I will quote an extract from the report of the Czechoslovak Government, which the Tribunal will find on page 172 of the document file:
"On the 9th of June, 1942, the village of Lidice was surrounded on the orders of the Gestapo by soldiers who arrived from the hamlet of Slany in ten large trucks. They allowed everyone to enter the village, but no one was allowed to leave it. A 12-year old boy tried to flee; a soldier shot him on the spot. A woman tried to escape; a bullet in the back frustrated her flight, and her corpse was found in the fields after the harvest.
"The Gestapo dragged the women and children to the school.
"The 10th of June was the last day of Lidice and of its inhabitants. The men were shut up in the cellars, in the barns and stable of the Horak family. They foresaw their fate and awaited it calmly. The 73-year old priest Sternbeck strengthened them with prayers."
I skip the following two paragraphs and pursue my quotation:
"The men were led out of the farm of Horak into the garden behind the barn by groups of ten. The massacre lasted from morning until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Afterwards the executioners had themselves photographed with the corpses at their feet." population of Lidice:
"The fate of the men of Lidice has been described. 172 grown-up men and youths from 16 years upwards were shot on the 10th of June, 1942.
Another 19 who worked, in the coal mines of Kladno were later arrested in the collieries or in the nearby woods, taken to Prague, and shot. Seven women from Lidice were shot in Prague as well. The others, the remaining 195, were deported to the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Forty-two died from ill treatment; 7 were gassed; and 3 are missing. Four of these women were taken from Lidice to a maternity hospital in Prague, their newly born children murdered, and the mothers were then sent to Ravensbruck.
"The children of Lidice were taken from their mothers a few days after the destruction of the village. Ninety children were sent to Lodz in Poland, and from there to the Gneisenau concentration camp in the so-called "Wartheland". So far no trace of these children has been found. Seven of the youngest, less than a year old, were taken to a German hospital in Prague. They were to be brought up as Germans and were given German names. Every trace of them has been lost.
"Two of three children were born in Ravensbruck concentration camp. They were killed immediately after their birth."
The fate of Lidice was repeated in many Soviet villages. Many peaceful citizens of these villages perished in tortures even greater than, being burned alive or became the victims of more torturous types of death. the next page of the text and draw the attention of the Tribunal to the text which is on page 295, second culumn of the text. This document was already submitted to the Tribunal by my colleague, Colonel Povrosky. It is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the Crimes of the Hitlerite Usurpers in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. I quote only one paragraph:
"On the 3rd of June, 1944, in the village of Perchupe, the Trakai district, the Hitlerites surrounded the village and plundered it completely, after which, having driven all the men into one house and women and children into three other houses, they set fire to the structures. Those who attempted to flee were caught by the Fascist fiends and were again thrown into the burning houses. In this manner the entire population of the village, in all 192 souls, 21 men, 29 women (and I stress), 69 children, were burned to death."
which I submit as USSR Exhibit 279. It is the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the Crimes of the German Fascist Invaders in the cities of Viazma, Gjatsk, and Sychev of the Smolensk region, and also in the city of Rjev in the Kalinin district. order to shorten my statement.
I quote:
"In the village of Sajtschiki, the Gestapo hangmen shut up the following persons in a house: Bergorawa, 70 years old, Dadonev, 5 years old, and many others, in all twenty-three people. They were burned alive in the house." in March, 1943, the assistant leader of the German Police, shut two hundred inhabitants in a house. Then follow the names of these people. The house was set on fire and in all two hundred persons were burned alive. I will not enumerate the names of the people. I only wish to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that three of these people were 63 years old and over and, as well, three year old, four year old and five year old children.
"In the villages of Kulieve and Kilesniki in the District of Geschazk, the fascists burned all the inhabitants in a farmhouse. in evidence as USSR Exhibit 119. It is certified photostat of an operation report and other documents of the 15th Police Regiment. Among them we find one which is entitled "Summary of the Retaliatory Expedition to the Village of Borysowka, 22nd and 26th of September, 1942." The Tribunal will find this document on page 309 of the document book.
guise of the struggle against guerrillas the Hitlerite criminals annihilated the population of the Soviet villages.
I quote, following the heading:
"1. Mission: The 9th Company must destroy the village of Borysowka, Which is overrun with partisans.
"2. Forces: Two platoons of the 9th Company, the 15th Police Regiment, one platoon of gendarmes and one tank platoon."
I stress that there was a tank platoon amongst these forces. Against whom were these tanks supposed to operate? We find an answer to this question in the following item of this report:
"Court of action: The company assembled in the evening on the 22 of September, 1942 in Dwyin. During the night from the 22 to the 23 of September, 1942, the march from Dwyin in the direction of Borysowka took place, The village was cut off by two platoons at 4 a.m. At daybreak the entire population of the village was brought together by the village Buergermeister, After investigation, out of the population with the aid of the security police of Dwyin, five families were resettled in Dwyin.
The remainder were shot by an especially detailed squad and buried five hundred meters to the northeast of Borysowka, Altogether, 169 persons were shot, among them 49 men, 97 women and 23 children." the reading of this document and I can now pass on to the next part of my statement. tains the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on, the Destruction of the German Fascist Invaders in the Stalinsk Region. the criminal extermination of the Soviet population by burning alive and in this report we find a confirmation of the fact that people were burned alive both in villages and in the towns. This document has been submitted to the Tribunal as USSR Exhibit No. 2. I quote from page 116 of the document book and I quote:
"In the City of Stalino the German intruders drove all the inhabitants of one house into a shed, closed the entrance, blocked it, poured oil on the shed and put it on fire. All those in the shed, with the exception of two little girls, who by sheer chance remained alive, lost their lives." was located and while investigating, the Commission discovered thirty-one human corpses. terror with regard to the civilian population assumed monstrous proportions. This was noted in the reports by several German officers, who participated in the First World War and who stressed the fact that even in the First World War they had never witnessed anything similar, Exhibit 293 an authentic photostat of a report of the former Commander of the 528th Regiment, Major Roseler, and a report by Schirwindt, who was Chief of 9th Military District.
This document is very interesting and I will quote the document in full. The Tribunal will find the extract on page 319 of the document book.
"Kassel, 3 January, 1942.
"Major Roesler.
"Report.
"The matter brought to my attention by the 528th Infantry Regiment concerning the attitude toward the civilian population in the East prompts me to report the following:
"At the end of July, 1941, the 528th Infantry Regiment under my command was on the way from the west to Zitomir, where it was to be billeted for a rest. After I had-moved with my staff into the Staff Quarters, on the afternoon of the day of our arrival, we heard rifle volleys at a short distance from us at regular intervals. I decided to find out what was happening and started to go with my adjutant and the courier (1st Lieutenant von Bassevitz and Lieutenant Mueller-Brodmann) in the direction of the rifle shots.
"We soon had the impression that a cruel spectacle must be going on because after some time we saw numerous soldiers streaming toward the railroad embankment. At first we could not for a long time reach the other side of the embankment, However, we heard, after a certain definite interval, the sound of a whistle followed by a volley ox about ten rifles, which in turn, was followed after some time by pistol shots.
"When we finally climbed over the embankment a picture of horror was revealed to us. A trench about seven to eight motors long and perhaps four meters wide had been dug into the ground. The dug up earth was piled up on one side of the ditch. The pile and the adjoining wall of the tranch was completely soiled with streams of blood. The pit itself was filled with numerous corpses of all ages and sexes. There were so many corpses that one could not even define the depth of the trench.
"Behind the pile of earth stood a squad of police men under the command of an officer. The uniforms of the police were blood spattered. Many soldiers belonging to the troops which had just been billeted in the area stood nearby.
Some of them were in bathing trunks, standing around as spectators. There were also a number of civilians, women and children.
"This sight was so terrible that I cannot forget it even now. I remember particularly clearly the following scene. In this grave, lay, among others, an old man with a white beard, who had a little walking stick in his left hand. As this man, as could be judged from his sporadic breathing, still showed signs of life, I requested one of the policemen to kill him off, whereupon he laughingly replied: I have already shot seven times at his stomach. Now it is up to him to die.
"Those who were lying in the grave were not in rows but were piled in disorder as they fell from top top of the trench into the trench. All these people were killed by shots in the nape of the neck from rifle shots and then were given the coup-de-grace in the trench.
"I have never seen anything similar, neither in the First World War, in the Russian nor in the French campaigns of this war. I have witnessed very disagreeable scenes being in the volunteer detachments in 1919 but I have never been a witness to a similar scene."
I skip one paragraph and continue:
"I wish to add that according to the testimony of soldiers who have often watched these executions, apparently by these methods several hundred persons were shot every day.
"(Signed) Roesler."
And now, quoting the second document:
"Kassel, 17 January, 1942.
"From Deputy Commander of the IX Army Corps and Commanding Officer of the 9th Military District.
"To the Chief of the Army Armament and Equipment Department Berlin.
"The atrocities with regard to the civilian populationin the East.
"With regard, to the news of the mass executions in Russia, which we are receiving, I was at first convinced that they were exaggerated. However, I am forwarding herewith report of Major Roesler which fully confirms these rumors."
"If these things will be done openly they will become known at hone and will cause criticism.
"(Signed) Schirwindt."
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, do you know who was the Deputy Commander of the IX Army Corp and Commander of the 9th Military District and do you know who was the Chief of the Armament and Equipment Department in Berlin? Do you know whether any reply was made to this report?
COLONEL SMIRNOV: Mr President, I can only give an answer to these questions a short time later. I will do so and I will submit to the Tribunal an answer to these questions. Tribunal a photostatic copy of a doc lent, I present two albums which have been certified to by the Extraordinary State Commission, and will be submitted to each member of the Tribunal. certain photographic documents. I must admit these documents have been selected not according to the principle of atrocities which they show, as the Tribunal will find even more atrocious episodes in the document book, but rather, all these photographs have been selected because of their typical character. of the Tribunal to submit another German document as USSR Exhibit 297. It is a certified photostatic copy of one of the reports of the Chief of the Security Police, prohibiting the photographing of mass executions. It is very typical that in many of these cases the photographs were taken by the Germans themselves. This attracted the attention of the Police Chief and there followed a prohibition against photographing I quote only a short except from this report:
(page 321 of the document book) "The Reichsfuehrer SS has forbidden the photographing of executions by an order of 12 November, 1941, Journal Number 1 1461/41 Ads.
, and has ordered that insofar as such pictures are needed for official purposes that the entire exposed material be collected in archives."
I skip the following paragraph and quote the following paragraph:
"The leader of the task force or special commandos and/or the company commander of the Waffen SS and the section leader of the war correspondent section, are held responsible for the fact that plates, film and prints of these photographs do not remain in the hands of individual members of these task force units." quotations that have been presented are sufficient to prove that the police authorities were preoccupied by the fact that private photographs of mass executions give confirmation of these executions. photographs. Would you permit me to do so?
THE PRESIDENT: What are you waiting for Colonel Smirnov?
COLONEL SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I thought that the light would be put out directly but apparently there is a technical hitch but I do not know what this hitch consists of and that is why I cannot continue.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you think you can go on with your statement and do the photographs after the adjournment? How long do you think the photographs will take?
COLONEL SMIRNOV: I agree with you fully, Mr. President. I beg to be allowed to present evidence concerning the second part of the statement which concerns the mass annihilation by the German fascists of the citizens of the USSR, Poland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, and Greece. The mss extermination of peaceful populations of the Soviet Union and of the countries of Eastern Europe was carried out by the German fascist criminals everywhere, as we can see from both the official orders and the directives, with the following objectives in mind:
1. To do away physically with those groups of the population which were considered capable of resistance.
2. For racial reasons, i.e. to do away with those groups which the Germans disliked racially.
3. For purposes of retaliation.
4. Supposedly to put down, to crush the guerilla movement which the Germans could not crush or stop and for which they vent their wrath upon the peaceful population. atrocity. By executing children, the killing of children was one of the worse and more despicable characteristics of the Hitlerite regime during the occupation of temporarily seized territories.
Soon after the advent of power section.
He was particularly concerned with dogs, guinea pigs, which To confirm this, I refer to Goering's book called "Speeches and Articles, " published in 1940, by the Erich Grisbach Publishing House vivisection.
We will find this on page 298 of the document book.
"In order to stop the suffering of animals, I issue this decree merchandize."
the Tribunal. This is document 1919-PS. "We Germans are the only people who treat animals well."
At the meeting just mentioned Himmler also stated this; you will "If some woman would come to me and say, You can't build anti tank ditches with children and women; it is inhuman; they will die, consider such things."
Exhibit 46. It is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on of Orel.
The Tribunal will find this place on page 334 of the document book; the last three lines of the page, and the next page.
"Those who were shot in the city were carried away and usually "In jail the executions took place in the following manner.
The men had to stand in line facing a wall, and the gendarmes (policemen) fired the pistols in the nape of the neck.
These shots injured vital spots and caused immediate death as a rule.
In those cases, at the nape of their necks.
Another method was to drag groups of the nape of the neck.
In the trenches, corpses of children were witnesses."
Region of Stavropol. I quote an extract on page 271 of the document "During the inspection of another ditch situated in the vicinity of the Kolsberg Hill and at a distance of 250 meters from the road," I skip the next phrase, "a washed out ridge of soil 10 meters deep from which protruded different parts of human corpses.
At this result of which 100 corpses were exhumed.
The judicial medical showed no traces of violent death.
The child was thrown into the ditch alive and perished from suffocation."
"Investigating infant corpses, the judicial medical investigation with their shot mothers.
On all other corpses were discovered traces of torture,"
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps we had better break off now.
(A recess was taken at 12.45 hours.)
COLONEL SMIRNOV: Continuing the presentation of evidence on atrocities of German Fascist criminals with regard to children, I refer to the testimony of the witness Bespalov which is in the document already presented to the Tribunal as USSR Exhibit 32. The members of the Tribunal will find the place which I refer to on page 33, third paragraph in the document, column one in the document book. Bespalov testified:
"In the end of June last year I saw myself how up to 300 girls and women were brought on 10-to 12-ten trucks into the parkland. The unfortunates were tossing from side to side, crying, pulling their hair and stripping their clothes. Many fell unconscious, but the German Fascists paid no attention to this. By kicking and beating with rifle butts and sticks they forced them to get up, but those who did not get up, the executioners themselves stripped them and threw into the pits. Several girls -- among them children -- tried to run away, but they were killed.
"I saw how after a burst of fire from a machine-gun some of the women, staggering and helplessly flinging their arms, with heart-rending shrieks were marching toward the Germans. At this time the Germans were shooting them with pistols. Maddened with terror and grief, mothers clutched their children to their breasts, running with terrible shrieks back and forth in the forest clearing, looking for escape.
"The Gestapo members were snatching children from them, took them by the legs and arms and threw them alive into the pit and when the mothers ran after them to the pit they shot them. I quote one paragraph out of Exhibit USSR-9, already presented to the Tribunal. This is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Crimes of the German Fascist Invaders in the City of Kiel. The members of this Tribunal will find this document on page 238, second column of the text, sixth paragraph.
"Hitler's bandits on the 22nd of September, 1941, drove thousands of the peaceful Soviet citizens to the corner of Melnik and Doktorovskaya Streets and from there to Babi Yar, where they shot them, after they had taken all their valuables from them.
"Citizens M.F. Petrenk and N.T. Gorbacheva, who lived near Babi Yar, stated that they had seen how the Germans threw babies into graves and buried them alive with their dead or wounded parents. One could see the surface of the ground. This marked the last struggles of the alive who were buried." inhuman terror practiced on children. The chiefs of German Fascism understood that this form of terror would be particularly awful foe those who remained alive. Compassion for the weak and the defenseless is a human trait. Applying their particularly barbaric methods to the children, the German Fascist criminals were showing the rest of the population that there is no crime, where is no cruelty at which they will stop for the purpose of "paci fying" the occupied territories.
Children did not simply share the fate of their parents. Frequently the acts of terror were directed against the children themselves. Children were forcibly taken from their parents, concentrated in one place and then murdered. to the Tribunal, entitled, "Concerning the Crimes of the German Invaders of the Territory of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic." The Tribunal will find the place I refer to on page 286, on the reverse side, in the second column, paragraph 5, in the document book.
"In the central jail in Riga they murdered more than 2,000 children, whom they had tern from their parents, and in the Salaspislky camp they killed more than 3,000 children." parents, especially those parents wh o were imprisoned in a concentration camp or in the ghetto, the Tribunal will learn about this from the report of the Extraordinary Commission on the Crimes of the Hitlerite Invaders in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. This document has already been submitted as USSR Exhibit 7 to the Tribunal. The members of the Tribunal will find the place referred to on page 295, first column, sixth paragraph. I omit the first paragraph where it is mentioned about the organization of the camp.
This has no direct relation to the matter of children, and I begin with the second paragraph, which shows what was done to children.
"In the beginning of 1944 the Germans in this camp forcibly took children aged from 6 to 12 and took them away. An inhabitant of the village of Kaunas, Vladislav Blum, testified: Heart-rending scenes took place in front of my eyes. The Germans took away the children from their mothers and sent them to -- nobody knows where. Many children perished when they were shot together with their mothers." about the crimes of the Hitlerite beasts. Here are some of them:
"Vengeance -- Let the whole world know and let it understand how beastly our children were exterminated -- Our days are reckoned -- Farewell -- Let the whole world know and lot it not fail to avenge us for our innocent children -Then let the whole world remember and understand all those atrocities which took place in the 20th Century that befell our innocent children. -- I haven't much time now and I am indifferent to everything now." Tribunal under No. USSR-63. This an official report on the torture and shooting of children in the Domachev Children's Asylum of the Brest Region in Byelo Russia. The members of the Tribunal will find it on page 223, reverse side, fifth paragraph, first column. I shall quote three or four paragraphs out of this document.
"By order of German occupation authorities of the District, the Chief of the Region of Prokopstschuk ordered the principal of the children's home, A.P. Pavljuk, to poison a sick child, Lena Renklach, 12 years old. After Pavljuk refused to carry out the order, the child was shot by policemen in the vicinity of the children's home, allegedly 'while trying to escape.' In order to save the children from starvation and death, one had distributed eleven of them among the local population in the year 1942 and 16 children were sheltered with their relatives."
I continue with my quotation:
"On the 23rd of September, 1942, at 7 o'clock in the evening, a five-ton truck appeared in the yard of the children's home, with six armed Germans in military uniform.
The group leader, named Max, declared that the children would be taken to Brest, and ordered that the children be brought to the truck. Fifty-five children and their teacher, Grocholskaja were transported away in the truck. One girl, 9 years old, Tossja Schechtmetov, succeeded in climbing out of the truck and running away. The remaining 54 and the teacher were driven away in the truck in the direction of the station Dubitz, which was located one and one-half meters from the village of Leplevca.
"The car stopped at a frontier emplacement 800 meters away from the River Western Bug, the children were unloaded from the truck and undressed -- which was shown by the fact that the children's clothes was found in the returning car -- and shot."
I omit the remaining mart of this official report. Children were torn in two while they were still alive and thrown into the fire. In confirmation of this, I refer to the testimony of the witness Hamaidas, a native of the village of Lisinchi in the Lvov Region, who was confined, by the Germans in the Yanov Camp in Lvov.
Hamaidas' job in the camp consisted of burning the corpses of those who had been shot. At the same time he could not help but be a witness to the mass shooting of the civilian population, including men, women and children. the Lvov carps, has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR-68. Citing two lines from the testimony of Hamaidas, from page 55 of the document book, eleventh line from the bottom of the page:
"I was a witness to such facts. The executioner would seize children by the feet, tear them apart and throw them into the fire." did not consider it necessary to waste ammunition on the children. When they did not throw the children alive into the grave, then they often murdered them simply by hitting them with something heavy or striking their heads against the ground. the Tribunal under USSR Exhibit No. 6-5, the Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the Crimes Committed by the German Fascist Invaders in the Cities of Lvov and Ravarusskaya, and the report of the medical commission which exhumed the bodies around the Yanov camp.
From the conclusions of this report I quote two lines:
"The executioners did not consider it necessary to waste ammunition on the children. They simply killed them by hitting them on the head with any available object, sometimes the butt of a gun". graph from the top, in the second column, the reverse side of the page. tortures. graph from a Note of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, dated April 27, 1942. The members of the Tribunal will find the place to which I refer on page 8, reverse side, second column, third paragraph.
"The invaders subjected children and adolescents to the most brutal tortures. Among the 160 children who were wounded and mutilated by torture, victims of the Hitler terror in he districts of the now liberated Moscow Region who were under going treatment in the Russakov Hospital in Moscow -there was, for instance the case of a 14-year old boy, Vanya Gromov, from the village of Novinki, whose right hand the Hitlerites amputated with a rusty saw after strapping him to a chair. The Germans chopped off both hands of 12year old. Vanya Kryukov, of the village of Kryukovo, in the Kursk Region, and drove him streaming with blood in the direction where Soviet troops were stationed." related in the document which confirm what has already been mentioned. man murder vans. In confirmation of this, I refer to the material already submitted as USSR Exhibit No. 1, which is the Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the Crimes of the German Fascist Occupants in the Stavorpol Region. The members of the Tribunal will find the small excerpt on page 269 in the document book, fourth paragraph.
"It has been established that in December, 1942, by command of the Gestapo Chief for the City of Mikojan-Schachar, Lt. (Oberleutnant) Otto Weber, there took place an extraordinarily cruel massacre of Soviet children who were underoging treatment for tuberculosis of the bone in the sanatorium of the Teberda health resort.
Eye-witnesses to this crime, Nurse S.E. Ivanova and Sanitary Orderly M.I. Palpupanova, employed at the children's sanitorium, testified as follows:
"'On December 22, 1942, a German motor vehicle drove up to the entrance of Ward I of the sanatorium. Seven German soldiers, who had come with the vehicle, dragged from the sanatorium 54 seriously ill children, ranging in age from 3 years up, and placed them inside the vehicle, in several layers. Then they closed the door, let the carbon monoxide stream in, and drove away from the sanatorium. An hour later the vehicle returned to the Teberda settlement. All the children had died. The Germans then throw their bodies into the Teberda ravine near Gunatschgir.'" Children were also drowned in the open sea.
In confirmation of this, I refer to the already submitted documents, USSR Exhibit 63, on the report of the German atrocities in Sevastopol. The members of the Tribunal will find the place I am referring to on Page 236, reverse side, seventh paragraph, second column of the text. I quote:
"Besides the mass shootings, the Hitlerites carried the criminal drowning of peaceful citizens to the high sea.
"The Prisoner Cpl. Friedrich Heile of the troop battalion 2-19 MKA Naval Transport Company testified as follows:
"When I was in the port of Sevastopol, I saw how largo groups of peaceful citizens, among them women and children, were brought to the harbor. All the Russians were loaned on a tow barge. Several people resisted. However, they were beaten and driven on board forcibly. All together, around 3,000 people were loaded on. The cargo barges put out to sea. The weeding and the crying was heard for a long time in the harbor. Several hours passed and the barges returned to the harbor empty. I found out from the ship's crews that all the people were thrown into the sea."