Chapter XXVIII: Part II: of this case (14)

Here I interrupt my quotation, since details of these crimes will follow later, and I refer the members of the Tribunal to Page 283 of the document book, Paragraph 3, Column 2, containing a complete summary of the data available:

“According to the preliminary figures, as established by the
commission, the Germano-Romanian occupiers shot, tortured to
death, and burned, in Odessa and the region of Odessa, up to
200,000 people.”

In confirmation of the fact that during the mass executions, the so-called “actions,” the German criminals buried people who were still alive, I submit to the Tribunal, under Exhibit Number USSR-37 (Document Number USSR-37), a report of the Extraordinary State Commission, dated 24 June 1943. I quote the act, which the members of the Tribunal will find on Page 359, in Volume II of the document book. The place that I refer to will be found on Page 362 of the document book:

“While excavating the pit at the foot of Chalk Hill (Mielovaya
Gora) in the town of Kupiansk, 71 bodies were discovered,
including the bodies of 62 men, eight women, and one infant. All
the victims were unshod and some of them were quite naked.”

I pass to the quotation of Paragraph 4, Page 362:

“The Commission notes that there were many whose wounds were not
fatal; they had evidently been thrown into the pit and buried
alive. This has also been confirmed by citizens who passed near
the pit soon after the shooting; they saw the ground stirring
and heard dull groans emanating from the grave.”

In confirmation of this fact, I would request the Tribunal to read into the record the original minutes, taken from the report of the Extraordinary State Commission, on the interrogation of the witness, Vassilievitch Joseph Ivanovitch, examined by the public prosecutor of the city of Stanislav at the request of the Extraordinary State Commission. We submit this document as Exhibit USSR-346 (Document Number USSR-346). I shall quote only two paragraphs from the minutes of this interrogation:

“In the beginning of 1943 we burned people there in the
cemetery, to which firewood was brought for this purpose. There
were cases where women and children were thrown alive into the
pits and there buried.

“One woman—I do not know her name—begged an officer not to
shoot her, and he gave her his word that she would not be shot.
He even said, ‘I give you my word as an officer that you will
not be shot.’ After the shooting of the group to which this
woman belonged, this officer himself took her by the hand, threw
her alive into the pit, and she was buried alive.”

Thus, in one whole series of cases, the victims were purposely buried alive in order to add extra cruelty to the misdeeds of the criminals. In other cases this was due to the fact that the Germans did not even consider it necessary to verify whether the people to be liquidated were dead or not.

An investigation of the data on the exhumation of these bodies, when the German fascists no longer had the time to destroy the traces of their crime by burning them, shows that towards the end of 1941 and in 1942 the criminals did not particularly attempt to camouflage the execution grounds—and this despite the instructions, already known to the Tribunal, issued by fascist headquarters on the camouflaging of execution grounds and keeping secret the so-called executions. I am of the opinion that this can be explained only by the fact that the Germans, in spite of some set-backs, were convinced of their final victory, and that, therefore, they hoped that their deeds would not be punished.

I refer to the document already presented with other documents to the Tribunal as Document Number USSR-2(a), a report of the Extraordinary Commission of the Soviet Union on atrocities committed by the German fascist invaders in the region of Stalinsk. There we find a report of the medical-legal expert commission on the atrocities committed by the German fascist invaders in the alabaster quarries near the city of Artemovsk, in the Stalinsk district. I shall quote only a brief excerpt from this document. I shall omit the greater part of the indictments.

In the document book, Page 366, fifth paragraph, of the first column of the text, Your Honors will find the following:

“Two kilometers to the east of the city of Artemovsk, in the
tunnel of the quarry of the alabaster works, 400 meters from the
entrance, there is a small opening walled up with bricks. When
the bricks were removed a continuation of the tunnel was
discovered. This was a narrow passage rising steeply, having at
the end a broad, oval cavern, 20 meters in length, 30 meters in
width, and 3 to 4 meters in height.

“The entire cavern was filled with dead bodies and only a small
area at the entrance and a narrow strip in the center were free
of corpses. The bodies were closely pressed one against the
other, with their backs turned to the entrance to the cavern.

“This is typical because it shows the customary German routine
of shooting in the nape of the neck.

“The corpses were wedged so tightly that, at first glance, it
appeared as though there was just one solid mass of intertwined
bodies. The last layers had been heaped on the first, which were
then closely pressed to the walls of the cavern.”

I omit the two following pages of the report, and I merely quote the conclusion of the legal-medical expert commission. You will find this on Page 366, Volume II, second column of the text, Paragraph 15:

“According to the testimony of the inhabitants of Artemovsk, on
9 February 1942 several thousand people were driven into the
abandoned alabaster quarries, carrying their small household
possessions and food.

“As and when the cavern filled up, the people were shot either
when standing or kneeling down; then another batch would be
driven in and shot down on the corpses of the first batch; the
corpses of the victims were piled one on top of another. Some
people tried to flee from the impending murder, trampled one
another down, and died in agony.”

I further omit three pages of my presentation and continue on Page 209. During the period of the mass executions the German fascist criminals elaborated a definite technique for the execution of their crimes. I would like to mention some of the most typical methods employed, because the Tribunal will realize, on hearing individual instances, how criminally this technique of atrocities was perfected by the Germans and how increasingly cynical was the premeditation of these monstrous crimes. In confirmation of my statement, I should like to present some documents to the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: We shall have to break off now. It is 4 o’clock.

The Tribunal would be glad to know how much longer your presentation will be.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I shall finish my presentation of evidence tomorrow.

[_The Tribunal adjourned until 19 February 1946 at 1000 hours._]

SIXTY-SECOND DAY
Tuesday, 19 February 1946

_Morning Session_

THE PRESIDENT: I have an announcement to make.

The Defense motion for a recess cannot be granted. When a recess at Christmas was decided upon, the Tribunal informed the Defense Counsel that no further recess would be granted.

As Counsel for the Prosecution has pointed out, Defense Counsel have already had several months in which to prepare their defenses to a case which depends principally upon documents in the German language, written by the defendants themselves or their associates. They have also had constant assistance from the Tribunal and the Prosecution in connection with documentary evidence and witnesses.

The Tribunal has observed that many of the Defense Counsel have already found it possible, quite properly, to absent themselves from court, and the Tribunal sees no reason why some of the time which must elapse for the conclusion of the case for the Prosecution should not be utilized in preparation of their defenses out of court.

The Tribunal therefore decides that, at the conclusion of the Prosecution’s case against the individual defendants, the argument on the groups or organizations alleged to be criminal shall take place and that thereafter applications for documents and witnesses by those defendants whose witnesses and documents have not already been decided upon shall be heard in open session. In this way several days will be occupied in which many of the Defense Counsel can be absent from court and they can prepare their defenses out of court.

That is all. You may continue, Colonel.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Your Honor, you asked me yesterday who, in January 1942, was the chief of the military economy and armament department of the German Army. I could not answer yesterday but today I can report to you that General of the Infantry Thomas held this position.

As to the second question which you put to me, that is, what measures were taken in regard to the correspondence connected with the report of Major Roesler, I requested information from Moscow, where this correspondence is kept. There are only excerpts from this correspondence in the archives, the rest of the correspondence is in another archive. We requested information from this archive and as soon as the latest disposition of this correspondence is ascertained, I will immediately report to the Tribunal. This will take about a day or two.

Before continuing my statement, I wish to remark that today I should conclude the presentation of all the evidence concerned with my statement. I have to submit a considerable number of documents, and therefore my statement will be rather fragmentary. I will not dwell on particulars and will endeavor not to repeat what has already been said by the prosecutors of other countries. This will render my statement somewhat piecemeal, for which I must beg your indulgence.

I will now proceed with my statement.

The legal-medical expert’s report, drawn up in the city of Smolensk, has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-48 (Document Number USSR-48). It was signed by a member of the Extraordinary State Commission for the Soviet Union, President of the Medical Academy and eminent Soviet physician, Academician Burdenko, by the principal legal-medical expert of the Ministry for Health, Dr. Prozorovsky, and other experts. In addition to the final conclusions which have already been presented by my colleague, Colonel Pokrovsky, I now submit to the Tribunal the actual record of these experts’ investigation. From this the Tribunal will be able to judge, not only the final conclusion but also the methods used for this investigation. The Tribunal can see for themselves the detailed description of each burial ground investigated by experts, as well as the detailed examination of the corpses exhumed from the ditches. I will not repeat those parts of the account which have already been partially quoted by Colonel Pokrovsky. Therefore I omit four pages of my statement and pass on to Page 213. The part which I wish to quote now Your Honors will find on Page 377 of the document book, Volume II, Paragraph 2 of the page. The experts describe a typical scene of a burial site of the German victims in 1941 and the beginning of 1942. I quote:

“The ditches from which the corpses were exhumed were not common
burial grounds. The corpses were not laid out in a row, one next
to the other, but layer upon layer, a solid mass of women’s and
men’s bodies heaped together in confusion. In this mass of
corpses some were bent or half bent, some were lying on their
faces, on their sides, or on their backs, some were on their
knees, with faces down or up, with legs and arms interlinked. It
was impossible to separate the corpses before they were exhumed
from the ditch.”

However, this chaotic manner of burial of the corpses appears to characterize only the mass burials of victims of the first mass shootings which were carried out toward the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942. During subsequent exhumations the legal-medical experts discovered very many burial grounds where the corpses were laid down in orderly fashion, layer on layer.

A typical scene of such a burial ground the Tribunal can find in the album regarding the Lvov Camp. On Page 15 of this album there is a picture of a burial ground of the later period. The bodies are lying in regular layers, and this can be explained by. . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Which album is this?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: It is the album which concerns the Lvov Camp, Your Honor. It was submitted to the Tribunal yesterday. The picture I am talking about is on Page 15 of the album. It is a photograph which was discovered in the Gestapo headquarters at Lvov.

The reason that impelled this regular disposition of bodies will become clear to the Tribunal from an excerpt of the Extraordinary State Commission’s report on atrocities.

THE PRESIDENT: Is this a photograph of the bodies as they lay in the trench or after they had been moved?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: No, it is a photograph taken by some Gestapo official, Your Honor, and was discovered in the archives of the Lvov Gestapo. If you will look at this picture, you will see that the corpses are lying almost in regular rows on the spot of this mass shooting.

What was the reason for this regular laying out of the corpses? The Tribunal will find the answer to this on Page 290 of the document book, second column of the text, Paragraph 8. This is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on atrocities committed by the German fascist invaders in the city and region of Rovno. I quote:

“The witness Karpuk, a worker on a German farm near Belaya
Street, testified:

“‘Several times I saw how the Hitlerites exterminated Soviet
citizens, Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, and Jews. This took place
usually in the following manner: The German butchers brought the
doomed people to the place of execution, forced them to dig a
ditch, ordered them to undress, and to lie down in the ditch,
face downward. The Hitlerites fired at the back of the necks of
the victims with automatic pistols. Then another group of people
lay down on top of the bodies of those shot and were finished
off in the same manner, and then a third row, and so on, until
the ditch was filled. Then they poured quicklime over the
corpses and covered them with earth.’”

One can judge how widespread was this infamous and cruel method of mass execution from an excerpt concerning the executions in Maidanek. I quote from a Soviet-Polish communiqué already presented to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-29 (Document Number USSR-29). The Tribunal will find this on Page 65 of the document book, first column of the text, Paragraph 14. I begin the quotation:

“On 3 November 1943, 18,400 people were shot in the camp; 8,400
came from the camp itself, and 10,000 were herded there from the
city and other camps.”

I omit the next sentence.

“The shootings started early in the morning and ceased late in
the evening. The SS brought the people, stripped naked, to the
ditches in groups of 50 or 100 men. They were packed into the
bottom of the ditch face down and shot with automatic rifles.
Then a new group of people were piled on the corpses and shot in
the same manner; and so on until the pits were full.”

I especially concerned myself with determining the exact date when this method was used for the first time. According to Soviet documents this started in the second half of 1942. But in general, it may be stated that similar methods of shooting were already adopted by the German police detachments in Poland in 1939.

Thanks to the kindness of our British colleagues, I submit to the Tribunal a document which was received by our delegation from the British Prosecution. It is a photostat of the document—the original is in the archives of the British Delegation and I think I am safe in saying that if the Tribunal requires the original copy, it can be presented. The authenticity of the information which is contained in this correspondence cannot be questioned. It is a German report taken from the archives of Hitler’s aide-de-camp. I quote one place, which the Tribunal may find on Page 391 of the document book, second volume, Paragraph 2, (Document USSR-342). The German staff doctors considered it necessary to report to Hitler about these shootings because “since these shootings were done publicly, enemy propaganda may derive much material. . . .”

Out of this correspondence I quote a short excerpt from the record of Corporal Paul Kluge’s interrogation. Paul Kluge belonged to a medical detachment stationed in Shwetz. He heard that a shooting of Poles would take place on Sunday, 8 October 1939, in the Jewish cemetery. Out of curiosity he decided to visit the place of execution. I quote only that part of his interrogation which relates the manner of shooting. The Tribunal will find this quotation on Page 393 of the document book, second volume, second paragraph (Document Number USSR-42). I start the quotation:

“We were already of the opinion that we were the victims of
silly rumors and had returned to our barracks, when suddenly a
large bus full of women and children drove into the cemetery. We
returned to the cemetery. Then we saw a party consisting of a
woman with three children, aged from 3 to 8 years, led to an
open grave about 2 meters wide and 8 meters long. The woman was
forced to descend into this grave and took the youngest child
with her in her arms. Two men, members of the punitive
expedition, handed the other two children to her. The woman was
forced to lie, face down, in the grave and beside her three
children, in the same manner, on her left. After that, four men
of the detachment also climbed down into the grave, aimed their
guns so that the barrels were about 30 centimeters away from the
napes of their necks. Thus they shot the woman and her three
children.

“Then the chief of the detachment called on me to help fill in
the grave. I obeyed this order and, being quite near, I could
see the next party of women and children being shot in the same
manner as were the first.

“In all, there were nine or ten groups of women and children,
all shot in the same way, four at a time in the same grave.”

We can therefore see that this method of mass shooting is of very early origin.

I omit the next page of the report as it contains the minutes of another interrogation with similar information, and submit to the Tribunal proof of other, even more cruel methods of mass shootings which the Hitlerite criminals invented, beginning with 1943 and continuing to the end of the war.

The Hitlerite criminals, beginning with 1943, began to adopt different methods to cover the traces of their crimes, in particular, to burn the bodies. It has been proved by documents that the Hitlerites compelled their victims, first to prepare the kindlings and logs, then to lie down on these wood piles. Then the first group was shot. The next party of condemned persons brought logs, laid them down on the layer of corpses, and then lay down themselves on these logs and were then executed.

I beg Your Honors to turn to the album concerning the Auschwitz Camp, where the pictures of another camp, Kloga, are also included. You will find there a typical example of this cruel manner of shooting. In order to prove this, I turn to a document which has already been submitted previously to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-39. The excerpt which I wish to quote is on Page 233 of the document book, second column of the text, last paragraph. I start the quotation:

“On 19 September 1944 the Germans began the liquidation of the
Kloga Camp. Unterscharführer of the Camp, Schwarze, and the
chief of the office, Hauptscharführer Max Dalmann, selected 300
people from among the internees, and made them carry firewood to
a clearing in the woods. Seven hundred other men were forced to
build pyres. When these pyres were ready the German butchers
began mass shootings of the internees.

“In the first place, those who carried the wood and built up the
fires were shot and then the remaining victims. The shooting was
carried out in the following manner: At the point of a gun
members of the SD Police units forced the prisoners to lie face
down on the platforms of the pyres and then they shot them with
submachine guns or revolvers. The bodies were burned on the
fires.”

To save time I omit the next part of the quotation. In order to prove that the methods in other camps were even more cruel but of the same type as the ones described above, I beg the Tribunal to turn to a document, which has already been submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-38 (Document Number USSR-38). It is the report on the atrocities of the German invaders in the town of Minsk. I refer to a quotation which the Tribunal will find on Page 215 of the document book in the second column of the text, last paragraph.

In the first part of this quotation you will read how, in order to conceal the traces of their crimes, the German Hitlerite invaders built near the camp in Maly Trostianets primitive crematorium installations. I begin my quotation by that passage of the report which speaks of the shootings which occurred in the immediate neighborhood of these primitive crematorium installations. To facilitate the task of the translators, I inform you that I omitted three pages of the text and I read now from Page 223 of the Russian text of the speech.

I begin the quotation with the testimony of the witness Savinsky, who stated as follows:

“Having reached a point 10 kilometers from Minsk, near the
village of Maly Trostianets, the car stopped near one of the
barns. We all understood that we were brought here to be
shot. . . . By order of the German butchers the interned women
were brought out in groups of four from the car. Seeing that it
was my turn, together with Anna Gobubovich, Yulia Semashko, and
another woman whose name I do not know, I climbed on top of the
pile of bodies. Shots were heard. I was slightly injured on the
head and fell.”

I omit the next part of the quotation which described how this woman saved herself. I quote the last paragraph:

“The legal-medical experts discovered that there were bullet
wounds in the necks of these bodies. In the barn and on the
stacks of logs the Germans shot and burned 6,500 persons.”

I omit the next three pages of the text and next submit to the Tribunal the proofs of the organization of the German fascist invaders. . . .

THE PRESIDENT: The translation came through to us that 63 people were killed. The translation in writing is 6,500.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The translation in writing is absolutely correct, Mr. President. For the confirmation of this, one could turn to the original document—the report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union. This was a gross error on the part of the interpreters. They diminished the number of those shot more than 10,000 times.

So I omit the following three pages of the statement and will present evidence of the existence of special places of mass executions where the number of victims was numbered by hundreds of thousands of persons and where the doomed were brought in not only from the surrounding regions but from many countries of Europe.

By means of brief excerpts I submit to the Tribunal proof of the existence of two such centers, which were among the most famous. They are the center of mass executions of Panary, 8 kilometers from Vilna, and Fort Number 9, the “Fort of Death” in Kaunas, which has acquired a particularly grim reputation.

I quote a report which has been submitted to the Tribunal, the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the atrocities of the Hitlerite invaders in Lithuania. The Tribunal will find this quotation on Page 294, second column of the text, last paragraph. For the convenience of the interpreters I inform you that I am quoting from Page 228. I omit the first three paragraphs which state that the mass execution place at Panary was organized in July 1941 and existed until June 1944. I continue the quotation starting with the fourth paragraph where it is related how the Hitlerites attempted to cover up the traces of their crimes in this place of mass executions. I quote:

“In December 1943”—stated witness Saydel Matvey Fedorovich—“we
were forced to exhume and burn the corpses.”

I omit the next sentence and continue the quotation:

“For this purpose, we placed on each pyre about 3,000 corpses,
poured oil over them, placed incendiary bombs on four sides, and
set it on fire.

“The burning of corpses continued from the end of 1943 to June
1944. During this period, more than 100,000 corpses were dug out
from nine pits of a total volume of 21,179 cubic meters and were
burned on fires. The last days before their retreat the
Hitlerites did not have time to burn the bodies of the
shot. . . .”

I omit the next few paragraphs and quote the results of the medical-legal expert commission:

“The corpses that were examined were, for the most part, those
of the civilian population. A small number of corpses were found
dressed in military uniforms. On some of the corpses were found
objects of religious worship of the Catholic and Greek Orthodox
faith. According to the objects and documents found, it has been
established that among those who were shot, there were
physicians, engineers, students, chauffeurs, mechanics, railroad
workers, tailors, watchmakers, tradesmen, _et cetera_.”

I omit the next three paragraphs and pass on to the concluding sentence:

“The medical-legal expert commission has established that the
German fascist butchers shot and burned in Panary not less than
100,000 people.”

I quote further proof concerning the Fort of Death in Kaunas. I begin the quotation:

“Fort Number 9 was called by the residents of Kaunas the ‘Fort
of Death.’ This fort, located 6 kilometers northwest of the
city, is an old iron-reinforced concrete fortification. Inside,
there are numerous casements, which were used by the Germans as
cells for prisoners. This fort is surrounded by a concrete wall
and barbed wire.

“In the very first days after their arrival in Kaunas, the
Hitlerites drove some 1,000 Soviet war prisoners into the fort
and forced them to dig ditches in a field of over 5 hectares in
area, at the western wall of the fort. During the months of July
and August 1941, 14 ditches were dug, each of them 3 meters
wide, more than 200 meters long, and more than 2 meters in
depth. Those who entered Fort Number 9 never survived. In
columns of several thousand people, the Hitlerites drove in
there women, children, adolescents, men, and aged persons for
the purpose of shooting them and burning their bodies.”

I omit the next three paragraphs and continue my quotation:

“In Fort Number 9 people of different nationalities were shot:
Russians, Ukrainians, Bielorussians, Lithuanians, Poles, and
Jews. The following people were shot in this fort: a deputy to
the Supreme Soviet Council of the U.S.S.R., Bydzhinskiene; a
deputy to the Supreme Soviet Council of the Lithuanian S.S.R.,
Zhibertas; and others. Besides Soviet citizens the Hitlerites
exterminated French, Austrian, and Czechoslovak citizens in Fort
Number 9.

“A former supervisor of Fort Number 9, the witness Naudjunas,
testified:

“‘The first group of foreigners, numbering 4,000, arrived at the
fort in December 1941. I talked to one of the women, who said
that they were being transported to Russia, allegedly for work.
On 10 December 1941 the extermination of foreigners began. They
were ordered to leave the fort in groups of 100 people,
allegedly for inoculations. Those who left for inoculations did
not return. All 4,000 foreigners were shot. On 15 December 1941
another group arrived, numbering approximately 3,000 persons,
which was also exterminated.’”

I omit the next paragraph on this page, and nearly the whole of the following page, and quote only the conclusive data:

“The Investigation Commission ascertained that the Hitlerites
had exterminated in Fort Number 9 over 70,000 peaceful
inhabitants.”

In numerous cases the German fascists used methods full of cruel cunning for the mass extermination of peaceful Soviet citizens. In order to prove this statement, I refer to the report of the Extraordinary State Commission for the Stavropol region, which has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-1 (Document Number USSR-1). The Tribunal will find this excerpt on Page 268 of the Document Book; I quote one paragraph—the second paragraph, of the text:

“It is established that before retreating from the city of
Geozgievsk on 9 and 10 January of this year, by order of the
chief physician of the German hospitals in the city, Baron Von
Heiman, the German soldiers sold alcohol and soda water at the
city market, which proved to be methylated spirit and oxalic
acid. The result consisted in mass poisoning of the inhabitants
of this town.”

Among the crimes perpetrated by the German fascists on Soviet territory I must mention especially the treatment to which they subjected the inhabitants of Leningrad. I have already mentioned this in speaking of the Leningrad children yesterday.

In order to shorten my quotation from the Extraordinary Commission’s report on Leningrad—although, being a citizen of Leningrad myself, I would like the Court to have an accurate picture of the sufferings endured by the great city as a result of the German fascist terror—I will quote only general data regarding the German destruction and crimes in the city of Leningrad. The Tribunal will find this quotation on Page 345 of the document book, second volume. I begin the quotation:

“During the 900-day siege of Leningrad, when the German fascist
invaders were in possession of its suburbs, they perpetrated
countless atrocities on the peaceful civilians.

“The Germans dropped on Leningrad 107,000 demolition and
incendiary bombs and 150,000 heavy artillery shells. Every
minute throughout the siege each Leningrad resident was in the
same danger as if he had been on a field of battle. Every
instant he was threatened with death or mutilation. Bombing and
artillery fire killed a total of 16,747 and wounded 33,782
persons.”

I interrupt my quotation, omit the next page of my statement, and beg the Tribunal to notice Page 347 of the second volume of the document book, an excerpt from the diary of the German artillery men who shelled Leningrad. These notes are most cynical and cruel.

I will now give figures of persons who died of hunger in Leningrad in the terrible winter of 1941-1942. I quote only one line: “As a result of the hunger blockade of Leningrad, 632,253 people perished.”

I omit the following two pages and pass on to evidence concerning the adoption by the Hitlerites of special machines for the extermination of people by monoxide gas—in special machines (Sondermaschinen), by “gas vans” or “murder vans,” (_dushegubki_) as the Soviet people rightly named them. The very fact of employing such machines for the mass murder of people constitutes a very heavy charge against the leaders of German fascism. The special equipment for mass extermination of people in hermetically closed automobiles in which the exhaust pipes were connected to the bodies of the car by means of special movable tubes was utilized by the German fascists for the first time in the U.S.S.R. in 1942. I would like to remind the Tribunal that these gas vans were mentioned for the first time in a report which I have already submitted to the Tribunal concerning the atrocities of the German fascist aggressors in the town of Kerch. This document was submitted as Document Number USSR-63 and refers to the spring of 1942.

I remind the Tribunal of an excerpt from the statements of the witness Darya Demchenko who saw how from two murder vans German military personnel in Kerch dragged out the bodies of the murdered and dumped them into an antitank ditch.

However, the mass extermination of people in gas vans was ascertained without reasonable doubt for the first time in the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on atrocities of the German occupiers in the Stavropol region. This document was submitted to the Tribunal by me earlier as Exhibit Number USSR-1 (Document USSR-1). Investigation of the crimes committed by the German fascists in the Stavropol region was directed by a prominent Soviet writer and member of the Extraordinary State Commission, Academician Alexey Nikolaevitch Tolstoy, who now is deceased.

This very thorough investigation was undertaken with the assistance of the most prominent specialists in forensic medicine, inasmuch as human imagination, having set definite logical limits to any crime, could only with difficulty then accept the existence of these machines. However, the results of the investigation corroborate in full the testimony of surviving witnesses regarding the murder vans and the German fascist mass murders of peaceful citizens executed by this means.

The report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the Stavropol region gives the first detailed description of the mechanism of these murder vans; and I am reading a quotation which the Tribunal will find on Page 268 of the document book, Paragraph 4. I quote this excerpt in full as the technical matter here detailed coincides with those technical details which the American Prosecution so fully reported to the Tribunal. This is corroborative evidence, and is therefore important. I begin my quotation:

“The mass extermination of peaceful citizens of the U.S.S.R. by
the Germans was done by poisoning them with carbon monoxide in
specially constructed machines or ‘murder vans.’

“Prisoner of war E. M. Fenchel testified:

“‘While working as a motor mechanic, I had the opportunity of
studying in detail the van construction especially adopted for
suffocating and exterminating people with exhaust gases. There
were several such vans in the town of Stavropol at the disposal
of the Gestapo.

“‘Their construction was as follows: The body was approximately
5 meters long by 2½ meters wide by approximately 2½ meters in
height. It was shaped like a railway car without windows. Inside
it was lined with galvanized sheet iron; on the floor, also
covered with galvanized iron, was a wooden grating. The door of
the body was lined with rubber and was tightly closed with an
automatic lock. On the floor of the van, under the grating, were
two metal pipes.’”

I omit the end of the sentence.

“‘These pipes were connected with a transverse pipe of equal
diameter. . . .’”

I omit the next part of the sentence.

“‘These pipes had frequent holes a half centimeter in width.
From the transverse pipe down through a hole in the galvanized
iron floor went a rubber hose with a hexagonal screw at the end,
threaded so as to fit the thread on the end of the engine
exhaust pipe. This hose is screwed on to the exhaust pipe and
when the engine is running all the exhaust gas goes into the
body of this hermetically closed van. From the accumulation of
these gases, a man inside the van died within a short space of
time. The machine could contain approximately 70 to 80 people.
The motor of this machine usually bore the trademark “Sauer.”’”

I omit the following part of the quotation, because the data contained therein is already known to the Tribunal and I beg the Tribunal to pay attention to Page 270 of the document book, first paragraph, which says that in the Stavropol region the murder vans were used for the killing of 660 people who were ill in the local hospital. Further I draw the attention of the Tribunal to the report of the Extraordinary State Commission regarding the Crimes of the German fascist criminals in Krasnodar. I submit this document to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-42 (Document Number USSR-42). It concerns the mass killing of people in murder vans. I will not quote this document. I pass on to Page 243. I submit to the Tribunal as Document Number USSR-55 the verdict of the military tribunal of the North Caucasian Front. I wish only to quote a short excerpt from this verdict in order to save time. The Tribunal will find this on Page 439 of the document book, Volume II, Paragraph 2. I begin the quotation:

“The legal investigation has also ascertained as facts the
systematic torture and burning, in the cellars of the Gestapo by
the Hitlerite criminals, of many arrested Soviet citizens, as
well as the extermination by carbon-monoxide gases in specially
built cars (murder vans), that is, the asphyxiation of
approximately 7,000 innocent Soviet people, including more than
700 patients from the hospitals of the town in Krasnodar region;
among them were 42 children, from 5 to 16 years old.”

I omit the pages of the text.

Next I submit to the Tribunal a report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union on the atrocities of the German fascist invaders in the town of Kharkov and the Kharkov region. I submit this document to the Tribunal under Document Number USSR-43. I will not quote this document, but will go over to another, more comprehensive document, namely, the verdict of the military tribunal of the 4th Ukrainian Front which was pronounced in this case. This document has been introduced to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-32 (Document Number USSR-32). The Tribunal will find this excerpt which I would like to quote on Page 222 of the document book, first paragraph. I begin the quotation:

“For the mass executions of Soviet citizens the German fascist
invaders used the so-called gas wagons: Large, closed cars which
were known to the Russians as ‘murder vans.’ Into these gas
wagons the German fascist invaders drove Soviet citizens and
murdered them by special poisonous gas, carbon-monoxide. In
order to hide the traces of the monstrous crimes committed and
the mass extermination of Soviet people by way of asphyxiation
with carbon-monoxide in these gas wagons, the German fascists
burned the bodies of their victims.”

I conclude this quotation and omit the next page of the text and another page, and go on to Page 252 of my statement.

In order to prove that the murder vans were used not only at places I mentioned, I now refer to a report of the Extraordinary State Commission which has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-9 (Document Number USSR-9), on the atrocities committed in the town of Kiev. The Tribunal will find there a proof of the fact that murder vans were used in Kiev.

THE PRESIDENT: We have just had handed up to us, in the written translation of your address, Page 234. We already had Page 234. Do you want this to be 234(a)? Is it just one page that you are handing up now?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: There is a different numbering in the English text, Mr. President; and it is difficult for me to talk about the text which is in your possession, because I simply do not know the numbering of the English translation.

THE PRESIDENT: Maybe it is 234(a)?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I am on Page 251 of the Russian text.

THE PRESIDENT: I think the better course will be to adjourn now and perhaps the slight muddle in these translations can be cleared up.

[_A recess was taken._]

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I have interrupted my report of the wide application of murder vans in the temporarily occupied regions of the U.S.S.R.—that is, I interrupted the report of the Extraordinary State Commission concerning crimes in Rovno and the Rovno region. The members of the Tribunal will find reference to this on Page 291, second column of the text, Paragraph 10 of the document book. I limit myself to one paragraph only. I begin the quotation:

“The extermination of peaceful citizens and prisoners of war in
the town of Rovno used to take place by means of mass shooting
from tommy-guns and machine guns, murder with carbon-monoxide in
murder vans, while in separate instances people were thrown into
pits and buried alive. Some of the victims, particularly those
executed at the quarries near the village of Vydumka, were
burned on special places prepared in advance.”

I end my quotation and go over to Page 253 of the text, Paragraph 3. Further, in conjunction with the same matter, I refer to the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes in Minsk. The members of the Tribunal will find this quotation on Page 215 of the document book, second paragraph, second column of the text. I read one quotation from this report. I begin the quotation, “Thousands of Soviet citizens have perished in concentration camps at the hands of the German executioners.”

I omit the following four sentences and pass on to the testimony of witness Moisievitch. He says—I begin the quotation:

“I was an eyewitness to the manner in which the Germans killed
people in their murder vans. From 70 to 80 people were forced
into a murder van and then driven away to an unknown
destination.”

I end my quotation, and I ask the Tribunal’s permission to draw its attention to the fact that in Minsk the principle of the murder van was used for stationary gas chambers, which were installed by the criminals in common bath houses. It is also mentioned in this report of the Extraordinary State Commission.

Further, I refer to the verdict of the court-martial of the Smolensk military region, dated 15-19 December 1945, which the Tribunal will find on Page 72 of the document book. There it is related that in Smolensk the Germans also employed special gas automobiles, the so-called murder vans for killing Soviet people with carbon-monoxide. It seems to me that it is not merely coincidence that murder vans appeared in the territory of the U.S.S.R. in the year of 1942. At that time the chief criminals were still quite convinced of victory and started carrying out in practice their premeditated plans for the extermination of the people of Europe. They were not then afraid of responsibility for these crimes. That is why in 1942 there appeared new links in the long chain of the crimes committed by the leaders of German fascism. The fascist technique of extermination was once again in full swing. It created murder vans, gas chambers in the concentration camps, special electrical appliances for the mass murder of the doomed, crematoria, and also “Zyklon” banks.

Now, I pass over to the next section of my presentation: “Concentration camps for the peaceful population.”

Inasmuch as this subject has already been extensively treated by the members of the Prosecution who presented their cases before me, I shall try to be as brief as possible; I shall limit myself either only to absolutely new information or to the text of the documents which serve as an explanation to the movie films which will be shown today before the Tribunal.

I beg to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that at the end of 1941 and in 1942 the scale of German fascist crimes committed in concentration camps reached vast proportions. In particular, I refer to the report of the Polish Government in confirmation of this statement. On Page 138 of the document book the members of the Tribunal will find the testimony to the effect that in 1942 one of the most terrifying extermination camps, the Treblinka Camp Number 2, was in rapid process of erection. The Germans called this “Treblinka B.” Further, I refer to the report of the extraordinary State Commission on Auschwitz. The members of the Tribunal will find the extract which I am going to quote on Page 353 in the document book, Volume II, second column of the text, Paragraph 2. I quote a short excerpt from Page 257:

“In 1941 the first crematorium for burning the corpses of
murdered people was built in the Auschwitz Camp. This
crematorium had three ovens. Attached to the crematorium was a
so-called ‘special purpose bath-house.’ That was a gas chamber
for asphyxiating people.”

I draw the attention of the Tribunal to the following sentence:

“In the summer of 1942 the Reichsführer SS Himmler inspected
Auschwitz Camp and ordered it to be greatly enlarged and
technically perfected.”

I end my quotation here, and I call the attention of the Tribunal to Page 136 on the reverse side of the document book; this is from a report of the Polish Government, which shows that the Camp Sobibur was founded during the first and second liquidation of the Jewish ghetto. But the extermination on a large scale in this camp really started at the beginning of 1943. In this same report, in the last paragraph on Page 136 of the document book, we may read that Camp Belsen was founded in 1940; but it was in 1942 that the special electrical appliances were built in for mass extermination of people. Under the pretext that the people were being led to the bath-house, the doomed were undressed and then driven to the building where the floor was electrified in a special way; there they were killed.

Usually the concentration camps of German fascism can be divided into two groups: the labor concentration camps and the extermination camps. It seems to me that such a differentiation is not quite correct, because the labor camps also served the purpose of extermination.

I omit two pages of the text and I pass on to the Page 260. In confirmation of what I said just now, I refer to the report of the Extraordinary State Commission relative to Yanov Camp in the city of Lvov. The Tribunal will find this on Page 59 in the document book, Paragraph 5 of the first column of the text. But at the same time, I ask the members of the Tribunal to refer to Page 6 of the album of documents relative to the Lvov Camp. One of them is a picture of “a trench in the valley of death.” The ground is soaked with human blood to the depth of 1½ meters. On the next pages are shown the belongings taken from the executed persons. This picture was taken by the experts of legal medicine about 2 months after the mass shootings.

From the reports of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in the Yanov Camp it can be seen that here in what was officially a usual work camp, over 200,000 Soviet citizens were exterminated, according to the findings of the legal experts. I quote only the first paragraph on Page 261 of the Russian text. I begin the quotation:

“In view of the total area of burial grounds and the area of 2
square kilometers in which the ashes and bones were scattered as
well the expert commission concluded that in the Yanov Camp
there were exterminated over 200,000 Soviet citizens.”

I omit the next part of my presentation, which deals with the regime of starvation in concentration camps. This was already very well presented by the representative of the British Prosecution, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe. This must be already quite clear to the Tribunal and I don’t think it will be necessary to give any additional proofs. But I ask the Tribunal’s permission for a presentation of evidence on a camp which was created by the German fascists only during the last stage of the war. I refer to Page 265 of my presentation.

Maidanek and Auschwitz camps served as a means of extermination only for those who really were sent to these camps. These two camps were not a direct menace for those people who were outside the walls of the camp; but, in the course of the war, having already suffered grave defeats, German fascism began to practice new bestialities for exterminating peaceful citizens—thus, in Bielorussia camps of death, not only to exterminate the inmates of the camp itself but, first and foremost, to spread infectious diseases among the peaceful population and the ranks of the Red Army. There were no crematoria and gas chambers in these camps but these camps should in all justice be considered as among the most brutal concentration camps which were created by fascism for extermination of people.

I present to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-4 (Document Number USSR-4) the report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union for the investigation of the murder of people by means of spreading typhus epidemics. Such evidence was not presented before, and I shall therefore quote several excerpts from this report. I begin the quotation on Page 454 of the document book, first column of the text, first paragraph; last paragraph on Page 266 of the Russian text. I begin the quotation:

“On 19 March 1944 advancing Red Army units discovered, near the
settlement of Osaritchi in the region of Polesskoy in the
Bielorussian S.S.R., within the limits of German defense lines,
three concentration camps in which there were over 33,000
children, women, and old men incapable of work.”

I interrupt my quotation, and I omit one paragraph.

“The camps were really open squares surrounded by barbed wire.
The approaches to them were mined. There were no buildings
whatever even of the most insignificant type in the camp
grounds.”

I call the Tribunal’s attention to the fact that all this happened in March, in Bielorussia, when it is really very cold there.

“The inmates were sitting on the ground. Many of them had lost
their ability to move and were lying unconscious in the mud. It
was forbidden to the inmates to build fires, to gather brush or
branches for bedding. The Hitlerites shot Soviet people for the
slightest attempt to violate this order.

“For concentration camps close to the nearest line of defense,
the Germans, in the first place, selected sites in such places
where they did not hope to retain their position. Secondly, they
concentrated large masses of Soviet people in the camps, placing
there primarily women, children, and old men unable to work.
Thirdly, they placed in these camps thousands of typhus patients
who were brought from various temporarily occupied regions of
the Bielorussian S.S.R., especially for this purpose. They were
kept together with the starved, weak inmates who no longer could
serve as labor and who were living there under the most
unhygienic conditions.

“Among those liberated from these camps were 15,960 children up
to the age of 13; 13,072 women incapable of work, and 4,448 old
men.”

I omit the next page and read Page 269 of the Russian text. I quote only one paragraph which reveals the methods used by the criminals to drive into the camps peaceful citizens from various regions of Bielorussia. Witness Mrs. L. Pikarskaya, who was liberated from the camp, testified before the commission:

“On 12 March 1944 late in the afternoon, we, the inhabitants of
the city of Jlobin, were forced to assemble within half an hour
at the station Jlobin South. Here the Germans selected all the
young ones and took them away. Having herded us into railroad
cars, the Germans closed the doors tightly. Where we were going
we didn’t know, but we all anticipated some evil. . . .

“As we found out later on, we were taken along the Rudobelkovsky
railway and unloaded late in the afternoon on 15 March. During
the night, knee deep in sticky mud, we were driven into a camp.
From this camp were driven into another one. On the way the
Germans beat us, and those who lagged behind were shot. One
woman was walking with three children. One of the children fell
down. The Germans shot at him. Horrified, the mother and the two
other children looked back; the monster soldiers shot them down
one by one. The mother cried out in agony, but her shriek was
interrupted by a direct shot. Another mother and son, the
Bondarews, walked side by side. The child could not stand the
tiring journey and fell down. The mother bent over him, she
wanted to encourage him with a word; but neither the son nor the
mother rose or saw the blue sky again; the Germans shot them.”

I omit the next page of this document and I pass to the presentation of some evidence testifying to the fact that the Germans purposely concentrated in this camp the typhus-stricken people. I quote three paragraphs from Page 271 of this text:

“A. S. Mitrachovich, a resident of the village of Novo-Belitza
who was liberated from the camp, testified:

“‘We who were sick with typhus were driven to the village of
Mikul-Gorodok into a camp surrounded by barbed wire.’

“An inhabitant of the hamlet of Novogrudok, Z. P. Gavrilchik,
testified:

“‘During 3 days typhus-stricken patients were brought in motor
cars into camp, with the result that many who were healthy also
became sick.’”

I omit the next two pages of the document and I pass over to what the members of the Tribunal will find on Page 254, on the reverse side, second column of the text, Paragraph 6. I quote:

“The German Army Command used to send their own agents to the
camps near the front line to observe how the typhus was
spreading among the inmates and also among the Red Army units.”