-13- |
... FORCE "PEOPLE TO CliMB TREES. THEN CUT THE TREES DOWN |
19 Feb. 46 |
-In the territories of the Lithuanian S.S.R., the Hitlerites exterminated in great numbers not only the local population but also people who were driven here from the Orlov, Smolensk, Vitebsk, and Leningrad regions. From the summer of 1943 to June 1944, 200,000 people passed through the camp for the evacuated population near the town of Alitous." You will see this camp in the movie document which will be presented today. I omit the next part of the quotation and I read two paragraphs further down: "Due to the filthy living conditions, the unbelievable crowding, lack of water, starvation, disease, and mass shootings, about 60,000 Soviet citizens perished during 14 months in this camp." I omit the two next pages of the text and I quote from Page 288 of the report. It is mentioned here that for the families of Red Army soldiers special concentration camps were set up in the territories of the Lithuanian S.S.R. The following order was posted in this camp: "For expressing displeasure with German authorities and for violation of the camp regime the Soviet people shall be shot without trial, jailed, or sent on forced labor for life to Germany." I omit one paragraph and continue: "A German woman in command of four such camps, Elisabeth Zeellng, frequently announced to the inmates, 'You are my slaves; I shall punish you in any way I want.'" I refer further to the report of the State Extraordinary Commission relative to the crimes in the city of Kiev. "This report describes murders in the camps which will be also shown in the films today. I quote only one quotation from this report, which shows the methods of extermination of people in the Syretzk Camp. I quote Page 289, Paragraph 3, of the Russian text: "Radomsky and Rieder used all kinds of devices for the extermination of Soviet citizens. For instance, they invented the following method of murder: Several Soviet prisoners would be forced to climb a tree and others had to saw it down. The pnsoners would fail together wlth the tree and be killed." Further, I quote a short excerpt from the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in the Estonian S.S.R. 'Ihis excerpt describes the very severe regime in the Estonian camps. I quote the last paragraph on Page 90: "Daily in the camp there were public fioggings of the inmates on a bench especially built for this purpose. Besides this, for the" smallest offense people were kept without any food for |
IMT VII |
582 |