Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-07-59.01
Last-Modified: 1997/10/08

           The Trial of German Major War Criminals
                       Proceedings of
             The International Military Tribunal
                    Sitting At Nuremberg
                           Germany
                              
                           Part 7
         14th February, 1946 to 26th February, 1946
             Taken From The Official Transcript
                              
                          Published
         Under The Authority of the Attorney-General
             By His Majesty's Stationery Office
                        London: 1946
                                                            
                                                    [Page 1]
                                                            
                       Fifty-Ninth Day
                              
                Thursday, 14th February, 1946
                              
THE PRESIDENT: I have an announcement to make which concerns
the defendants' counsel. The Tribunal will sit in open
session on Saturday morning from 10 o'clock to hear the
application of the defendants' counsel for an adjournment.

They will hear one counsel on either side, that is to say,
one counsel for the prosecution and one counsel for the
defence, for fifteen minutes each, and after that open
session the Tribunal will adjourn into closed session upon
procedural matters.

COLONEL POKROVSKY: Yesterday, in the course of my
representation, I referred to four photographs in our
possession, two of which were submitted to the Tribunal
there and then. I must apologize that yesterday, for
technical reasons, we were unable to produce the remaining
two at the proper time. The first of these photographs shows
the distribution of food to the prisoners; the second --
hungry Soviet prisoners searching for, and eating, oil cakes
intended as cattle food. I now submit the originals of these
two photographs as Exhibits USSR 358 and 359.

An autopsy of the exhumed bodies, performed during the
investigation of fascist crimes in the so-called "Lazarett,"
at Slavuta, confirms that:--

     "The Command Headquarters and the Stalag guards
     repeatedly resorted to refined forms of torture.
     Amongst the bodies exhumed on which autopsies
     were performed, the medico-forensic examination
     established that the corpses of four prisoners of
     war, murdered with cold steel, had received
     bayonet wounds penetrating the cavity of the
     skull."
     
You will find this passage, Your Honours, on Page 153 of the
document book.

The Hitlerites compelled sick and wounded prisoners, despite
their extreme weakness and acute state of exhaustion, to
carry out work which was entirely beyond their strength. The
prisoners had to carry heavy burdens, were forced to
shoulder the bodies of murdered Soviet citizens and carry
them out of the Stalag. Exhausted prisoners who fell by the
way were shot out of hand. The road to and from work,
according to a report of the Roman Catholic priest at
Slavuta, was marked, as by milestones, with small grave
mounds. The fascist fanatics did not always have the
patience to wait for the actual death of one or another
prisoner of war, and they buried persons who were still
alive. I quote from a document which I have previously
submitted to the Tribunal. You will find this quotation once
again on Page 153 of your Document Book:--

     "As a result of the discovery of a `considerable
     quantity of grains of sand' in the lower
     respiratory tracts of the corpses of four
     prisoners, grains which penetrated right down to
     the very smallest bronchial tube, and which could
     not have penetrated thus far unless propelled by
     the respiratory movements of persons smothered by
     sand, the medico-forensic experts found that at
     the 'Grosslazarett' the guards at Command
     Headquarters had buried the Soviet citizens
     alive. This was done with the connivance of the
     German doctors."
     
Prisoner-of-war Pankin, a former inmate of the
"Grosslazarett," knew of one

                                                    [Page 2]
                                                            
case where, in February, 1943, an unconscious patient was
brought to the morgue. There he recovered consciousness, but
when it was reported to the officer in charge of barracks
that a live man had been taken to the morgue, he ordered him
to be left there. The sick man was buried.

Some prisoners, made desperate by the intolerable regime,
ignored the immense risks attached to the venture and
attempted to escape, either singly or in groups. Such
martyrs as succeeded in getting out of the "hospital" hell,
sought refuge with the local population of Slavuta and the
surrounding hamlets. The Hitlerite brutes mercilessly shot
anybody who had rendered any kind of assistance to a
fugitive.

The town of Slavuta lies in the Shepetov district. On 15th
January, 1942, the District Commissioner of Shepetov, Dr.
Worbs, issued a special order to the effect that if those
directly responsible for helping escaped prisoners were not
found, ten hostages would be shot in every case. Father
Zhukovsky reported that 26 peace loving citizens were
arrested and shot for helping prisoners of war.

A medical examination of the 525 prisoners liberated from
the "Grosslazarett" revealed that 435 suffered from extreme
inanition, 59 from complications following untended,
infected wounds, and that 31 suffered from neuropsychiatric
disturbances.

I quote (with the permission of the Tribunal) the last and
the penultimate paragraphs of the left column on Page 5 of
our document. In your file this quotation is on Page 154 of
the document book:--

     "During the 2 years of Slavuta's occupation, the
     Hitlerites, with the connivance of the German
     doctors Borbe, Schturp and other medical
     personnel in the 'Grosslazarett,' exterminated
     about 150,000 Red Army officers and men."
     
The German fascist executioners, perfectly aware of the
unbounded bestiality of their crimes, attempted to conceal
by all possible means the traces of the atrocities
committed. They especially attempted to camouflage the
burial sites of the Soviet prisoners of war. Thus, for
instance, on the cross of Grave Number 623, only eight
surnames of persons buried were indicated, whereas upon
excavation thirty-two bodies were actually found in that
grave. Such, too, was the case when Grave No. 624 was opened
up.

In other graves, layers of earth were placed between several
rows of corpses. For instance, ten bodies were found in
Grave No. 625. When a layer of earth, ten centimeters thick,
had been removed, two further rows of corpses were found in
the same grave; the same occurred at the excavation of
Graves Nos. 627 and 628.

Numerous graves were camouflaged by flower-beds, trees,
plants, paths, etc., but no disguise can ever hide the
bloody crimes committed by the Hitlerite evil-doers.

If I am not mistaken, there was a case when one of the
participants in these trials, evidently forgetting where he
was and under what circumstances, expressed a wish to follow
the procedure laid down by German law. The Tribunal
immediately made the necessary inquiries, and the intention
of operating in accordance with the standards of German law
was, of course, promptly rejected. At present I am fully
able to submit to the Tribunal documents which, in my
opinion, are of importance in our case, although they are
compiled in complete accordance with the rules laid down by
German law.

Among the numerous documents found in the police archives of
the town of Djitomir, Red Army troops seized a certain piece
of correspondence. This is a police inquiry. The authors of
this document could not foretell that it would be read into
the record at a session of the International Tribunal for
the punishment of the major war criminals.

The documents constituting this correspondence were intended
exclusively for the chiefs of police, and they were compiled
in accordance with all the customary requirements of German
law and of the police investigations of fascist Germany.

                                                    [Page 3]
                                                            
From this point of view, those who would like to examine the
documentation in question can be well satisfied.

At the same time this correspondence is useful to us. So
much has been said in the comparatively small number of
pages that I should have to analyse the documentation
section by section in order that you could appreciate it
fully and from every angle. I submit this correspondence to
you both in the German photostats and in the Russian
translation. I repeat -- this is a police inquiry. The
document is submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR 311,
and we have, in accordance with the wishes of the Tribunal,
asked for the original copy, which we may possibly receive
from Moscow this very day.

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