, or with offenses such as stealing food products in the kitchen, were locked up in this cell. It was in the cellar; it had a cement floor and windows with iron bars instead of panes. The prisoner was stripped to the skin, deprived of food and water, and locked up in solitary confinement for 14 days. I do not know of a single case where a prisoner survived this confinement; all of them died in that particular cell.
COL. POKROVSKY: Evidently the conditions which you have described to the Tribunal increased the number of persons suffering from exhaustion.
KIVELISHA: Yes.
COL.POKROVSKY: Did this condition result in a decreased number of prisoners capable of working? Did their number decrease; what was done to those prisoners who could not work?
KIVELISHA: An immense number of prisoners were kept, in Rakovo Camp, in stables which were quite unfit for human beings to live in during the winter period. At first everybody was made to work. I can safely say that most of this work was entirely aimless, since it consisted in pulling down houses and then paving the camp grounds with bricks from the demolished buildings. After some time, when severe gastric troubles had set in, troubles which I have already mentioned, fewer and fewer prisoners came out to work. Many of them, who had lost all control of their movements, never even left the stables for the appointed meal times, and if a great many people were discovered to have lost their strength, a so-called quarantine was established. In such a stable all the exits and entries would be blocked and the patients would be completely isolated from the outer world. Having kept them locked up for 4 or 5 days on end, the stable would be opened and the dead brought out by the hundreds.
COL. POKROVSKY: Can you tell us, Witness, on what medical or sanitary work you and the other doctors were employed in the camp by the Germans?
KIVELISHA: In the camps we were not employed by the Germans on any work connected with the prisoners. All the Germans were interested in was the separation of people who could work from those of the prisoners who were incapable of working. We could not render the prisoners any purely medical services because of the conditions in which we ourselves existed.
COL.POKROVSKY: Did your duties in any of these camps include sanitary supervision? And what exactly was understood by sanitary supervision?
KIVELISHA: The duties of sanitary supervision were entrusted to us in the camp of the town of Gaisen. It only meant that we, the captured military doctors, had to be on duty in the vicinity of the general latrine in the camp, which was nothing more than a ditch dug for this purpose, and as and when the ditch was filled up with excrement, we were forced to clean up the ground.
COL.POKROVSKY: The doctors?
KIVELISHA: Yes, the doctors.
COL.POKROVSKY: Did you really consider this function as a form of sanitary supervision, or did you consider it as straightforward mockery by the Germans at the expense of the captured Soviet army doctors?
KIVELISHA: I consider that it was straightforward mockery at the expense of the captured Soviet doctors.
COL. POKROVSKY: Mr. President, I have no more questions to ask this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Have any of the other prosecutors got any questions to ask?
COL. POKROVSKY: No, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any of the defendants' counsel wish to ask any questions?
DR. LATERNSER: Witness, you have stated that in August 1941 . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Will you kindly announce your name for whom you appear.
DR. LATERNSER: Dr. Laternser, Defense Counsel for the General Staff and the OKW. Witness, you have just stated that in August 1941 you were brought to captivity in the district of Uman. Do you know whether the Germans had taken many prisoners at that time?
KIVELISHA: Yes, I do know. About 100,000 prisoners were captured at that time.
DR. LATERNSER: Do you know whether German troops had advanced very rapidly into Russian territory at that time?
KIVELISHA: I cannot say anything about this. The German armies moved very rapidly, but before our units were surrounded we fought obstinately and we retreated, fighting, right up to 9 August.
DR. LATERNSER: How great was the number of prisoners in the column in which you marched?
KIVELISHA: Four thousand to five thousand persons.
DR. LATERNSER: When did you first get any food from the German troops?
KIVELISHA: I personally, and for the first time, received food from the German troops when I reached the town of Uman.
DR. LATERNSER: How much time had passed between the moment you were captured and your first meal?
KIVELISHA: When I was first fed I had been a prisoner of war for about 4 or 5 days.
DR. LATERNSER: You were a Red Army doctor and must have been quite aware that the feeding of armies is not so simple a matter.