In the next-to-the-last paragraph, on the third page, we read:
"The scenes which I had to witness defy imagination. My joy at the sight of the liberated people was marred by the fact that their faces bore expressions of stupor. This made me think, 'What is the matter here?' Evidently the sufferings they had undergone erased the distinction between life and death from their minds.
"I observed these people for three days, bandaged their wounds while evacuating them, but the psychological stupor remained. Something similar could also be seen on the faces of the doctors during the first days.
"People perished in the camp from disease, starvation, beatings; in the so-called 'hospital' they died of wound infections, of sepsis and of hunger." the SS, Paul-Ludwig Gottlieb Waldmann. He was born on the 17th of October, 1914, in Berlin in a shopkeeper's family, the son of Ludwig Waldmann. As far as he knew, up to the time of his capture, his mother was living in the city of Braunschweig, Donnerburweg 60. of the Soviet prisoners of war which were known to him. He witnesses these exterminations, working as a driver in different camps and he himself participated in them. His testimony is on page 9 of USSR Exhibit No. 52, entitled, "Camp Auschwitz." It provides particularly detailed information on the executions in Camp Sachsenhausen. Police located in this camp for a month daily exterminated Russian prisoners of war. He testifies that:
"The Russian prisoners of war had to walk about one kilometer from the station to the camp. In the camp they stayed one night without food. The next night they were led to be executed. The prisoners were constantly driven from the inner camp on three trucks, one of which was driven by me.
The inner camp was approximately one and three-quarters kilometers from the execution grounds. The execution itself took place in the barracks which had recently been constructed for the purpose.
"One chamber was intended for undressing, another for waiting. In the chamber there was a radio which played quite loud. It was done purposely so that the prisoners should not guess that death awaited them. From the second chamber they went one by one through a passage into a small fenced-in building where on the floor there was an iron grill. Under the latter there was a drain. As soon as the prisoner-of-war was killed, the corpse was carried out by two German prisoners virile the grill was cleaned of blood.
"In this small room there was a slot in the wall, approximately 50 centimeters in length. The prisoner of war stood with the back of his head against the slot and a sniper who was behind the slot, shot at him. This arrangement did not prove to be satisfactory as the sniper often missed his shot. After eight days a new arrangement was made. As before, the prisoner was placed against the wall; then on his head there was slowly lowered an iron bar. The prisoner was under the impression that his height was being measured. In the iron bar there was a spring driver pin which suddenly came out and hit the prisoner on the head. He fell dead. The iron bar was controlled by means of an iron foot lever which was in the corner of the room. The personnel who worked in the room belonged to the above-mentioned Sonderkommando.
"At the request of the officials of the execution squad, I was also obliged to work this apparatus. I shall speak about this later. The bodies of prisoners of war killed in this manner were burnt in four travelling crematoriums which were moved about on trailers. I had to ride constantly from the inner camp to the execution court. I usually had to make ten trips a night with ten minutes' interval between them. It was during these intervals that I witnessed the executions." of Tremblinck, Dachau, and Oswienzim, but it leads in the same direction and to the same results.
The methods and the scale of killings varied. Hitlerites endeavored to find new methods of rapid extermination of great masses of human beings. Much time was spent in solving this problem. They began to carry it out even before their attack on the Soviet Union, by the invention of different devices and instruments for murder. The victims of Hitlerite executions were peaceful citizens, as well as prisoners-of-war. on the German Atrocities in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. This bears No. USSR-7. Here, as well as in other places, massextermination of Soviet prisoners of war was a part of the monstrous plan of the Fascist aggressors. I shall quote a few sentences from page 6 of this document. In your copy it is marked in red pencil -- on page 86.
"In Kaunas, in Fort No. 6, there was a camp, No. 336, for the Soviet war prisoners. The prisoners in the camp were subjected to insults and torture, in accordance with the inhuman 'directions to the guards and soldiers conveying labor units.' The war prisoners of Fort No. 6 were doomed to malnutrition and starvation.
"The witness Medishevskaja made the following deposition to the commission: 'The war prisoners were terribly starved; I saw them pick up grass and eat it.'" I omit a few sentences and read on:
"At the entrance of Camp No. 336, there still exists a board with the following inscription in German, Lithuanian and Russian: 'All those who come in contact with war prisoners, especially those who give them food, cigarettes or civilian clothes, will be shot!'
"In the camp at Fort No. 6 there was a 'hospital' for war prisoners, which practically served as a transfer point from the camp to the grave. The war prisoners thrown into this 'hospital' were doomed to die.
"According to the German statistics of sickness among the prisoners of war in Fort #6, the number of the deceased Soviet prisoners reached 13,936 for a period of eleven months only, from September 1941 to July 1942". the line which gives the general summary:
"Altogether, 35,000 prisoners of war were, according to the camp documents, buried here".Besides the camp #336, in the same town of Kaunas, there existed another camp, which had no number, on the south-western border of the airfield.
The report concerning this camp states:
"The same methods, as in Fort #6, that is starvation, whip and clubs, ruled in this camp. The exhausted war prisoners who were unable to walk or move were daily carried outside the camp, placed alive in the pits prepared beforehand and covered with earth."
The last three lines of the left column on page 6 state as follows: USSR document Number 7, on your page 86;
"On the basis of the receipts, documents and testimonials of the were buried". several other camps, which were established in July 1941 and existed up to April 1943.
The prisoners in these camps froze to death. When the prisoners were unloaded from the railway cars, those of them who were unable to walk were shot. The prisoners were tortured until they lost consciousness; they were hanged on chains by their feet, then taken down, brought back to life by means of cold water, and then hanged again. Givingthe total of all the exterminated, the Commission reports: (Several of the lines I am going to quote now are still on Page 86 in your document book, end of the page):
"It has been established that no less than 165,000 Soviet war of the Lithuanian SSR."
The extermination of Soviet prisoners-of-war was carried out literally in all the camps. Thousands of Soviet soldiers perished in the extermination camp of Majdanek. The second paragraph of page 5 of the joint Polish & Soviet communique of the Extraordinary Commission, which is presented to you as document # USSR-29, -- that corresponds to your page 92 of the document book "the sanguinary history of this camp begins with the mass shooting and December 1941.
Out of a group of 2,000 Soviet war prisoners 80 men only remained alive; all the rest were shot and a few were tortured to death."
Soviet war prisoners were brought into the camp and shot. Nedzeliak Jan, who worked in the camp as a truck driver, testified:
"About 5,000 Russian war prisoners were exterminated by the Germans during the winter of 1942; they were taken from their barracks in were shot."
as 1939, and imprisoned in different German camps, and later in 1940 they were concentrated in the Lublin camp on the Lipovaya street, and soon after were transferred in parties to the extermination camp of Majdanek, where they suffered the same fate: systematic torture, murder, mass shooting, hanging, etc.....
The witness Reznik testified as follows:
"In January 1941, I was with a part of ever 4,000 Jew war prisoners who were put into railway cars and sent to the East.
.... We were brought to Lublin, where we were unloaded and given over to the SS. Towards September or October 1942, it was decided that only these people who were skilled workers and were thus needed in town, were to be left in the camp on Lipovaya street #7, while all the rest, and I among them, were transferred to the camp of Majdanek. All of us already knew, far too well, that to be sent to Majdanek meant death. Out of the party of more than 4,000 war prisoners, only a few individuals, who managed to escape whilst engaged in the work outside the camp, remained alive.
"In the summer of 1943, 300 Soviet officers, including 2 colonels, ants, were brought to the camp of Majdanek.
All of them were shot there."
organized by German fascists on the territory of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. The report of the Extraordinary State Commission for the investigation of the crimes committed by the German invaders on the territory of this republic (we present to the Tribunal this report as document # USSR-41)contains the following information on the extermination of 327,000 Soviet prisoners-of-war. report. You will find this in page 97 in the book of documents:
"The German organized a camp in Riga for Soviet war prisoners in the former barracks on the Pernovski and Rudolf Streets, calling it 'Stalag 350', which existed from July 1941 to October 1944. The Soviet war prisoners lived there under inhuman conditions. The building, where they were lodged, had no windows and no heating. In spite of hard labor from 12 to 14 hours daily, their rations consisted only of 150-200 grams of bread and the so-called "gross" soap, made with rotten potatoes, leaves of trees and other garbage." given the prisoners-of-war. Testimony given by the witnesses coincides fully with the "official directive" on the quantities of food allotted to the prisoners-of-war, which I have already submitted to the Tribunal.
A former prisoner of war, P. F. Yakovanko, who was imprisoned in "Stalag 350", testified. This is page 97 in your document book.
"We were given 180 gramms of bread, half of it sawdust and straw, one litre of saltless soup made of rotten, unpeeled potatoes. We slept on the bare ground and were' eaten by lice. As a result of starvation, cold, whippings, typhus and shootings, between December 1941 to May 1942, 30,000 prisoners of war perished in the camp. The Germans daily shot prisoners of war who, owing to weakness or illness, were unable to go to work; they mocked them and beat them without any reason at all."
G. B. Novitzkiss who had worked as a senior nurse in the Hospital for Soviet Prisoners of war in #1 Gymnastitcheskays street, testified that she had repeatedly seen patients eat grass and tree-leaves in order to quell the pangs of hunger.
"In branches of Stalag 350, on the territory of former brewery and in the Panzer barracks more than 19,000 persons perished, between September 1941 and April 1942 alone of starvation, tortures and epidemics. The Germans also shot wounded prisoners of war. Soviet prisoners of war perished also on route to the came, because the Germans left them without food or water."
A female witness, A.V. Taukuliss testified:
"In the autumn of 1941 there arrived at the station of Salaspils a convoy of Soviet prisoners of war consisting of 50-60 cars.
When the cars Half of the men were dead; many were dying.
Men who could climb out shot several dozen of them."
I shall not enumerate other facts which took place in "Stalag 350", but will only make public the concluding sentence, which refers to this camp. I am afraid that in this sentence there is a misprint in your document book. If I am not mistaken, in your document book it says 120,000 Soviet prisoners. That is not a correct figure. In the original document another figure is mentioned.
"In Stalag 350 and in its branches the Germans tortured to death and shot over 130,000 Soviet prisoners of war."
this report:
"In Daugavpilis (Dvisnk) there was a camp for Soviet Prisoners of War 'Stalag 340', known amongst the camp inmate's and the town's inhabitants as a 'death-camp', where, in three years, more than 124 thousand "The vengeance wreaked on the prisoners of war by the German execution ers usually began on the way to the camp.
In the summer, prisoners of open wagons and on platform trucks.
Men perished in masses from thirst and hunger.
In the summer they were suffocated in the heat, in the winter - they froze."
Witness T. K. Ussenko stated:
"In November 1941, I was on duty at the station of Most as a signalman sisting of more than 30 cars.
In the cars not a single living person was discovered.
No fewer than 1,500 were dead were unloaded from this transport.
They all were nothing but underclothes. The corpses re mained lying near the railway track for about a week."
ting of prisoners of war. A worker at the hospital, Witness V.A.
Efimova, testified before the Commission:
"It seldom happened that any one left the hospital alive. Attached diggers who carried the dead in a handcart to a cemetery.
It happened top another 6-7 bodies of dead or shot people were leaded.
The living were buried together with the dead; the sick, tossing in delirium, were killed at the hospital with sticks."
airfield everybody from the barracks where typhus-stricken men were discovered, and shot them. In this manner, about 45,000 Soviet prisoners of war were exterminated. State Commission, which investigated the crimes of the German-fascists usurpers in the vicinity of the cities of Sevastopol, Kerch at the healthresort of Teberda. I shall quote from our Exhibit No. 63/5/. Attached to Sevastopol prison, the German Fascist Command had organized a hospital for the sick and wounded prisoners of war. The extermination there was on masse. I shall quote a few sentences, which you will find in your document book on Page 99:
"At the time the hospital was organized, the sick and wounded were, cynically:
'This is the punishment for the particularly obstinate defense of Sevastopol by the Russians'." Officers and men alike were thrown on the concrete floors, whore they lay bleeding for 7 or 8 days.
cellars of the champagne factory a military hospital and a medico-sanitary unit No. 47. After the retreat of the Red Army, in cellars Nos. 10, 11, 12, and 13 there remained a large number of wounded soldiers and officers who had not had time to evacuate..... The German beasts, having captured the factory, became drunk and then fired the cellars. should, have been specially reported to the Tribunal. I pass on to the description of the last crime which was mentioned, in the statement of the Commission. I pay special attention to it because it describes the fact of a bestial extermination of a very large number of wounded Red Army soldiers.
You will find this quotation also on Page 99 in your Document Book:
"On the 4th December 1943 there arrived at the station of Sevastopol from belonging to the Kertch landing forces.
Having loaded them on a barge of 2, 300 tons' displacement, which was moored in the Southern bay near the landing-stage, the Germans set fire to it.
The heartrending screams of the prisoners of war filled the air.
Women who were not far from the the place of the fire by gendarmes.
Not more than 15 men were saved.
"On the following day, the same barge was loaded with 2,000 men from amongst the wounded brought from Kertch.
The barge sailed from drowned in the sea". by the Commission.
in respect of Soviet prisoners of war in the Stalin region differs little in character from the material already published. In our number USSR-2a, among a series of reports, we find two referring to the extermination of Soviet prisoners of war. The first one was drawn up in the town of Stalino by a special commission, headed by the chairman of the Stalino works district Council of workers' deputies. I will read that part of the protocol which contains information of interest to us. extracts which I am reading are printed on page 105 of your Document Book.
"The circumstances of the case: In the district of the Stalino-works of the town of Stalino, in the "Lenin Club" the German-Fascist aggressors organized a camp for Soviet prisoners of war; at times there were in this camp up to 20,000 men; the camp's Commandant, a German officer named testified that prisoners of war were starved; a loaf of bread weighing quantity of burnt bran, sometimes mixed with wood sawdust.
The building in which the prisoners of war lived had no glass in the windows; in even in the coldest of weather; of course, this could not heat the big premises, where up to a thousand men lived in a draught.
Mass cases of frostbite were observed.
There were no baths. People in general could not have a wish for six months and suffered from vermin.
In the hot summer months men suffered from the heal; for 3 to 5 days on end they received no drinking water."
evident from the quoted extract, exactly the same as the regime in other German prisoner of war camps. This is undoubted proof of the existence of general directive orders. camp commanders had opportunities to commit atrocities each in their own way, while remaining entirely unpunished.
You will find on Page 105 the Paragraph which is read by me in the record:
"Prisoners of war were beaten with sticks and rifle butts under any liquid food ration was reduced by half."
As a result of such a regime mortality in the camp was enormous. In winter, deaths amounted to 200 per day. Epidemics broke out in the camp. Numerous cases were observed of swelling as a result of starvation and of death from inanition. The guards derived pleasure from degrading the Prisoners of War and from setting then one against the other. policemen and received 120 strokes with the lash and 15 with sticks for not having obeyed the order to beat his fellow prisoner of war. The beatings were conducted by German Officers.
The Commission came to the conclusion that in the grounds of the camp and of the central hospital no fewer than 25 thousand Soviet prisoners of war were buried. This conclusion is based on measurements and numbers of graves and on the testimony of witnesses. German-Fascist invaders in another town in the Don basin, Artyomovsk. A special Commission, consisting of the Military Prosecutor of the town of Artyomovsk, of the priest of the Pokrovsky Church - Ziumin, of representatives of the intelligentsia, public organizations and army units drew up an official report on the mass murders of Soviet prisoners of war organized by the Fascist invaders. This official report is to be found on page 4 of document U.S.S.R. - 2a, and it is also on Page 105 of your Document Book - I quote:
"In November 1941, soon after the occupation by the German-Fascist invaders holding 1,000 captured Red Army prisoners of war."
there:
"Owing to hunger, in the spring of 1942 prisoners of war used to leave the camp and on all fours like animals, gather and eat grass.
In the rows and with wire entanglements placed at intervals."
I omit one paragraph and pass on to the conclusions:
"Near the camp 25 graves were discovered - 3 of them mass graves.
The first grave measured 20 by 15 metres; in it were found remains of about one thousand corpses.
The second grave measures 27 by 14 metres and there were discovered remains of about 900 corpses; in the third each - altogether remains of up to 3 thousand corpses". of the Stalingrad area, the Hitlerites established a prisoner of war camp here, with the sadism characteristic of them, in the same way as in other camps, they exterminated the combatants of the Red Army.
I present to you as proof our No. U.S.S.R.-63 which contains an official report of the 21st June 1943. It is drawn up and authenticated in an appropriate manner and contains the following information. It is on page 110 of the document book:
"Owing to the bestial regime, during the 3 1/2 months of the existence "The Germans forced the prisoners to work from 14 to 16 hours per "A few days before the arrival of the Red Army the Germans ceased tion.
Nearly all the prisoners suffered from dysentery. Many had open wounds, but no medical aid was given to prisoners". debasing treatment of prisoners of war.
"Germans mocked the patriotic feelings of Soviet prisoners of war, equipment.
The Hitlerites systematically humiliated Soviet prisoners of war, forcing them to kneel down in front of Germans."
evidence - tools which were used to torture Soviet prisoners of war (a leather lash, a dagger, found amongst the dis rmed bodies, with the well-known Hitlerite slogan: "Blut und Ehre"). was to be understood by the German honour (Ehre) and for what blood (Blut) it was intended. Extraordinary State Commission documents concerning the town of Kertch. I submit to you the documents of the Extraordinary State Commission under No. U.S.S.R. - 63 (6) and I shall make Public several extracts. In your copy they are all marked so that the Tribunal may be able to follow the quoted text.
THE PRESIDENT: I think we might break off now.
(A recess was taken). Citizeness P. Y. Bulytchyova, which I will cite. She is from the town of Kertch.
"I was more than once a witness of them driving along our Red Army Prisoners of war - officers and men, and those who, owing to wounds and general weakness, fell out of the ranks and were shot right in the street by Germans. I several times saw this horrible sight. Once in freezing weather they drove a group of weary, ragged, barefooted men by. Those who tried to pick up pieces of bread thrown by passers-by in the street were beaten unmercifully by the Germans with rubber truncheons and rifle butts. Those who fell under these blows were shot".
"During the period of the second occupation, when the Germans again broke into Kertch, they began to avenge themselves with even greater fury on persons guilty of nothing at all." primarily on military personnel, killing wounded soldiers with blows of a rifle butt. On the same page, 115, you will find this quotation:
"The prisoners of war were driven into large buildings which were then set alight. In this way the Voikov school was burnt down, and the engineering and technical workers' club, in which there were 400 soldiers and officers of the Red Army. Not a single one of them managed to escape from the burning building. Those who tried to save themselves were shot with automatic rifles. Wounded soldiers were bestially tortured in the fishing hamlet of Mayak".
Another female witness, who lived in this hamlet, A.P. Buryatchenko, testified:
"On the 28th May 1942 the Germans shot all the peaceful inhabitants who had remained behind in the hamlet and who did not succeed in hiding. The Fascist monsters mocked the wounded Soviet prisoners of war, beat them unmercifully with rifle butts and then shot them. In my dwelling, the Germans discovered a girl in military uniform, who having offered resistance to the Fascists, cried: "Shoot, reptiles, I die for the Soviet people, for Stalin, but you, scoundrels, you will meet a dog's death". The girl patriot was shot on the spot.
In the district of Kertch, there is the Adjimushkaisk stone quarry. There Red army soldiers were exterminated and poisoned by gas. N. N. Dashkova, a woman inhabitant of the village of Adjumushkaisk testified:
"I personally saw the Germans - having caught about 900 Red army soldiers in the stone quarry - subject them to ill-treatment and afterwards shoot them. The Fascists employed gas."
I am omitting a few sentences. On the same page, 115, you will find the following citation:
"In the Engels club at the time of the occupation there was situated a Soviet prisoners of war camp, in which there were over a thousand people.
The Germans ill-treated them, fed them once a day, drove them to do exhausting work, and those who fell from exhaustion were shot on the spot."
It seems to me necessary to quote several other pieces of evidence: N. J. Shumiloff, a woman resident of the small hamlet of Gorki, declared:
"I personally saw a group of prisoners of war being led past my courtyard. Three of them were unable to move. They were shot on the spot by the German escort."
Citizeness P.I. Gerassimenko, inhabitant of the hamlet of Samostroy testified: "Many Red army soldiers and officers were driven to our hamlet. The land which they occupied was enclosed in barbed wire. Naked and barefooted people perished from cold and hunger. They were kept in the most awful, inhuman conditions. Next to the living were lying numerous corpses which were not Removed for several days. These conditions rendered life in the camp still more unbearable. The prisoners were beaten with rifle butts, they were bashed and fed with refuse. The inhabitants who endeavoured to give food and bread to the prisoners were beaten, and the prisoners of war who attempted to take such gifts were shot". Regarding the regime in this camp, a school teacher, A. N. Naumova, testified:
"At the camp there were many wounded. These unfortunate people were losing blood but remained without help. I collected medicines and bandages for the wounded and a medical orderly from amongst the prisoners of war bound up their wounds. The prisoners suffered from dysentery as, instead of bread, they were given refuse to eat. People dropped from exhaustion and disease, and died in awful agonies. On the 20th June 1942 three prisoners of war were beaten with the lash for attempting to escape from the camp. Prisoners were shot. In June one of the escaped prisoners was caught and executed". district of the Kitchen factory and Voikov works a Group of Red Army men and officers were shot. the Caucasus. The whole road from the river crossing to the town; a distance of 18 to 20 Kilometres, was littered with Red army corpses. There were many wounded and sick persons amongst the prisoners of war.
Whoever was unable to walk, either owing to exhaustion or to sickness, was shot on the way.
"In 1942 the Fascists threw 100 Red Army prisoners of war alive into the village well of Adjimushkay; the corpses were afterwards extracted by the inhabitants and buried in a communal grave. have just quoted to you. session of the Court. He testified that in the course of four months, out of ten thousand Russians whom he saw as prisoners of war in the German camp at the city of Rava Russkaya, only two thousand remained alive. limitless torture inflicted on the prisoners-of-war at Rava Russkaya.
Witness V.S. Kotchan, who was interrogated under the procedure prescribed by our laws, testified before the Guard Captain of Justice Ryzhov, on 27 September 1944 (the minutes of this interrogation is hereby submitted to you under Number USSR-66):
"I worked under the Germans at the Red Army prisoner-of-war camp from December 1941 to April 1942, as ground digger." This is on page 124 of your Document book.
"This camp was set up by the Germans in the barracks near the railway. The whole camp area was surrounded by barbed wire. According to statements by the prisoners-of-war themselves, the Germans drove into this camp from twelve to fifteen thousand men. While we were working, we observed how the Germans ill-treated the Red Army prisoners-of-war. They fed them once a day on unpeeled frozen potatoes, baken in their skins and with dirt on them. They kept the prisoners-of-war in the cold barracks all winter. this camp, any clothes, overcoats, boots, as well as shoes, which were at all wearable were taken away from the prisoners, leaving them in rags and barefooted. The prisoners of war were taken to work daily under escort from 4 to 5 in the morning and were kept working until 10 o'clock at night.
Worn out, cold and hungry people were driven into huts in which the windows and doors were specially kept open by day so that the frost should get into these huts, and in this way the people were frozen too. In the morning, hundreds of corpses were taken away in a tractor by the prisoners of war themselves, guarded by German soldiers, into the Volkovitch forest, where they were buried in previously prepared pits. While prisoners were being marched off to work, the Germans placed a detachment of soldiers armed with rifles and stakes in the passage gates leading out of the camp, and killed with stake blows in the head, stabbed with bayonets and shot those who, owing to inanition and hunger, could not move properly." Thus, for instance:
"The German administration of the camp brought out completely naked prisoners of war, bound them with ropes to a wall surrounded by barbed wire and kept than there in the wintry frosts of December until thy froze to death. The groans and cries of the persons maimed by rifle butts continually filled the air in the camp grounds. Some they killed with rifle butts on the spot. prisoners of war rushed to a heap of rotten, frost bitten potatoes. This was followed by shooting by the German escort."
I present to the Tribunal other evidence, under the same number, No. 66, the deposition of a French prisoner of war. Emile Leger, a soldier of the 43rd Colonial Infantry Regiment, Service No. 29. This is on page 129 of the book of documents.
In his deposition, the camp at Rava Russka is called "the famous camp of slow death", "Stalag 325." the testimony of the witnesses Roser and Kochan. The Soviet Prosecution has at its disposal a considerable quantity of material unmasking the Hitlerite usurpers in numerous other crimes as well against prisoners of war in the territory of the Lvov district.
It seems to me sufficient to read extracts from one testimony by D.Sh. Manussyevitch and state that this evidence is confirmed by that of two other witnesses: F.G. Ash and G.Y.Khamaydess. All three documents are submitted by me again as Nu. 6 b. detachment which cremated the bodies of men shot by the Germans in the Lvov region, and in particular in the Lisssenitzky camps. Witness Manussyevitch states (I quote, beginning with line 20 at the bottom of page 11 of our No. 6 b) and on page 129 on your book of documents.
"On completing the cremation of bodies we were brought in the night in cars ("the death brigade") to Lissenitzky forest, opposite the Lvov yeast factory. Here in the forest were about 45 pits with the bodies of people shot previously during the period of 1941-42. In the pits there were between 500 and 3,500 bodies in each. There were corpses of soldiers of the Italian, French, Belgian and Russian Armies, i.e. of prisoners of war, but also those fo peaceful inhabitants. All prisoners of war were buried clothed. Because of that, while unearthing them from the pits, I could recognize them by their uniforms, distinguishing signs, buttons, medals and orders and from spoons and kettles. In the same way as in the Yanovsky camp, grass was sown on the spot where the pits were, trees were planted and stumps of cut down trees were placed, in order to erase any trace of these crimes unknown in human history." Citizens, we have at our disposal the testimony of the members of the German armed forces. I submit to the Tribunal as exhibit USSR-62 a document which was signed by more than sixty persons who were members of different units and branches of the German Army. We find their signatures to the document which they addressed to the International Red Cross in January 1942. In their protest they mentioned facts of criminal attitude towards Soviet prisoners of war, facts of which they had personal knowledge. The persons who signed this protest were prisoners of war at the Soviet Camp No. 78. Their protest is the result of the comparison made by the authors of this document between that which they saw with their own eyes as to the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war and that which they witnessed at Camp No. 78.
I will quote a few excerpts from this document. The text begins with the following words: Page 125 of the document book.
"We, the German prisoners of war of Camp No. 78, have read the note by Mr. Molotov, Peoples' Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Government, concerning the treatment of prisoners of war in Germany: We would consider the cruelties described in that note impossinle had we not been witnesses of such atrocities. In order that truth should prevail, we feel compelled to confirm that prisoners of war, citizens of the Soviet Union, were ofter subjected to terrible ill-treatment on the part of the members of the German Army, and were even shot." the authors had knowledge:
"Hans Drews, of Regenwalde, a soldier of Company 4 of the 4th Tank Regiment, had this to say:
"I am acquainted with the order issued by Lieut-General Model to the 3rd Tank Division which stated that prisoners should not be taken. A similar order was issued by Maj.Gen. Nehring, the commanding officer of the 18th Tank Division. Two days prior to the beginning of the campaign against Russia we were told at the briefing session of 20 June that in the forthcoming war wounded Red Army men should not have their wounds dressed, because the German Army had not time to be bothered with the wounded." Headquarters Company of the 18th Rank Division, Harry Marek from Alsace near Breslau:
"On 21 June, a day before the beginning of the war against Russia, we had been given by our officers the following order: the officers of the Red Army must be shot on the spot. There is no need to stand upon ceremony with them. It is not necessary either to bother too much with Russian wounded: they must simply be finished off on the spot."