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.
Q. Then, Strasshof, in other words, the place where you came from is in the so-called unoccupied zone?
A. Yes, what you could have called the non-occupied zone.
Q. When did the occupation rf the French Coast and the Pyrenees take place?
A. That must have been between one and three months before I left for Germany, because at that time I was in the Youth Camp and at that time: that is, three months, perhaps three months before I left for Germany the occupation of this non-occupied zone took place.
Q. Now I am coming back again. From Strasshof you went to Fishamend, didn't you?
A. Yes, that is correct.
A. And in Fishamend you received a meal, but I did not quite understand what kind of food it was. It was the so-called stangit or stangerit. Is that What we call in Germany -- I believe you have heard that expression before -- is that what we call a stow Einneitstepf.
A. No, stangerit is exactly the German name. That's what the Germans called it. Yes, certainly.
Q. Just a moment witness. I have never heard that expression before in my life.
A. I am very sorry, but perhaps I imagined that. Perhaps it is Austrian dialect. I am glad to say I haven't seen all the parts of Germany but perhaps it's a part of this.
THE PRESIDENT: Can we stop this discussion by agreeing that stangerit is a dish?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, indeed, we can do that all right, your Honor.
Q. Witness, then you arrived at Wiener Neustadt, and there you said-you mentioned before word by word -- we got to Wiener Neustadt and in the works of Neustadt which belonged to Goering.
A. Yes, that is correct. At least, everybody said so.
Q. Then you spoke about the food in Wiener Neustadt and you told us that you got coffee with 150 grams of bread in the morning, and in the evening that stangerit Didn't you get anything to eat at noon?
A Yes, I told the Tribunal already that we received red beets, Harvard beets.
Q. I see, well, the translation did not come through before that you did.
A I specified that I had red beets for lunch. That was not exactly an advantage to have red beets, because we were far more sick afterwards.
Q. Now, could you tell us, in that factory was there also a factorykitchen, for the German workers there?
A I must specify that when I gave this description about the food I referred to the time when I was still in apprenticeship. At that time we did not eat together with the Germans. We started to eat together with the German workers only when I was in that workshop and that is when we were considered skilled labor, and then the food, as I said to the Tribunal this morning, the food improved.
Q. Is that the food which you had together with the German workers?
A Yes, that's the food we got together with the German workers. But I must specify
Q. That is not necessary. Do not specify.
A. I would like to specify this question, to give some details.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please this Tribunal, in Germany there wasn't too much to eat at that time anyway, not as much as in France or in America.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that isn't the question. If the witness wishes to qualify his answer he may do so.
A (Cont'd) I want to stress the point that after all, the workers the German worker who worked in that factory had really enough to eat and to oat quite good food because he received additional rations which were withdrawn from the rations of people who did not work in the armament factories.
Q Were there special allotments for workers who preformed on hard labor?
A No, that was not specifically the additional ration for workers who had especially difficult tasks. We might say it otherwise, whoever worked in the armament factory, whether it was very heavy work or less heavy work, would receive three of four times as much to eat as somebody else who just did some work, who washed dishes or something like that. It was quite easy to call that additional rations, but, of course, everybody who worked in an Armament factory, even if his work was not heavy work, would receive those so-called additional rations, except, of course, for the French workers or Belgian and Serbian workers. Even the milk had been suppressed from some workers who had work as painters in the factory. They had been sick and they wouldn't receive any milk because the milk is the counter poison against the poisoning which is caused by this paint.
Q Witness, you mentioned before that you were paid 140 reichsmarks a month. Was that the gross or the net amount?
A That was -- at that time when I received 140 marks as a maximum, that was my net income, and I want to specify that I only received this maximum salary during the period of three months; that is, August, September and October, because in November I already left, and then I wouldn't get it any more.
Q The so-called taxes had already been deducted from the amount of 140 marks, isn't that correct?
A Yes, of course.
Q You spoke before of a victory tax. Is that the correct term to use? Or was it called an additional tax for war purposes and for incomes?
A Well, of course I didn't know German and I couldn't read these columns I had in that account we received, but my comrades, that is, the German meister, this manager of the workshop always told me -- "That, that is to win the war. "I can not give any more details."
EXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Witness, you said that 140 marks was your net pay. Does that mean after the taxes had been taken out you had 140 marks left?
A. Yes, the net. In that month I had 140 marks left and I actually get 140 marks, but I must add that this pay, this salary is the highest I have ever had during all the time I stayed in the factory, and as an explanation I may add that that was at the time when I had been punished by the Gestapo and after my arrest I had been put in that especially severe workshop where I had to work very hard, and it was piece work there and of course, was paid accordingly, and the pay was higher. And as I couldn't just stand around, and as I had to work anyhow, that is the reason why I received more money.
Q. Well, had the cost of your and lodging been taken out before you got the 140 marks?
A. No.
Q. Then the 140 Marks was after taxes, but you still had to pay your living expenses from that?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. After you had paid your living expanses how much of the 140 marks did you have left?
A. There wasn't much left because above all, whatever was left I used because I had some debts and I had to pay off what I owed.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please this Tribunal, this net amount of 140 marks was the normal income of a German worker in Germany.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Witness, you told us that you had refused to sign a slip that had been shown to you or a document which seemed very important?
A Yes.
Q How did you know that that document or that paper was very important?
A Well, we had no proper sources of information; but you know how that happens. The first person who went in would pass on the information to the next one; and some of us knew German. They would come and would say, "Don't sign that." The word "Verpflichtung," that is, tho word, "labor obligation," came in; and then some people told us, "Don't sign it because that is important."
Q In other words, you believe that it was the contract, the working contract, you had there?
A I couldn't say that because nothing afterwards made mo think that that was the labor contract.
Q You just said that tho word "obligation" was in there and furthermore that people had told y u that this was a contract.
A No. Of course, tho word "obligation" came in insofar as these people told us, "If you sign that, that may put some obligation on you. You will sign for something; and that night be a sort of oath you have to swear." We were told all sorts of things at that time; but nobody told us that was a contract. It might have been; then again it might not have been. We didn't have any proof of it anyhow.
Q You had interpreters in the camp, didn't you?
A Yes, of course we had interpreters; but those interpreters we saw once a day when they wanted to talk to us. Only after two weeks had passed that is, when the other convoys, the other transports arrived, then the first French interpreters wore authorized to talk to the prisoners.
Q Didn't you ever ask these interpreters what kind of a document this was; what kind of a paper it was?
A. There was a Croatian interpreter, and we asked him; but we had no confidence in that fellow. Besides, he snubbed us every time we talked to him and gave us uncivil answers. He would just answer yes or no. Besides that, if I have to talk frankly, all these interpreters had to be bribed. For instance, this interpreter wanted to be in the favor of the Germans obviously; and if yon wanted to get something out of all of these interpreters, you had to pay them on the black market. Of course there were German interpreters in t he camp; but we were considered so very unimportant that whenever a group of us or even several groups of us made a request to talk to some of these interpreters, then the chief of the camp would send us away with some beatings, or he would call us whatever names he could find.
Q. You spoke of the fact that on the 25th November, 1943, you received some sort of a leave by some clever, and shrewd action?
A. Yes.
Q. From your camp or from this factory there, the Messerschmitt Works, did any French workers ever go on leave before?
A. About half of those who were married.
Q. I see. And these French workers, had they come before you had arrived or had they arrived at the sometime with you?
A. Yes, there were some of those who had come before I had. Those were the specialized workers of whom I have already talked. There were about thirty-eight of them, thirty-six to thirty-eight; and we may add thirty more of this category which I mentioned this morning, people who had procured false, phoney certificates of somebody in their family who was ill. They had procured those certificates before they ever came over. Of course, there were some others, perhaps fifteen or twenty-- I couldn't indicate an exact figure--who had bribed the chief engineer or somebody at the Labor Office or somebody at the Labor Front or somebody else. They left because they had secretly received either money or some object of value from home or else they had sold their watches and bribed these people with the proceeds of the sale.
Q Witness, you said that you had eight days' leave and that you took twelve days' leave. Now, where did you spend these eight days of sick leave?
A In the camp. I had to collect wood in tho nearby forest in order to keep myself warm.
Q Where did you collect that wood? Outside of the camp or --?
A Yes, outside of the camp. Yes, but wait a minute. Of course I had to leave the camp secretly. I just crept through some hole in the barbed wire. I had to be very careful about it, too, because if somebody encountered you in the camp while you were not at work, then it was the Gestapo right away, questioning, and disciplinary action. They sent you to some harder work or they took away your food or anything of that kind.
Q Witness, this morning upon a question of one of the judges, I believe you said that the barracks were outside of the camp and it was not surrounded by barbed wire.
A If you want to know exactly what I said this morning, I said that in the first barrack before we were at the apprenticeship, we were outside of the camp and there was no barbed wire around. But that camp burned; and afterwards we were brought to a camp near the Heinkel factory. That is exactly what I said this morning.
Q Oh, I see. What you said right now refers to the camp hear tho Heinkel factory, the one with the barbed wire? Is that correct?
A Yes, I was there; and that was at the end of my stay.
Q When did you get to that camp near the Heinkel works?
A That was about ten or twelve days before the air raid of the 12th of August.
Q Prior to that you spent all these months without barbed wire around you; is that right?
A No. I want to give you some more details again. Before we were brought into apprenticeship, we were in this barracks, this one barrack; but that was only for eight or ten days. Then we came in to the first camp, which was a hundred yards away from our own factory and where we were with Serbs, Croates, and so forth, as I said, before this camp burned. Then afterwards we came in to the camp which was near the Heinkel factory, which was also surrounded by barbed wire.
Q Was that camp, the first camp that burned down, surrounded with barbed wire as well?
A Yes. There were six ranges of barbed wire.
Q You had no freedom whatsoever to leave the camp and to go to town, did you?
A Yes, once we were at the apprenticeship, but only outside of the working hours and in the evening until 10:00 o'clock.
Q Now, you don't quite understand my question. I'm not talking about the rest of the time. I'm talking about the moment after you became a regular worker at the factory. Could you then leave the camp outside of working hours? Could you, for instance, in order to go to town to make certain purchases there or for other reasons?
A. Yes, of course, until 10:00 o'clock in the evening.
Q. When you went to town you were not guarded, were you?
A. No, generally there Was no guards when we went to town, but I may add that first of all we were far too tired to go to town, that therefore we went very rarely, and besides that we had no money to buy anything, anyhow.
Q. That is a different natter altogether. Theoretically, you did have the possibility to go to town?
A. Yes, theoretically.
Q. You said before concerning the supervision by the Gestapo, in that instance, did you talk with the civilian population outside of the factory concerning the surveying you had? Did you ever talk to young girls after all you were still a young man.
A. First of all I may tell you we could not talk with any girls because first of all for a girl it meant five years of imprisonment, and for us it was that famous disciplinary camp, but besides that I actually talked with civilians, and especially with the Green Grocer, and there was an old lady there, and she always used to ask, "my God, my God, was there again somebody in your camp today who had been punished." Otherwise, we had only the right to talk to persons in the workshop during the working hours.
Q. Witness, your statement which you made now, is certainly not accurate. Isn't it correct that speaking with girls was always forbidden to French prisoners of war. I know the German laws, and I defended quite a few people because they had spoken to prisoners of war, and you were not a prisoner of war, is that correct?
A. May I call the attention of the counsel for the defense to the fact that I have sworn sometime ago that I am going to say the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, that I am a Frenchman, and that I shall stick to that oath and if I do say something here in court it is because I am convinced in what I do say because other persons have told me that.
Besides that, we were always told that at the factory, if you talk to a German girl, then she will be punished and you will be sent away.
Q. Who told you that, witness?
A. Well, that was one of the first things that the manager of the workshop or the meister told us. He made a lot of recommendations and one of the things he told us was precisely this question, not only he, but also the foreman and when ho came to the factory, the chief of engineers would tell us the same thing. Besides that, if you want details, there was one of my comrades, a Frenchman from Saint Amand, in the Province of Chere; he had got into the habit of making his purchases together with a young German girl, and after sometime we never saw her again, and ho had two weeks of prison.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honor, I wish to show by counter evidence that there is quite a number of people who will testify against that.
THE PRESIDENT: It is not important enough to bring testimony in to refute that.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, I am of the opinion that if this witness tells this kind of story, or these kind of stories, that I must have the right to show that the statement made by the witness is not quite correct, and that there might even bo an exaggeration. I must have this right. I always agree -- I only agreed to the examination of the witness if the Prosecution permits me to bring more decisions after the first closing of the case, and that I myself must bring more evidence; the Tribunal has informed me I could bring in such evidence to refute the statement made here by the witness.