THE PRESIDENT: Then the witness can retire.
M. DUBOST: With your permission, we shall proceed with the presentation of our case on German atrocities in the western countries of Europe from 1939 to 1945 by introducing in regard to this testimony all of the details which prove common law crimes. This general idea on which we are going to base our whole thesis of terrorism by Germany was conceived as a means of exercising government over all the people who had been subjected to German domination. French witness, according to which, in Vienna, when one wishes to frighten a child one says to them something about Mauthausen.
deported to Germany, where they were placed in camps -- locked in camps or in prison. With regard to the prisons, the information that we have concerning them has been taken from the official report of the Ministry of Prisoners of War, which we have already given, and which is this bound volume which was placed in your hands this morning. You will find therein, specifically on page 35 and page 36, down to page 42, a detailed statement as to what the prisons were like in Germany.
THE PRESIDENT: 174?
MR. DUBOST: I beg your pardon. It was 274, on page 35. The Tribunal may read that the prison of Cologne where numerous Frenchmen were interned, was placed between the freight station and the main station, so that the Prosecutor in Cologne wrote in a report, which is used by the Ministry of Deportees and Prisoners of War in the book which is before us, that the location of that prison is so dangerous that one could not instal a factory in that area; the internees could not seek shelter during the bombardment. They remained in their block, locked in even if fire developed.
The victims of bombardment in the prisons themselves were numerous. The May 1944 bombardment killed 200 victims in the prison of Alexander Platz in Berlin.
The buildings were always dirty, damp, and very small. The internees were three or four times as numerous as the facilities permitted in Aix-laChapelle. In Munster the women who were there in November 1943 lived underground without any air. In Frankfurt the internees had sort of iron cages, two metros by one fifty metres for cells. Any hygiene was impossible. At Aix-La-Chapelle, as in many other prisons, the internees had only one bucket in the middle of the room, and it was forbidden to empty it during the day.
The food ration was extremely limited. As a general rule, ersatz coffee in the morning with a thin slice of bread; a soup at noon; a thin slice of bread at night with a little margarine or sausage or marmalade.
The internees were exposed to extremely heavy labor. Whatever the work that was carried out, the duration required, the day's labor, was about twelve hours.
At Cologne, specifically, from 7 o'clock in the morning to 9 O'clock or 10 o'clock in the evening, that is to say, 14 or 15 consecutive hours. This is still from the file of the Public Prosecutor of Cologne, Document No. 87 of the Ministry of Prisoners. There was a shoe factory. Most of the workers were Frenchmen who had refused firmly to work in war industry; for example, the fabrication of gas masks, sliding guns for shells, radio or telephone apparatus intended for the Army. In such cases Berlin gave orders to send the recalcitrants to reprisal camps. For example, the shipment of women from Kottbus to Ravensbruck on 13 November 1944. The Geneva Convention was, of course, not applied. This is a German official text from the Public Prosecutor of Cologne.
There was practically no medical supervision. There was no prophylactic measure taken in these places in the event of epidemics, or else the SS doctor knowingly and willingly gave the wrong kind of medicine to the patients. Gammradt, who was a former major in the German Army, the SS or SA guards fought the internees savagely. Dysentry, diphtheria, pulmonary lesions, pleurisy, were not any reason for stoppage of work, and those who were gravely ill were forced to work until the very limit of their strength, and they were only admitted in the hospital as an exception. the other internees to lose half of their ration. You had to go to toilets on order. At Magdebourg any recalcitrants had to make one hundred genuflexions before the guards. The interrogations were carried out in the same manner as in France, that is, with brutality and also were a complete farce.
At Asperg the doctor had innoculated the heart of an internee which caused death.
At Cologne there was a worker condemned to death who was perpetually in chains. At Sonnenburg those who were dying were put away by the absorption of greenish liquor. In Hamburg six Jews were forced to dig their own graves until exhausted, and they fell within the grave. We are speaking of Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Luxembourgers and Danes interned in German prisons. These methods were only applied on citizens of these countries in the Prison of Boers in Berlin, and at which place Jewish babies were massacred under the eyes of their mothers. The number of sterilizations of men is confirmed by German documents in the file of the prosecutor of Cologne. He had foreseen the victims could not be sent back and re-interned in their military territories. These files include documents which show the role played by children who were in prison. They had to work inside the camp, and the German functionary of the penitentiary service required instructions as to the decision to be taken with regard to Baby Fairwell, which was brought to the prison at the same time as that of the father and mother. That was the surveillance personnel, page 39, last paragraph. They were recruited amongst the NSKK and the SA because of their political views. They were above any suspicion and applicability to a harsh discipline. This is also from the public prosecutor at Cologne.
This is at Rheinbach. Those who were condemned and who were intended to be executed in Cologne were left for dead, as the result of blows which were inflicted upon them by the guards as a result of the above-mentioned discipline, and we can easily imagine the brutality of the men who were in charge of the internees. As a result of the executions, the German official text will furnish what comprises these executions in detail; those who were condemned were executed with brutality. Nearly all the condemned were surprised, say the German documents which we are analysing for you as charged; that they didn't like accusations and not charged for acts of patriotism. They were declared internees and they thought they deserved to be treated as soldiers. and nineteen years of age, and one woman. There were some French women who were political internees were selected from the Lubeck Jail to be executed in Hamburg, but the grounds of all accusations were almost a new identical. The files are incomplete, but we do believe that the prosecutor of Cologne, in any event, that the offenses committed were of militaristic nature, rendered to the assistance of the enemy, and all deals were systematically rejected, and they were rejected by some actions.
prison were still less cruel by far than those who had the misfortune of being sent to a concentration camp. These concentration camps the Tribunal are already familiar with them, my colleague from the United Nation having already submitted to you a long explanation of this problem, and, then the Tribunal will remember that they have had under their very eyes a map indicating the exact locations of every one of the camps which existed in Germany, and in the occupied countries. We shall not, therefore, return to the geographical distribution of the camps. the conditions under which Frenchmen and Nationals of the Western Occupied Countries were taken to those camps. At the time of the deportment of internees who were the victims of arbitrary arrest, such as those that I have already described to you this morning, were brought together in France in prisons, or in assembly camps.
The main assembly camp in France was at Compiegne. It is there that most of the deportees would be shipped, and from there away to Germany. There are still two more assembly camps, Pithiviers, specially a camp for Jews, and Drancy. The conditions under which the people were interned in those camps and were living were rather similar to those prevailing for internees in the German prisons. With your permission I shall not insist on naming them, and perhaps the Tribunal will consider as established the declaration made by Mr. Belchmall and Mr. Jacob in document No. 457, which I am now placing before you under No. 328.
THE PRESIDENT: What book is it in?
MR. DUBOST: 11th. That is in the 11th group of papers in the new file, in the new book.
THE PRESIDENT: It is the book that is described as "deportation"?
M. DUBOST: That is correct. It is entitled "Deportation" and it is the 11th document, the 11th paper in the book.
THE PRESIDENT: The index perhaps does not include that. 457 is it?
M. DUBOST: 457.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I got it.
M. DUBOST: To avoid lengthening and weighing down these debates with quotations of testimony, which after all are all similar, we shall limit ourselves for the present, if the Tribunal please, to the reading of passages from the testimony of Jacobs -- Madame Gilberte Jacob.
As to what was the attitude of the German Red Cross, this passage is to be found on page four at the very bottom of the French document, "We received a visit of several German and French personalities, such as Stuelpnagal, Du Paty de Clam, and Col. Bar en von Berg, vice president of the German Red Cross." This von Berg was very "protocolaire" and very spectacular. He constantly wore the small insignia of the Red Cross, which didn't prevent him being inhuman and a thief.
And on page 6, the penultimate paragraph, Colonel Von Berg was, as we have already said earlier, very spectacular.
graph:
"In spite of his title of Vice-president of the German Red Cross, he dared to wear theinsignia when he would select, by chance, the number of our comrades who were deported." Document F-174, pages 14 and 15, there will be some details on the fate of the internees. I don't think it is necessary to read them. assembly camps. The most characteristic of these camps is their best known, certainly the Breendonck Camp in Belgium, about which it is necessary to give a few precise details to the Tribunal because a great many Belgians were interned there and they died of privation, of hardship, torture of all sorts, and were executed either by shooting or by hanging. and we are now extracting, from a document that we have already deposited under No. F-231, which is also known under UK-76, a few precise details on the conditions prevailing in that camp. It is the fourth document which appears in your new document book. It is marked F-231, and is entitled, "Report on the Camp of Concentration of Breendonck."
THE PRESIDENT: What did you say the name of the camp was?
M. DUBOST: Breendonck, B-r-e-e-n-d-o-n-c-k. Our task is to present with more detail the case of this camp because of the considerable number of Belgians who were interned there and the rather special character that internements had in that camp from the month of August 1940.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you asking for an adjournment now or not?
M. DUBOST: Not at all, Mr. President. It must have been very badly translated. It must have been very poorly translated. I was, on the contrary, asking the Tribunal to grant me more time. The translation was liberal.
brought their internees there in the month of September. They were Jews. The Belgian Government could not know how many people were interned from September 1940 to the month of August 1944, which was the date of the evacuation of the camp. Nevertheless, it is thought that there came through the camp of Breendonck about 3,000 to 6,000 internees. About 250 died in there from privation; 450 were shot, and 12 were hanged. in Breendonck were transferred to the camps of Germany at various times. Most of these prisoners thus transferred did not return. There should, therefore, be added to those who died in Breendonck, all those who did not survive their captivity in Germany.
The camp sheltered various categories of prisoners: Jews -- and in this connection the regime was more severe than for the others -- Communists and Marxists who were interned in rather large numbers, but these who conducted the inquiries did not give precise detail; persons who belonged to the resistance in the various countries; individuals who were denounced to the Germans; hostages, among whom -
THE PRESIDENT: (Interposing): Where are you now?
M. DUBOST: The fourth paragraph of the second page, part b on page 2.
-- hostages, among them Mr. Bouchery, former Minister, and Mr. Van Kesbeek who was a liberal deputy, who were interned there for ten weeks in order to expiate the explosion of a grenade on the main square of Malines. Both of them died after their liberation as a result of their ill treatment which they endured in that camp. Belgian Government said of them that they were not mistreated, and they were, indeed, favored. That isin paragraph (e) ofpage 2.
The prisoners were obliged to work. Collective punishments of most repugnant sorts were inflicted on them for any reasons whatever. One of such punishments consisted of forcing the internees to crawl under the beds and to stand up by command, a movement which can be executed to the accompaniment of whipping. You will find that at the top of page 3 of the first paragraph.
conditions of the prisoners interned. They were isolated from other internees, and they were subjected to a very severe regime in their cells. They were forced to wear a hood each time they had to leave their cells or when they had to be placed in contact with other prisoners.
THE PRESIDENT: This is a long report, is it not?
M. DUBOST: That is why I am summarizing it rather than reading
THE PRESIDENT: Then you are summarizing it?
M. DUBOST: I am now proceeding with the summarizing of it, Mr. President.
I had reached in my summary the description of the manacles and chains on their feet.
They could not leave their cells One of these prisoners, Mr. Paquet, states that he spent eight and murders.
We are told that the work of the prisoners consisted around the fort.
This labor was done by hand, was very painful, Small lorries were utilized on rails.
The lorries were hurled thrown into the hollow surrounding the fort.
According to the there in the gully.
Certain prisoners were killed. After they had them either with the heels of their shoes or with sticks.
The food and the clothing was in keeping with the discipline.
We find in impression that their lives were in less danger.
The figures that we have given in this report are only minimum figures.
To cite but report:
Mr. Verheirstraeten, former deputy, declares that he placed 1942 to January 1943.
If one were to count the executions carried died as a result of disease or ill treatment.
From these camps the internees were transported to Germany in convoys, of which it is essential to give the description to this Tribunal.
I let the Tribunal know, first of all, that in the case of France alone, excluding three departments of the Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin, and Moselle, there departed 326 convoys from 1 January 1944 to 25 August of the same year, that is to say, on an average of ten convoys per week. Now, each convoy carried away from 1,000 to 2,000 persons, and we know now, because we have heard our witness a little while ago, that in each car there were from 60 to 120 individuals, according to the situations of the moment. It seems that there left from France, excluding the three northern departments, three convoys in 1940, nineteen convoys in 1941, 104 convoys in 1942, 257 convoys in 1943.
What are the figures given in document 274, page 15? That is in the book that was presented to you this morning. I beg your pardon. I said page 15, but I should have said page 14. These convoys nearly always left Compiegne or were immatriculated to the extent of 50,000 internees. In 1943 there must have been 78 convoys, and 95 convoys in 1944.
The purpose of these convoys was to terrorize the populations. It was already presented to the Tribunal that the families were to ignore what became of the people who were interned, and thus they were terrorized, but oven more, they were for the purpose of collecting labor which was to assist German labor resources which was beginning to decline since the opening of the war against Russia. The conditions under which these convoys were made already prepared for a sort of selection for this labor, which constitutes the first stage of a new aspect of German policy which we now see appearing; that is the pure and simple extermination of all categories, active or intellectuals, whose political activities might be deemed dangerous to the Nazi leadership. These deportees who are locked in groups of 60 to 120 in each boxcar, whatever time of year, who can neither sit down nor crouch, will in the course of their journey receive no food whatever, nothing to drink. On this point we bring specifically the testimony of Dr. Steinberg, which was received by Lt. Col. Badin of the Research Service on War Crime in Paris, document No. 392, which we place under No. 330, which is the 12th in your document book, and at this time we shall read only a few paragraphs on page 2. Paragraph 3 - third from the bottom:
"We were grouped in boxcars, about 70 persons per car, in frightful conditions of hygiene. Our trip lasted two days. We, therefore, reached Auschwitz on the 24th of June 1942. It should be noted that we had received at the moment of departure no food, and that we lived during those two days on what little food we had taken with us from Drancy."
The deportees were at times refused water by the Red Cross. Testimony was received by the Ministry of Prisoners and Deportees, and this testimony is incorporated in document RF-274. That is the little book, page 18, paragraph 3, 4th and 5th line. on 19 June 1942. They travelled for three days and three nights, dying of thirst. At Breslau they begged the nurses of the German Red Cross to give them a little water, but this was in vain.
Moreover, Lt. Geneste and Dr. Bloch have given testimony on this particular fact and on other different facts which are related in document RF-321, entitled "Concentration Camps", which we have been able to deliver to you in three languages: French, Russian, and German, the English text having been exhausted. Page 21, at the top of the page:
"In the station of Bremen, water was denied to us by the German Red Cross, who stated that there was no water."
This is testimony by Lt. Geneste of O.R.T.J. With respect to this attitude of the German Red Cross, and in order to settle the subject once and for all, there is one more word to be said. Document 321 gives you on page 162, paragraph 3 - the proof that it was an ambulance car bearing a red cross which transported the gas in iron containers destined for the gas chambers in the camp of Auschwitz.
THE PRESIDENT: The court will adjourn now until Monday.
(Whereupon at 1700 hours the hearing of the Tribunal adjournced to reconvene at 1000 hours on 28 January 1945).
Military Tribunal, in the matter of: The
M. DUBOST (Counsel for France): With the authorization of the Court, I should like to proceed with this part of the French expose by hearing a witness, who, for nearly three years, lived in concentration camps.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you stand up, please? Do you wish to swear the French oath? Will you tell me your name?
THE WITNESS: Marie Couturier.
THE PRESIDENT: You swear to speak without hate nor fear? Will you repeat after me: I swear to speak without hate nor fear -
THE WITNESS: I swear to speak without hate nor fear -
THE PRESIDENT: To state truth -
THE WITNESS: To state truth -
THE PRESIDENT: All the truth -
THE WITNESS: All the truth -
THE PRESIDENT: Only the truth -
THE WITNESS: Only the truth -
THE PRESIDENT: Raise the right hand and say "I swear".
THE WITNESS: I swear. QUESTIONS BY M. DUBOST:
Q Is your name Madame Valliant Couturier? You are the widow of Mr. Claude Valliant Coururier? You were born in Paris on 10 November 1912? parents who themselves were of French nationality?
Q You are a Deputy at the Constituent Assembly?
Q You are a Knight of the Legion of Honor?
Q You have just been decorated by General Legentilhomme Aux Inlalides?
Q Were you arrested and deported? Will you please give your testimony? who delivered me to the German authorities at the end of six weeks. I arrived on 20 March at the prison of Sante in the German sector. I was interrogated by the Gestapo on the 9th of June, 1942. At the end of my interrogation they sought to have me sign a declaration, which was not in conformity with what I stated. I refused to sign it. The officer who was interrogator -
THE PRESIDENT: You are going a little bit too fast.
A (continuing) As I refused to sign the statement, because it was not in conformity with what I said, the German, officer who was questioning me threatened me, and when I told him that I was not afraid of death nor of being shot, he said, "But we have at our disposal means that are far worse than merely the shooting of people in order to cause their death," and the interpreter said to me, "You do not know what you have just done. You are going to leave for a concentration camp in Germany. One never returns from there."
Q You were then led to jail?
A I was taken back to the Sante prison. I was able to communicate, although I was kept incommunicado, through the canals and through the window. I was in a cell next to those where George Politzer, the philospher, and a physicist, Jacques Solomon, were incarcerated. Mr. Solomon is the son-in-law of Professor Langevin, one of the first to have studied atomic disintegration. George Politzer stated to me through means of the channels that during his interrogation, after having been tortured, he was asked whether he would not write pamphlets -theoretical pamphlets--for National Socialism. Inasmuch as he refused, he was told that he would belong to the first train of hostages that were to be shot. As for Jacques Solomon, he was also horribly tortured, and then he was thrown into a dungeon from which he emerged on the day of his execution to say goodbye to his wife, who likewise had been under arrest and who was in the Sante prison, and she told me in Romainville, where I found her again when I left the prison of the Sante, that when she came close to her husband to kiss him goodbye he uttered and moaned and said, "I cannot take you in my arms, because I can no longer move my arms." through the windows, the moans of those people, and it was impossible for them to make any movements. they came to fetch hostages to shoot them. When I left the prison of the Sante on the 20th of August, 1942, I was escorted to the Fortress of Romainville, which was a camp for hostages.
There I was twice present when they seized hostages, on the 21st of August and the 22nd of September. Among the hostages who were taken away there were the husbands of the women who were with me. They left for Auschwitz. Most of them died there. These women, for the most part, had been arrested only because of the activity of their husbands. They themselves had participated in no activity.
Q You left for Auschwitz at what period? on the 27th.
Q Did you belong to a convoy? Casanova. She died since then. So did Marie Politzer and Helene Solomon. There were some elderly women.
Q Please tell us what their social philosophy was?
A They were intellectual women. They were school teachers--a little bit of all, coming from everywhere. Helene Politzer was a doctor; she was the wife of Politzer; Helene Solomon is the wife of the physicist Solomon. She is the daughter of Professor Langevin; Danielle Casanova was a dental surgeon. She had a great influence amongst the women.
She organized the resistance movement amongst the wives of prisoners.
Q How many of you returned?
A Of the 230, only 49 came back. In the convoy of these women, I remember one woman who was 67 years old, and she had been arrested because she had kept in her kitchen the shotgun of her husband, which she kept as a souvenir and she had not declared it. She died at the end of fifteen days at Auschwitz.
THE PRESIDENT: When you said only 49 came back, did you mean only 49 remained?
THE WITNESS: No. Only 49 came back to France. There were many cripples. One was a singer who had only one leg. She was selected to be cast at Auschwitz. There was a youngster of sixteen years of age, and a school student. Her name was Clotilde de Guerin. She also died at Auschwitz. There were also two women who had been acquitted by the military tribunal of the Germans, Marie Alonzo and Marie-Therese Fleuri. They died at Auschwitz.
The trip was extremely terrible. There were 60 in each boxcar, and no food was distributed; no liquid was given to us during the trip. At various stops we asked for something from the Lorraine soldiers, who had been enrolled in the Wehrmacht and were our guard. We asked them when would we arrive. They replied, "If you knew where you are going you would not be so anxious to arrive."
We arrived at Auschwitz at dawn. They broke the seals on our boxcars and we were brought down with blows of butts of guns. We were taken to the camp of Birkenau, which is one of the branches of the Auschwitz camp. It is an immense plain, which in the month of January was frozen. We made the trip pulling our own luggage, and then, as we passed the porch, we realized so well that there would be so little chance to come back again, because we had seen already the skeleton-like columns going to work, and as we entered we sang the Marseillaise in order to find courage.
We were led to a large barracks. Then to disinfection. There our heads were shaven and we were tattoed on the left forearm the number of the matriculation. Then we were put in a large hall in order to take a steam bath and a cold shower.
Then clothing was given to us. They were soiled and torn -- a cotton dress and a jacket of the same material. from the windows of the block where we were the camp of the men, and toward evening an orchestra got organized. As it was snowing, we wondered why. They were playing music. At that moment the work kommando of the men were coming into the camp. Behind each kommando there were men who carried dead bodies. As they couls scarcely drag themselves along, they were put on their feet again by blows of the butt of guns every time they faltered. There were no beds, but merely platforms two metres by two metres, and we were nine of us who slept there without any mattress or without covers. During the whole night we remained in blocks of this type for several months. During the whole night it was impossible to sleep, because each time one of the nine women moved at all, and since all of them were sick that happened all the time, they would disturb the whole row.
At 3:30 in the morning the cries and shouts of the guards would awaken us, and with blows of sticks, and then we had to go to work. Nothing in the world would relieve one from going to the roll call; even those who were on the point of death had to be dragged there. We would remain in rows of five until dawn would break -- until about seven or eight o'clock in the morning in winter, and when there was fog sometimes until noon. Then the kommandos would start moving on their way to work.
Q Can you tell us where the roll call was made? until daybreak, until the women guards, the German women guards in uniform, came to proceed with the roll call. They had sticks and they beat everyone more or less haphazardly. Germaine Renaud, who was a school-teacher at Azay-Le-Rideau, in France, had her skull broken right before my eyes from a blow of a heavy stick on her head.
of roads, and, above all, the clearing of the marshes. That was by far the hardest work, since all day long we were on our feet in the water and there was the danger of falling into quicksand. Frequently one of our friends would sometimes plunge into the marsh way up to her waist.
they let their dogs loose upon us. Many among our friends had their legs torn to shreds by the biting of dogs. It frequently happened that I saw women torn to shreds right under my very eyes, while the SS Guard was spurring on his dogs against her and was leering at the spectacle.
The causes of death were extremely numerous. First of all, there was the lack of hygiene--total lock of hygiene. When we arrived at Auschwitz, for 11,000 internees there was only one water faucet, and the water was not drinkable, and it was not always flowing. Inasmuch as it was in the German lavabos, we could reach it only by going through the guards, who were German common law criminals, and they beat us horribly as we went by. It was therefore almost impossible to wash or to wash one's clothing.
For more than three months we remained without changing our clothes. Then there was snow. We would melt some in order to be able to wash. Later, in the Spring, when we were on our way to work, in a puddle of water we would drink we would wash our shirt and our pants; and we would wash in this muddy water. Our companions died of thirst, because only twice a day did we get half a cup of water. February.
Q In what year was that?
A In 1943; at 3:30 the whole camp -
Q 3:30 in the morning?
A Yes. The whole camp was awakened and sent on the plain, whereas normally the roll call was at 3:30 but inside of the camp. We remained on the plain in front of the camp until five in the afternoon under the snow, without receiving any food whatsoever. Then when the signal was given we had to go through the door one by one, and we were struck in the back with a stick, each one of us, in order to make us run. Those who could not run, either because they were too old car too sick, were taken with a hook and led to Block 25, which was the so-called "waiting block", before being sent to the gas chamber.