Chapter XXVI: Section III: of the order deals with the relations with certain other (6)

THE PRESIDENT: Can you tell us who the Polish Central Committee were—or, I mean, how they were founded?

MR. DODD: Well, insofar as we are aware, it was a committee apparently set up by the Nazi State when it occupied Poland to work in some sort of co-operation with it during the days of the occupation. We don’t know the names of the members, and we haven’t any more specific information.

THE PRESIDENT: Is it a captured document?

MR. DODD: It is a captured document, yes, Sir. All of the documents that I am presenting in connection with this case are, excepting the Netherlands Government’s report and one or two other official reports, the Deuss affidavit and such other matters, are captured documents. That particular document, it has just been called to my attention, was captured by the United States 3rd Army.

Particularly harsh and brutal treatment was reserved for workers imported from the conquered Eastern territories. As we have illustrated, they did indeed live in bondage, and they were subjected to almost every form of degradation, quartered in stables with animals, denied the right of free worship and the ordinary pleasures of human society.

Illustrative of this treatment is Document EC-68, bearing Exhibit Number USA-205. This document, EC-68, bears the title, “Directives on the Treatment of Foreign Farm Workers of Polish Nationality,” issued by the Minister for Finance and Economy of Baden, Germany, on the 6th of March 1941. And we don’t know his name, nor have we been able to ascertain it.

Quoting from the English text of this document from the beginning:

“The agencies of the Baden State Peasant Association of the
Reich Food Administration, have received the result of the
negotiations with the Higher SS and Police Führer in Stuttgart
on 14 February 1941 with great satisfaction. Appropriate
memoranda have already been turned over to the District Peasants
Associations. Below I promulgate the individual regulations as
they have been laid down during the conference and the manner in
which they are now to be applied:

“1. On principle, farm workers of Polish nationality are no
longer granted the right to complain, and thus no complaints may
be accepted by any official agency.

“2. The farm workers of Polish nationality may no longer leave
the localities in which they are employed, and have a curfew
from 1 October to 31 March from 2000 hours to 0600 hours and
from 1 April to 30 September from 2100 hours to 0500 hours.

“3. The use of bicycles is strictly prohibited. Exceptions are
possible for riding to the place of work in the field if a
relative of the employer or the employer himself is present.

“4. The visit to churches, regardless of faith, is strictly
prohibited, even when there is no service in progress.
Individual spiritual care by clergymen outside of the church is
permitted.

“5. Visits to theaters, motion pictures, or other cultural
entertainment are strictly prohibited for farm workers of Polish
nationality.

“6. The visit to restaurants is strictly prohibited to farm
workers of Polish nationality, except for one restaurant in the
village, which will be selected by the Regional Commissioner’s
Office”—Landratsamt—“and then only 1 day per week. The day
which is allowed for visiting the restaurant will also be
determined by the Landratsamt. This regulation does not change
the curfew regulation mentioned above under ‘2’.

“7. Sexual intercourse with women and girls is strictly
prohibited; and wherever it is discovered, it must be reported.

“8. Gatherings of farm workers of Polish nationality after work
is prohibited, whether it is on other farms, in the stables, or
in the living quarters of the Poles.

“9. The use of railroads, buses, or other public conveyances by
farm workers of Polish nationality is prohibited.

“10. Permits to leave the village may be granted only in very
exceptional cases by the local police authority (mayor’s
office). However, in no case may it be granted if a Pole wishes
to visit a public agency on his own authority, whether it is a
labor office or the District Peasants Association, or if he
wants to change his place of employment.

“11. Unauthorized change of employment is strictly prohibited.
The farm workers of Polish nationality have to work daily as
long as it is to the interests of the enterprise and is demanded
by the employer. There are no limits to the working hours.

“12. Every employer has the right to give corporal punishment to
farm workers of Polish nationality if persuasion and reprimand
fail. The employer may not be held accountable in any such case
by an official agency.

“13. Farm workers of Polish nationality should, if possible, be
removed from the household; and they can be quartered in stables
_et cetera_. No consideration whatever should restrict such
action.

“14. Report to the authorities of all crimes committed by farm
workers of Polish nationality which sabotage industry or slow
down work—for instance, unwillingness to work, impertinent
behavior—is compulsory even in minor cases. An employer who
loses a Pole sentenced to a long prison sentence because of such
a compulsory report will upon request, have preference for the
assignment of another Pole from the competent labor office.

“15. In all other cases, only the State Police is still
competent. For the employer himself, severe punishment is
provided if it is established that the necessary distance has
not been kept from farm workers of Polish nationality. The same
applies to women and girls. Extra rations are strictly
prohibited. Noncompliance with the Reich tariffs for farm
workers of Polish nationality will be punished by the competent
labor office by the taking away of the workers.”

The women of the conquered territories were led away against their will to serve as domestics, and the Defendant Sauckel described this program in his own words, which appear in Document Number 016-PS, already offered in evidence as Exhibit USA-168, 016-PS, and particularly Page 7, fourth paragraph of the English text. In the German text it appears on Page 10, Paragraph 1, and I quote directly:

“In order to relieve considerably the German housewife,
especially the mother with many children and the extremely busy
farmwoman, and in order to avoid any further danger to their
health, the Führer also has charged me with the procurement of
400,000 to 500,000 selected, healthy, and strong girls from the
territories of the East for Germany.”

Once captured, once forced to become laborers in Germany, or workers in Germany, these Eastern women, by order of the slavemaster, Defendant Sauckel, were bound to the household to which they were assigned, permitted at the most 3 hours of freedom a week, and denied the right to return to their homes.

I now refer to Document Number 3044(b)-PS. That is Exhibit Number USA-206. The document is a decree issued by the Defendant Sauckel containing instructions for housewives concerning Eastern household workers; and I ask that the Court take judicial notice of the original decree which appears on Pages 592 and 593 of the second volume of a publication of the Zentralverlag of the NSDAP, entitled _Verfügungen, Anordnungen und Bekanntgaben_, and I quote from the first paragraph of the English translation of a portion of the decree as follows:

“There is no claim for free time. Female domestic workers from
the East may, on principle, leave the household only to take
care of domestic tasks. As a reward for good work, however, they
may be given the opportunity to stay outside the home without
work for 3 hours once a week. This leave must end with the onset
of darkness, at the latest at 2000 hours. It is prohibited to
enter restaurants, movies or other theaters, and similar
establishments provided for German or foreign workers. Attending
church is also prohibited. Special events may be arranged for
Eastern domestics in urban homes by the German Workers’ Front,
for Eastern domestics in rural homes by the Reich Food
Administration in cooperation with the German Women’s League.
Outside the home, the Eastern domestic must always carry her
work card as a personal pass.

“Vacations and return to homes are not granted as yet. The
recruiting of Eastern domestics is for an indefinite period.”

Always over these enslaved workers was the shadow of the Gestapo and the concentration camps. Like other major programs of the Nazi conspirators, the guards of the SS and Himmler’s methods of dealing with people were the instruments employed for enforcement.

On the subject of the slave laborers, a secret order dated 20 February 1942 issued by Reichsführer SS Himmler to SD and Security Police officers concerning Eastern Workers spells out the violence which was applied against them. It is our Document 3040-PS, which is Exhibit Number USA-207, and I ask this Court to take judicial notice of the original order, which is published in the _Allgemeine Erlass-Sammlung_