dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
M. DUBOST: Excuse me, you are talking about French prisoners of war?
ROSER: Yes, French prisoners of war, so far. Going along a wood, the German noncommissioned officer, who for some time had been annoying two of them, Pierrel and Ondiviella, directed them into the woods. A few moments later the others heard shots. Pierrel and Ondiviella had just been killed. On 20 September 1942, at Stryj once again, a Kommando was at work under the supervision of German soldiers and German civilian foremen. One of the Frenchmen succeeded in escaping. Without waiting, the German noncommissioned officers selected two men, if my memory is correct, Saladin and Duboeuf, and shot them on the spot. Incidents of this type occurred in other circumstances. The list of them would be long indeed.
M. DUBOST: Can you speak of the conditions under which the refractory noncommissioned officers who were with you at camp at Rawa-Ruska lived?
ROSER: The noncommissioned officers who refused to work were grouped together in one section of the camp, in two of the large stables which served as billets. They were subjected to a regime of most severe repression; frequent toll calls for assembly; lying-down and standing-up exercise which after a while leaves one quite exhausted. One day Sergeant Corbihan, having refused Captain Fournier-a German captain with a French name-to take a tool to work with, the German captain made a motion and one of the German soldiers with him ran Corbihan through with his bayonet; Corbihan by miracle escaped death.
M. DUBOST: How many of you disappeared?
ROSER: At Rawa-Ruska, in the 5 months that I spent there, we buried 60 of our comrades who had died from disease or had been killed in attempted escapes. But so far, 100 of those who were with us and sought to escape have not been found.
M. DUBOST: Is this all that you have witnessed?
ROSER: No, I should say that our stay at the punishment camp, Rawa-Ruska, involved one thing more awful than anything else we prisoners saw and suffered. We were horrified by what we knew was taking place all about us. The Germans had transformed the area of Lvov-Rawa-Ruska into a kind of immense ghetto. Into that area, where the Jews were already quite numerous, had been brought the Jews from all the countries of Europe. Every day for 5 months, except for an interruption of about six weeks in August and September 1942, we saw passing about 150 meters from our camp, one, two, and sometimes three convoys, made up of freight cars in which there were crowded men, women and children. One day a voice coming from one of these cars shouted: "I am from Paris. We are on our way to the slaughter." Quite frequently, comrades who went outside the camp to go to work found corpses along the railway track. We knew in a vague sort of way at that time that these trains stopped at Belcec, which was located about 17 kilometers from our camp; and at that point they executed these wretched people, by what means I do not know. One night in July 1942 we heard shots of submachine guns, throughout the entire night and the moans of women and children. The following morning bands of German soldiers were going through the fields of rye on the very edge of our camp, their bayonets pointed downward, seeking people hiding in the fields. Those of our comrades who went out that day to go to their work told us that they saw corpses everywhere in the town, in the gutters, in the barns, in the houses. Later some of our guards, who had participated in this operation, quite good-humoredly explained to us that 2,000 Jews had been killed that night under the pretext that two SS men had been murdered in the region. Later on, in 1943, during the first week of June, there occurred a pogrom which in Lvov caused the death of 30,000 Jews. I was not personally in Lvov, but several French military doctors, Major Guiguet and Lieutenant Levin of the French Medical Corps, described this scene to me.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness appears to be not finishing and therefore I think we had better adjourn now until 2 o'clock. [The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.] Afternoon Session
MARSHAL: I desire to announce that the Defendant Kaltenbrunner will be absent from this afternoon's session on account of illness.
M. DUBOST: With the permission of the Tribunal, we shall continue examining the witness, M. Roser. M. Roser, this morning you finished the description of the conditions under which you witnessed the pogrom of Rawa-Ruska and you wanted to give us some details on another pogrom. You told us that a German soldier, who had taken a part in it, made a statement to you which you wanted to relate to us. Is that right?
ROSER: Yes.
M. DUBOST: We are listening to you.
ROSER: At the end of 1942 1 was taken to Germany, and I, together with a French doctor, had the opportunity of meeting the chauffeur of the German physician who was head of the infirmary where I was at that time. This soldier, whose name I have forgotten, said to me as follows: "In Poland, in a town the name of which I have forgotten, a sergeant from our regiment went with a Jewess. A few hours later he was found dead. Then"--said the German soldier,'my battalion was called out. Half of it cordoned off the ghetto, and the other half, two companies, to one of which I belonged, forced its way into the houses and threw out of the windows, pell-mell, the furniture and the inhabitants."The German soldier finished his story by saying-"Poor fellow! It was terrible, horrible!"-We asked him then- "How could you do such a thing?"-He gave us the fatalistic reply"Orders are orders." This is the example which I previously mentioned.
M. DUBOST: If I remember rightly, when speaking of Rawa-Ruska you started describing the treatment of Russian prisoners who were in this camp before you.
ROSER: Yes. That is correct. The first French batch which arrived in Rawa-Ruska the 14th or 15th of April 1942, followed a group of 400 Russian prisoners of war, who were the survivors of a detachment of 6,000 men decimated by typhus. The few medicines found by the French doctors upon arrival at Rawa-Ruska came from the infirmary of the Russian prisoners. There were a few aspirin tablets and other drugs; absolutely nothing against typhus. The camp had not been disinfected after the sick Russians had left. I cannot speak here of these wretched Russian survivors of Rawa-Ruska, without asking the Tribunal for permission to describe the terrible picture we all-I mean all the French prisoners who were in the stalags of Germany in the autumn or winter of 1941 saw when the first batches of Russian prisoners arrived. It was on a Sunday afternoon that I watched this spectacle, which was like a nightmare. The Russians arrived in rows, five by five, holding each other by the arms, as none of them could walk by themselves "walking skeletons" was really the only fitting expression. Since then we have seen photographs of those camps of deportation and death. Our unfortunate Russian comrades. had been in that condition since 1941. The color of their faces was not even yellow, it was green. Almost all squinted, as they had not strength enough to focus their sight. They fell by rows, five men at a time. The Germans rushed on them and beat them with rifle butts and whips. As it was Sunday afternoon the prisoners were at liberty, inside the camp, of course. Seeing that, all the French started shouting and the Germans made us return to the barracks. Typhus spread immediately in the Russian camp, where, out of the 10,000 who had arrived in November, only 2,500 survived by the beginning of February. These figures are accurate. I have them from two sources. First,' from a semiofficial source, which was the kitchen of the camp. In front of the kitchen a big chart was posted where the Germans recorded the ridiculously small rations and the number of men in the camp.
ROSER: This number decreased daily by 80 to 100, in the Russian camp. On the other hand, French comrades employed in the camp's reception office, called "Aufnahme," also knew the figures, and from them I got the figure of 2,500 survivors in February. Later, particularly at Rawa-Ruska, I had the opportunity of seeing French prisoners from all parts of Germany. All those who were in stalags, that is, in the central. camps, at the time mentioned, saw the same thing. Many of the Russian prisoners were thrown in a common grave, even before they were dead. The dead and the dying were piled up between the barracks and thrown into carts. The first few days we could see the corpses in the carts, but as the German camp commandant did not like to see French soldiers salute their fallen Russian comrades, he had them covered with canvas after that.
M. DUBOST: Were your camps guarded by the German Army or by the SS?
ROSER: By the Wehrmacht.
M. DUBOST: Only by the German Army?
ROSER: I was never guarded by anybody but the German Army and once by the Schutzpolizei, after I had tried to escape.
M. DUBOST: And were you recaptured?
ROSER: Yes.
M. DUBOST: One last question. You were kept in a number of prisoner-of-war camps in Germany, were you not?
ROSER: Yes.
M. DUBOST: In all those camps did you have the opportunity to practice your religion?
ROSER: In the camps...
M. DUBOST: What is your religion?
ROSER: I am a Protestant. In the camps where I was kept, Protestants and Catholics were generally allowed to practice their religion. But I was detailed to working squads, particularly to an agricultural group in the Bremen district, called "Maiburg," I think, where there was a Catholic priest. There were about sixty of us in this group. This Catholic priest could not say Mass-they would not let him.
M. DUBOST: Who?
ROSER: The sentries-the "Posten."
M. DUBOST: Who were soldiers of the German Army?
ROSER: Yes, always.
M. DUBOST: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does the British Prosecutor wish to ask any questions?
BRITISH PROSECUTOR: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Or the United States?
AMERICAN PROSECUTOR: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any of the Defense Counsel wish to ask any questions?
DR. NELTE: Witness, when were you taken prisoner?
ROSER: I was taken prisoner on 14 June 1940.
DR. NELTE: In which camp for prisoners of war were you put?
ROSER: I was immediately sent to the Oflag, XI D, at Grossborn- Westfalenhof in Pomerania.
DR. NELTE: Oflag?
ROSER: Yes.
DR. NELTE: What regulations were made known to you in the prisoner-of-war camp regarding a possible attempt at escape?
ROSER: We were warned that we would be shot at and that we should not try to escape.
DR. NELTE: Do you think that this warning was in agreement with the Geneva Convention ?
ROSER: This one certainly.
DR. NELTE: You mentioned, if I heard correctly, the case of Robin from Oflag XI D. You said that there was an officer who dug a tunnel in order to escape from the camp, and that as he was the first to emerge from the tunnel, he was shot. Is that right?
ROSER: Yes; I said so.
DR. NELTE: Were you with those officers who tried to escape?
ROSER: I said before that this was related to me by Lieutenant Ledoux who was still in Oflag XI D when that happened.
DR. NELTE: I only wanted to ascertain that this officer, Robin, met his death while trying to escape.
ROSER: Yes, but here I should like to mention one thing, namely, all the prisoners of war who escaped knew they risked their lives. Everyone attempting to escape, knew that he risked a bullet. But it is one thing to be killed trying to climb the barbed wire, for instance, and it is another thing to be ambushed and murdered at a moment when one cannot do anything, when one is unarmed and at the mercy of somebody, as was the case with Lieutenant Robin. He was in a low tunnel, flat on his stomach, crawling along, and was killed. That was not in accordance with international rules.
DR. NELTE: I see what you mean, and you may rest assured that I respect every prisoner of war who tried to do his duty as a patriot. In this case, however, which you did not witness, I wanted to make the point that this courageous officer who left the tunnel might not have answered when challenged by the guards and was therefore shot.
ROSER: No.
DR. NELTE: Though you have just given a vivid description of the incident, I think it was a product of your imagination because, according to your own testimony, you did not see it yourself; is that correct?
ROSER: There are not 36 different ways of getting out of an escape tunnel: You lie flat on your stomach, you crawl, and if you are killed before you get out of the tunnel, I call that murder.
DR. NELTE: And then you saw the officer ...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Nelte, we do not want argument in cross-examination. The witness has already stated that he was not there and did not see it, and he has explained the facts.
DR. NELTE: Thank you. The incident in respect to Lieutenant Thomson is not quite clear to me. In this case too, I believe you said you had no direct knowledge, but were informed by a friend. Is that correct?
ROSER: I cannot but repeat what I said before. I related the story of the French lieutenant, Ledoux, who told me that he was in the fortress of Graudenz together with an R.A.F. lieutenant called Anthony Thomson. This English officer escaped from the fortress. He was recaptured on the air field, taken back to the fortress, put into the same cell as Lieutenant Ledoux, and Ledoux saw him killed by a revolver shot in the back of the neck. Ledoux gave me the name of the murderer. I think I mentioned him just now, Hauptfeldwebel Ostereich. This is the story told me by an eyewitness.
DR. NELTE: Was that Hauptfeldwebel Ostereich a guard at the camp, or to what formation did he belong?
ROSER: I don't know.
DR. NELTE: Do you know that you, as prisoner of war, had a right to complain?
ROSER: Certainly; I personally knew the Geneva Convention which was signed by Germany in 1934.
DR. NELTE: Knowing those regulations you also knew, did you not, that you could complain to the camp commander? Did you avail yourself of that?
ROSER: I tried to do so, but without success.
DR. NELTE: May I ask you for the name of the camp commander who refused to hear you?
ROSER: I do not know the name, but I will tell you when en I tried to complain. It was when I was in the infamous Linzburg Strafkommando (punishment squad) in the province of Hanover. This squad belonged to Stalag XC. In the morning following the night I have just described, when, after an unsuccessful attempt at escape, we were beaten for 3 hours running, some of us were kept in the barracks. We then saw the immediate superior of the commander of the squad. It was an Oberleutnant, whose name I do not know, who saw that we were injured, particularly about the head, and he considered it quite all right. In the afternoon we went to work. When we returned at 7 o'clock we had the visit of a major, a very distinguished-looking man, who also thought that, as we had tried to escape, it was quite in order that we should be punished. As to our complaint, it went no further.
DR. NELTE: Did you know that the German Government had made an agreement with the-Vichy Government regarding prisoners of war?
ROSER: Yes, I have heard of that, but they did not inspect squads of this kind.
DR. NELTE: You mean to say that only the camps were inspected, but not the labor squads?
ROSER: There were inspections of the labor squads, but not of the punishment squads where I was. That is the difference.
DR. NELTE: You were not always in a disciplinary squad, were you?
ROSER: No.
DR. NELTE: When were you put in a disciplinary squad?
ROSER: In April 1941, for the first time. It was a squad to which only officer cadets and priests were sent without any obvious reasons. This was the Linzburg Strafkommando squad which did not receive any visits. At Rawa-Ruska we received the visit of two Swiss doctors; I think it was in September 1942.
DR. NELTE: In September 1942?
ROSER: Yes, in September 1942.
DR. NELTE: Did you complain to the Swiss doctors?
ROSER: Not I personally, but our spokesman was able to talk to them.
DR. NELTE: And were there any results?
ROSER: Yes, certainly.
DR. NELTE: Do you -not think that a complaint made through the camp commander would likewise have been successful, if you had wished to resort to it?
ROSER: We were not on very friendly terms with the German staff at Rawa-Ruska.
DR. NELTE: I do not quite understand you.
ROSER: I said we were not on friendly terms with the German commander of the Rawa-Ruska Camp.
DR. NELTE: It is -not a question of good terms, but of a complaint which could be made in an official manner. Do you not think so? [The witness shrugged his shoulders.]
DR. NELTE: When did you leave Rawa-Ruska?.
ROSER: At the end of October 1942.
DR. NELTE: If I remember rightly, you mentioned the number of victims counted or observed by you, did you not?
ROSER: Yes.
DR. NELTE: How many victims were there?
ROSER: It was a figure given to me by Dr. Lievin, a French doctor at Rawa-Ruska. There were, as I said, about sixty deaths in the camp itself, to which approximately one hundred must be added who disappeared.
DR. NELTE: Are you speaking of French victims or victims in general?
ROSER: When I was at Rawa-Ruska there were only Frenchmen there, with a few Poles and a few Belgians.
DR. NELTE: I am putting this question because an official French report I have before me, dated 14 June 1945, states that the victims up to the end of July were 14 Frenchmen, and therefore for the period from August to September the number seems to me very high. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other German counsel want to put any questions to this witness? [There was no response.] M. Dubost?
M. DUBOST: I have finished with this witness, Mr. President. If the Tribunal will permit me, I shall now call another witness, the last one.
THE PRESIDENT: One moment, M. Dubost, the witness can retire. [The witness left the stand.] M. Dubost, could you tell the Tribunal whether the witness you are about to call is going to give us any evidence of a different nature from the evidence which has already been given? Because you will remember that we have in the French document, of which we shall take judicial notice-a very large French document; I forget the number, 321 1 believe it is, Document Number RF-321; we have a very large volume of evidence on the conditions in concentration camps. Is the witness you are going to call going to prove anything fresh?
M. DUBOST: Your Honors, the witness whom we are going to call is to testify to a certain number of. experiments which he witnessed. He has even submitted certain documents.
THE PRESIDENT: Are these experiments about which the witness is going to speak all recorded, in the Document Number RF- 321?
M. DUBOST: They are referred to, but not reported in detail. Moreover, in view of the importance attached to statements of witnesses in the French presentation concerning the camps, I shall considerably curtail my work and will dispense with reading the documentary evidence, a large amount of which I shall merely submit after these witnesses have been heard.
THE PRESIDENT: You may call the witness, but try not to let him be too long.
M. DUBOST: I shall do my best, Mr. President. [The witness, Dr. Alfred Balachowsky, took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: What is your name?
DR. ALFRED BALACHOWSKY (Witness): Alfred Balachowsky.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you French?
BALACHOWSKY: French.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you take this oath? Do you swear to speak without hate or fear, to say the truth, all the truth, only the truth? [The witness repeated the oath in French.] Raise your right hand and swear.
BALACHOWSKY: I swear.
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit if you wish.
M. DUBOST: Your name is Balachowsky; Alfred B-a-l-ac-h-o-w-s-k-y?
BALACHOWSKY: That is correct.
M. DUBOST: You are head of a laboratory at the Pasteur Institute in Paris?
BALACHOWSKY: That is correct.
M. DUBOST: Your residence is at Viroflay? You were born 15 August 1909 at Korotcha in Russia?
BALACHOWSKY: That is correct.
M. DUBOST: You are French?
BALACHOWSKY: Yes.
M. DUBOST: By birth?
BALACHOWSKY: Russian by birth, French by naturalization.
M. DUBOST: When were you naturalized?
BALACHOWSKY: 1932.
M. DUBOST: Were you deported on 16 January 1944 after being arrested on 2 July 1943, and were you 6 months in prison first at Fresnes, then at Compiegne? Were you then transferred to the Dora Camp?
BALACHOWSKY: That is correct.
M. DUBOST: Can you tell us rapidly what you know about the Dora Camp?
BALACHOWSKY: The Dora Camp is situated 5 kilometers north of the town of Nordhausen, in southern Germany. This camp was considered by the Germans as a secret detachment, a Geheimkommando, which prisoners who were kept there could never leave. This secret detachment had as its task the manufacture of V-1's and V-2s-the "Vergeltungswaffen" (reprisal weapons)-the aerial torpedoes which the Germans launched on England. That is why Dora was a secret detachment. The camp was divided into two parts: one outer part contained one-third of the total number of persons in the camp, and the remaining two-thirds were concentrated in the underground factory. Dora, consequently, was an underground factory for the manufacture of V-1's; and V-2's. I arrived at Dora on 10 February 1944, coming from Buchenwald.
M. DUBOST: Please speak more slowly. You arrived at Dora from Buchenwald on ... ?
BALACHOWSKY: On 10 February 1944, that is at a time when life in the Dora Camp was particularly hard. On 10 February we were loaded, 76 men, onto a large German lorry. We were forced to crouch down, four SS guards occupying the seats at the front of the lorry. As we could not all crouch down, being too many, whenever a man raised his head he got a blow with a rifle butt, so that in the course of our 4-hour journey several of us were injured. After our arrival at Dora, we spent a whole day and night without food, in the cold, in the snow, waiting for all the formalities of registration in the camp-completing forms, with names and surnames, and so on. In comparison with Buchenwald, we found a considerable change at Dora, as the general management of the' Dora Camp was entrusted to a special category of prisoners who were criminals. These criminals were our block leaders, served our soup, and looked after us. In contrast to the political prisoners who wore a red triangular badge, these criminals were distinguished by a green triangular badge on which was a black S. We called them the "S" men (Sicherheitsverband). They were people convicted of crimes by German courts long before the war, but who, instead of being sent home after having served their terms, were kept for life in concentration camps to supervise the other prisoners. Needless to say prisoners of that kind, these criminals with the green triangles, were asocial elements. Sometimes they had been 5, 10, even 20 years in prison, and afterwards, 5 or 10 years in concentration camps. These asocial outcasts no longer had any hope of ever getting out of the concentration camps. These criminals, however, thanks to the support and co-operation they were offered by the SS management of the camp, now had the chance of a career. This career consisted in stealing from and robbing the other prisoners, and obtaining from them the maximum output demanded by the SS. They beat us from morning till night.