dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
THE PRESIDENT: You said you were working with your two sons in the field.
GRIGORIEV: Yes; my own two sons.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Continue.
GRIGORIEV: We were led through the village to the last house at the outskirts. There were 19 of us, all told, in that house. So there we sat in that house. I sat close to the window and looked out of it. I saw German soldiers herd together a great number of people. I noticed my wife and my 9-year-old boy. They were chased right up to the house and then led back again -- where to, I did not know. A little later three German machine gunners came in, accompanied by a fourth carrying a heavy revolver. We were ordered into another room. So we went, all 19 of us, and were lined up against a wall, including my two sons, and they began shooting at us from their machine guns. I stood right up to the wall, bending slightly. After the first volley I fell to the floor, where I lay, too frightened to move. When they had shot all of us they left the house. When I came to, I looked round and saw my son Nikolai who had been shot and had fallen, face downwards. My second son I could not find anywhere. Then, when some time had passed, I began to think how I could escape. I straightened my legs out from under the man who had fallen on me and began to think how I could get away. And instead of that, instead of planning my escape, I lost my head and called out, at the top of my voice, "Can I really go now?" At that moment my small son, who had remained alive, recognized me.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That would be your second son?
GRIGORIEV: The second. The first had been killed and was lying by my side. My little son called out, "Daddy, are you still alive?"
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: He was wounded?
GRIGORIEV: He was wounded in the leg. I calmed him down: "Do not fear, my small son. I shall not leave you here. Somehow or other, we shall get away from here. I shall carry you out." A little later the house began to burn. Then I opened the window and threw myself out of it, carrying my little boy who had been wounded in the leg. We began to creep out of the house, hiding so that the Germans could not see us, but on our way from the house we suddenly saw a high fence. We could not move the lattice apart so we began to break it up. At that moment we were noticed by the German soldiers and they began to shoot at us. Then I whispered to my little son to hide while I would run away. I was unable to carry him and he ran a short distance and hid in the undergrowth, while I ran off. I ran a short distance and then jumped into a building near the burning house. There I sat for a while and then decided to run farther on. So I escaped into a nearby forest, not far from our village, where I spent the night. In the morning I met Alexei N. from the neighboring village, who told me, "Your son, Aljosha, is alive; he started to crawl to the neighboring village." Then on the second day, from the same village, Kuznetzov, I met the boy Vitya who had escaped from Leningrad and was living in our village during the time of the occupation. He had also been saved by a miracle. He escaped from the fire. He told me what had happened in the second hut where my wife and son had been taken. There matters were carried out as follows: The German soldiers, having driven the people into the hut, opened the door into the passage and proceeded to shoot from their machine guns across the threshold. According to Vitya's words, people who were still half alive were burning, including my little boy, Petya, who was only 9 years old. When he ran out of the hut he saw that my Petya was still alive. He was sitting under a bench, having covered his ears with his little hands.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: How old was the oldest inhabitant of this village destroyed by the Germans?
GRIGORIEV: The oldest inhabitant, a woman aged 108 years, was Ustinia Artemieva.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Tell me, Witness, how old was the youngest victim murdered by the Germans?
GRIGORIEV: Four months.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: How many villagers were destroyed all told?
GRIGORIEV: Forty-seven, excluding those who were saved by a miracle.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Why did the Germans destroy the population of your village?
GRIGORIEV: The reason was not known.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And what did the Germans themselves say?
GRIGORIEV: When a German soldier came to our threshing floor we asked him, "Why are you killing us?" He replied, "Do you know the village of Maximovo?" This is the village next to our village community. I said, "Yes." Then he told me, "This village of Maximovo is kaput -- the inhabitants are kaput, and you too will be kaput."
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And why kaput?
GRIGORIEV: "Because," said he, "partisans were hiding in your village." But his words were untruthful because we had no partisans in the village; nobody indulged in any partisan activities since there was nobody left. Only old people and small children were left in the village; the village had never seen any partisans and did not know who these partisans were.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Were there many adult men in your village?
GRIGORIEV: There was one man, 27 years old, but he was a sick man, half-witted and paralytic. We had only old men and small children. All the rest of the men were in the Army.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Please tell us, witness, were the inhabitants of your village alone in suffering this fate?
GRIGORIEV: No, they were not alone. The German soldiers shot 43 persons in Kurysheva, 47 in Vshivova, and in the village of Pavlovo, where I now live, they burned 23 persons. And in a number of villages where, according to our village community, there were some four hundred inhabitants, they shot all the peaceful citizens, both young and old.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Please repeat that figure. How many persons were destroyed in your village community?
GRIGORIEV: About four hundred people in our village community alone.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Please tell us, who remained alive in your family?
GRIGORIEV: In my family only I and my boy remained alive. In my family they shot my wife, in her sixth month of pregnancy, my son Nikolai, aged 16 years, my youngest boy, Petya, aged 9 years, and my sister-in-law -- my brother's wife -- with her two infants, Sasha and Tonya.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I have no further questions to ask this witness, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any of the other prosecutors wish to ask the witness any questions? Do any of the defendants' counsel wish to ask the witness any questions? The witness may retire. [The witness left the stand.]
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I pass on to the next count of my statement, the discrimination against the Soviet people. Discrimination against the Soviet population was the usual method of the Hitlerite criminals. It was carried out by the criminals continuously and everywhere. In this part of my presentation I shall refer to the documents of the German criminals themselves, which have only now been obtained and placed at the disposal of the Soviet Prosecution. They were seized by the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union in the prisoner-of-war camp at Lamsdorf. I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-415 (Document Number USSR-415), a communication of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes committed by the German Government and the German Supreme Command against Soviet prisoners of war in the camp of Lamsdorf. A number of original documents of the German fascist criminals, discovered in the camp archives, are attached to the report. I shall be able to submit some of these documents to Your Honors. Their value consists in the fact that they prove that even in the murderous regime established in one of the largest and most cruel of the German concentration camps, the criminals, true to the cannibalistic principles of their theories, shamelessly discriminated against Soviet nationals. I shall quote a few brief excerpts from the report of the Extraordinary State Commission. The passage, Your Honors, to which I refer, you will find on Page 123 of the document book, Paragraph 4. It sets forth the general characteristics of the camp. I quote: "Subsequent to investigations made, the Extraordinary State Commission proved that in Lamsdorf, in the district of the town of Oppeln, there existed, from 1941 to May 1945, a German stationary camp, Number 344. "In 1940-41 this camp contained Polish prisoners of war; from the end of 1941 Soviet, English, and French prisoners of war began to come in." I omit the next two sentences and continue the quotation: "The prisoners of war were deprived of their outer clothing and boots.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Even in winter they had to go barefoot. No fewer than 300,000 prisoners of war passed through the camp during the years of its existence, including 200,000 Soviet and l00,000 Polish, English, French, Belgian, and Greek prisoners. "The prevalent method for the extermination of Soviet prisoners in Lamsdorf camp was the sale of the captives to German undertakings for work in various German firms where they were mercilessly exploited until, their strength completely lost, they died of exhaustion. "In contrast to the numerous German labor exchanges, where Sauckel's representatives sold enslaved Soviet citizens by retail to German housewives, a wholesale business in internees was organized in Lamsdorf camp where the captives were formed into labor commands. There were 1,011 such labor commands in the camp." When presenting the subsequent documents, I should like to ask the Tribunal to understand correctly the statements in corroboration of which I am submitting evidence. I do not in the least wish to say that the regime established by the Germans for British, French, or other prisoners of war was at all distinguished for humanity or kindness and that, alone, the Soviet prisoners of war were exterminated by the camp administration by various criminal methods. Not at all. Lamsdorf Camp factually pursued its object, which was the extermination of prisoners of war regardless of their nationality or citizenship. Nevertheless, even in this death camp, in these most grievous conditions created for prisoners of war of all nationalities, the German fascists, committing crimes against humanity and faithful to the principles of their theories, created particularly excruciating conditions for the people of the Soviet. I shall submit to the Tribunal, in a few brief excerpts, a series of documents taken from the archives of this camp and presented to the Tribunal in the original version.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: All these documents point to the manifest discrimination against Soviet prisoners of war, carried out by the camp administration pursuant to orders of the Reich Government and of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces. I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-421 (Document Number USSR-421), a memorandum on the utilization of the labor of Soviet prisoners of war, addressed by the chief of the prisoner-of-war department for the 8th Military District for the administration of industrial concerns to which the prisoners of war were sent. I request the Tribunal to accept this document as evidence. It is submitted in the original. I quote Point 10 of this memorandum. Your Honors will find the passage quoted in the last paragraph of Page 150 of the document book. I begin the quotation: "The following directives have been issued for the treatment of Russian prisoners of war: "The Russian prisoners of war have all passed through the school of Bolshevism, they must be looked upon as Bolsheviks and treated as such. According to their own instructions they must, even in captivity, struggle actively against the state which has captured them. Therefore, we must from the very beginning treat all Russian prisoners of war with ruthless severity, if they give us the slightest cause for so doing. "Complete separation of prisoners of war from the civilian population must be carried out strictly, in work as well as during recreation. "Civilians attempting, some way or another, to approach the Russian prisoners of war, to exchange ideas with them, to hand them money, food supplies, et alia will be arrested without warning, questioned, and handed over to the police." I further quote the introduction to this memorandum. Your Honors will find it on Page 149 of the document book, Paragraph 2: "The High Command of the Armed Forces has issued directives regulating the utilization of Soviet prisoner-of-war labor.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: According to these directives the utilization of Russian prisoners of war could be tolerated only if carried out under far harsher conditions than those applied to prisoners of war of other nationalities." Thus the instructions for a specially cruel regime, to be applied to Soviet prisoners of war merely because they were Soviet people, were not the result of any arbitrary action on the part of the Lamsdorf Camp administration. They were dictated by the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces. In drafting this memorandum, the Lamsdorf Camp administration was only carrying out direct orders from the Supreme Command. I quote two more, fairly characteristic points from the memorandum. I quote Point 4, which Your Honors will find on Page 149 of the document book, last paragraph. I begin the quotation -- it is a very brief one: "In contrast to the increased requirements for the safeguarding of the Russian billets, these -- from the viewpoint of comfort --  must be reduced to the most modest requirements." I shall endeavor to explain later on what this means. I shall next quote Point 7, which Your Honors will find on Page 150 of the document book, Paragraph 3. I begin the quotation: "The food rations for Russian prisoners of war at work will differ from the rations allocated to prisoners of other nationalities. More detailed information on this subject will be given later." Such was the memorandum addressed to the industrialists to whose concerns the Soviet prisoners of war were sent to work as slaves. I submit to the Tribunal Exhibit Number USSR-431 (Document Number USSR-431), which is another memorandum about guarding the Soviet prisoners of war. The document is submitted in the original and I request the Tribunal to accept it as evidence into the record. I ask the permission of the Tribunal to quote a few brief excerpts from this document. First I quote that part of the document which proves its origin.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The first page of the text indicates it is an appendix to a "Directive of the OKW General Office, Armed Forces, POW Section." Next follow number and document, which are not so important. I now read the introduction to this memorandum, which is on Page 150 of the document book: "For the first time in this war the German soldier is faced with an adversary who is educated both in a military and in a political sense, whose ideal is communism and who sees in National Socialism his very worst enemy." I omit the next paragraph and continue: "Even in captivity, the Soviet soldier -- however harmless he may appear outwardly -- will seize every occasion to show his hatred for all that is German. We must reckon with the fact that the prisoners will have received suitable instructions on their behavior if captured and imprisoned." My colleague, Colonel Pokrovsky, has already denounced the absurdity of these so-called special instructions and I therefore do not consider it necessary to dwell on this passage. I continue: "It is therefore absolutely essential, when dealing with them, to exercise the greatest caution and prudence, and to nourish the deepest suspicions." The following directives were issued to the guard on watch over the Soviet prisoners: Firstly -- ruthless action at the slightest sign of resistance or disobedience. Merciless use of firearms to break any resistance. Escaping prisoners to be shot at immediately, without challenge, with firm intent to hit. "Without challenge" is characteristic. I omit the two following paragraphs and quote the second part, Point 3 of the memorandum, which Your Honors will find on Page 153, Paragraph 2 of the document book. From this Subparagraph I quote three lines: "Kindness is out of place, even when dealing with willing and obedient prisoners of war.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: They will ascribe it to weakness and draw their own conclusions from your kindness." I omit Point 4 and end my quotation from this document on Subparagraph 5 of the memorandum -- Your Honors will find this passage on Page 153, last paragraph of the document book: "5. Never must the apparent inoffensiveness of the Bolshevik prisoner of war tempt you to deviate from the above-mentioned instructions." I have, a very short time ago, quoted Point 4 of the memorandum for the industrial, regarding the utilization of the work of Soviet prisoners. It stated that the requirements respecting billets for the Soviet captives should, from the viewpoint of living facilities, be of a minimum nature. The meaning of this will be clear to Your Honors from a report of the Chief of Army Equipment and Commander of the Reserve Army, dated 17 October 1941, addressed to the acting corps commanders and to the administrative authorities of military districts. I submit this document as Exhibit Number USSR-422 (Document Number USSR-422). This too is presented in the original and I beg that it be entered as documentary evidence into the record. It was issued in Berlin and dated as far back as 17 October 1941. I quote one paragraph of the text. Your Honors will find this paragraph on Page 154 of the document book. I begin the quotation: "Subject: Quarters for Soviet prisoners of war. "At a conference held on 19 September 1941 at the office of the Chief of Army Equipment and Commander of the Reserve Army (V-6), it was decided that by the construction of several tiers of superimposed wooden bunks in lieu of bedsteads, a RAD" -- Reich Labor Service -- "barrack for 150 prisoners could be built according to specifications for Soviet prisoners' permanent barracks to hold 840 prisoners in permanent billets." I shall not quote the remainder of this document since I consider this paragraph sufficiently clear in itself. I request the Tribunal to accept two documents in evidence which are also presented in the original.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: They testify to the fact that the extermination, in the camp, of Soviet prisoners of war was practiced for political reasons. It was the practice of murder. I shall first submit, as Exhibit Number USSR-432 (Document Number USSR-432), an order addressed to Camp Number 60. The document is in the original and I request that it be added to the record as evidence. Your Honors will find the paragraph which I wish to quote on Page 155 of the document book.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now. [A recess was taken.]
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I shall quote one passage only of the document already submitted. The passage which I ask the permission of the Tribunal to read is on Page 155. Point 4 of the order runs as follows: "Behavior at the shooting or serious wounding of a prisoner of war. (Legal Officer) "Every case of shooting or serious wounding of a prisoner of war should be reported as a special occurrence. If you are dealing with British, French, Belgian, or American prisoners of war you should also act in accordance with instructions of the OKW, Code Number F-24." This order was dated 2 August 1943. But on 5 November 1943 another order followed, which changed even this arrangement where the Soviet prisoners of war were concerned. I request the Tribunal to accept in evidence the document which I am submitting as Number 433, pertaining to Camp Number 86. From this document I quote one paragraph only, that is, Paragraph 12: "The shooting of Soviet prisoners of war. (Legal Officer) "The shooting of Soviet prisoners of war and other fatal accidents need no longer be reported by phone to the prisoner of War Commander as an 'unusual occurrence.' " In certain cases, the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces agreed to the payment of a miserably small sum for the work done by the prisoners of war, but here too the Soviet prisoners of war were placed in conditions which were twice as bad as those of the prisoners of other nationalities. To confirm this, I request the Tribunal to accept in evidence a directive of the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces dated 1 March 1944. The document will be submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-427 (Document Number USSR-427). I request that the Tribunal attach it as evidence to the documentation of the case. From this document I shall quote two sentences only.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: These sentences Your Honors will find on Page 274 of the document book: "Prisoners of war working all day will receive for one full working day the following basic salary: Non-Soviet prisoners of war, RM 0.70; Soviet prisoners of war, RM 0.35." The second sentence is at the end of the document, on Page 275 of the document book, last paragraph: "The minimum daily wage for non-Soviet prisoners will consist of 0.20 RM, and 0.10 for Soviet prisoners of war." Here I end my quotation from this document. If other prisoners received from the German fascist murderers the right to a few breaths of fresh air a day, the Soviet people were deprived of even this privilege. I request the Tribunal to accept in evidence an original order, Exhibit Number USSR-424 (Document Number USSR-424), referring to Camp Number 44. I request the permission of the Tribunal to quote one sentence from Paragraph 7, entitled, "Walks for Prisoners of War." I begin to quote: "In special cases, when prisoners of war, engaged on work, have their living quarters at the same place where they work and therefore have no access to the open air, they should be allowed to be taken out into the fresh air in order to maintain their working strength." I further request the Tribunal to accept as evidence the original order addressed to Camp Number 46. This document is submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-425 (Document Number USSR-425). I would remind the Tribunal that the directive ruling the preceding order, "Walks for Prisoners of War," was listed under Point 7. I cite one sentence from Point 10 of Order Number 46. This Point 10 is also entitled, "Walks for Prisoners of War," and the basis for this point is Order Number 1259, Part 5, of the Chief of the Section for Prisoner-of-War Affairs, dated 2 June 1943.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I quote one sentence: "In complement to Point 7 of the order addressed to Camp Number 44, dated 8 June 1943, it is explained that the order does not apply to Soviet prisoners of war." I further request the Tribunal to accept in evidence the original request of the labor office of Mahrisch-Schonberg. This request concerns the utilization of prisoners of war for nonagricultural work. I quote two sentences from this document. The passage which I have asked permission to quote is on Page 160 of the document book. I begin the quotation: "The replacement of 104 English prisoners of war from Labor Brigade for Prisoners of War E 351, currently employed in the Heinrichsthal paper mills, by 160 Soviet prisoners of war, has been rendered necessary by the labor shortage which has developed in this factory. An additional allocation of English prisoners, to raise the number to the required figure of 160, is impossible, since after the last check of camp conditions, undertaken a few months ago by competent Wehrmacht authorities, it was decided that billets in the camp were only sufficient for 104 English prisoners of war, whereas the same space would accommodate 160 Russian prisoners of war without any difficulties whatsoever." I request Your Honors' permission to quote one more document, namely Directive Number 8 regarding this camp, dated 7 May 1942. It is entitled, ÒThe Utilization of Soviet Prisoners of War for Work." I submit this document in the original as Exhibit Number USSR-426 (Document Number USSR-426), and I request that it be added as evidence to the record of the Trial.