I must say that not all the Jews were driven into the Ghetto. Hincks did that wilfully, with design. He drove the inhabitants of one street to the Ghetto, and the inhabitants of another street to the village of Panariai. Thus, in the Ghetto of Vilna the Germans organized two Ghettos. The first Ghetto contained 29,000 Jews, and the second Ghetto about 15,000 Jews; that is to say, about half the Jewish population of Vilna did not reach the Ghetto but was shot on the way. Ghetto half the Jewish population of Vilna was already exterminated? young Jewish girl, but when he went further he took out his revolver and shot her on the spot. The name of that girl was Gita Parlow.
Q How old was this girl? to exterminate the Jewish population with greater ease. The chief of the Ghetto was the reporter on Jewish questions, Maurer, and he issued a series of mad orders. For instance, the Jews could not wear whiskers; the Jews could not pray in the Ghetto; when a German passed, one had to take off his hat, but we dared not look at him.
Q Were these official orders?
Q Were they posted in the Ghetto? where the Jews were working. He instructed that all workers should lie down on the ground and bark like dogs. the second Ghetto and arrested all the old men who were praying in the synegogues, and drove them away to Panariai. I remember when Schweineberg went to the second Ghetto-
Q Who were these hunters? called the "hunters." The Jewish population of the Ghetto named them that.
Q The Jewish population of the Ghetto named them hunters?
A Yes. These hunters dragged the Jews out of the cellars and tried to drive then away to Panariai. But the Jews already know that nobody would return alive from that village, and they did not want to go there. spot, in the Ghetto. I remember that he was always followed by a big dog, and when this dog heard the shots, the dog jumped at Schweineberg and began to bite his throat. One night have thought that the dog had gone mad. Then Schweineberg killed this dog, and told us that we were to bury this dog and cry over its grave. We then indeed, cried, that not Schweineberg but one dog had been buried. stated that the Jewish women dared not have children. issued.
A Maurer came to Hospital Street No. 6, and said that an order had come from Berlin that the Jewish women should not have children, and that if the Germans found out that a Jewish women had had a child, this child would be exterminated.
At the end of December, my wife had a child, a baby boy. I was not at that time living in the ghetto. I was escaping from one of these so-called "Aktion of Extermination" and when I came to the ghetto later I found that two days ago my wife had had a baby in a hospital. I immediately went to the hospital but I saw that this hospital was surrounded by Germans and a black car was standing before the door and that Schweineberg was standing near the car and the hunters of the Senderkommandos were dragging people out of the hospital and hurling them into the truck. Among them I saw the well-known Jewish writer Gorelski, who was also dragged to this truck. When in the evening the Germans went away I went to the hospital, entered it, and saw my wife who was weeping. It appeared that when she had had her baby the Jewish doctors had already received the order and that they had hidden the child, together with other Jewish newly born babies, in one of the rooms. But when the Germans came to the hospital they must have heard the cries of the babies. They broke the door open and entered the room.
ran to see what was happening and she saw that one German was holding a baby and smearing something on its lips and then he threw the baby on the bed and laughed. When my wife picked up the child his lips were already quite black and when I came to the hospital I saw with my own eyes that my baby was dead. The baby was still warn. room was empty. An open bible was on the table and a glass of tea, which had not as yet been touched, stood nearby on the table. I found that at night Germans had surrounded this house and driven out all the inhabitants and had driven them away to Panariai. a carfull of shoes, belonging to the persons at Panariai who had been executed, was driven into the ghetto. Thus he had sent the shoes of killed Jews to their families in the ghetto and among those shoes I recognized those of my mother. German newspaper in Vilna it was written that the Jews liquidated had died of an epidemic and that those who wished to live there could apply for lodgings. distributed among the population of the ghetto three thousand yellow tickets, so-called "ausweise". Those who had those tickets were entitled to have their families brought to visit them. About eighteen thousand to twenty thousand people lived in the ghetto during that period. Those who were in possession of these yellow tickets were supposed to go to work on the morrow and those others who were in the ghetto but who did not have these tickets were slaughtered. In the ghetto, those who did not want to go, were driven away to Panariai. Vilna, concerning the Jewish clothes from Panariai. If this document interests you I can show it to you.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have the document?
COLONEL SMIRNOV: I do not know of this document either, Mr. President.
2? Feb-M-DMR-1 A (continuing) This document states the following.
I will read only a few lines.
"Raw Materials Center of Vilna, 3 November, 1941.
"To Bezirkskommissar in Vilna: According to your order" BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Will you tell us first of all where the document was found?
AAt the Bezirkskommissar's building at Vilna in July 1941, when our town was liberated from the German invaders.
Q Where did you say it was found?
A In the building of the Bezirkskommissar in Vilna; in the headquarters of the District Commissar of Vilna on Gedemin Street.
Q Was that the building occupied by the Germans do you mean? of Vilna. Maurer lived there. because we did not hear it.
A "To the District Commissar at Vilna:
"From your order to disinfect the old Jewish clothes from Panarial and send them over to the administration in Vilna." BY COLONEL SMIRNOV:
Q Please witness, I am interested in the following question. You said that at the beginning of the German occupation eighty thousand Jews lived in Vilna. How many Jews remained after the German occupation? in Vilna.
COLONEL SMIRNOV: I have no further questions to ask the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other Chief Prosecutor want to ask any questions
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No questions.
MR. DODD: No questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any member of the defense Counsel wish to ask any questions?
COLONEL SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I would like to modify the plan of my statement and pass on and take up the phase devoted to religious persecution a little later. I would like first to take up that part of my statement which is entitled "Experiments on Live Persons". (It is on page 47 of the Russian text). short extracts from a document which has not as yet been read by our American colleagues. The principal part of this document concerns experiments which were described in detail by the American Prosecution from other documents. This document is 400-PS. It refers to experiments by Dr. Rascher. It is submitted to the Tribunal as a photostatic copy, which includes a series of documents. I quote two paragraphs from this document. Rascher to the Auschwitz Camp. This extract is on page 149 of the document book, last paragraph.
"It would be simpler if I were transferred to the SS units and could visit the Camp of Auschwitz with my nephew, where I could more rapidly, by a series of experiments, solve the problem of warming frozen people who had been frozen on land. For these experiments Auschwitz is in every respect far better adapted than Dachau for the climate is colder there and the territory of the camp is larger. Besides it will attract less attention. The victims sometimes shout when they are being frozen.
(This is a letter to the Reichsfuehrer SS)
"If the honored Reichsfuehrer will understand the importance of the experiments which are taking place in Auschwitz, in Lublin or one of the eastern camps, I would request you to order me in the near future to go there so that I could profit by the winter frost.
"Heil Hitler, Yours faithfully and sincerely, "Rascher".I would like to remind the Tribunal that this wish of Dr. Rascher to go to Auschwitz was no accidental striving for in Auschwitz experiments were carried out on live persons that considerably outdid anything that was carried out in Dachau or other camps of the Reich, was greatly intensified, and carried out on a very large scale.
USSR Exhibit Number 8 has already been placed in the record. It is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the Monstrous Crimes of the German Government in Auschwitz. From the introductory part of this report we read this excerpt on page 196 of that document book. I will read only one paragraph.
"Special hospitals were created in the camp, as well as surgical blocks, gynecological laboratories and other institutions. But they were organized not for the healing of the sick but for the extermination on people. The German professors and doctors carried out in these buildings mass experiments on quite healthy ran, women and children. They carried out experiments on sterilization of women, on the castration of men. The children they inoculated with cancer and typhoid as well as older people and observed the reactions and finally they carried out experiments with different poisons." tration of women and men were carried out on a particularly large scale. Special mass blocks in the camp were set aside for these experiments on sterilization and castration. State Commission, which the Tribunal will find on page 196 of the document book.
"Experiments on women were carried out in the hospitals of the Auschwitz Camp. Up to four hundred interned women were interned in Block 10 of the camp simultaneously and experiments on sterilization by x-raying and by the subsequent removal of the ovaries were carried out, as well as experiments inoculating cancer in the neck of the uterus and forceful abortion, as well as experimentation on contracting tissues in the x-raying of the uterus."
I skip one paragraph and continue:
"In Block 21 the mass experiments on the castration of men were carried out. In view of the study made of the possibility of sterilization by x-ray, the castration was carried out after a certain time had elapsed after the x-raying. Similar experiments on x-raying and castration were carried out by Professor Schumann and Dr. Diering. Very often operations consisted in removing the testicles after x-raying," experiments, to read short excerpts from the statement of the Dutch Doctor De Vint, which is already in the record as USSR Exhibit 52.
I will not read the statement in full but will only read the numerical data. This numerical data concerns only one block, Block 10 in Auschwitz.
These are the numbers of people interned in this block: fifty women of different nationalities who arrived in March 1943; one hundred Greek women who arrived in March 1943; one hundred ten Belgian women who arrived in April 1943; fifty French women who arrived in July 1943; fifty French women who arrived in August 1943; one hundred Dutch women who arrived on the 15th of September 1943 and one hundred Dutch women who arrived a week later, and finally twelve Polish women. De Vint, which has been submitted to the Tribunal as USSR exhibit number 52.
I quote that part of the statement in which he speaks of experiments which were carried out by a certain Professor Schumann on fifteen young girls. This excerpt is on page 204 of the document book, first column of the text, third paragraph.
"Professor Schumann, a German. These experiments were carried out upon fifteen girls of 17 to 18 years of age, among whom was Shishni, Bella, from Salonika, Greece, and Buena, Dora, from Salonika, Greece. Only a few of them remained alive. They are still in the power of the Germans and we have consequently no objective data regarding those experiments, but the following is certain.
"The young girls were placed between slabs, through which passed ultra-short waves; one electrode was placed on their stomach and the other on their ovaries. The focus of these rays was directed towards the ovaries which were consequently burned. As a result of too much dosing, very severe burns appeared on the stomach and on the ovaries. One girl died after terrible suffering. The other girls were sent to Birkenau to the sanitary department or to working commandos. A month later they returned to Auschwitz, where two controlling operations were carried out one--long slit and one cross slit--after which they removed their genital organs for an investigation of their condition. The girls completely changed physically as a result and they looked like old women." carried out in Auschwitz on a mass scale beginning in 1942, and after a predetermined period of sterilization the men were castrated for a special study of the tissues. You can find confirmation of this fact in the report of the Extraordinary State Commission of Auschwitz, where numerous statements of internees in the camp have been quoted. the document book, second paragraph, second column of the text.
"Vilagora, who was subjected, to these experiments stated: 'A few days after I had been brought to Birkenau, I believe around the first days of December, 1942, all the young boys from 18 to 30 years of age were sterilized by x-raying of their genital organs. I myself was among the sterilized. Eleven months later, that is to say, on the 1st of November, 1943, I was castrated. Together with me on that same day 200 persons were sterilized.'
"Witness David Suritz, from the term of Salonika, Greece, stated the following.
"'In the month of July 1943 I and with me 10 other Greeks, were mentioned on a list and sent to Birkenau. There we were undressed and sterilized by x-raying. A month later we were summoned to a central station of the camp where all sterilized were castrated.'" on people began with sterilization and castration. This was a quite natural result of the theoretical principles of German Fascism, interested in the impeding of birth among those people which they considered to be vanquished.
I would now like to quote a short excerpt from Rauschnigg's book, "The Voice of Destruction," which has already been submitted to the Tribunal. This extract was not yet read into the record, and the Tribunal will find it on page 207 of the document book.
Hitler said to Rauschnigg: "And by removal I do not necessarily mean the destruction of these people. I shall simply take systematic measures to data their great natural fertility."
I skip three sentences and quote this:
"There are many ways systematically and comparatively painless, or at least at any rate bloodless, of causing undesirable races to die out."
This excerpt is on page 137 of the book, "Voice of Destruction," published in Now York in 1940.
Hitlerites in the occupied territories in Eastern Europe Two of these documents ought to be read into the record.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, perhaps this would be a convenient time to break off. before you conclude your statement.
COLONEL SMIRNOV: I believe, Mr. President, that I will finish my statement today. witnesses and I still have about one hour of reading. But it is very difficult for me to determine the time, as that depends sometimes on other persons.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now for 10 minutes.
(A short recess was taken.)
COLONEL SMIRNOV: I ask the permission of the Tribunal to draw its attention to two very short German documents, which a re submitted under number USSR 300. The photostat is certified by the Soviet State Commission. It is by Lieutenant Frank, head of the Security Police, regarding the conditions under which one Gypsy woman Lusia Strassdin, had the right to reside in the town of Libau. The first document:
"It was decided that the Gypsy woman, Lusia Strassdin, had the right to live here only if she will be sterilized. She will be told about this, and the result should be submitted to us. /Frank/ Lieutenant of the District Security Police", and then head of the Security Police. Libau, Graus, and the head of the Security Police. The text:
"I am returning your memorandum of 10 December 1941 regarding the sterilization of the Gypsy woman, Lusia Strassdin. I wish to state that this person on 9 January of this year was sterilized in this hospital." formed, I would ask Your Honor to turn to the report of the State Commission. The place which I should like to quote briefly the members of the Tribunal will find on page 197 of the book of documents, first column, second paragraph, where it is said that in the archives of the, camp were discovered the number and the quota of the female inmates of Camp Sella. This report is signed by the commander of the camp. This was a camp which was specially intended for the experiments. It is stated that on 5 December there were 430; on 19 June, 304, and so forth. Judicial Medical Commission, the quotation of which is contained on the Auschwitz camp. The place which I should like to quote the members of the Tribunal will find on page 197 of the book of documents, the first column, fifth paragraph. I am skipping the part which refers to sterilization and castration because I think that this question has been elucidated enough, and I will quote only points 4, 6 and 7 of the memorandum. Here it is stated that:
"In Auschwitz were performed the study of the various chemical preparations on the order of the German, Dr. Ervin. In two cases when for such experiments were to be performed the representatives of the chemical industry of Germany, Dr. Glauber from Koenigshuette and chemist Gebel bought from the administration of the camp 150 women.
Quoting point 6:
"Experiments on liens There were applications of injurious matters in order to irritate tie skin on the knee and create ulcers," Point 7:"Artificial Insemination and so forth."
particulars of these experiments, and I should like to draw the attention of the Tribunal to other crimes perpetrated by the Fascist criminals, and, in particular, regarding the murdering of the insane. I am not going to quote all the examples which the Tribunal will find in the report of the State Commission. I will stop only with one crime, which was perpetrated in the town of Kiev. I quote paragraphs from the reports of the Extraordinary State Commission on the town of Kiev, which the members of the Tribunal will find on page 112 of the book of documents, first column, paragraph 6:"On 14 December 1941 in the Psychiatric Hospital, there entered units of SS men.
They chased 306 sick people into one building, where they were held without food and water, and then they were shot in a gulley of Kirilov woods. The other sick were exterminated on 7 January and 22 March 1942, and 17 October 1942". it is indicated by the well verified and corroborated evidence by Professor Kapustianski, Dr. Dsevaltovski and the nurse Troepolski. I am submitting to the Tribunal USSR 249, the photostat of this testimony, and I would ask to read it into the record as a proof. I am quoting some of the extracts from this document:
"During the German occupation of the town of Kiev, the Kiev Psychiatric Clinic had a very tragic day, which terminated in the complete devastation of the hospital. There occurred an unprecedented extermination of unfortunate insane people."
I am omitting the following, and I shall quote the next:
"During 1941-1942 there were annihilated 400 sick people."
I am skipping the next quotation and begin with the following:
"On 7 January 1942 the Gestapo men were in the hospital. They placed guards everywhere in the vicinity of the hospital. Exit or entry into the hospital was forbidded. Representatives of the Gestapo requested the selection of the chronically sick people, and they were to be sent to Jitomin medical staff.
"As regards the hospital, the sick people were loaded into special cars, which held 60 to 70 each. This brutality happened under the eyes of everybody. The sick people were loaded into the cars and were murdered. The corpses were thrown out. This brutality continued two days, during which there were annihilated 365 people of the sick.
"The sick people who could think soon realized the reality. There were heart-rending scenes. Thus, a young girl, a sick person, in spite of all of the efforts of the doctor, understood that death was awaiting her. Shen came out of the ward, embraced the doctor, and asked him, "Is this the end? Pale as death, she went to the car and, refusing any assistance, entered the car.
"The high personnel were told that any critical expression or displeasure were completely out of place and would be regarded as sabotage."
"It is a characteristic detail that these unprecedented murders were committed on the Day of Nativity, when the German soldiers were given Christmas trees, and on the buckles of the belt there was written, With us it is God'. with anologous cases in other parts of the country. These were cases where similar methods were used as were used in Kiev. German documents, certified by the Extraordinary State Commission, which certify special formulae were worked out for the murder of the insane by the German Fascists. I am submitting these documents. The first document is submitted under No. 357. The members of the Tribunal can find it on page 218 of the book of documents. I am quoting the text of the document:
"Office of the Registrar in the Town of Riga." insane died on 29 January 1942." It is signed by the Sturmbannfuehrer.
Second document This is submitted under No. 410. This is a report of the head of the Security Police in Latvia, and under No.257, dated 23 May 1942. I am quoting one paragraph from this document. 243 ill persons, died on 14 April 1942. S.S. Sturnbannfuehrer."
The third document is submitted under No. USSR 380. This is a report by the head of the Security Police and SD, Latvia, dated 15 March 1943.
I will read into the record one paragraph of this document:
"By those Present, I certify that those named in the annexed list, 98 insane people, died on 22 December 1942. S. S. Sturnbannfuehrer."
I am also omitting the next one and a half pages of my report but I would request the Tribunal, without reading this document, in support of this proof of the extermination, to accept under USSR No. 466 the data from another camp. These were given to us by the Polish Government Commission on the investigation of the crimes and I am now going to submit them because they are self-evident.
I would request the Tribunal's permission to interrogate a Polish woman, to have her testify regarding the attitude of the German fascists towards the children. Would you allow me, Mr. Chairman, to ask this witness to come in?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly.
(SEVERINA SHMAGLEVSKAJA took the witness stand) BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Will you first of all tell me your name?
Q Will you repeat this oath after me: I hereby swear before God the Almighty, that I will speak before the Tribunal nothing but the truth, concealing nothing that is known to me, so help me God, Amen.
A (The witness repeated the oath). THE PRESIDENT: Would you like to sit down? BY COLONEL SMIRNOV:
Q Tell me: witness, were you an internee of Auschwitz Camp?
Q During what time or what period were you in the camp of Auschwitz?
Q Do you have any proof that you were internee of this camp?
Q What the Auschwitz inmates call the "visiting cards."
Q Tell me, please, witness, were you an eye-witness of German SS men's attitude towards the children?
Q I would request you to tell the Tribunal about this? camp, regarding children who were taken to the concentration camp together with the Jewish transports and who were taken directly into the crematorium, as well as regarding children who were taken to concentration camps and interned there.
Already, in December 1942, when I went to work about ten kilometers -
Q Excuse me: May I interrupt you? Then, were you in the section of the camp Birkenau? which was called "Auschwitz No.2." Can I continue? Then I noticed a pregnant woman in the last four months of pregnancy. It was obvious by the way she looked. This woman, together with the others, had to walk ten kilometers to the place of her work and there she worked the whole day with a shovel in her hands, for the excavation of trenches. She was already ill and she asked the superintendent German, a civilian, so that she would allow her to rest. She didn't allow her to rest. She laughed at her. Together with one of the SS men, she started to beat her and push her around and very strictly observed her work. Such was the situation of all the women who were pregnant. Only in the last minutes we were allowed not to go to work. The children who were born, when they were Jewish children, were immediately sent to their death.
Q When was it ?
Q Where the infants arrived? camps. A few minutes after their delivery, the child was taken from the mother and the mother never saw her child again. After a few days, the mother had to return to work. In 1942, there was no special blocks in the camp for the children. In the beginning of 1943, when they started to tattoo the internees, the children who were born in the concentration camp were also tattooed. The number was tattooed on their leg.
Q Why on the leg?
A Because the child is very small and the mother's number consisted of five numbers, and *---* wasn't enough room on its little hand. The children did not have special numbers but bore the same numbers as their mothers as they developed.
The numbers were in order. These children were placed in a special block and every few weeks, sometimes every few months, each echelon of children was taken away from the camp.
Q Where ?
A We never were able to see where these children were taken to. They were taken all the time while this camp was in existence; that is to say, in 1943; 1944; the last transport of the children was taken from the camp in January 1945. These were not only Polish children, because it is known that in Birkenau there were women taken from the whole of Europe. Until today, we don't know whether these children are alive. I should like, in the name of all the women of Europe who became mothers in concentration camps, to ask today the Germans "Where are the children now?" children were sent to gas vans? Sometimes in the morning I came by these buildings of the German crematory from where I could see secretly how the transports were prepared.
Than I saw that, together with the Jews that were brought to the concentration camp, there came a lot of children. Sometimes a family had several children.
COLONEL SMIRNOV; The Tribunal is probably aware of the fact that in front of the crematorium was performed the selection. BY COLONEL SMIRNOV:
Q Selection was made by the doctors?
A Not always by the docts; sometimes SS men.
Q Also by the doctors?
A Yes, sometimes by doctors, too. During the selection, the youngest and the healthiest Jewish women in very small numbers came into the camp but those women who had children in their arms or in carriages or those who had bigger children, together with these children, were sent into the crematorium. The children were segregated from their parents in front of the crematorium and were led into the gas chambers separately. the gas chambers, there came out an order that the children will be thrown into the crematorium, into the orifice of the crematorium or into the ditches of the crematorium without being asphyxiated.
Q How should we understand that? Were they alive or were they killed by other means?
A Sometimes the children were thrown in there alive. The cries of the children were heard all over the camp. It is difficult to say how many of these children there were.
Q Why was this committed, because the gas chambers were overworked?
A It is very difficult to answer this question. We don't know whether they wanted to economize on the gas or because there was no room in the gas chambers. I should also add that it is impossible to determine the number of these children because the children, the Jews who were in the ditches of the crematorium, were not registered and were not tattooed. Very often when the inmates who wanted to understand and work out the number of people who perished in gas chambers, could do so for themselves only by the facts which we saw of children's death and the number of children's carriages which were taken to the shops; sometimes there were one Hundred of these carriages and they sent thousands.
A Not always the same. There were days when the was chambers worked from the early hours in the morning until the late hours of the night. I should also like to tell you about the children who were taken to the concentration camps and kept there until the end. together with their parents, Polish children from industrialist. At the same time there arrived Russian children from territories occupied by the Germans. Then to these children were added a number of Jewish children. In smaller numbers, one could also see Italian children in the concentration camp. The condition of these children was as difficult as the adult inmates; perhaps it was even harder. These children didn't receive any rations because nobody could send them rations. Packages of the Red Cress never arrived to the inmates. Italian children and also French children. All these children were sick with diseases, phlegmatic inflammations, and suffered from malnutrition, they were very badly clad and often had no shoes on and had no possibility of washing themselves. camp, as inmates, children from Warsaw. The youngest of these children was a little boy six years old. The children were quartered in special barracks and when there began a systematic evacuation of these people for deportation to Germany, these children were used for heavy labor. At the same time, there arrived at the concentration camps children of Hungarian Jews and they had to work together with the children who were brought after the Warsaw insurrection. These children worked on carts or machines, those carts which they had to pull themselves and had to carry from one camp to the other coal, bricks, machinery, wood, and other heavy things. They also works at the dismantling of one of the barracks during the liquidation of the camp. These children remained in the concentration camps until the end; and in January 1945, they were evacuated and had to march to Germany on foot; and the conditions were as difficult for the children as for the adults and under the supervision of the SS men, without food, covering about thirty