dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
BOIX: They visited all the camps. It was impossible for them not to know what was going on. Exception was made only when high officials or other important persons from Poland, Austria, or Slovakia, from all these countries, would come. Then they would show them only the best parts. Franz Ziereis would say, "See for yourselves'' He searched out cooks, interned bandits, fat and well-fed criminals. He would select these so as to be able to say that all internees looked like these.
HERR BABEL: Were the prisoners forbidden to communicate with each other concerning conditions in the camp? Communication with the outside was, of course, scarcely possible.
BOIX: It was so completely forbidden that, if anyone was caught at it, it meant not only his death but for all those of his nationality terrible reprisals.
HERR BABEL: What observations can you make regarding-the Kapos? How did they behave toward your fellow internees?
BOIX: At times they were really worthy of being SS themselves. To be a Kapo, one had to be Aryan, pure Aryan. That means that they had a martial bearing and, like the SS, full rights over us; they had the right to treat us like beasts. The SS gave them carte blanche to do with us what they wished. That is why, at the liberation, the prisoners and deportees executed all the Kapos on whom they could lay their hands. Shortly before the liberation the Kapos asked to enlist voluntarily in the SS and they left with the SS because they knew what was awaiting them. In spite of that we looked for them everywhere and executed them on the spot.
HERR BABEL: You said "they had to treat you like wild beasts." From what facts do you draw the conclusion that they were obliged to?
BOIX: One would have to be blind in order not to see. One could see the way they behaved. It was better to die like a man than to live like a beast; but they preferred to live like beasts, like savages, like criminals. They were known as such. I lived there four and a half years and I know very well what they did. There were many among us who could have become Kapos for their work, because they were specialists in some field or another in the camp. But they preferred to be beaten and massacred, if necessary, rather than become a Kapo.
HERR BABEL: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other member of the defendants' counsel wish to ask questions of the witness? M. Dubost, do you wish to ask any questions?
M. DUBOST: I have no further questions, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
GEN. RUDENKO: My Lord, the witness informed us that he had at his disposal the photographic documents of 30 Soviet prisoners of war, the sole survivors of several thousand internees in this camp. I would like to ask your permission, Mr. President, to present this photographic document to the witness so that he can confirm before the Tribunal that it is really this group of Soviet prisoners of war.
THE PRESIDENT: Certainly you may show the photograph to the witness if it is available.
GEN. RUDENKO: Yes. Witness, can you show this picture? [The witness presented the picture to the Tribunal.]
THE PRESIDENT: Is this the photograph?
BOIX: Yes, I can assure you that these 30 survivors were still living in 1942. Since then, in view of the conditions of the camp, it is very difficult to know whether some of them are still alive.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you please give the date when this photograph was taken?
BOIX: It was at the end of the winter of 1941-42. At that time, it was still 10 degrees (centigrade) below zero. You can see from the picture the appearance of the prisoners because of the cold.
THE PRESIDENT: Has this book been put in evidence yet?
M. DUBOST: This book has been submitted as evidence, Your Honor, as official evidence.
THE PRESIDENT: Have the defendants got copies of it?
M. DUBOST: It was submitted as Exhibit Number RF-331 (Document F-321). The Defense have also received a copy of this book in German, but the pictures are not in the German version, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Well then, let this photograph be marked. It had better be marked with a French exhibit number, I think. What will it be?
M. DUBOST: We shall give it Exhibit Number RF-333.
THE PRESIDENT: Let it be marked in that way, and then hand it to Herr Babel.
GEN. RUDENKO: Thank you, Sir. I have no more questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you hand the photo to Dr. Babel. [The photo was handed to Herr Babel.] I think it should be handed about to the other defendants' counsel in case they wish to ask any question about it. M. Dubost, I think that an approved copy of this book, including the photographs, has been deposited in the defendants' Information Center.
M. DUBOST: The whole book, except for the pictures.
THE PRESIDENT: Why not the pictures?
M. DUBOST: At that moment we did not have them to submit. In our expose we have not mentioned the photographs.
THE PRESIDENT: The German counsel ought to have the same documents as are submitted to the Tribunal. The photographs have been submitted to the Tribunal; therefore they should have been deposited in the Information Center.
M. DUBOST: Mr. President, the French text, including the pictures, was deposited in the Defense Information Center; and, in addition, a certain number of texts in German, to which the pictures were not added because we had that translation prepared for the use of the Defense. But there are French copies of the book that you have before you which include the pictures.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
M. DUBOST: We have here four copies of the picture which was shown yesterday afternoon, which we shall place before you. It shows Kaltenbrunner and Himmler in the quarry of Mauthausen, in accordance with the testimony given by Boix. One of these pictures will also be delivered to the Defense, that is, to the lawyer of the Defendant Kaltenbrunner.
HE PRESIDENT: Now the photograph has been handed around to the defendants' counsel. Do any members of the defendants' counsel wish to ask any questions of the witness about this photograph? No question? The witness can retire.
BOIX: I would like to say something more. I would like to note that there were cases when Soviet officers were massacred. It is worth noting because it concerns prisoners of war. I would like the Tribunal to listen to me carefully.
THE PRESIDENT: What is it you wish to say about the massacre of the Soviet prisoners of war?
BOIX: In 1943 there was a transport of officers. On the very day of, their arrival in the camp they began to be massacred by every means. But it seems that from the higher quarters orders had come concerning these officers saying that something extraordinary had to be done. So they put them in the best block in the camp. They gave them new prisoner's clothing. They gave them *even cigarettes; they gave them beds with sheets; they were given everything they wanted to eat. A medical officer, SturmbannFuehrer Bresbach, examined them with a stethoscope. They went down into the quarry, but they carried only small stones, and in fours. At that time OberscharFuehrer Paul Ricken, chief of the service, was there with his Leica taking pictures without stopping. He took about 48 pictures. These I developed and five copies of each, 13 by 18, with the negatives, were sent to Berlin. It is too bad I did not steal the negatives, as I did the others. When that was done, the Russians were made to give up their clothing and everything else and were sent to the gas chamber. The comedy was ended. Everybody could see on the pictures that the Russian prisoners of war, the officers, and especially the political commissars, were treated well, worked hardly at all, and were in good condition. That is one thing that should be noted because I think it is necessary. And another thing, there was a barrack called Barrack Number 20. That barrack was inside the camp; and- in spite of the electrified barbed wire around the camp, there was an additional wall with electrified barbed wire around it. In that barrack there were prisoners of war, Russian officers and commissars, some Slavs, a few Frenchmen, and, they said, even a few Englishmen. No one could enter that barrack except the two Fuehrer who were in the camp prison, the commanding officers of the inner and outer camps. These internees were dressed just as we were, like convicts, but without number or identification of their nationality. One could not tell their nationality. The service "Erkennungsdienst" must have taken their pictures.
BOIX: A tag with a number was placed on their chest. This number began with 3,000 and something. There -were numbers looking like Number 11 (two blue darts), and the numbers started at 3,000 and went up to 7,000. SS UnterscharFuehrer Hermann Schinlauer was the photographer then in charge. He was from the Berlin region, somewhere outside of Berlin, I do not remember the name. He had orders to develop the films and to do all work personally; but like all the SS of the interior services of the camp, they were men who knew nothing. They always needed prisoners to get their work done. That is why he needed me to develop these films. I made the. enlargements, 5 by 7. These were sent to ObersturmFuehrer Karl Schulz, of Cologne, the Chief of the Politische Abteilung. He told me not to tell anything to anybody about these pictures and about the fact that we developed these films; if we did we would be liquidated at once. Without any fear of the consequences I told all my comrades about it, so that, if one of us should succeed in getting out, he could tell the world about it.
THE PRESIDENT: I think we have heard enough of this detail that you are giving us. But come back for a moment to the case you were speaking of. I wish you would repeat the case of the Russian prisoners of war in 1943. You said that the officers were taken to the quarry to carry the heaviest stones.
BOIX: No, just very small stones, weighing not even 20 kilos, and they carried them in fours to show on the pictures that the Russian officers did not do heavy work but on the contrary, light work. That was only for the pictures, whereas in reality it was entirely different.
THE PRESIDENT: I thought you said they carried big, heavy stones.
BOIX: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Were the photographs taken while they were in their uniforms carrying these light stones?
BOIX: Yes, -Sir; they had to put on clean uniforms, neatly arranged, to show that the Russian prisoners were well and properly treated.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Is there any other particular incident you want to refer to?
BOIX: Yes, about Block 20. Thanks to my knowledge of photography I was able to see it; I had to be there to handle the lights while my chief took photographs. In this way I could follow, detail by detail, everything that took place in this barrack. It was an inner camp. This barrack, like all the others, was 7 meters wide and 50 meters long. There were 1,800 internees there, with a food ration less than one-quarter of what we would get for-food. They had neither spoons nor plates. Large kettles of spoiled food were emptied on the snow and left there until it began to freeze; then the Russians were ordered to get at it. The Russians were so hungry, they would fight for this food. The SS used these fights as a pretext to beat some of them with bludgeons.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you mean that the Russians were put directly into Block 20?
BOIX: The Russians did not come to the camp directly. Those who were not sent to the gas chamber right away were placed in Block 20. Nobody of the inner camp, not even the BlockFuehrer, was allowed to enter this barrack. Small convoys of 50 or 60 came several times a week and always one heard the noise of a fight going on inside. In January 1945, when the Russians learned that the Soviet Armies were approaching Yugoslavia, they took one last chance. They seized fire extinguishers and killed soldiers posted under the watch tower. They seized machine guns and everything possible as weapons. They took blankets with them and everything they could find. They were 700, but only 62 succeeded in passing into Yugoslavia with the partisans. That day, Franz Ziereis, camp commander, issued an order by radio to all civilians to co-operate, to "liquidate" the Russian criminals who had escaped from the concentration camp. He stated that everyone who could produce evidence that he had killed one of these men would receive an extraordinary sum of marks. This was why all the Nazi followers in Mauthausen went to work and succeeded in killing more than 600 escaped prisoners. It was not hard because some of the Russians could not drag themselves for more than 10 meters. After the liberation one of the surviving Russians came to Mauthausen to see how everything was then. He told us all the details of his painful march.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think the Tribunal wants to hear more details which you did not see yourself. Does any member of the Defense Counsel wish to ask any question of the witness upon the points which he has dealt with himself.
HERR BABEL: One question only. In the course of your testimony you gave certain figures, namely 165, then 180, and just now 700. Were you in a position to count them yourself?
BOIX: Nearly always the convoys came into the camp in columns of five. It was easy to count them. These transports were always sent from the Wehrmacht, from the Wehrmacht prisons somewhere in Germany. They were sent from all prisons in Germany, from the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the SD, or the SS.
THE PRESIDENT: Just answer the question and do not make a speech. You have said they were brought in in columns of five and it was easy to count them.
BOIX: Very easy to count them, particularly for those who wanted to be able to tell the story some day.
HERR BABEL: Did you have so much time that you were able to observe all these things?
BOIX: The transports always came in the evening after the deportees had returned to the camp. At this time we always had two or three hours when we could wander about in the camp waiting for the bell that was the signal for us to go to bed.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may now retire. [The witness left the stand.]
M. DUBOST: If the Tribunal permits, we shall now hear Mr. Cappelen, who is a Norwegian witness. The testimony of Mr. Cappelen will be limited to the conditions that were imposed on Norwegian internees in Norwegian camps and prisons.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. [The witness, Hans Cappelen, took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: I understand that you speak English.
M. HANS CAPPELEN (Witness): Yes, I speak English.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you take the English form of oath?
CAPPELEN: Yes, I prefer to speak in English.
THE PRESIDENT: What is your name?
CAPPELEN: My name is Hans Cappelen.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I swear that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. [The witness repeated the oath in English.]
THE PRESIDENT: [To the witness.] Raise your right hand and say "I swear."
CAPPELEN: I swear.
M. DUBOST: M. Cappelen, you were born 18 December 1903?
CAPPELEN: Yes.
M. DUBOST: In what town?
CAPPELEN: I was born in Kvitseid, province of Telemark, Norway.
M. DUBOST: What is your profession?
CAPPELEN: I was a lawyer, but now I am a business man.
M. DUBOST: Will you tell what you know of the atrocities of the Gestapo in Norway?
CAPPELEN: My Lord, I was arrested on 29 November 1941 and taken to the Gestapo prison in Oslo, Moellergata 19. After 10 days I was interrogated by two Norwegian NS, or Nazi police agents. They started in at once to beat me with bludgeons. How long this interrogation lasted I cannot remember, but it led to nothing. So after some days I was brought to 32 Victoria Terrace. That was the headquarters of the Gestapo in Norway. It was about 8 O'clock at night. I was brought into a fairly big room and they asked me to undress. I had to undress until I was absolutely naked. I was a little bit swollen after the first treatment I had by the Norwegian police agents, but it was not too bad. There were present about six or eight Gestapo agents and their leader was Femer; Kriminalrat was his title. He was very angry and they started to bombard me with questions which I could not answer. So Femer ran at me and tore all the hair off my head, hair and blood were all over the floor around me. And so, all of a sudden, they all started to run at me and beat me with rubber bludgeons and iron cable-ends. That hurt me very badly and I fainted. But I was brought back to life again by their pouring ice water over me. I vomited naturally, because I was feeling very sick. But that only made them angry; and they said, "Clean up, you dirty dog!" And I had to make an attempt to clean up with my bare hands. In this way they carried on for a long, long time, but the interrogation led to nothing because they bombarded me with questions and asked me of persons whom I did not know or scarcely knew. I suppose it must have been in the morning I was brought back again to the prison. I was placed in my cell and felt very sick and weak. All during the day I asked the guard if I could not have a doctor; that was the 19th. After some days-I suppose it must have been the day before Christmas Eve 1941-1 was again, in the night, brought to the Victoria Terrace. The same happened as last time, only this time it was very easy for me to undress because I had only a coat on me. I was swollen up from the last beating.
CAPPELEN: Just like the last time, six, seven, or eight Gestapo agents were present.
THE PRESIDENT: German Gestapo, do you mean?
CAPPELEN: Yes, German Gestapo, all of them. And then there was Femer present -at that time, too. He had a rank in the SS and was criminal commissar. Then they started to beat me again, but it was useless to beat a man like me who was so swollen up and looking so bad. Then they started in another way, they started to screw and break my arms and legs. And my right arm was dislocated. I felt that awful pain, and fainted again. Then the same happened as last time; they poured water on me and I came back again to life. Now all the Germans there were absolutely mad. They roared like animals and bombarded me with questions again, but I was so tired I could not answer. Then they placed a sort of home-made-it looked to me like a sort of home-made-wooden thing, with a screw arrangement, on my left leg; and they started to screw so that all the flesh loosened from the bones. I felt an awful pain and fainted away again. But I came back to consciousness again; and I have still big marks here on my leg from the screw arrangement, now, four years afterwards. So that led to nothing and then they placed something on my neck-I still have marks here [indicating]-and loosened the flesh here, But then I had a collapse and all of a sudden I felt that I was sort of paralyzed in the right side. It has otherwise been proved that I had a cerebral hemorrhage. And I got that double vision; I saw two of each Gestapo agent, and all was going round and round for me. That double vision I have had 4 years, and when I am tired it comes back again. But I am better now, so I can move again on the right side; but the right side is a little bit affected from that. Well, I cannot remember much more from that night, but the other prisoners who had to clean up the corridors in the prison had seen them bringing me back again in the morning. That must have been about 6 o'clock in the morning. They thought I was dead because I had no irons on my hands.
CAPPELEN: If it had been for I day or 2 days, I can't tell, but one day I moved again and was a little bit clear; and then the guard at once was in my cell where I was lying on a cot in my own vomiting and blood, and afterwards there came a doctor. He had, I suppose, quite a high rank; which rank I cant exactly say. He told me that I most probably would die, especially if I wasn't-I asked him, "Couldn't you bring me to a hospital, because..." He said, "No. Fools are not to be brought to any hospital, before you do just what we say you shall do. Like all Norwegians, you are a fool." Well, they put my arm into joint again. That was very bad, but two soldiers held me and they drew it in, and I fainted away again. So the time passed and I rested a bit. I couldn't walk, because it all seemed to be going around for me. So I was lying on the cot. And so one day-it must have been in the end of February or in the middle of February 1942-they came again. It must have been about ten o'clock in the night, because the light in my cell had been out for quite a long time. They asked me to stand up, and I made an attempt, and fell down again because of the paralysis. Then they kicked me; but I said, "Is not it better to put me to death, because I can't move?" Well, they dragged me out of the cell, and I was again brought up to Victoria Terrace; that is the headquarters where they made their interrogations. This time the interrogation was led by one SS man called Stehr. I could not stand so, naked as I was, I was lying on the floor. This Stehr had some assistants, four or five Gestapo agents; and they started to tramp on me and to kick me. So all of a sudden they brought me to my feet again and brought me to a table where Stehr was sitting. He took my left hand like this [indicating] and put some pins under my nails and started to break them up. Well, it hurt me badly; and all things began going around and around for me-the double vision-but the pain was so intense that I drew my hand back. I should not have done that, because that made them absolutely furious.
CAPPELEN: I fainted away, collapsed, and I do not know for how long a time; but I came back to life again by the smelling of burned flesh or burned meat. And then one of the Gestapo agents was standing with a little sort of lamp burning me under my feet. It did not hurt me too much, because I was so feeble that I did not care; and I was so paralyzed my tongue could not work, so I could not speak, only groaned a bit, crying, naturally, always. Well, I don't remember much more of that time, but this was to me one of the worst things I went through with respect to interrogations. I was brought back again to the prison and time passed and I attempted to eat a little bit. I spewed most of it up again, I threw it up again, most of it. But little by little I recovered. I was still paralyzed in the side, so I couldn't stand up. But I was also taken into interrogations again, and then I was confronted with other Norwegians, people I knew and people I did not know; and the most of them were badly treated. They were swollen up, and I remember especially two of my friends, two very good persons. I had been confronted with them, and they were looking very bad from torture, and when I came back again after my imprisonment I learned that they both were dead; they had died from the treatment. Another incident which I aim to tell-I hope My Lord will permit me to do it-concerned a person called Sverre Emil Halvorsen. He was one day-that must have been in the autumn or in August or October 1943-a little bit swollen up and very unhappy; and he said they had treated him so bad, but he and some of his friends had been in some sort of a court where they had been told that they were to be shot the next day. They placed a sort of sentence upon them, just to set an example. Well, Halvorsen had, naturally, a headache and felt very ill, and I asked the guard to bring-the head guard, that was a person named Herr Gotz. He came and asked what the devil I wanted.