dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
COL. POKROVSKY: 264 of your document book: "General conclusions: "On perusal of all the material at the disposal of the special communion, that is, the depositions of over 100 witnesses questioned, the data of the medico-legal experts, the documents and the material evidence and belongings taken from the graves in Katyn Forest, we can arrive at the following definite conclusions: "1. The Polish prisoners of war imprisoned in the three camps west of Smolensk and engaged in railway construction before the war, remained there after the occupation of Smolensk by the Germans, right up to September 1941. "2. In the autumn of 1941, in Katyn Forest, the German occupational authorities carried out mass shootings of the Polish prisoners of war from the above-mentioned camps. "3. Mass shootings of Polish prisoners of war in Katyn Forest were carried out by German military organizations disguised under the specific name, 'Staff 537, Engineer Construction Battalion,' commanded by Oberleutnant Arnes and his colleagues, Oberleutnant Rex and Leutnant Hott. "4. In connection with the deterioration, for Germany, of the general military and political machinery at the beginning of 1943, the German occupational authorities, with a view to provoking incidents, undertook a whole series of measures to ascribe their own misdeeds to organizations of the Soviet authorities, in order to make mischief between the Russians and the Poles. "5. For these purposes: "a. The German fascist invaders, by persuasion, attempts at bribery, threats, and by barbarous tortures, endeavored to find 'witnesses' among the Soviet citizens from whom they obtained false testimony, alleging that the Polish prisoners of war had been shot by organizations of the Soviet authorities in the spring of 1940. "b.
COL. POKROVSKY: The German occupational authorities, in the spring of 1943, brought from other places the bodies of Polish prisoners of war whom they had shot, and laid them in the turned up graves of Katyn Forest with the dual purpose of covering up the traces of their Own atrocities and of increasing the numbers of 'victims of Bolshevist atrocities' in Katyn Forest. "c. While preparing their provocative measures, the German occupational authorities employed up to 500 Russian prisoners of war for the task of digging up the graves in Katyn Forest. Once the graves had been dug, the Russian prisoners of war were shot by the Germans in order to destroy thus all proof and material evidence on the matter. "6. The date of the legal and medical examination determined, without any shadow of doubt: "a. That the time of shooting was autumn 1941. "b. The application by the German executioners, when shooting Polish prisoners of war, of the identical method-a pistol shot in the nape of the neck-as used by them in the mass murders of the Soviet citizens in other towns, especially in Orel, Voronetz, Krasnodar and in Smolensk itself."
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now recess. [The Tribunal recessed until 1400 Hours.]
COL.POKROVSKY: Point 7 of the general conclusions of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union, on which I reported in the preceding session, states: "The conclusions reached, after studying the affidavits and medico-legal examinations concerning the shooting of Polish military prisoners of war by Germans in the autumn of 1941, fully confirmed the material evidence and documents discovered in the Katyn graves. "8. By shooting the Polish prisoners of war in Katyn Forest, the German fascist invaders consistently realized their policy for the physical extermination of the Slav peoples." Here follow the signatures of all the members of the Commission. The Katyn massacres did not exhaust the Hitler crimes against the soldiers of the Polish Army. In the report of the Polish Government, submitted by me to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-93 (Document Number USSR-93), we find a series of proofs confirming the breach by the Hitlerite conspirators of the elementary rules of international law governing the customs and laws of war; on Page 36 of this report by the Polish Government-it is on Page 285 of your document book-we find, as an outstanding part of the material collected, the ill-treatment of prisoners of war and their extermination. It is said in the report-and I quote: "As and when the Polish officers and other ranks returned from German prisoner-of-war camps, we learn further details concerning conditions prevailing in the German camps. All these details undeniably prove the existence of a line of policy, instructions, and orders concerning the Polish prisoners of war. Ill-treatment, hardship, and inhuman conditions were of common occurrence. Murders and grievous bodily injuries were frequently encountered. A few examples confirmed by witnesses under oath are submitted later on." I take the liberty of reading into the record some of the examples quoted in the Polish report. As a first example, I shall quote the description of an incident which occurred in a temporary prisoner-of-war camp in the city of Belsk.
COL.POKROVSKY: This material figures on Page 285 of your document book: "On 10 October 1939 the camp commandant assembled all the prisoners and ordered those who had joined the Polish Army as volunteers to raise their hands. Three prisoners obeyed his order. They were immediately led out of the rank and placed at a distance of 25 meters from a detachment of German soldiers armed with machine guns. The commandant gave the order to open fire" He then spoke to the remaining prisoners and told them that the three volunteers had been shot as an example to the others." In this case we are not faced with the simple murder of three unarmed soldiers of the Polish Army. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel, you forgive my interrupting you, but you remember that I have interrupted all the other prosecutors to point out to them that one opening speech had been made on behalf of their delegation, and that really their function was to present the documents. Now, you have just presented a document white States that three volunteers were shot. I think that any comment upon that is really unnecessary.
COL. POKROVSKY: I now proceed to the quotation of the second excerpt on Page 37, Subparagraph d-Page 226 of your document book: "In the autumn of 1939 Camp (Stalag) VIII-S was established in Kounau, near Sagan on the River Bober, a tributary of the Oder. Depositions from this camp read as follows: "The camp in Kounau was an open space surrounded by barbed wire, with large tents, each holding 180 or 200 persons. In spite of very cold weather (the temperature was below 25 degrees centigrade) there was, in December 1939, no heating appliance whatsoever in the camp. Consequently, some of the internees suffered from frozen hands, feet, and ears. Since the prisoners had no blankets and since their uniforms were too worn out to protect them from the cold, disease broke out, while malnutrition resulted in extreme debility. Moreover, the guards constantly ill-treated the prisoners. They were beaten on the slightest pretext. TWO men were especially noted for their brutality, Lieutenant Schinke and Sergeant Major Grau. They hit the prisoners in the face and beat them, broke their ribs and arms, and gouged out their eyes. Such inhuman treatment resulted in several cases of suicide and insanity among the soldiers." I think we can now pass on at once to the general conclusions and to read into the Record to this end Subparagraph g on Page 39- Page 287 of the document book: "The above-mentioned treatment of Polish prisoners of war. by individuals as well as by the German military authorities, flagrantly violated the articles of the Geneva Convention of 1929, Articles 2, 3, 9,.10, 11, 29, 30, 50, and 54. The convention in question had been ratified by Germany on 21 February 1934." Soldiers of the Yugoslav Army, captured by the German troops, were subjected to unbridled ill-treatment by the fascist invaders. Ill-treatment, torture, and torment, together with mass executions were introduced as a part of the system. Here, too, the Hitler criminals were perfectly aware of what they were doing.
COL. POKROVSKY: To whitewash themselves, if only a little, in the eyes of the world, they referred in all documents concerning the destruction of Yugoslav prisoners of war, to the officers and men of the Yugoslav Army as "bandits." The second paragraph from the bottom of Page 23 of the official Yugoslav report with regard to the above matter reads as follows- I quote Page 23 of Document Number USSR-305. This quotation begins on Page 326 of your document book: " . . . everywhere where the Germans used the so-called actions against 'bands and bandits' as a pretext for the annihilation of the civilian population (women, children, and old people), units of the Yugoslav National Army of Liberation and partisan units had actually been involved.... "Being under military command and wearing recognizable military emblems and insignia, they conducted an armed struggle against the fascist occupational forces and, moreover, they were fully recognized by all the Allies. Besides, we will see later on that on some of its documents, the German Command itself unmistakably recognized this fact; but in its attitude towards the Yugoslav warriors it continued unrestrainedly to violate the principles of the international laws of war." As an additional confirmation of the report, the form of which is in accordance with the requirements of Article 21 of the Charter concerning the admissibility of evidence, I also submit to the Tribunal Document Number USSR-305. This is an excerpt from the report by the Yugoslav State Commission concerning the determination of crimes committed by the occupational forces and their accomplices. The State Commission reports that there is at its disposal a secret report by Lieutenant General Hoesslin, the officer in command of the 188th Mountain Infantry Reserve Division, numbered 9070/44. The report is of great importance because of the following considerations which I will explain to the Tribunal in the terms of Document Number USSR-305.
COL. POKROVSKY: I quote: "Although the report refers to our divisions, brigades, and artillery battalions under their proper names and proper numbers-in cases of military engagements-all our army is called in this report by the general name of 'bandits,' and for the very simple reason that by so doing they are attempting to divest us of the rights of belligerents, they themselves 14 Feb. 4S assuming the right to shoot prisoners of war, to kill the wounded, and to have a pretext for employing repressive measures against the peaceful non-combatant population, allegedly because of their assistance to the 'bandits.' Lieutenant General Hoesslin admits that the combat group of Colonel Christel after 'a night engagement with weak bandit forces'- these are the precise words of the report-'burnt down Laskovitz, Lazna, and Cepovan, and destroyed a hospital.' "In General Hoesslin's report it is further stated that the division, together with the 3rd Brandenburg Regiment and other. German army and police units, participated in 'a freefor-a31 manhunt for bandits in the neighborhood of Klana' (Operation Ernst)...." I submit to the Tribunal Exhibit Number USSR-132 (Document Number USSR-132), Page 363 of your document book. This represents an excerpt from the directives issued by Major General Kubler concerning the conduct of troops in action, an extract which was certified by the Yugoslav State Commission. I read these excerpts into the Record: "Secret; 118th Jager Division; Abt Ic; Br. B. No. 1418/43 secret; Div. Hqs., 12. 5. 1943. "Directives for the Conduct of Troops in Action. "2. Prisoners: "Anyone having participated openly in the fight against the German Armed Forces and having been taken prisoner is to be shot after interrogation." I further submit to the Tribunal Exhibit Number USSR-304 (Document Number USSR-304). This number has been given to the excerpt from Memorandum Number 6 of the Yugoslav State Commission for the determination of the crimes committed by the occupational forces and by their accomplices.
COL. POKROVSKY: In the last paragraph of Exhibit Number USSR-304-Page 2 of the Russian text-is stated as follows-your Page 365 of the document book: "On 3 May 1945 the Germans brought from one of the partisan hospitals 35 manacled patients and hospital orderlies. Ten of the patients who were unable to walk were stood against the wall and shot. Their bodies were piled in a heap, covered with wood and set on fire." As Exhibit Number USSR-307 (Document Number USSR-307) I submit another extract from statement Number 6 of the same State Commission. This statement is found on Page 85 to 115 of the first book entitled "Memoranda on Crimes Committed by the Occupation Forces and their Accomplices." I shall now proceed to quote a part of this extract: "On 5 June 1944 Hitler's criminals captured two soldiers of the Yugoslav Liberation Army and the Slovene Partisan Detachments. They brought them to Razori, where they cut off their noses and ears with bayonets, gouged out their eyes and then asked them if they could see their Comrade Tito. Thereupon they assembled the peasants and beheaded the two victims in their presence.... They then placed both the heads on a table." In accordance with their usual practice of photographing the bodies of their victims, the fascists then took photographs, and, as is further stated in the extract quoted by me: "Later, in the course of the fighting, the photographs were found on a fallen German. From this it can be seen that they confirm the above described incident at Razori." These pictures will be submitted to the Tribunal together with other Yugoslav photographic evidence. Under Document USSR-65(a) I submit to the Tribunal all announcement signed by the Commander of the SS and police detachments of the 18th Military District, SS Gruppenfuehrer and Lieutenant General of Police, Rosener. I shall now proceed to read into the Record a part of this announcement. You will thus be able to see that the warriors of the Yugoslav Armed Forces who were taken prisoner were either hanged or shot.
COL. POKROVSKY: This document is on Page 367 of your document book, "In connection with the various clashes between police detachments and Yugoslav units. . . " I skip several sentences of this document concerning a description of the encounters between detachments of Polish and Yugoslav units. "Eighteen bandits were recently killed in action and a considerable number taken prisoner. "The following bandits, who were among the prisoners, were publicly hanged at Stein on 30 June 1942.... " This statement is followed by the names of eight Yugoslav soldiers between the ages of 21 and 40 years. I will not read this list into the Record. On Page 36 of our Exhibit Number USSR-36 (Document Number USSR-36)-your Page 339-the first paragraph from the bottom reads, "We can find the identical evidence in a collection of official notes on the staff conferences of Gauleiter Uiberreiter." Thus, for example, it is stated in the minutes of the conference held on 23 March 1942, "Fifteen bandits were executed in Maribor today." I omit some sentences from the minutes of the conference held on 27 July 1942, "Many bandits have been shot recently " The minutes of the conference of 21 December 1941 contain a passage: "Since the bandits started their activities in July 1941, 164 bandits have been shot by the uniformed police and 1,043 by special procedure (Sonderverfahren)." The minutes of 25 January 1943 state: "The number of guerilla troops liquidated on 8 January 1942 by the Security Police and the uniformed branch is 86, including wounded and prisoners, 77 of whom were killed." Such notes can be found in almost every one of the minutes of these conferences held by Uiberreiter. A certain number of prisoners of war who had escaped immediate annihilation were moved into special camps where they Were gradually killed off by hunger and by exhausting heavy labor. I will now read into the Record the last paragraph on Page 37 of the report of the Yugoslav Government, which was previously mentioned by me and offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USSR-36.
COL. POKROVSKY: It is On Page 340 of the document book: "One such camp was established in 1942 at Boten, near Rognan. Nearly 1,000 Yugoslav prisoners of war were brought into this camp; and in the course of a few months all of them, to the last man, died of illness, hunger, physical torture, or execution by shooting. They were forced every day to do the very hardest work on a road and some dams. Their working hours lasted from dawn until 1800 hours, under the worst possible climatic conditions in this far northern part of Norway. During their work the prisoners. were beaten incessantly and in the camp, itself, were exposed to terrible ill-treatment. "Thus, for example, in August 1942 the prisoners were ordered by the German staff of the camp to have all their hair removed from their armpits and around their genitals, as otherwise they would be shot. Not one prisoner received a razor from the Germans, though the Germans knew well that they had none. The prisoners spent the whole of the night plucking out their hair with their hands and assisting one another. However, in the morning the guards killed four prisoners and wounded three by rifle fire. "On 26 November 1943, German soldiers, in the middle of the night, broke into the hospital and dragged out into the courtyard 80 sick prisoners; after they had been forced to strip in the bitter cold, they were all shot. On 26 January 1943, 50 more prisoners died in torment from the beatings received. Throughout the winter many prisoners were killed in the following manner: They would be buried up to their waist in the snow, and water poured over them, so that they formed statues of ice. It was established that 880 Yugoslav prisoners of war were killed in the above-mentioned camp in various ways." ' Further, on Page 38, Exhibit Number USSR-36 (Document Number USSR-36), information is contained of the shooting of Yugoslav prisoners of war in the camp at Bajsfjord, Norway.
COL. POKROVSKY: After 10 July 1942, when an epidemic of spotted fever broke out in the camp and spread to six others, the Germans found no other way of fighting this epidemic than by shooting all the patients. This was done on 17 July 1942. On the same page, 38, there is a reference to a Norwegian report of 22 January 1942, compiled on a basis of statements made by Norwegian guards of this camp who had fled. It is stated in this report that of 900 Yugoslav prisoners of war, 320 were shot, while the remainder, with a view to isolating them, were transferred to another camp, Bjerfjel. I will read into the Record Page 38 of Exhibit Number USSR-36, beginning with the fifth paragraph from the bottom, Page 341 of your document book: "When an epidemic of spotted fever broke out in the new camp, an average of 12 men a day were shot in the course of the following 5 to 6 weeks. By the end of August 1942 only 350 of these prisoners were returned to Bajsfjord, where German SS troops continued to exterminate them. In the end only 200 men remained alive and were transferred to camp Osen." I will now skip two paragraphs and pass to the last paragraph of the same report: "On 22 June 1943 a transport containing 900 Yugoslav prisoners arrived in Norway. Most of them were intellectuals, workers and peasants, and prisoners from the ranks of the former Yugoslav Army or else captured partisans or men seized as so-called 'politically suspicious elements.' Some of them-about 400-were placed in the still unfinished camp at Korgen, while the other group of about 500 was sent 10 to 20 kilometers further on to Osen. The commandant of both camps, from June 1942 until the end of March 1943, was the SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dolps.... "Men were constantly dying of hunger. Forty-five were placed in a hut which normally accommodated six men only.... There was no medicine.... They worked under most difficult conditions on road building, in the bitter cold, without clothing and caps, in the wind and rain, 12 hours a day.
COL. POKROVSKY: "The prisoners in the camp at Osen used to sleep in their shirts without any underpants, without any cover whatsoever, on the bare boards. Dolps personally visited the huts and carried out inspections. The prisoners who were caught sleeping in their underpants were killed on the spot by Dolps with his submachine gun. In the same manner he killed all those who appeared on parade, which he reviewed personally, in soiled underwear.... By the end of 1942 only 90 still remained alive of the first group of 400 in Korgen. Out of about 500 prisoners who were taken to the camp of Osen by the end of June 1942, there were, in March 1943, only 30 men left alive." I will read into the record an excerpt from Page 39, Exhibit Number USSR-36 beginning with the third paragraph from the bottom, Page 342 of your document book: "Besides this terrible treatment of the captured soldiers of the Yugoslav National Army of Liberation and the Partisan Detachments, the Germans also treated prisoners of war from the ranks of the old Yugoslav Army in complete contravention of international law and contrary to the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, of 1929. In April 1941, immediately after the occupation of the Yugoslav territory, the Germans drove into captivity in Germany about 300,000 noncommissioned officers end men. The Yugoslav State Commission has at its disposal much evidence of the unlawful ill-treatment of these prisoners. We shall give here a few examples only. "On 14 July 1943 in the officers' SS camp at Osnabruck, 740 captured Yugoslav officers were separated from the remainder and placed in a special penitentiary camp called Camp D. Here they were all crowded together in four huts; all contact with the rest of the camp was prohibited. The treatment of these officers directly contravened the provisions of the Geneva Convention even more so than the treatment of the other prisoners.
COL. POKROVSKY: In this penitentiary camp were placed all those whom the Germans considered as supporters of the National Liberation movement and against whom they very frequently applied measures of mass punishments. "The Germans gambled with the lives of the prisoners and frequently shot them from sheer caprice. Thus, for instance, at the aforesaid camp at Osnabruck, on 11 January 1942, a German guard fired at a group of prisoners, severely wounding Captain Peter Nozinic. On 22 July 1942 a guard fired on a group of officers. On 2 September 1942, a guard fired on the Yugoslav lieutenant, Vladislav Vajs, who was incapacitated by a wound he had received some time before. On 22 September 1942, a guard from the prison tower again fired on a group of officers. On 18 December 1942 the guard fired on a group of officers because, from their huts, they were watching some English prisoners passing by. On 20 February 1943 a guard fired on an officer merely because this officer was smoking. On 11 March 1943 a guard opened fire on the doors of a hut and killed General Dimitri Pavlovic. On 21 June 1943 a guard fired at the Yugoslav lieutenant colonel, Branko-Popanic. On 26 April 1944 a German noncommissioned officer, Richards, fired on Lieutenant Vladislav Gaider, who subsequently died of his wounds. "On 26 June 1944 the German captain, Kuntze, fired on two Yugoslav officers, severely wounding Lieutenant Djorjevic. "All these shootings were carried out without any serious reasons or pretext and only as a result of brutal orders issued by the German camp commandants, who threatened that firearms would be used even in the case of the most insignificant offenses. "All these incidents occurred in one single camp. But this was the treatment applied in all the remaining camps for Yugoslav officers and soldiers-captives in the hands of the Germans." A certain incident is described in the Czechoslovak Government report which I should like to mention here.