Following page: "He made me spread my legs. Then he completed with a very thin whip, with which he gave me 20 more blows. When I arose my head turned and I fell to the ground. I was lifted by kicks of a boot. Needless to say, the handcuffs were never taken away from my wrists."
To go to the bottom of page 7, third line before the end:
"From twelve to ten hours after having beaten a woman, Paoli came to see me and said I could go. 'You have no courage. It is your wife that I have just beaten. I will act as though you said nothing.' He wished that I should give him a place at which I met my comrades and their names.
"From 14 to 16 o'clock I was taken to the tortue chamber. I could hardly stand up or could hardly crawl. Before permitting me to come in Paoli said, 'I give you five minutes to tell me all that you know. If in five minutes you have said nothing you will be shot at 3 o'clock. Your wife will be shot at six, and your child will be sent to Germany'."
Page 9: "After signing the interrogation the German said: 'Look at your face, the condition we can put a man in in five days. You are not through yet. And he added, 'Now get out of here. You fill us with disgust'. Covered with ordure from head to foot, they put me in a carriage and took me back to my cell. For at least five days I certainly received more than 700 blows with a whip. A great hematoma appeared on two of my buttocks. A doctor and his comrades in custody would not come near him because he smelled so badly, because his body was covered with abscesses. The 20th of November, the date at which he was interrogated, he had not yet recovered from his wounds." punishment methods used. First, a whip; secondly, the bath. The man to be tortured was plunged headfirst into a bathtub full of cold water until he was asphyxiated. Then they gave him artificial respiration. If he didn't talk, they began again several times in succession. With clothes soaked, he spent the night in a cold cell. Third, electric current: The poles were placed in his hands, then at his feet, then in his ears, then in the anus and on the end of the penis.
The crushing of his testicles was done with an instrument prepared for the purpose.
The twisting of the testicles was frequent. Hanging: the patient was handcuffed, his hands behind his back. A hook was placed on his handcuffs, and by a pulley the victim was lifted. In the beginning they lifted him up and then let him fall down rapidly. Then they left him suspended for more or less longer periods. His arms were often dislocated. I saw in the camp Lieutenant Lefevre, who had lost the use of both arms, having remained suspended for more than four hours.
"Sixth, burning with a soldering lamp or with matches. The 2nd of July my comrade Laloue came to the camp, a teacher from Crer, who had been subjected to the greatest part of these tortures at Bourges. He had one arm congested and couldn't function any finger of the right hand as a result of being hung. He had been subjected to whipping and electricity. He had been burned by matches, which had been placed under all the nails in the hands and feet, matches which were cut. His wrists and ankles were surrounded with rings of wadding. Fire then was set to the waddings and to the matches. While everything was burning, a German several times plunged a pointed knife into the sole of his foot and another whipped him. The phosphorus burns ate up certain of his toes to the second phalanges. Abscesses were formed and had broken. That saved him from blood poisoning." read, under the signature of one of the chiefs of the general staff of the French Forces of the Interior who freed the Department of Crer, M. Magnon - signature authenticated by French official authorities whom you know.
"From the liberation of Bourges, September 6, 1944, an inspection in the cellars of the Gestapo revealed an instrument of torture, a ring composed of several balls of hardwood which had steel points on them, so arranged that the bracelet might be put around the wrist of the prisoner. This bracelet was seen by numerous soldiers and chefs of the Maquis de Menetou-Salon.
It was in the hands of the Adjutant Neuilly, now in the first battalion of the 34th Demi-Brigade. A drawing is attached to this statement.
"Commander Magnon, under-signed, certifies having seen the instrument which is described above." service of the Department of Vaucluse, which takes No. 309. It is a repeition of the same methods, which I do not believe we must dwell upon. number 310, which relates to tortures practised by the German police services in Besancon. Page 1 of our French text and of the German text is a deposition of M. Dommergues, Professor at Besancon. This deposition was collected by the American War Crimes Commission-mission of Captain Miller--and we shall read from the statement of M. Dommergues, Professor at Besancon.
"Arrested 11th of February, 1944. Violently struck with a whip during the interrogation. While a woman who was being tortured uttered screams, they made him believe that it was his own wife. He saw a comrade hung with a weight of 50 kilograms on each foot. Another had his eyes pierced with pins. A child became completely "aphone." the deposition of Mr. Dommergues. This document includes a second part, 567b. We shall read from pages 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 from this document, page 9 of the German text.
THE PRESIDENT: Whose statement is it? One of the members hasn't got his document marked, and I want to know whose statement it is you are going to refer to. Is it Dr. Gomet?
M. DUBOST: It is from Dr. Gomet, Secretary Member of the Council of the Departmental College of the National Order of Physicians. This letter is addressed by him to the chief doctor in Besancon, 11th of September, 1943, Chief Doctor of the Feldkommandantur of Besancon.
Here is the text of this letter.
"Chief Medicine Doctor and Honorable Colleague:
"I have the honor to deliver to you the note which I have drawn up on your request and addressed to our colleagues of the department in our memorandum of September 1st. I must, on the other hand, in full conscience take up another subject with you.
"Quite recently I had to give care for a Frenchman who had wounds and ecchymoses of his face and his body deduced by torture apparatus which the German security used. This is a quite honorable man, an important state official of the French Government who was arrested because they considered him susceptible of furnishing certain information, and he was not suspected of anything, as is proved by his being freed after a few days after the interrogation was terminated to which they wished to subject him.
"Torture was inflicted upon him, not as a legal penalty as any legitimate defense, but for the purpose of forcing him to speak through the use of violence and pain. As for me, who represents here the French medical corps, my conscience forces me to do this and my strict duty forces me to point out to you what I have just observed in exercising my profession. I appeal to your conscience as a doctor, and request, since you have the mission of protecting the physical health of your fellow humans, as all doctors are required to do, that we have no right to intervene."
Returning to page 4. There must have been a reply to the doctor, for Dr. Gomet writes him a second letter, and here is the text:
"Honorable Chief Doctor and Honorable Colleague:
"You were willing to note the facts which I explained to you in my letter of September 11, 1943, regarding the torture apparatus utilized by the German security service during the interrogation of a French official whom I had to care for subsequently. You asked me, as is quite natural, to visit yourself the person in question. I replied to you at the time of our recent meeting that the step made by me was not known to the person concerned, and I did not know whether he would authorize me to have it known. I wish to specify, in fact, that I claim for myself alone the responsibility for this initiative. The person through whom I learned for professional reasons the facts which I Have just related to you had nothing to do with this report. The question is strictly professional. My conscience forced me to bring this matter to your attention. I advance only what I know from certain observations, and I guarantee on my honor as a man, as a physician, and a Frenchman the truth of my statement.
"My patient was interrogated twice by the German security service the last days of August, 1943. I had to examine him on 8 September 1943, that is to say, about ten days after he left prison, where he had in vain demanded medical attention.
"He had a partial ecchymosis on the left and scratches on the temporal region at the right, which he said were made with a sort of circle which they had placed upon his head and upon which they struck with small clubs. He had had contusions on the dorsal side of his hands, these having been taken, accord ing to what he told me, and placed in a squeezing apparatus.
He had, at the anterior side of his legs, scars covered with crusts of superficial wounds, which were the result, he told me, of blows administered by flexible clubs armed with little points.
"I cannot affirm the method in which these contusions and wounds were produced. I note that they seemed to relate through their aspect to the explanations which were given to me.
"It will be easy for you, honorable chief physician, to learn if the apparatus of the kind to which I allude are really in use in the German security service."
THE PRESIDENT: It may be convenient for Counsel and others to know that the Tribunal will not sit in open session tomorrow, as it has many administrative matters to consider. We will adjourn now until 2 o'clock.
(Whereupon, at 1245, the Tribunal adjourned to reconvene at 1400.)
Official transcript of the International
COURT CLERK (Captain Priceman): If your Honors please, the defendants Kaltenbrunner and Streicher will continue to be absent this afternoon.
M. DUBOST: We started this morning with the enumeration of the tortures that had been inflicted as a regular thing by the Gestapo in the various cities in France where inquiries were conducted, and I was presenting to you through the reading of numerous documents that everywhere the accused, and frequently the witnesses themselves, were questioned with brutality on matters that were usually identical, which proved, so we thought, by the systematic repetition of these same procedures of torture the existence of a common determination, which found its origin in the very leadership of the police service and also within the heads of the governments themselves. tracted from the report of the American services, which concern the prison at Dreux, the prison at Morlaix, and the prison in Metz. All these testimonies are given in Documents 689, 690, and 691, which we are now presenting to your under No. S-311, 312, and 313. With your permission, sir, I will now abstain from further citing these documents. The same facts are cited systematically, and the same is true for the tortures inflicted in Metz, in Morlaix, and in Marseilles. These are cited in Documents 692, 693, 565, and 694, which we are presenting to you under Nos. 314, 309, and 315. which it is not possible for us to remain silent about in spite of our desire to cut short these sittings. It is a crime involving the murder of a French officer by the services of the Gestapo at Clairmont-Ferrand, in the southern zone, and therefore in a zone which was considered to be free according to the terms of the Armistice -- a murder which was committed under conditions extremely shameful and scorning all the rules of common and international law, and perpetrated in a region in which, according to the stipulation of the Armistice, the Gestapo had no reason or authorization to operate This French officer was named Major Henri Madeline.
His case is recited in Document 595, which we submit under No. 316. He was arrested on the 1st of October, 1943, in Clairmont-Ferrand. The questioning began in January, 1944, andhe was struck in such a savage manner in the course of the first interrogatory that when we was brought back to his cell his hand was already split. On the 27 January he was exposed to two new interrogatories. This document is brought together between the green covers in your document book, No. S-575. which he was so violently struck that when he returned to his cell it was impossible to see the manicles which he wore on his hands, so swollen had his hands become. The following day the German police came back and seized him in his cell. He had been under agony throughout the night. They took him while he was still alive and he was thrown on a road a kilometer from a small village, Peringant-Les-Sarlieves, in France, to give the impression that he had been the victim of a traffic accident. His body was later discovered, and an autopsy revealed that his buttocks had been completely crushed and that he had multiple fractures of the ribs and perforations of the lungs, as well as wounds of the spine, a fracture of the lower jaw, and a general dislocation of the tissues in the head. and in the misdeeds of the Gestapo in France under the orders of German officers. One of such traitors, who was arrested when our country was liberated, has described the ill-treatments that had been inflicted on Commandant Madeline. We are going to read the statement made by M. John Verniers on this subjects "He was struck with a stick, a bludgeon.
He was struck on his fingernails, and his fingers were crushed. He was obliged to walk barefooted on stiff tacks. He was burned with cigarette butts. Finally, he was thoroughly beaten and taken back to his cell. He was at the point of death."
in which numerous German officers of the Gestapo participated. This in-
quiry has shown that twelve known persons succumbed to the tortures inflicted by the Gestapo of Clairmont-Ferrand, that some women were stripped naked and beaten before they were raped. I am concerned not to lengthen thesedeliberations by useless citations. I hope the Tribunal will consider the facts that I have presented as constant facts. They Ere cited in the document that we are placing before you, where the Tribunal may find in extenso the writtentestimony collected on the day which followed the liberation. This systematic repetition of identical criminal proceedings in order to achieve an identical purpose, which was to bring about the reign of terror, was not the result of orders given by a subordinate who had authority only on the territory of France and who was not under the control of his government or of the Army General Staff. The same horrors, the same atrocities, were repeated in a systematic basis on all countries of the West. When one examines the manner in which these things were perpetrated by the German police, one finds that they were identical in all those countries, whether it be the case of Denmark or Belgium or Holland or Norway. Everywhere and at all times the interrogations conducted by the Gestapo were made with the same savage attitude and method, the same scorn of the rights of defense, and with the same scorn of human person. before the Tribunal, under No. 317, which contains an official report from the Danish Government, dated October, 1945. I am merely citing a few lines from this document. You will find them in the small book of documents within the large book that was delivered to you this morning. I should like to cite a few lines which we think are a summary of the whole question. This is Document F-666, which should be the sixth in your small book of documents, No. 6.
THE PRESIDENT: Does it come after 641-A?
M. DUBOST: Yes, Mr. President. major war criminals who appear before the International Military Tribunal, page 5, under the title "Torture" we read, in a brief resume, everything that concerns the question with respect to Denmark:
"In numerous cases German police and their Danish assistants employed torture in order to force the prisoners to confess or to give information. This fact is supported by irrefutable evidence. In most cases the torture consisted in lashing or beating with sticks or with a rubber bludgeon."
It is on page 5 of the Document 666, under the title of "Torture", which will leave lasting infirmities. Bovensicpen has stated that the order to employ torture came in certain cases from the higher authorities, perhaps from Goering as Chief of theGeheime Staatspolizei, but, in any event, from Heydrich. The instructions had for their purpose that torture might be used in order to force those who were tortured to give information that might serve to uncover subversive organizations which were aimed at the German Reich, but not for the purpose of bringing the delinquent to confess his own acts."
A little further on: "The means prescribed were, among other things, a specified number of beatings with a stick. Bovensiepen doesn't remember whether the maximum limit was ten or twenty blows. An officer from the criminal police was there, and also when circumstances so required there was a medical officer presents." smaller details, and at regular intervals they were brought to the attention of all members of the criminal police. The Government of Denmark points out, in conclusion, two cases particularly repugnant of torture inflicted upon Danish patriots. They are thecases of Professor Mogens and the severities against Lt Col. Ejnar Thiemroth. Best states that his official prerogatives did not authorize him to prevent the resort to torture. In the case of Belgium it should be first recalled the tortures that were inflicted in the tragically famous camp of Breendonck where hundreds and thousands of Belgium patriots were incarcerated.
We shall come back to the case of Breendonck when we will dealwith the case of concentration camps.
We shall merely cite from the report of the Belgium Commission on War Crimes a few precise facts which support our original affirmation, to wit, that all acts involving ill-treatment which are impu ted to the Gestapo in France were reproduced in identical manner in all the countries of Western Europe. The documents which we shall present to you are found in the small book of Documents, RS-318 and 319. It is 942-b in your small document book. It is the second document, and would therefore be on page 5. contains identical, or at least analagous, testimonies to those that were collected in France. However, on page 1 and page 2 you will find the statement made by Mr. Rogust Lammes and a statement made by Mr. Paul Desumel, which show that the most extreme penalties were inflicted on these men, and that when they emerged from this place of the Gestapo, they were completely disfigured and unable to remain on their feet. F-641b, which now become, as a result, Documents 320 and 321. I shall not read them. They, too, contain minutes describing tortures analagous to those I have already described before you. If the Court will accept the cruelty of the procedures for tortures employed by the Gestapo as having been established, I will abstain from reading further testimonies which have been collected. the Norwegian Government in connection with the punishment of major war criminals The French translation of this document is on page 79. We place it before you under No. 243. On page 2 of this document you will find -- and it is also to be found in the small book of documents -- the statement that enumerates that Norwegian citizens died.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the number on the document?
M. DUBOST: UK-79. It is the first one. Norwegian Government according to which numerous Norwegian citizens died from the cruel treatments inflicted upon them during their interrogation. The number of known cases for the one district of Oslo is 52. The number in the various regions of Norway is undoubtedly much higher. The total number of Norwegian citizens who died during the occupation in consequence of tortures or ill-treat ment or execution or suicide or in concentration camps is approximately 2,100.
methods employed in the services of the Gestapo in Norway, which methods were identical to those I have already described before you. which, as a result, becomes French Document No. 324, which is extracted from the statement of the Netherlands Government for the prosectuion and punishment of the principal German war criminals. This document bears the date of 16 January, 1946. It has been distributed and should now be in your hands. The Tribunal will find in this document a great number of testimonies which were collected by the criminal investigation department, all of which are related uniformly to ill-treatment and similar tortures as those you already know, and which are imputable to the services of the Gestapo in Holland. In the Netherlands, as elsewhere, the accused were struck with sticks. When their backs were completely raw from the beating they were sent back to their cells, and sometimes they were exposed to electrical currents. A witness beheld with his own eyes at Norfolk a prisoner who was a priest and who was beaten to death with a rubber bludgeon. The systematic character of such torture has been definitely established, and the document of the Danish Government is the beginning of the proof in support of my thesis that this systematic character was deliberately willed by the higher authorities of the Reich, of the German Government, and so they are responsible for it. In any event, these systematic tortures were certainly known by the leaders of the German Government, since from all European countries there were protests against such procedures which plunged us back to the darkness of the Middle Ages. At no time did an order come to forbid such methods. At no time were those who executed them disavowed by their superiors. The methods of instructions were in themselves a factor which was destined to reinforce the terroristic nature of the policy pursued by Germany in the occupied countries -- a terroristic nature to which I have already referred and which I have described before you when I dealt with the problem of hostages. before you, those whom France considers, and other countries as well in the West, as the principal guilty men for the preparation and development of this criminal policy with respect to the deeds of the Gestapo. We say that Bormann and Kaltenbrunner, because of their function, more than others could not have ignored the acts of their subordinates charged with carrying out these policies.
Although we are not in possession of any document signed by their hand with respect to the Western countries, the unity of the facts we have presented before you, the fact that they are analagous and also of an identical character inspite of the diversity of the location, enables us to assert that all these orders were willed by a single human will, and among the accused who are before you Bormann and Kaltenbrunner are specifically designated. judgment. We know with what ferocity this procedure was applied. We know that this ferocity was Trilled. It was known by the populations of the invaded countries, and its purpose was to create a veritable atmosphere of terrorism around the Gestapo and all the police services of the Germans.
After the judicial interrogation came the judicial proceeding. Then the judgment. This judgment, was as we see, only a parody of justice. The prosecution was based on a legal concept which we set aside as being absolutely inhuman. That part will be dealt with by my colleague, M. Edgar Faure, in the second part of the expose of the atrocities in the West; that is, crimes against the spirit. It is sufficient for us to know that German jurisdictions before whom crimes were placed involving the citizens of the Western Countries did not believe in and never applied anything but one penalty, and that was death. an order which appeared in Document L-90, placed before you under No. USA 224.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the number of the document?
M. DUBOST: USA 224. It has already been placed before the Tribunal by my colleagues of the United States, under number USA 224. It is the penultimate in your document bock. That is, in the large document book. Line 5:
"For acts of this character, penalties involving deprivation of liberty can be considered, as one can not obtain an efficacious result except by the application of the penalty of death or by measures that will maintain the population in ignorance as to the fate of the guilty men. For this purpose, we shall develop deportation to Germany."
Is it necessary to present any comment? Can we be startled at seeing this war leader giving orders to justice? What we know of him since yesterday causes us to doubt the fact that he is merely a military leader.
We have cited to you his own very words: "You can not obtain efficacious results except through the penalty of death." Such orders given to justice--are these in conformity with military honor. In Document 90, "The Tribunal will decree the penalties of death. If you can not decree the penalty of death, send them to Germany on deportation." of justice. condemned to death and executed were deported to Germany, and we come, therefore, to the third part of our thesis, which falls upon me. We come now to the problem of deportations. carried out. If prior to that your Tribunal could suspend the audience for a very few minutes, I should be very grateful to you.
THE PRESIDENT: How long would you like us to suspend?
M. DUBOST: Perhaps five minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: Four minutes.
(Whereupon the Tribunal recessed from 1451 hours to 1500 hours.)
DR. NELTE (For the defendant Keitel): The French Prosecutor just now produced document 90, the so-called "Nacht und Nebel Decree." That means that he cited this document and cited the words that a deterrent example could only be reached through the death penalty or through other measures which would keep the population and family of the accused in darkness--that they would not know about it. The French Prosecutor mentioned that these are the words of Keitel. fact that it is not permissible to quote only a part or a portion of the document when through so doing a wrong impression might be created. in a specially clear way brings to expression that it was not in this case the Chief of the OKW speaking, but Hitler. In this brief citation, it is mentioned.
"It is the long-determined will of the Fuehrer that in occupied countries, as far as attacks on the Reich or against the occupying power are concerned, the people who are doing this are to be met with other measures than before.
The Fuehrer is of the opinion that for such acts, penalties against liberty and life-long house of correction will be put into effect, and in connection with this, an effective and confident deterrent is only to be created through the death penalty."
In conclusion, the Decree read:
"And the policies to be followed are to be in line with the opinion and the attitude of the Fuehrer." point to this fact, especially since this decree, which is called the notorious "Nacht und Nebel Decree", was in itself and in its execution, not recognized by Keitel and is denied by him.
M. DUBOST: I did not read the decree in extenso. I did know that the accused Keitel had signed it and that Hitler had conceived it. Therefore, I have made an allusion to military honor of this general, who was not afraid to become the lackey of Hitler.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal understood from your mentioning of the fact that the document had already been submitted to the Tribunal, and does not think that there was anything misleading in what you did.
M. DUBOST: If the Tribunal accepts this, we shall proceed to the hearing of the witness, a Frenchman.
THE PRESIDENT: This is your witness that you wish to call, is it?
M. DUBOST: Yes.
M. MAURICE LAMPE, a witness called by the French Prosecution,
THE PRESIDENT: what is your name?
THE WITNESS: Lampe, Maurice.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this after me: Do you swear to speak without hate or fear, to say the truth, all the truth, only the truth.
(The witness repeats the oath in French.)
THE PRESIDENT: Raise the right hand and swear.
THE WITNESS: I swear.
THE PRESIDENT: Spell the name.
THE WITNESS: L-A-M-P-E.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
(The witness was examined as follows by M. Dubost.)
Q You were born in Rubais on the 23rd of August, 1900; you were deported by the Germans?
THE PRESIDENT: You can sit down if you wish.
Q You were interned in Mauthausen?
Q Will you testify as to what you know concerning this internment camp?
A I was arrested on the 8th of November, 1941. After two years and a half of internment in France, I was deported on the 22nd of March 1944 to Mauthausen in Germany. ticularly ignoble--104 deportees in a cattle car. I do not believe that it is necessary to go into details of this journey, but one can well imagine under what conditions we arrived on the morning of the 25th of March, 1944 at Mauthausen under twelve degrees of cold. in box cars. of about 1,200 Frenchmen informed us in the following words which I shall quote from memory almost textually, "Germany needs your arms. You are, therefore, going to work, but I want to tell you that never again will you see your families. When one enters this camp, one leaves it by the chimney of the crematorium." then designated to work in a commando in a stone quarry. The quarry at Mauthausen, located in a hollow, was situated about 800 metres from the camp proper. To reach it, there were 186 stops to go.
to the hollow were made of unequal steps and had been so conceived that to go up without burden was already extremely wearisome. all of them French, under the orders of a general commando, who was a common law criminal, and also under the command of an SS.
We started our work at seven o'clock in the morning. At eight o'clock, one hour later, two of my comrades were already murdered. They were an old man, M. Gregoir from Lyon and a very young man, Lefer from the city of Tours. They were murdered because they had not understood the order given in German which designated these men for a task. Inability to understand the German language caused us very frequently to be beaten.
told to go up with the burden of the two corpses, and the one that I carried with three of my comrades was that of Father Gregoir, a very heavy corpse, and we had to go up 136 steps with a corpse, and we were all beaten before we reached the top of the stairway. what I have myself known, what I have seen, was a long cycle of torture and of sufferings. Still, I would like to recall a few scenes that were particularly horrible and remain more fixed in my memory. there came to Mauthausen a small transport of 47 officers, British officers and American and some Dutchmen. They were fliers who had parachuted down. They had been arrested after they had sought to return to their country. Because of this they were condemned to death by a German tribunal. Their incarceration went back to about one year. They were brought to Mauthausen to be executed there. for the Allies. They were dressed only with undergarments and a shirt. They were barefooted.
The following morning they answered the rollcall at seven o'clock. The commandos of the camp went to their tasks. The 47 officers were gathered before the Schreibstube and were told by the commanding officer of the camp that the penalty of death was upon them. that the sentence be applied to him as on a soldier. The reply was the following: He was beaten with a whip. He was beaten everywhere, and the 47 were led barefooted to the quarry. vision. This is the manner in which they operated: At the bottom of the staircase they allotted on the shoulders of the unfortunate men stones. They hsd to go up to the very top. The first trip was made with stones weighing 25 to 30 kilos. Under the blows the first trip was made. Then they went down.
They had to run. The second trip the stones were heavier still, and as the burdens crushed the wrteched men, the blows would be redoubled. Stones were hurled at them. evening when I came back from the commando with the team with which I was then working, this road which led us to the camp was a path covered with blood. I almost stepped on a lower jaw of a man. Twenty-one bodies were there. Twenty-one had died on the first day. The twenty-six others died the following day.
I tried to sum up as much as I could this horrible episode. It was not possible, at least when we were in camp, to know the names of these officers, but I believe that since that time that has been accomplished.
In September 1944, again, we received a visit of Himmler. Nothing had been altered in the working of the camp. The commandos went to their tasks as usual, and I had occasion - and it was a sad occasion - to see Himmler from close by, and if I call this to your attention - this passing of Himmler through the camp - it was not, after all a great event; it was because that day they offered Himmler the execution of fifty Soviet officers. and was always there for the night shift. The blockhouse where I was lodged was just opposite the crematorium and opposite the execution room. We saw I have seen these Soviet Army officers brought together according to their size, faced to my block on this square. They were called one by one. The road that led to the execution hall was relatively short. One stairway led there. The execution room was under the crematorium. of it because it lasted throughout the afternoon - was another particularly horrible spectacle. I repeat Soviet Army officers were called one by one, and there was a sort oc hain created between the group which was waiting around and the man who in the stairway was hearing the shot which brought down his predecessor. They were all killed by a shot in the neck.
Q You were there personally? You witnessed this personally?