... GRIND THE BONES OF 200 PEOPLE (3/4 TON) AT ONE TIME AS DESCRIBED IN PHOTOGRAPHS AND DOCUMENTS WHICH HAVE DISAPPEARED

18 Feb. 46

(9) This is a snapshot of the same group. Here you see both women and young girls condemned to death.

(10) In Yanov Camp the executions are carried out to the strains of the "Death Tango " played by an orchestra conducted by Professor Stricks, an internee in the camp, toge

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ther with his bandmaster, Mundt. I request Your Honors to observe two points of interest in this snapshot. To the right we see the camp commander, Obergruppenführer Gebauer, in white uniform, and behind him his dog, Rex, known to us through manz interrogations as having been trained to harass living persons and to tear them to pieces. It is evident that Gebauer is leading the orchestra to the execution ground.

(11) One of the gallows used by the German fascists in their endeavor to establish a regime of terror in the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union. The snapshot was found in the files of the Yanov Gestapo. A woman of sorts is seen laughing at the foot of the gallows.

(12) A second gallows erected in the same market place, at Lvov, also taken from the archives of the Gestapo.

(13) I am showing Your Honors the snapshot of an entire street festooned with bodies of Soviet citizens. This is a street in the city of Lvov, and I beg to remind the Tribunal that according to the records of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs the same hangings also occurred in Kharkov.

(14) The same street in Lvov. The snapshot was taken from the archives of the Lvov Gestapo.

(15) The gallows were not the only means of execution. The guillotine, too, was used on a vast scale. In this snapshot you see the heads of victims guillotined in the prison of Danzig. The snapshot was taken in the Anatomic Institute in Danzig, where the bodies of the victims were brought after execution.

(16) I shall not show you too many snapshots of tortures inflicted.

I only wish to show a few typical examples. This snapshot was taken from a dead Gestapo soldier. It shows a young girl being flogged. Later you will see what next they did to her.

(17) It is not quite clear whether the girl is being strung up by the hair or hanged by the neck. Judging by the convulsive movement of her hands, I think that a noose has just been placed round her neck. Observe the bestial face of. the scoundrel who is hanging her.

(18) Here is a snapshot taken from a dead Gestapo soldier. I wish to emphasize the manner in which the German fascists mocked the chastity of the Russian women. They had just forced these Ukrainian women to run naked before the German brutes.

(19) This snaphot will help you to understand subsequent events. It represents a machine for the grinding of human bones.

 

IMT VII

549



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18 Feb.46

machine stands the risoner of war who feeds the machine. It can grind the bones of 200 persons at a time. As has been proved to the Commission, it has a constant yield of 200 cubic meters of bone flour.

That is all. Photographs are identified as Exhibits USSR-100, 101, 102, 212, 385, 388, 389, 390, 391.

Will you now permit me to submit further documentary evidence?

In the first part of my presentation, I dealt with German mass terrorism and spoke specifically about the extermination of children and the infamous methods used by the Germans with regard to them, since terror applied to children - terror most savage. most brutal - is one of the characteristic features of fascist bestiality.

I now present to the Tribunal evidence of mass extermination of the population in various parts of Eastern Europe. I submit to the Tribunal brief excerpts from the report of the Polish Government, which Your Honors will find on.Page 127 of the document book in the second paragraph of the text. It describes the so-called Anin massacre. I quote:

"At the end of December 1939 a Polish policeman was shot in the vicinity of Warsaw by a bandit. Subsequent investigations showed that the murderer was in a restaurant in Vaver, ncar Warsaw. Two German policemen tried to arrest him. When the police entered the restaurant, the bandit opened fire, killing one policeman and wounding another, that is, he apparently killed one and wounded another.

"In reply the German authorities, on 26 December 1939, ordered mass reprisals, and a punitive expedition made its appearance in the village.'

"A detachment of 'Landesschutzen,' under the command of an officer, was dispatched to Vaver and to the summer resort (If Anin. Both of these localities were surrounded by a cordon of soldiers. The proprietor of the restaurant where the eve-nt occurred was immediately hanged, and his body suspended in front of his house for 3 days. At the same time the men Wl'/I' dragged out from every house. Having thus rounded up about 170 persons, the Germans made them stand in the railway station, facing the wall and with their hands held above their heads, for several hours. Afterwards their documents were checked and a few were dismissed, but the vast majority were informed that they would be executed. They were then taken to a field, split up into groups of 10 to 14, and executed by volleys from machine guns.

"The number of individual graves discovered on the execution ground amounted to 107. Among those executed were two doctors, 30 youths under i6 years of age, and 12 old men

 

IMT VII

550

 



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... STUDY BONE GRINDING IN SPECIAL 10 ­IJAY CRASH COURSE SEMINARS

14 Feb .46

should be destroyed in an overwhelming majority, although an appreciable number was to be employed by the German landowners as slaves. These directives were the result of the policy of the German Government toward the peoples of the occupied territories; and, it must be confessed, were put into practice by every member of the Armed Forces, myself included."

Such were the courses dedicated to the training and education of junior police officials.

But the fascist training school for murderers acknowledged other forms of education as well, forms specially dedicated to the technique of destroying all traces of the crimes committed. The Tribunal has already received the document registered as Exhibit Number USSR-6(c) (Document number USSR-6 (c) (8). This document is one of the appendices to the record of. the Extraordinary State Commission on German atrocities perpetrated on the territory of the region of Lvov. The document is the testimony of the witness Manuschevitch, interrog ated by the senior assistant to the Prosccutor of the Lvov region, by th special request of the extraordinary State Commission. The minutes of the interrogatory are recorded in conformity with the Penal Code of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic . The Tribunal will find these minutes on Page 48 of the document book.

Manusevitch was imprisoned by the Germans in Yanov Camp, where he worked in the prisoners' squad for burning corpses vi murdered Soviet citizens. After the 40,000 corpses murdered In Yanov Camp were burned, the squad was transferred for similar purposes to the camp in Lissenitzky Wood.

I now quote from the record of the interrogation, which the Tribunal will find on Page 52 of the document book, paragraph 2 from the top, line 26. I begin:

"In the death factory of this camp special 10-day courses on corpse burning were organized, on which 12 men were employed. Pupils attending these courses came from the camps of Lublin, Warsaw, and others whose names escape me. I do not know the surnames of the pupils, but they were officers from colonels to sergeant majors, not soldiers from the rank and file. The instructor at these courses was the officer in command of crematories, Colonel Schallok. On the site where the bodies were exhumed and burned he explained the practical manner of their burning and how to set up the machinery for bone crushing ."

Later on, photographs of this machine will be submitted to the Tribunal together with a description, or rather, should I say, technical directions.

IMT VII

446



-24-

Another non-existent “bone-grinding machine” described in another document which has disappeared…

19 Feb. 46

Scherlack, taught the commandants on the spot how to organize the exhumation of the corpses from the graves, how to pile on the stacks, burn them, how to scatter the ashes, to crush the bones, to fill up the ditches, and how to plant trees and brush wood on the graves as camouflage.

I now refer to a document which has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Document Number USSR-61, which is the report of the examination in the town of Lvov of the special machine for the crushing of bones. The record may be found by the members of the Tribunal on Page 473 of the document book. As I have very little time left at my disposal, I shall only quote very short excepts. I quote paragraph I, on Page 342:

“The machine for crushing bones was mounted on a special carriage on the platform of a trailer. It is easily transportable by automobiles or other means of transportation without dismounting.”

I omit the next paragraph and shall read one more short extract:

“The machine will function in any spot and does not require additional adaptation. It can be transported by automobile or any other vehicle.
“A machine of these dimensions can produce 3 cubic meters of calcinated bone powder during 1 hour.”

I omit the next four pages of the report, and submit to the Tribunal as evidence the original record of the interrogation of Gerhard Adametz (Exhibit USSR-80, Document Number USSR-80), taken by an American army lieutenant, Patrick McMahon. Gerhard Adametz was interrogated under oath. I dwell especially on this document, which has been put kindly at our disposal by our American colleagues, because Adametz’s testimony, to use a legal term, in some points corroborates our own evidence material. The testimony is very lengthy, and I will limit myself to a few short quotations.

Gerhard Adametz was a member of Sonderkommando 1005-B. I draw the attention of the Tribunal again to the fact that the first Sonderkommando was simply 1005; this one is Sonderkommando 1005-B. The excerpt which I shall quote from the testimony of Gerhard Adametz will be found by the members of the Tribunal on Page 480 of the document book, beginning with the second paragraph. Gerhard Adametz said that, together with the 40 other members of the Schutzpolizei, he left Dniepropetrovsk and was sent to Kiev. I remind the Tribunal of the name of Baybe-Yar, which the Tribunal has already heard. I begin to quote the testimony of Adametz, Page 347:
”Our Leutnant Winter reported about our column to Oberleutnant Hanisch, who was the Zugführer of the Schutzpolizei

IMT
593




-25-

... in this version the "bone grinders" have become bulldozers.

II Feb .46

then ignited. About 2,500 to 3,000 corpses were placed in each of these "ovens." The Germans detailed special crews for the removal of earrings, rings, and also gold teeth from the jaws of the dead.

"'When all the corpses were burned, new "ovens" were stacked, and so on. The bones were smashed into small particles by bulldozers and the ashes strewn over the Yar, so that no traces should be left. The men worked from 12 to 1 5 hours a day.

"'The Germans used excavators in order to expedite the work. From 18 August until the day of our escape - 29 September - approximately 70,000 corpses were burned.' "

I interrupt this quotation and invite the attention of the Tribunal to a document on Pag e 281, volume II , Paragrapg 5 of thie document book, second column.It is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes of the German fascist invaders in the territory the Latvian S.S.R . In the place to which I will draw the attention of the Tribunal,. it is shown that the Hitlerites systematically carried out executions in the forest of Birkeneck. I make a special point of quoting this because further on we shall present documentary films showing full details of these mass shootings. I begin the quotation:

"In the forest of Birkeneck, on the outskirts of the city of Riga, the Hitlerites shot 46,500 peaceful citizens. The witness, M. Stabulnek, a woman who lived in the vicinity of the forest, stated that: .

" 'On Friday and Saturday before Easter, 1942, packed busses went from the city to the forest. I saw 41 busses passing my house from the beginning of Friday morning to noon. On Easter Sunday, many inhabitants - I among them - went into the forest to the site of the executions. There we saw one large open pit containing the bodies of women and children who had been shot; they were either naked or in their underwear. There were traces of torture and ill-treatment on the corpses of the women and children, many of whom had black arid blue bruises on their faces and cuts on their heads. Some had had their hands and fingers cut off, their eyes gouged out, and their stomachs ripped open.'"

I now omit one paragraph and continue:

"The commission discovered, on the execution ground, 55 graves covering a total area of 2,885 square meters."

I quote one more paragraph from this communication:

"In the forest of Dreilin, 5 to 7 kilometers east of Riga, along the highway to Luban, the Germans shot over 13,000 peaceful


IMT VII

557