dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You will observe that the victims are crying out at the moment of death. (4) The snapshots, Your Honors, which I am now showing were taken by the German Obergruppenfuehrer Karl Strock, chief of the Nipal Gestapo. It represents a German mass execution. The victims have been ordered to strip on the execution ground. Here you see a young girl seated' already undressed, and next to her her brother Jacob, who has also been ordered to strip. I wish to emphasize the fact that the snapshots were taken in December, when the cold is intense. (5) In addition to some native women condemned to be shot, this snapshot also shows a very young girl endeavoring to hide behind her mother on the left. (6) In December naked women in this snapshot have also been taken to the execution ground. Condemned to death, these women were forced by the same Obergruppenfuehrer Strock to pose before the camera. (7) Here we have a group of men and with them a small child accompanied by his mother. They are going to the execution ground. The child clutches his mother closely. (8) This is an amateur photograph, albeit a very clear one. Here, Your Honors, you see a group of people and some dead bodies, with machine guns to the right of them. I would ask the Tribunal to observe the disposal of the dead bodies. The photograph is probably taken during the first months of the German occupation because the bodies have been thrown into the, pit carelessly; in the latter months orders were given to lay out the bodies tidily in rows. (9) This is a snapshot of the same group. Here you see both women and young girls condemned to death. (10) In Yanov Camp the executions are carried out to the strains of the "Death Tango" played by an orchestra conducted by Professor Striks, an internee in the camp, together with his bandmaster, Mundt. I request Your Honors to observe two points of interest in this snapshot.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: To the right we see the camp commander, Obergruppenfuehrer Gebauer, in white uniform, and behind him his dog, Rex, known to us through many interrogations as having been trained to harass living persons and to tear them to pieces. It is evident that Gebauer is leading the orchestra to the execution ground. (11) One of the gallows used by the German fascists in their endeavor to establish a regime of terror in the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union. The snapshot was found in the files of the Yanov Gestapo. A woman of sorts is seen laughing at the foot of the gallows. (12) A second gallows erected in the same market place, at Lvov, also taken from the archives of the Gestapo. (13) I am showing Your Honors the snapshot of an entire street festooned with bodies of Soviet citizens. This is a street in the city of Lvov, and I beg to remind the Tribunal that according to the records of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs the same hangings also occurred in Kharkov. , (14) The same street in Lvov. The snapshot was taken from the archives of the Lvov Gestapo. (15) The gallows were not the only means of execution. The guillotine, too, was used on a vast scale. In this snapshot you see the heads of victims guillotined in the prison of Danzig. The snapshot was taken in the Anatomic Institute in Danzig, where the bodies of the victims were brought aver execution. -; (16) I shall not show you too many snapshots of tortures inflicted. I only wish to show a few typical examples. This snapshot was taken from a dead Gestapo soldier. It shows a young girl being flogged. Later you will see what next they did to her. (17) It is not quite clear whether the girl is being strung up by the hair or hanged by the neck. Judging by the convulsive movement of her hands, I think that a noose has just been placed round her neck. Observe the bestial face of the scoundrel who is hanging her. (18) Here is a snapshot taken from a dead Gestapo soldier. I wish to emphasize the manner in which the German fascists mocked the chastity of the Russian women.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: They had just forced these Ukrainian women to run naked before the German brutes. (19) This snapshot will help you to understand subsequent events. It represents a machine for grinding human bones. Next to the machine stands the prisoner of war who feeds the machine. It can grind the bones of 200 persons at a time. As has been proved to the commission, it has a constant yield of 200 cubic meters of bone flour. That is all. Photographs are identified as Exhibits USSR-100, 101, 102, 212, 385, 388, 389, 390, 391. Will you now permit me to submit further documentary evidence? In the first part of my presentation I dealt with German mass terrorism and spoke specifically about the extermination of children and the infamous methods used by the Germans with regard to them, since terror applied to children-terror most savage, most brutal-is one of the characteristic features of fascist bestiality. I now present to the Tribunal evidence of mass extermination of the population in various parts of Eastern Europe. I submit to the Tribunal brief excerpts from the report of the Polish Government, which Your Honors will find on Page 127 of the document book, in the second paragraph of the text. It describes the so-called Anin massacre. I quote: "At the end of December 1939 a Polish policeman was shot in the vicinity of Warsaw by a bandit. Subsequent investigations showed that the murderer was in a restaurant in Vaver, near Warsaw. Two German policemen tried to arrest him. When the police entered the restaurant, the bandit opened fire, killing one policeman and wounding another, that is, he apparently killed one and wounded another. "In reply the German authorities, on 26 December 1939, ordered mass reprisals, and a punitive expedition made its appearance in the village. "A detachment of 'Landesschutzen,' under the command of an officer, was dispatched to Vaver and to the summer resort of Anin. Both of these localities were surrounded by a cordon of soldiers.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The proprietor of the restaurant where the event occurred was immediately hanged, and his body suspended in front of his house for 3 days. At the same time the men were dragged out from every house. Having thus rounded up about 170 persons, the Germans made them stand in the railway station, facing the wall and with their hands held above their heads, for several hours. Afterwards their documents were checked and a few were dismissed, but the vast majority were informed that they would be executed. They were then taken to a field, split up into groups of 10 to 14, and executed by volleys from machine guns. "The number of individual graves discovered on the execution ground amounted to 107. Among those executed were two doctors, 30 youths under 16 years of age, and 12 old men over 60. One was an American citizen of Polish origin. He was shot together with his son." I shall omit the next paragraph of the report of the Polish Government dealing with the massacre in Piastoshyn, and I quote only an announcement from a German paper, the Weichsel Zeitung, of 23 October 1939. This announcement was quoted in the Polish report. I read: "In the Tuchel district, the farm of a Reich citizen, Fritz, in the vicinity of Pretzin, was burned by Polish bandits in the night of 21-22 October. The citizen Fritz had a heart attack in consequence. By order of the chief of the Civil Administration a punitive expedition was dispatched to this locality in order to teach the guilty bandits a lesson which would show them that acts of this kind would be severely punished. In reprisal 10 Poles, known for their hostile attitude towards Germany, were shot. In addition an order was given to the Polish inhabitants of this locality to rebuild the burned buildings and to pay for the damage done." I shall omit half of the following page, and I quote briefly the circumstances of the Yousefouv massacre in Poland.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Your Honors will find this quotation on Page 128, Paragraph 2 of the document book: "In the middle of January 1940 a family of German colonists in the visage of Yousefouv was robbed and murdered by bandits, as the Germans themselves stated in the newspapers at a later date. A punitive expedition set Out for Yousefouv." I omit the next paragraph, and then I continue: "The expedition started a large-scale massacre. All the males who were caught in Yousefouv and the vicinity, even 11-yearold boys, were arrested and shot on the spot. Altogether 300 people were murdered." Mass extermination of the peaceful population in Yugoslavia was of an exceptionally cruel nature. I quote that part of the report of the Yugoslav Government entitled, "Mass Murder of the Civilian Population and the Destruction of Villages." I beg the Tribunal to accept as evidence a photostat of the order of Lieutenant General Neidtholt, which is presented as Exhibit Number USSR-188 (Document Number USSR-188). I cite this order, which was quoted in the report of the Yugoslav Government: "The settlements of Zagniezde and Udora must be destroyed, the male population of these settlements hanged, and the women and children taken to Stoliac." I omit the next page of the text and begin the. quotation regarding the atrocities of the German fascist criminals in Kragujevac. In confirmation of this report of the Yugoslav Government, we submit to the Tribunal a certified photostat copy of a communication from the commander of the garrison at Kragujevac, in which he admitted the shooting of 2,300 people. This document is being submitted to the Tribunal, and I ask the Court to accept this as evidence under Exhibit Number USSR-74 (Document Number USSR-74). I quote from the report of the Yugoslav Government on the mass murder in Kragujevac: "This was a mass murder committed on 21 October 1941, in Kragujevac, by a German punitive expedition under the command of Major Konig. Besides Konig, the regional commander, Bischofshausen, and the commandant of the settlement, Dr.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Zimmermann, participated in the organization and realization of this crime. "Already 10 to 15 days before the crime in Kragujevac was committed, one battalion arrived to reinforce the German garrison. First of all, the following villages were destroyed in the vicinity of Kragujavac: Mechkovac, Alarsic, and Groshnic. In Mechkovac the punitive expedition murdered 66 people, in Marsic, 101, and in Groshnic, 100. All the victims were peaceful citizens of the villages in question. "When, after the perpetration of these crimes, the punitive expedition arrived in Kragujevac, they began by carrying out their plan to exterminate the citizens of Kragujevac, especially the Serbian intelligentsia. As early as the beginning of October the district commandant, Dr. Zimmermann, demanded of the director of schools in Kragujevac the regular attendance of the school children; otherwise they would be considered saboteurs and shot. After such -a threat, all the pupils attended school regularly. On 18 October 1941, in conformity with a previously prepared list, all male Jews were arrested, as well as all persons who were considered Communists. They were imprisoned in the barracks of the former Yugoslav autotransport headquarters in Stanovlensko Polje. They were kept without any food until 20 October, and all were shot at about 6 o'clock in the evening; approximately 60 persons were killed. "The same day, that is, 20 October, they began to round up the entire male population of Kraguievac. After every exit from the city had been blocked, the Germans went into every public building and drove out all the employees. After that, all the professors and pupils from the fifth grade upward, together with the school masters, were taken from the high schools and seminaries." I omit the next two sentences and quote further: "Together with the others, all the prisoners from the Kragujevac prison were taken off to the barracks. Then the order was given to them to go into the courtyard of the barracks. Here all their personal belongings were taken from them.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The first to be shot were those who were originally incarcerated in the prison-approximately 50 persons. The rest were locked up in barracks. The next day, 21 October, as from 7 o'clock in the morning, they were taken off in batches to Stanovlensko Polje, and there shot down by machine gun fire. Those who did not die at once were finished off by the Germans with automatic guns and rifles." I conclude this quotation and continue after the next three paragraphs. "The relatives of the victims of this mass slaughter were forbidden to visit the place of execution until the burial of the victims had been completed and all traces of the crime eliminated. They were also forbidden to hold any requiem masses or religious services for the victims. In the obituary notices in the papers it was forbidden to mention that the victims had met their death in the mass execution." I omit the next five paragraphs and invite the attention of the Tribunal to a short part of the report of the Yugoslav Government dealing with the so-called "death march" or "march of blood," that march of dire fame which took place in the camp of Yarak. I quote that particular part which deals with this atrocious crime of the Hitlerites: "In the beginning of September 1941 a large German punitive expedition rounded up all the male population between the ages of 14 and 70 years and drove them from Shabatka across the Sava River into the settlement of Yarak in Sirinya. That was the so-called death march. About 5,000 men had to run a distance of 23 kilometers and back again. Those who could not stand the pace and fell by the Way were ruthlessly shot on the spot. Because many were old and weak, the number of victims was great, especially while crossing the bridge over the Sava." I conclude this, and I continue the next paragraph: "On the way back they met another group of 800 peasants who had to cover the same distance, but the treatment of this group was still more brutal. They had to run with their arms raised over their heads. They were systematically murdered on the way.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Only 300 men of the group reached Yarak alive." I interrupt the quotation here. I omit this page and; the next, and, concluding my presentation of the mass murders of the civilian population in Yugoslavia, I would ask the Tribunal to accept in evidence the public announcement of the Chief of the German Armed Forces in Serbia. This document is presented to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-200 (Document Number USSR-200). Without making any comment at all, I simply quote this document, using the original text incorporated in the report of the Yugoslav Government. In the report the Commander-in-Chief in Serbia quotes the following facts: "In the village of Skela, a Communist detachment opened fire at a German military truck. It was established that several of the inhabibants had been watching and had seen the preparations for this attack. It was further established that these inhabitants could have warned the nearest station of the Serbian gendarmerie: It was also established that they could have secretly warned the German military trucks against the pending attempt. The inhabitants did not profit by the opportunity and had thus placed themselves on the side of the criminals. The village of Skela was burned to the ground. Supplies of ammunition exploded in several houses during the fire, and this was accepted as a proof of complicity on the part of the inhabitants. All the male inhabitants of the village whose participation in the attack had been proved, were shot, and 50 Communists were hanged on the spot." I now omit five pages of my presentation, and I invite the attention of the Tribunal to the brief excerpts from the report of the Greek Government, on Pages 39 and 40 of the Russian text of this report, from which we can see that the same inhuman and criminal methods of mass shootings were used by the Hitler criminals in the temporarily occupied territory of Greece. I begin my quotation: "As soon as the island of Crete was occupied by the Germans....
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: In compliance with this announcement, the first reprisals were made, and several people, most of them absolutely innocent, were shot, and the villages of Skiki, Brassi, and Kanades"-perhaps I am stressing the wrong syllables, since I do not know how these words should be pronounced in Greek-"all these villages were burned down as a reprisal for an attack by collaborators of the Greek police during the invasion of Crete. On the sites where these villages formerly existed, posts were erected with inscriptions in Greek and in German: 'Destroyed as a reprisal for the brutal murder of a detachment of paratroopers and half a platoon of sappers by armed men and women in the rear.' "Measures of reprisal, which at first were of a temporary nature, later grew in intensity, especially after the resistance made by organized partisan detachments throughout the country in the beginning of 1943. The technique was always the same. The day after some act of sabotage or any other action committed by the partisans near a village, the German troops would appear in this village. The inhabitants would be rounded up in the central square or some other place suitable for the occasion, to listen to a public announcement, but in reality to be killed on the spot by machine gun fire. After this the Germans either burned The villages or else, in some cases, they would first plunder a village and then open fire on it. The inhabitants were killed openly in the streets, houses, and fields, regardless of age and sex. There were few cases when only the male population from the age of 16 years and over were executed. In other cases, when the men succeeded in hiding in the mountains, the Germans would execute the old men, women, and children who had remained in the villages, hoping that their age and their sex would protect them. The villages of Arachovo, Kalovryla, Gestamon, Klessoura, Kommeno, and Lissovouni may be considered as typical examples.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Some villages were destroyed for the sole reason that they were located in some region where partisans had been active." I omit the next sentence since it has a direct bearing on another text of the report. I continue my quotation: "The number of people murdered amounts to nearly 30,000." I am now going over to the presentation of evidence of mass exterminations of the peaceful population in the territory of the U.S.S.R. by the Germans. As to the circumstances of the mass executions, we may now judge them not only by the testimony of eyewitnesses or of the perpetrators of the atrocities; we may, in part, judge them on the basis of the material collected by the legal and medical commission. I say "in part" because, as from 1943, fearing retribution for the crimes committed, the Hitlerites began to destroy the traces of their crimes. They exhumed and burned corpses, ground bones, and strewed the ashes on the fields; they also used the slag formed by the corpses cremated, as well as the bone flour, for repairing the roads and fertilizing the fields. But notwithstanding the efforts of the criminals to conceal the traces of their crimes, it was impossible to destroy all the corpses of the people murdered. The first mass "action" of the Germans, when tens of thousands of innocent and peaceful people were murdered at a time, was the "Kiev action." In order to realize the extent of these atrocities I refer Your Honors to a communication of the Extraordinary State Commission already submitted to the Tribunal as Document Number USSR-9. I quote from Page 238, on the reverse side of the document book, at the end of the third paragraph from the top. I quote: "In Kiev, over 195,000 Soviet citizens were tortured to death, shot, and poisoned in the gas vans, as follows: "(1) In Baybe-yar, over 100,000 men, women, children, and old people. "(2) In Darnitza, over 68,000 Soviet prisoners of war and peaceful citizens. "(3) In the antitank trench in the vicinity of Syretzk Camp and in the camp proper, over 25,000 peaceful Soviet citizens and prisoners of war.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: "(4) In the grounds of the Hospital of St. Cyril, 800 insane patients. "(5) In the grounds of the Kiev-Pechersk Abbey, about 500 peaceful citizens. "(6) In the cemetery of Ljukjanousk, about 400 peaceful citizens." I continue to quote from this document, Page 238, second column of the text, Paragraph 6, and I give two short excerpts from this page. I begin: "In 1943, sensing the uncertainty of their position in Kiev, the occupying forces, in an attempt to conceal the traces of their crimes, opened up the tombs of their victims and began to burn the corpses. The Germans relegated the burning of the corpses in Baybe-yar to the internees of Syretzk Camp. SS officer Topheide was placed in charge of this work, together with members of the gendarmerie, Johann Merkel and Vogt, and the commander of the SS platoon, Rever. "The witnesses, L. K. Ostrovski, C. B. Berlandt, W. Y. Davydov, Y.A. Steyuk, and J.M. Brodski, who had escaped the shootings at Baybe-yar on 29 September 1943, testified: " 'As prisoners of war we were interned in the Syretzk Concentration Camp in the outskirts of Kiev. On 18 August 100 of us were sent to Baybe-yar. There we were shackled in chains and ordered to exhume and burn the corpses of Soviet citizens who had been murdered by the Germans. Here the Germans brought granite monuments and iron railings from the cemetery. From these monuments we made platforms on which we placed rails, and on top of these rails we laid the iron grills to act as fire bars. On the iron grills a layer of firewood was placed, and on top of the firewood we placed a layer of corpses. On the corpses we placed a further layer of firewood and poured petroleum over the whole. Following this order the corpses were piled up in several layers and then ignited. About 2,500 to 3,000 corpses were placed in each of these "ovens." The Germans detailed special crews for the removal of earrings, rings, and also gold teeth from the jaws of the dead. " 'When all the corpses were burned, new "ovens" were stacked, and so on.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The bones were smashed into small particles by bulldozers and the ashes strewn over the Yar, so that no traces should be left. The men worked from 12 to 15 hours a day. " 'The Germans used excavators in order to expedite the work. From 18 August until the day of our escape-29 September-approximately 70,000 corpses were burned.'" I interrupt this quotation and invite the attention of the Tribunal to a document on Page 287, Volume II, Paragraph 5 of the document book, second column. This is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes of the German fascist invaders in the territory of the Latvian S.S.R. In the place to which I will draw the attention of the Tribunal it is shown that the Hitlerites systematically carried out executions in the forest of Birkeneck. I make a special point of quoting this because further on we shall present documentary films showing full details of these mass shootings. I begin the quotation: "In the forest of Birkeneck, on the outskirts of the city of Riga, the Hitlerites shot 46,500 peaceful citizens. The witness, M. Stabulnek, a woman who lived in the vicinity of the forest, stated that: " 'On Friday and Saturday before Easter, 1942, packed busses went from the city to the forest. I saw 41 busses passing my house from the beginning of Friday morning to noon. On Easter Sunday, many inhabitants-I among them-went into the forest to the site of the executions. There we saw one large open pit containing the bodies of women and children who had been shot; they were either naked or in their underwear. There were traces of torture and ill-treatment on the corpses of the women and children, many of whom had black and blue bruises on their faces and cuts on their heads.