I can determine that after the different excuses that are used.
I would be very thankful, if the Reichsfuehrer-SS would direct a letter to the High Command of the Army, to the Reichs Ministry for Economy etc., in which he points out without mentioning these negative angles, what work capacities are available and which manpower savings could, therefore, still be made in the Reich.
Our enterprises here are still too unknown, for some well-willing and well-meaning agencies to make use of them. Therefore a letter of the Reichsfuehrer-SS could cause, that first of all these enterprises would get known, and second, that they are regarded as ordered by him. Basing on this fact, I could also act much more effectively."
Signed Globocnick.
The last part of this document consists of a note signed also by Globocnick. He states that, "At the moment, there are 45,000 Jews in the camps. They are employed as follows:" and he gives a breakdown of the inmates.
The following document, NO-084PS.
THE PRESIDENT: We will observe that in the morning at 10 o'clock.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is in recess until 1000 tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 18 April 1947, at 1000 hours.)
Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 18 April 1947, 1000, Justice Toms presiding.
THE MARSHAL: All persons please take you seats. The Honorable Judges of Military Tribunal II. Military Tribunal II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the courtroom.
MR. ROBBINS: May it please the Tribunal, the document on page 76 of Book 12 - it's the third from the last document in the book - is 084-PS, and I do not propose to offer this into evidence. The next document is on page 87 and is Document NO-1738. This will be Prosecution Exhibit 348. It is a letter dated 7 August 1943 from Himmler, a circular order, and a copy went to the WVHA. It reads as follows:
"With regard to Point 4 of the above mentioned order (which is labor for the coal mines), I directed that the young female prisoners who are fit far work are to be transported for work in Germany through the offices of the Reich Commissioner Sauckel. Children, old women, and old men are to be assembled in the women's and children's camps designated by me on the states and on the borders of the evacuated areas and put to work."
May I inquire if the Tribunal has Book Number 13?
THE SECRETARY GENERAL: No, they do not.
MR. ROBBINS: It is supposed to be delivered here at 10:00 o'clock. I next offer Document NO-1247, which is the last document in Document Book 12 on page 88. This will be Exhibit 349. This is a letter from Liebehenschel. The signature on the first letter is Liebehenschel, Amtsgruppe D, to the concentration camp commandants, calling attention to the enclosed document, which is a letter dated 13 August 1943, an order by Kaltenbrunner regarding his work allocations of Jews and occupied Eastern territories. Jews, he says, are to be used only in physical labor.
I should like to read a part of the letter: "Various sources have called my attention to the fact that during the last month the attitude of German offices towards the Jews in the occupied districts of the East developed in a way that gives rise to some misgivings.
Above all, Jews have allegedly been employed by various offices for jobs and services which with regard to the necessary secrecy should be entrusted only to very reliable persons and which will make them appear to the indigenous population as confidential agents of the German offices.
"Moreover, it is unfortunately alleged that personal relations between Reich Germans and Jewesses exceed those barriers which for reasons of ideology and race should be most strictly observed. In addition to those Jews resident in the locality, this is said to refer also to those Jews that were brought from the original Reich into occupied districts of the East. These conditions have supposedly already led the Jews to utilize their alleged confidential position to get preferential supplies and foodstuffs and so forth from the indigenous population.
"When sometime ago fear sprang up relative to a retreat of the Germans, some indigenous people are said to have tried to become popular with precisely those Jews employed by the German offices in order to secure thus better treatment by the Bolsheviks. The decent part of the indigenous population observed these incidents with great astonishment since they believe this to be contradictory to National Socialist principles and the actual attitude of the Germans.
"A wrong assignment of labor of the Jews is detrimental to the authority of the great German Reich and the position of its representatives. It is also injurious to the necessity of an effective protection for the occupied districts of the East by police forces. Great danger can arise, particularly through the fact that the Jews utilize the positions entrusted to them for espionage and propaganda for the benefit of our enemies.
"I therefore ask that the following directives be given to the subordinate offices in the occupied district of the East.
"1. Jews and persons of a similar level may be employed only for manual labor. Their employment for office work, such as bookkeeping, typewriting, card index keeping, and registering, is forbidden, Strict observation must be kept that the nature of their work makes it impossible for them to draw conclusions from things that are to be kept secret.
"2. The employment of Jews for general or personal service, for executing commissions, concluding business deals, or procuring goods is forbidden. All private relations with Jews, Jewesses, and persons on the same level as well as all dealings with them exceeding the bounds of duty are prohibited."
A copy of the letter went to the SS Main Offices. If the Tribunal please, I'm sure that Book 13 will be here in a moment. I wonder if I might start reading the first document from Book 13. The defense counsel have received that book, I'm informed. Book 13, incidentally, is the last book on concentration camp labor. The first document is NO-567, which win be Prosecution's Exhibit 350.
DR. KRAUS: Dr. Kraus for the defendant Tschentschner. May it please Your Honor, the defendant has the right and I object to introducing this document from Document Book Number 13. The documents are not known to the defendants and their counsel and I do not believe, there fore, that permission should be granted to introduce these documents at this present moment.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have the German copy of this document?
DR. KRAUS: No, I don't, Your Honor.
MR. ROBBINS: These books were delivered to the Defense Information Center at 5:00 o'clock yesterday. Moreover, these documents have been in the Defense Information Center in photostatic form - that is, photostats of the original - for more than a week, I am informed. They were not assembled in the book but the index has been there and the book itself was delivered last night.
DR. KRAUS: May it please Your Honor, the book itself was not handed over to the majority of the defense counsel as I myself did not receive it, either. Even if it had been turned in yesterday at 5:00 o'clock, I believe that the time was too short to enable us to gain knowledge of the contents.
As far as the documents are concerned, and should they be among the heap of documents that has been turned in, it would be difficult to remember these single documents now and be able to take a position against them. I believe it is only right that the defense be given a possibility of seeing the German text of the document or the compact Document Book Number 13 twenty-four hours before it is introduced in court here.
MR. ROBBINS: If the Tribunal please, the prosecution should like then to offer these documents as subject to the later objection of the defense counsel when they have had time to study them. I believe that the majority of defense counsel did pick up the books last night in the Defense Information Center.
THE PRESIDENT: The Defense Information Center was moving yesterday from one building to another, which may have caused some confusion. Is there any objection to the documents being read now in order to save time and later when you get your copy, if you have any objection, the Court will hear your objection?
DR. KRAUS: Your Honor, I see that I have to object to this sort of proceeding. I must have the possibility of taking a position or raising objection with reference to some sort of document that is introduced. And, may it please Your Honor, may I add the following plea? In case the document books should be at our disposal, out there in the defense information room, that is, or some other place, and they could possibly be provided now, and if you were to allow a recess of approximately thirty minutes in order that we may be able at least to look over and glance through the documents, then I would not have anything against the continuation of the proceedings at this moment.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the schedule of the Tribunal is somewhat upset this morning by reason of the visit of prominent American army officials. The present plan is to recess at 10:25 and to resume session at 10:35. Then we will run until 11:20 and recess for the morning. Will it not be satisfactory, counsel, to follow that schedule? You will have the right at any tine to move to strike out a document to which an objection is made.
Then beginning this afternoon you will have had opportunity to get your German copy and to read the exhibits. I think you lose nothing. You are entirely protected in your rights if this procedure is followed.
DR. KRAUS: your Honor, I shall appreciate, I am positive, any possibility that those document books can be picked up over there in case they should be available, or in case they should be introduced. It will quite facilitate defense counsel's work of putting the books before him.
THE PRESIDENT: In eight minutes you will have a chance to go to Defense Information Center and pick up your book. Will that be all right?
DR. KRAUS: Yes.
MR. ROBBINS: The first document in the book is NO-567, which will be Prosecution Exhibit No. 350. This consists of six letters, four letters from Pohl to Rudolf Brandt, who is on the personnel staff of Himmler. The first one refers to Pohl's order that small details of less than one-hundred men should not be furnished to private individuals without Pohl's express permission. The next letter refers to assignments to private individuals of inmates for gardening purposes, of roofing work, and work of a private nature. The third letter concerns request to put certain prisoners at the disposal of Frau Hess. This letter is signed by Pohl, and it includes a list of certain Jehovah Witnesses, men and women, who are gardeners by occupation. The letter is addressed to Himmler. The next letter is a letter from Brandt to Frau Hess regarding assignment of concentration camp prisoners to her, and, the following letter, dated 27 January 1944, is another letter requesting a prisoner be made available to Frau Hess. This is addressed to Pohl, and I am not able to make out the signature on the letter, but it is from the personnel staff of Himmler. The last letter is also concerned with assignment of concentration camp inmates to private parties, and is signed by the defendant Pohl, addressed to Brandt on Himmler's personal staff.
The following document, NO-496, will be Prosecution exhibit No. 351. This consists of two letters. The first one with a date which is indicated as being eligible.
That is, 28 December 1943. The second part of the document is a letter dated 21 December 1943. The latter is a letter from Kammler to Grotmann on Himmler's personal staff, and it refers to the use of a special construction brigade for work which was the Army Commands Western Approaches, and states that five-hundred camp inmates have been detailed to this work, and signed by Dr. Kammler of Amtsgruppen C. The later letter, which is the first part of the document, dated 28 December 1943, is a letter from Himmler to Jodl agreeing to leave the special construction brigade consisting of concentration camp prisoners for another five months.
The following document, NO-1937, has already been introduced in evidence and is Prosecution's Exhibit No. 132. I do not have the document book number before me at the moment. NO-1937 has already been introduced as Exhibit No. 132. This is a telegram from Liebehenshal of the concentration camp Buchenwald regarding transfer of inmates, dated 25 November 1943.
The following document, NO-2164, will be Prosecution Exhibit No. 352. This probably should have been included in a later book on the SS industry. It is a letter from Porcelain Manufacturing Company, Allach-Munich, which was one of the industries in Amtsgruppen W. It stated that the company has suffered a loss of 10,500 Reichsmarks because of the typhus epidemic in Dachau. The letter states that the Porcelain Manufacturing Company is entirely dependent upon the concentration camp inmates, and that because there was no labor available from 26 January to 3 March a loss of 10,500 Reichsmarks occurred, and they asked for reimbursement of this amount.
The following document has already been offered in evidence; this is Document NO-1548, which is Exhibit No. 64.
THE PRESIDENT: 64?
MR. ROBBINS: 64, Yes sir. This is a circular letter from Amtsgruppen D to the concentration camp commandants regarding reports on inmates.
It calls for a report on executions carried out on prisoners who were entitled to special privileges and on protective custody camps.
The next document is NO-1905, and is Prosecution's Exhibit 353. This is a letter from the defendant Pohl in reply to a request for inmates, and it states that the supply of concentration camp inmates is very low at that time, and gives the reason for it. He says already they have supplied the following, or - excuse me - fulfilled the following requests:
1. I.G. Farben Industry, A. G. Auschwitz, Upper Silesia. There prison inmates have been employed since April 1941. At present 5,300 inmates are employed.
2. Low temperature carbonizing plant, Jawischowitz, Upper Silesia, and in the low temperature carbonizing plant Jawischewitz prison inmates have been used since July 1942. Originally 1,000 inmates were provided for this.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess, Mr. Robbins, for ten minutes.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for ten minutes.
(recess)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal Nimber II is again in session.
MR. MC HANEY: If the Tribunal please, the Prosecution requests that the Marshal be directed to summon the witness Chaim Baliski to the stand.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal will summon the witness Chaim Balizki.
CHAIM BALIZKI, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: The witness will raise his right hand and repeat the following:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
THE PRESIDENT: You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. MC HANEY:
Q Your name is Chaim Balizki?
A Yes.
Q You spell your first name C H A I M?
A Yes.
Q And you spell your last name B A L I C K I?
A No, Balizki. B A L I Z K I?
Q Where and when were you born?
THE INTERPRETER: I'm sorry, Mr. Mc Haney. My witness microphone is out of order.
Q. Witness, will you repeat when and where you were born?
A Yes. I was born on 28 February 1920 in Dzialoszuci, Poland.
Q And you are Jewish?
A Yes, I am.
Q Where are you living now?
A I live in Constance.
Q Will you tell us your street address in Constance?
A Yes sir. Schaeferstrasse 20.
Q What are you doing now, witness?
A I am learning to become a radio technician.
Q Are you living in a DP camp?
A I am a DP, but I live in Constance itself.
Q Do you plan to return to Poland?
A No, I do not.
Q Why not?
A I do not wish to return to Poland for the following reasons: I am Jewish, and I have lost my parents and relatives in Poland. Our property was stolen. We have nothing left. I have nothing to go back to.
Q Chaim, you testified in the Medical Case in December, did you not?
A Yes, I did.
Q How did you happen to come to Nurnberg on that occasion?
A I heard through the radio that a trial against Nazi doctors was being carried on in Nurnberg. I thereupon decided to come. All the blood that was shed by my mother and my brothers and by all my relatives and my comrades of all nations of Europe, these who were not guilty and shed their blood, appealed to my conscience, and that brought me to Nurnberg.
Q Where were you living before the war?
A Before the war I lived in Dumbrowa.
Q Will you please tell the Tribunal in your own words what happened to you and your family after the war started?
A Yes, I will. However, I have a request of this Tribunal, before I start. I am very ashamed, and my sister does not know anything what happened to me. Therefore, I would appreciate it if my name would never be published, neither should pictures or my address be published in any paper or somewhere else. That is my request. That is before I start my statement.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal is familiar with the nature of this witness testimony, and his request is a reasonable and proper one. No photograph of this witness and no revelation of his name or the nature of his testimony will be made public. This is an order of the Tribunal, which, of course, does not affect the official record of his testimony, which must be preserved.
THE WITNESS: I thank you very much, your Honor. Shall I start now?
BY MR. MC HANEY:
Q Yes, please.
A During the war the Germans attacked us. Thereupon we were immediately transferred from Dumbrowa for compulsory labor service. First we had to do all sorts of jobs, and later on I was sent to a laundry factory where I had to do compulsory labor. The laundry factory was at Bendzin, for Michatz. That was a firm by the name of Michatz. I worked there until August of 1943. In 1942 my parents and my brother moved away with a group of emigrants, and they are no longer alive at this present moment. My parents were so young and they could work. They were fifty years old. In 1943 there was a general emigration, and I was sent to Auschwitz together with my sister. My younger sister died, or rather was transferred to a labor camp at Gruenberg, Silesia. Both my sisters afterwards were sent to Bergen Belsen, and I found them again alive.
The first four weeks I arrived in Auschwitz I was in the quarrantime camp.
We ran around without shoes and cap and we were being beaten constantly. We had hardly any food, and the whole thing lasted for four weeks. That was in Birkenau. After the four weeks had elapsed we were transferred to Camp Dr. That is where I worked on construction work on roads. Suddenly the block clerk came and told us in the block that twenty young Jews from between twenty to twenty-four years of age had to volunteer for a special duty job. At the time I did not volunteer for that job. However, some of my comrades did. Those twenty persons were called up in the morning and they were taken to same place I will not name, and in the afternoon they returned. No one knew what had happened to them. They did not want to tell us. They were afraid. They had to work again as normal, and after two or three days a few of them transferred to the hospital because they could no longer work. A little bit later no volunteers were called up but people were just picked up according to the alphabet. Namely, they picked up twenty young people from between twenty to twenty-four years of age. I was amongst them because my name starts with the letter "B".
Early in the morning we had to stand for roll call, and we were sent to the women camp there. There was a special barrack there. We waited for approximately half an hour when an officer, a Luftwaffe officer to be exact, arrived on his motor bike. He was a tall man. We had to take off our clothes immediately, and we were put underneath a big machine, and we were sterilized there. They put two blocks between our legs, which were hot, and that is how we had to stay for approximately fifteen to twenty minutes. After that we were all sent back to our block, and we were put to work immediately. A few of those who were with us were immediately transferred to the hospital because they simply couldn't walk. They had pus. I had no pus at the beginning.
Two weeks later we were transferred to Auschwitz I. We had to walk the whole distance guarded by the SS, and we were then sent to Block 21, which was the hospital there.
We received a special injection there, and then we were placed on the operation table. Most scrotums were removed.
I am sorry that I am crying, but I can't hold myself back.
THE PRESIDENT: Take your time.
THE WITNESS: I wish to apologize again. I am not doing this on purpose. I was in the hospital for three weeks. After that there was a great selection in the hospital. 60 percent of our people from our block were used for gas. I was afraid of that, and therefore I left the hospital while I was half sick, and I started working immediately. I worked in the tailor shop there, the inmate tailor shop. Part of my comrades were also gassed. In the tailor shop there we were beaten daily by the capos, and we had to do very hard labor while we were getting very little food. I worked there until the 18th of January, 1945. That is when the Russians were approaching and we had to be evacuated. We were several thousands of men and women. We had to walk the whole distance. More than half of the people were shot down on the way, and we arrived at the concentration camp of Mauthausen, correction, Gross-Rosen. We were at Gross-Rosen, at Gross-Rosen for a few days. Many of us were beaten to death there, and after that we were transported to Dachau.
We were loaded up in cattle wagons, 120 men in one wagon. The wagon was full. We couldn't sit. That is how we arrived in Dachau, without food, and half of our people in one wagon were about dead. In Dachau we were transferred to Block No. 19. Block 19 was between two other blocks, Block 21 and Block 17. The Blocks 21 and 17 were full of spotted fever, infected French, Russians and Poles. They were in this block for a period of four weeks. We couldn't work. After those four weeks had elapsed none of us were sick, and therefore we were transferred to Amfing Wood Camp. The camp itself was in the woods. There were no barracks, and all we had were holes, holes in the earth which were covered by small covers. We had to live there, and that was in winter, winter, 1945.
It was terribly cold, and we had to work very hard. We had to carry cement sacks to the construction yard somewhere near there. We worked there on Various jobs. We were used in order to clear up the rubble in Meuhldorf which had been bombed. We were also used in order to remove sand and to dig holes.
We drove from between 60 to 70 kilometers per day in cattle wagons in order to go to work. All day long we didn't get any food. We only received food in the evening when we came back from our commando. It occurred sometimes that we arrived in the camp at twelve o'clock at night, midnight, due to air raids, and at four o'clock in the morning we had to be back at work. If there was an air raid on our way to our working place, then our wagons were locked up and the guards placed themselves opposite our cattle wagons. In that camp, I mentioned before it was in the woods, I stayed until the end of April, 1945. In April, 1945, that is a week before the liberation, were put in another transport and sent to the Tirol. We were taken back from the Tirol, and on the 30th of April 1945, at eleven o'clock in the morning the American troops liberated us in Seisshaupt on the Starnberger-Sea.
Q I would like to ask you a few specific questions.
A Please do.
Q You state that you were first sterilized in September 1943?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q And that was done by means of X-rays?
A I don't know what sort of rays they used, because I am not a doctor. However, I do know that they were rays.
Q Did these rays cause any burns on your thighs?
A Yes, they did, and I still have the burns.
Q And then two weeks later you underwent an operation?
A Yes.
Q And your testicles were removed?
A Yes, that's correct (crying).
Q Do you know why that was done?
A Yes, I know. I am a Jew, and that was what happened.
Q Did you receive a tattoo on your arm when you were in Auschwitz?
A Yes, I did.
Q Will you show the Tribunal that tattoo, please?
A Yes, with pleasure. There you (baring left arm to the elbow)
Q Now, Chaim, did you have certain pictures taken of you when you were in Nurnberg in December?
A Here in Nurnberg, yes.
Q I will have the clerk hand to you Document NO-819 -
A (Looking at photographs) Yes, those are the pictures. That is correct; those are the pictures they took of me.
MR. McHANEY: The Prosecution offers this series of pictures as Prosecution Exhibit 354, there being five pictures of the witness, Chaim Balitzke, which are lettered A, B, C, D, and E. I will ask the clerk to hand the pictures up to the Tribunal and I call to the Tribunal's attention particularly pictures D and E, which show scarification on the thighs of the witness as a result of the X-ray sterilization.
Q Chaim, do you know whether any women were sterilized in Auschwitz?
A Yes, I do. In Auschwitz there was a Block which had the number 10. That was in the men's camp. There were approximately two to three hundred women in there.
They were always in the Block; they were not used for work. They just knitted in that block and they were used for various experiments. That is what we all knew because the block was in our own camp. I do not know the actual kinds of experiments that were carried on there but I do know that experiments were carried out and I know that exactly. And in that block there were always two or three small children.
Q. Can you tell us the name of the doctor who sterilized you?
A. Yes, the doctors who sterilized me, I couldn't tell you the names. However, I know the name of one of the doctors of whom we were speaking in the camp all the time. The name is Dr. Schummen. I couldn't tell you any further names.
Q. Now, did you state that you worked in the tailor shop in Auschwitz?
A. Yes.
Q. And were you repairing clothes there?
A. Yes, I was.
Q. What clothes were you working on?
A. I worked there for a period of fifteen months. We had all sorts of clothes. There were clothes from Jewish transports, from various countries of Europe. There were women's clothes and children's clothes. There was all sorts of underwear, sweaters, and all sorts of things. The clothes were also provided with a Jewish star. There were also clothes without the star. In other words, all kinds of clothes. The clothes arrived in big wagons, full of them. Quite a lot of them arrived. They came in very often. There were Jewish stars which could be recognized by that yellow star and they were from France because instead of saying "Jew" on there in German it said "Juif", the French word for "Jew". And there was also the word "Jude".
We didn't find too many things in the pockets, but sometimes we found shaving brushes, tooth brushes, glasses, packages, and also pictures Once in a while it occurred that somebody recognized some of his own relatives from the pictures. The clothes were for adults, men and women, and were being repaired there because they were all useable. We had already removed the lining and we had to fix that again and we made a big hole in the back and a small piece of striped material was inserted.
We did the same thing to the trousers where we likewise introduced such a striped piece of cloth. They were packed in packages and boxes and were used as clothes for the inmates.
Q. Witness --
A. Yes, please?
Q. --- did you ever hear the name "Kanada Commando" in Auschwitz?
A. What is the name of that commando?
Q. Kanada Commando.
A. Yes, I knew that commando very well. I did not work in that commando myself but many of my comrades did. That was a special commando which had to take care of all the incoming transports, when the clothes of the transports were removed. They checked on everything there and sorted the stuff. Whatever they found, gold or diamonds or other valuables, they removed, and no matter what it was. They sorted that and delivered that to the administration.
Q. Chaim, do you know whether any Hungarian Jewish transports arrived in Auschwitz in 1944?
A. Yes, sir, in the summer of 1944 there were continuous transports of Hungarians. They were Hungarian Jews and of every age. I never saw it myself but I still know because I was told so. We all knew about it. We knew they were sent to Birkenau, where they were selected. A small percentage of them were used for work and they were then transferred to Auschwitz, and they told us the story themselves. The rest of them were immediately sent to the gas chamber and gassed there and cremated, and children, small children, sick people, invalids, these people were cremated alive in certain pits because there was not enough space to gas them in the gas chamber. That happened three or four months, around the summer of 1944. That was the bloodiest period in Auschwitz.
Q. Chaim, do you know anything about the method of selecting inmates to be gassed?
A. Yes, I do. The selections followed various methods that were used there. I can tell you of a few of those methods if you want me to.
First of all, I shall start with the method of selecting in the hospitals, because selections there took place often, every two or three or four weeks. Prior to the selection the block elder come in and ordered that all the Jews stand up. The sick ones had to remove all their clothing and climb down from their beds and stand in rows. Most of them collapsed but all of then got up, because those who couldn't get up were immediately gassed, so that all of them tried to climb out of their beds. Sometimes it was half an hour or an hour or two before the camp physician came and through that entire period of time these sick inmates had to stand. All inmates received their sick cards and when the camp physician came in an SS officer accompanied him. All the sick ones had to pass by him, walking quickly one after another, and present their cards to the physician. He just took one look at the sick man and put some of the cards here (witness showing with fingers) and the other part in the other place. One part of the box was for those who were to live and the other for those to be shot. Those who were to be killed - that is, approximately 30, 40, or 60 percent of the inmates - these cards were taken along by the physician and the other cards he returned to the block elder. Those persons that had been designated to be killed were removed from the camp by trucks after a few hours. The removal was carried out in various ways. Several times they were removed in their shirts; several times, again, they were taken out naked. And I remember one case very well - that was in winter - when the inmates were removed with their new clothes, in open cars, and they even received mufflers for their ears and gloves and handkerchiefs. Everything was new. That was how they were led away to be gassed.
Half an hour later all the trucks returned with the clothes and they were put there. The selections of the camp occurred after roll call. No one was allowed to leave or move about in the camp. All Jews had to remain inside the camp and all the others were put in the blocks. They all had to remove all their clothes. It occurred several times that the camp physician passed through the rows and selected his victims, and it also occurred several times that they were taken to the bathroom and that is where the camp physician was, and he selected his victims there.
Those that had been selected, their number was taken down and a few hours later, particularly at night, they were picked up and taken away.
The last selection was different, entirely different, as a matter of fact. No camp physician took care of that selection but the SS personnel of the camp itself did that. They were drunk and one of them had a stick in his hand. Every one of the inmates had to walk through the row of SS men, and the man who was beaten once was immediately removed by the capos and the block eldests. His number was taken dorm and then again he was removed in the evening, or rather, this time it was different. This time not only Jews but all concentration camp inmates had to stand at attention there, and the selection applied to all of them. More Aryans than Jews were selected on that day, because the sick Aryans were also in the camp up to that date, and the Jews were selected every few weeks or so. That is the reason why there were less sick and weak Jews in the camp. All of them were taken to one big block. They stayed there for a period of two days, whereupon all the Aryans were liberated or freed and all Jews were again put in the gas chambers. That was the last selection.
MR. McHANEY: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does defense counsel wish to cross examine this witness?
(No reply)