A. Yes, there were attempts to escape and these attempts occurred much more often in the later convoys, in the later transports. First the transports were very full and then afterwards the number of people in the transports decreased, and then when these workers saw they were in a transport going to Germany or going to Austria they tried to escape, but the police, who always were in the train also, very often shot them, and we never had any news of those who were wounded. In some cases when they were brought back to the train they usually were disembarked or pushed out of the train in the next village, wherever the train stopped, and we don't know whether they were brought to the dispensary or what happened to them. Anyhow, I personally never had any news of these people.
Q. Was the factory there bombed while you were there?
A. Yes.
Q. Will you tell the Court about that?
A. Yes. The first bombing of the factory was on the 2nd of August, 1943. At that time planes from Syria flew over the factory and we were told at least that they had come from Syria and they were going to land in Tunisia. The factory was very poorly protected at that time because the Germans generally believed that Wiener Neustadt was out of range of the airfields, of the American airfields, that is, but we, of course, in France knew that the American bombers could bomb Wiener Neustadt, and therefore when we heard the sirens we wanted to escape. However, the police guard, the Verschluss, as they call it, of the factory, forced us to remain in the factory until the first bombing took place. That is, they forced us with a gun in their hand or a machine pistol. At that time the factory was very poorly protected, as I said before, because the Germans didn't think of a raid on their factory. There were no air raid shelters. The first air raid shelter was constructed much later on the 25th of November, 1943. The second air raid was on the 22nd of September, 1943. At that time the factory was already much more protected. They had brought actually very strong protection and they did so because many factories were in the area of Wiener Neustadt, namely, the Dornier factory, the Heinkel factory, and the Messerschmitt factory.
And at that time during this second raid sirens could be heard only three minutes before the raid actually started, end it was impossible to get out of the factory in such a short time because while we tried to get out we got nearer into the range of these planes, and the planes at that time were bombing from higher altitudes and their position was not so strong. After these two or three raids we were authorized to leave the factory when the raids started, when the sirens rang, but, of course, as we didn't want to go back to work we would in those cases go back to camp, and that is why during the two last raids I had to live down there, and also later on, as I heard from comrades who came back, the factory workers, foreign as well as German - I must add too that applied to the German workers too - factory workers were only authorized to leave the factory when the planes could be actually seen. Of course, it was impossible to leave the factory at that time because we were in the range, but this does not apply to the members of the Gestapo, at lease as far as my factory is concerned, I can say that these people all had bicycles and could get away in time. At that time we had quite a number of killed, and we were never authorized to attend the funerals. Only a few of the comrades would get permission to go into these rooms, these barracks where they had mixed the members of these dead, and they could pick out the members and put them together and put them into a coffin, and a few delegations then were authorized to assist in funerals, and they were buried in the cemetery of Wiener Neustadt which was nearby. This order had come first from the Chief Engineer Haas, which is the same chief engineer of whom I have talked already this morning. Then I would like to draw the attention of the high Tribunal to another factor which seems to me is very important, and that is the fact that the Germans wanted to force us to clear the ground around there of many unexploded bombs in order to enable them to put straw around them and to afterwards have them exploded. We, of course, refused to do this work, that is, to clear a way around these unexploded bombs, and the whole camp actually refused, and they thought it was some kind of revolt, so they had the whole camp surrounded by an SS, and the SS guarded the camp for more than a day.
At that time, as we still refused, they started cutting off our food supplies and we still refused. We would not give in. When they saw that we wouldn't give in, they sent Serbians or Croats to do the work.
Q. You left Wiener Neustadt in November 1943?
A. Yes.
Q. And you returned then to France?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you take any money back to France with you?
A. No. I even had to borrow one hundred marks from another of my comrades in order to pay - to buy my railway ticket to go back.
Q. Had you ever had a contract of any kind so far as you know with the German government or with anybody?
A. No, not that I know, but I must say I don't know exactly whether it was a contract or whether I signed a contract or I signed anything that could have been a contract. I think that I can add there that the workers who had actually signed a contract were workers who had left France before the masses of unskilled workers and were actually specialized workers.
Q How many people worked at the Messerschmitt 109 factory in Wiener Neustadt?
A. Do you mean French workers or workers in general?
Q. Everything, first.
A. I was told that there were twenty thousand, twenty thousand at the Number 1 factory, and five thousand at the Number 2 factory.
Q. And you have told the Court that among these were Frenchmen like yourself who were not prisoners of war, Frenchmen who were prisoners of war, Belgians who were prisoners of war, Croats, Serbs, Ukranians, Russians and what else, if you know?
A. Poles and female Poles.
Q. Were there any Dutch there?
A. No, I don't know that there were any Dutch. I know that there were Dutch workers in another factory which also belonged to the Messerschmitt factories, but not in the factory where I worked.
Q. And how did you eat generally, say for the last five months that you were there?
A. Well, I may say that during the first of these five months the food was possible, but afterwards it became worse and worse. If it please the Tribunal, I would like to give some more details with regard to the health situation in the camp.
Q. Yes, I am sure the Court would like to hear it.
A. Well, during the first period in the first camp, this camp was in the factory itself and we were there together with Serbs and Croats. Then afterwards, but before the bombing of the factory, we had another camp which was about one hundred yards from the Heinkel factories and that meant that we had to go about three miles to our camp. During the first bombing when we still had these Serbs and Croats, the whole camp burned and ads their personal clothing and everything burned, and we had to bring them clothing afterwards.
The most dangerous for the health situation in the camp was the fact that people of all nationalities would be thrown into those camps and came through and came and went again. Sometimes there would be fifteen hundred, sometimes two thousand, sometimes three thousand -- one could not give exact figures.
In spite of this enormous number there were only four WC's and also there were only four stoves for the whole camp and sometimes when we could repair it there would be a fifth stove on which we could cook.
If I can express myself in that way, I and all my comrades were convinced that they had not put the camps far away from the factories in order to protect the workers from the air raids, but on the contrary they had put the camps near to the factories in order to protect the factories by the fact that the workers were near. That is all I could say with regard to the bombing. There might be other small details but I don't think they are valuable.
MR. DENNEY: Are there any questions by your Honors?
EXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Witness, did you see prisoners of war working in the factory making parts for airplanes?
A Yes, they worked exactly in the same way we worked.
Q They worked side by side with the workers who came from France?
A Yes.
Q Did you ever see any American or English prisoners of war at Wiener Neustadt?
A Yes, English prisoners of war.
Q What were they doing?
A They did not work. I didn't see them work. We saw them when they came to fetch food supplies, but I think they fetched them at the great Heinkel Factory. We saw a truck every morning. We met that truck when it passed by. The truck was full of English prisoners of war who probably went to that factory in order to fetch food supplies. We were very glad to meet them and to see them.
Q But they didn't work in the factory?
A Not in my factory, not as far as I know.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q What nationality were the prisoners of war who worked?
A. In the factory where I was?
Q. Yes, well those that you saw.
A. There were Frenchmen, Belgians, Russians and also after Italy had sided with the Allies there were Italians.
Q. These were prisoners of war working in the factory in which you were employed?
A. Yes, they were all prisoners cf war who belonged to some command. There were about three hundred of them, I mean French prisoners of war.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Very well.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. What was your physical condition when you returned to France?
A. I was very depressed, and I never succeeded in getting back my physical health, the physical health I had when I left France.
Q. How much weight had you lost?
A. Twenty-four kilogram, as I said to the Court, and I have been able to gain eight kilos again in the meantime; that's all.
Q. Why were you sent back to France in November, 1943?
A. I was not sent back to France. This was in connection with the possibilities cf leave which still existed at that time and I have forgotten to speak about that. When we were first brought to Germany we were told that unless we signed certain papers, these papers which were submitted to us, we could not have leave. As far as sending people back is concerned, only some sick prisoners were sent back and some people who were incapacitated for work or others who had been able to establish false sick certificates before they came over.
Well, one day after the bombing, the air raid of 2 November, I had fallen seriously ill and I had been sick in bed for about four days at the dispensary, and the French doctor, prisoner of war doctor, who was at the factory gave me eight days of leave but I didn't come back after eight days I took twelve days. When I came back to the factory the German doctor, the factory doctor, female factory doctor, told me, "Well, you have exceeded your leave by four days. You will have news from me."
Well, at that time I had received a certificate according to which my mother had a serious heart attack and was going to die, and I didn't know whether she was actually really sick or whether this was only a phoney certificate, but anyhow I got this certificate. Now, when somebody wanted to go on leave he would have to apply and get a confirmation, leave confirmation from the German engineer, and at that time the German engineer would not grant any such confirmation because there was too much work and you could not go to these labor offices, the offices of the Deutsche Arbeits Front, the German Labor Front, in order to get the other necessary papers unless you had this confirmation by the chief engineer.
So what I did was just steal one of these forms, these leave forms, and I filled it in myself and I had the signature of the German chief engineer forged by one of my comrades. With that payer I went very quickly to these German offices and got the other papers and got away.
THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE MUSMANNO): When was that?
A. That was the 25th of November; and I arrived at home on the 29th of November.
THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE MUSMANNO: Of what year?
A. Or, rather, I did that on the 24th; but I left on the 25th on leave.
Q. You are a citizen of France, are you not?
A. Yes, I am.
MR. DENNEY: Your witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, we'll take the recess now.
DR. BERGOLD: All right.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal will be in recess fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal No. 2 is again in session.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, you told us that you came into a Youth's camp, is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. Do you know whether the French Victy Government had special decrees to that effect?
A. Yes, certainly.
Q. Was it the duty of every French citizen to take part in such a camp?
A. Yes, exactly.
Q. And after your release you resumed your work with the Credit Lyonnais, did you not?
A. Yes, for five days.
Q. And you told me that you were assistant-manager in this bank?
A. No, not a subdirector. I was Assistant Control Chief, that is what I said.
Q. Is that a high position, or is it in other words that of a simple bank clerk?
A. You might say it was the second stage of qualified bank employees. That is, the first stage altogether -- that is, the first stage altogether would have been employees who were not qualified as bank employees yet; the second stage would be bank employees which had no high position but who were qualified, and my position as Assistant Control Chief might have been considered as the third stage in the employment in the bank.
Q. In other words, you had several bank employees, or clerks under your supervision, is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct to be said, besides there were three of them who were under my supervision.
Q. In that rather high position you had, did you ever know anything about these Vichy decrees?
A. What kind of prescription are you referring to?
Q In a general prescription, if one is in a high position I suppose that somebody knows of the decrees and the laws of the government, I am sure?
A What subject are you referring to, the Youth Camps, or agreements with Germany?
Q No. I refer to the general decrees of the French Vichy Government.
A I could only speak about the directives issued by the French Government pertaining to the agreements with Germany, or to the Youth Camps, because at that time the French Government would issue so many directives; I mean, after all we had a dictatorships down there, and the French Government would issue so many directives, that only a director or the assistant director of a bank or of a larger bank establishment, could have known all the directives issued by the government.
Q Well, in a position as a free Frenchman, do you know of directives, or did you know of directives concerning labor mobilization Rf the Vichy Government, particularly, concerning the draft labor?
A You can only speak of free Frenchmen with certain restrictions, because under the regime I lived at that time I never considered myself a free Frenchman; only after the liberation of France did I consider myself a free Frenchman in the proper sense of the word.
Well, I can speak about these decrees insofar as I heard something about then when I was up in the mountains, because at my age group when they were drafted into these Youth Camps, we were sent high up into the mountains, and there we could only receive letters which had been our only source of information. The only other source of information we would have at that time were posters, and so far as I know these posters were posted up for the first time only after I had left with my convoy to Germany.
The only other information I received was during these four days when I worked in the bank again, after I came back.
Q What was the information you received in the bank again?
A I must say that all these informations were only brought to us by public rumors, what we heard was that in the beginning only the professionals, that is, the specialized workers, or groups of specialized workers, 1515 a and where the artisans and workers in work shops were concerned; and later on we heard also that a certain category of the administration personnel would be concerned, the personnel of the state administration, and also that there wore received convocations for compulsory labor service.
But as I said we did not have it at all in detail, but all of this came only to us by public rumors.
Q. In other words, you wish to say that concerning a certain drafting for labor, you knew nothing about this thing that had been released by the French government?
A. Yes, I said that for specialized workers, compulsory labor service had been established at that time.
Q. In other words, when you were sent to the barracks, did you not learn of the fact that the compulsory labor for your age group had been ordered?
A. We did not hear anything about that because at that time we thought that only specialized workers were concerned.
Q. You dealt altogether with French authorities in these barracks; in other words, you only had dealing with them, did you not?
A. Yes, we had contact with everybody. The only thing was that we could not act away from these barracks. Quite a number of people came to see us.
Q. Did not you ask these French authorities why they were giving you an examination and why you could not be allowed to leave the barracks? Didn't you ask then that?
A. All we heard was that this was an order issued by the Germans, and that, of course, we heard when we came to the townhall for the visit, and we even heard it from the French policeman when he brought us to the convocation. He said it was an order issued by the Germans. Of course, when we came to the caserne, to the barracks at that time we actually smelled a rat already, and we knew what was going on, but then it was too late. At that time I even tried to establish a contact with the resistance movement, but at that moment the resistance movement was not particularly well organized in the region where I used to live, and they were still pretty weak.
Incidentally, they were pretty quick about sending us away because if they had kept me another day, as far as I am concerned, I would not be here today because I would have fund a means to stay in France and not to go to Germany. There were only a few persons who had been secretly informed by the French chief of police, the Prefect. Because they had been informed, they were able to form -- not exactly the first group of Maquisard of the French resistance movement -- but anyhow they were able to hide out in the farms or in the open country.
Q. You did not quite answer my question. I asked you if you ever asked your French authorities or inquired what it was all about explicitly. In other words, you said that y u inquired if this were a German order, but, of course, you could have a sked what the order is about in detail.
A. But whom do you think we could have a sked? The only persons were the policemen, the French policemen, who brought our convocation, er else the doctor who examined us at the visit.
I want to stress one point which seems particularly important to me. I have already said it. That is the fact that this was the first transport from the Southeast. At that transport, even the mayors had no details as to the orders that were given. They only had actual orders that we should be sent away, and it was actually the first of all these transports of the compulsory labor service. My comrades in later transports had quite different conditions because then the details of these decrees were already posted, but at my transport they were not.
Q. Later on did you then find out that your transport was a transport on the basis of the compulsory labor service law of the Vichy government?
A. We were informed of that when we arrived at Paris, exactly when we arrived in Paris. Of course, we had some unofficial knowledge before, but we were not actually notified. At that time when these measures were adopted at furst, it caused quite a stir. As a matter cf fact, it caused quite a revolt in the region, and all sorts of rumors were circulating with regard to this compulsory labor service. They even said that in cases where the children would not given these convoys, on these transports, there would be reprisals against the families, and even if at that time there were only rumors to that effect, actually later on these reprisals were actually carried out.
It is quite obvious that when we left we know that it was for compulsory labor service in Germany because when we left they had given us a little slip on which we were informed that we were leaving for compulsory labor service in Germany, but this slip we received only when we entered the train.
I must add, to give another detail, that we did not actually know whether we were leaving for Germany or whether we were going to Paris or somewhere else, because on this slip there was only a number, a figure, and the convoy, this transport, was split up into two groups. One of these groups went to Silesia, and the other one to Austria, bat on the slip we had only a number, a figure, and they did not want as to know whore we were actually going. When we arrived in Paris and later on they put as into a train which left from the East Station, well, then, of course, we knew that we were going to Germany.
I might add that there were some of my comrades who succeeded in escaping when they knew that we were going to be transported to Germany.
Q. You just said that your comrades who were taken later on were drafted under different conditions. What kind of terms were they?
A. That was the following: After this first transport, there were actual convocations with details, and these people were frankly told that they wore to go to Germany after that. There still were some French policemen who were against the Nazis, against the Germans, and they came and told the people frankly, "Listen, you have t go to Germany, so get out of here. Get away, and I'll tell them that I didn't find you at home today." But these orders were quite precise, quite detailed, and the person had to submit to the medical examination the next day. If he did not come in twenty four hours, then either the Gestapo or the French Militia, which was the French fascist police, would come and would take either a brother or a sister in his place or would exert reprisals against the family.
As the numbers of people leaving for Germany diminished, that is, the transports became weaker, the method adopted was quite different. Then the policemen came directly to fetch these people. They did not bring a convocation 1519a any longer, but they just fetched them at home in the morning.
The family would not know anything about what happened to them. Later on they started to pick up people at sport manifestations, at cinemas and theaters, by police raids.
Q. How do you know? At that time you were in Germany.
A. Nell, of course I was in Germany. I was in Germany for ten months and while I was in Germany my comrades who arrived at that time told me what was happening in France, how they had been taken, and later on when I came back to France I also saw what was happening and the methods that were employed, and at that time I went into the underground, and in the underground movement it was my task to prevent that these people were taken.
Q. You told us that you had two transports. The first one was for Austria and the other one for Silesia. Do you know through letters to what parts of Silesia these comrades of yours were sent?
A. Yes, I can give you some details because I had received the address of one of my comrades by my parents. They had sent it to me at Wiener Neustadt, and this man was somewhere south of Cracow in the salt mine, maybe even further east, but somewhere in that direction, and he wrote to me at Wiener Neustadt and told me that I have been very lucky to have the number twenty-one, because he had number twenty-three and had been in the other convoy, in the other transport, and he told me that I was very lucky, because they all knew and all were told that our working conditions in Wiener Neustadt were much better than the conditions they had down there, and I today am quite in a position to judge that they actually were better because I am at the head of a workers association and I have studied the question.
Q. You told us that you had food with you for eight days, is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. Did they tell you that you should take along food for eight days?
A. No, not that I know, at least.
Q. Why then did you take along food for eight days exactly?
A. If I may inform the counsel for defense that we in France, when we don't know where we are going on a trip and how long the trip will be, we always take some food for a certain period of time and we try to make it last as long as possible, and if I may add there, some of our comrades had taken only food for two days, and then, of course, we had to divide it up in order to make everybody subsist and live for the rest of the journey.
Q. You told us about your transport. You said that a couple of your comrades, or quite a few of them escaped. They escaped while the trip was going on?
A. Paris, these escapees escaped at Paris.
Q. You told us before that those trying to escape were shot at, and were taken along on the same train and then released at the next station. Was that on your transport or on somebody else's transport?
A. I told the Tribunal a while ago that these were people who had come from the youth camps and who had been transported, had been in convoys or transports after July.
Q. In other words, it did not happen in your transport, did it?
A. No, it did not happen during my transport, because nobody tried to leave.
Q. You told us about Strassow. You declare that you spent the night on tin cans. How did you use those tin cans, did you use them as blankets or as a cushion or a pillow?
A. No, we used them as a cushion for our head, and I told the Tribunal already that in Wiener Neustadt we just slept in the dirt that was on the ground. If we couldn't clear the dirt away otherwise we would make a hole and push it in there with our feet. One detail I would like to give at Strassow as far as plumbing and sanitation was concerned, only thirty people could shave there because there wasn't enough water, and there were fixed hours for the people to shave.
to shave because during the other hours with the exception of the hours for queuing for food and for the roll calls we were not allowed to circulate in certain alleys of the camp, and these were particularly the alleys we had to go through if we wanted to shave.
Q. You told us that in Strassow there was a typhus epidemy. How many days prior to your departure did this typhus breakout?
A. As it was the fourth day after I arrived, and as I told the Tribunal already that I had remained in Strassow ten days, that would have been six days before I left, five or six days.
Q. Did you have typhus cases in your barracks?
A. No, not in my own barracks, and besides that everybody in my barracks and all the clothes and underwear we had there had been passed through steam, through sort of a steam bath for disinfection.
Q. Were you vaccinated?
A. No, there was nobody there to undertake the vaccination.
Q. I see. I shall come back to the beginning of your transport. Until Paris you were guarded by whom, by French policemen?
A. Until we reached Vieconne we were only guarded by three or four people from the Gestapo, I suppose they were French Gestapo agents because they knew French, and some German policemen, and after Vieconne we were only guarded by German policemen.
Q. Where is that Vieconne, where is that at?
A. That was a demarcation line between occupied and unoccupied France.
Q. At that time was that place you mentioned in the occupied or in the unoccupied zone of France?
A. I must say that at that time there were several kinds of occupation. The demarcation line between the so-called unoccupied and occupied France still existed, and during the first year it had not been occupied at all, but, of course, during later on the Germans occupied all the coasts and also the borders of the Pyrenees, and we actually had Germans in this zone, but we might say that it was a second occupied zone which was less occupied than the proper occupied zone.