Forty-Fifth Day:
Tuesday, 29rd January, 1946 [Page 263]
M. DUBOST: Fourth paragraph, Page 5 . . . these people were
already half dead of thirst - seventh page of this document,
second paragraph: - "8 dying men were taken out even in
Rheims; one of them was a priest."
This train was headed for Dachau. A few kilometres past
Compiegne there were already numerous dead in every car.
Exhibit RF 320, Page 21 - it is the book handed to you on
Saturday (*see above) and
[Page 264]
THE PRESIDENT : What paragraph?
M. DUBOST: Page 21 at the top of the page:
THE PRESIDENT: 274 did you say? or 214?
M. DUBOST: 274 - it is this stitched booklet-page 17, second
paragraph:
THE PRESIDENT: What document?
M. DUBOST: Page 20 of Exhibit RF 32 1, page 11 of the German
text.
In connection with this country it is necessary to inform
the Tribunal of the deportation of the frontier guards -
page 3, the third paragraph, excerpt from the last
paragraph.
[Page 265]
THE PRESIDENT: Page five is that?
V. DUBOST: Page 3, Document 666.
THE PRESIDENT: Which paragraph?
M. DUBOST: Third paragraph now. Second for the police, and
third for the frontier guards. (Fourth line, at the end of
the line.)
The police and the German Army no longer dared to shoot
their hostages, but neither of the two had any mercy on
them. Even more were transported after 1943 to German
concentration camps, where all means were used to annihilate
them - from exhausting labour to the gas chambers.
The census made in France enables us to affirm that there
were more than 250,000 French deportees of which only 35,000
returned. Document 417 submitted as Exhibit 339, which is
the third in the first document book, indicates that out of
600,000 arrests which the Germans made in France, 350,000
were carried out with a view to internment in France or in
Germany. This document brings to the Tribunal ...
THE PRESIDENT: Where is this Document 417?
M. DUBOST: In the book you have before you, Mr. President,
the third in this book.
THE PRESIDENT It is 417.
M. DUBOST: First page of this document, fourth paragraph.
Number of returned: 35,000."
Prefects M. Bussieres, M. Bonnefoy, disappeared.
Generals de Lestraing, executed at Dachau.
Job, executed at Auschwitz.
Frere, died at Struthof.
Bardi de Fourtou, died at Neuengamme.
Colonel Roger Masse, died at Auschwitz.
High officials: Marquis of Moustier, died at Neuengamme.
Boulloche, Inspector General of Roads and Bridges, died at
Buchenwald, his wife died at Ravensbruck, one of his sons
died during deportation, his other son alone returned to
Flossenburg.
Jean Deveze, engineer of roads and bridges, disappeared at
Nordhausen.
Pierre Block, engineer of roads and bridges, died at
Auschwitz.
Mine, Getting, founder of the social service in France,
disappeared at Auschwitz.
Among the university professors of great renown: Henri
Maspero, Professor at the College de France, died at
Buchenwald. Georges Bruhat, Director of
[Page 266]
It is impossible to name each of the intellectuals
exterminated by the German frenzy.
Among the doctors, we must mention the disappearance of the
Director of the Rothschild Hospital and of Professor
Florence, one murdered at Auschwitz, the other at
Neuengamme.
As to Holland:
110,000 Dutch citizens of Jewish religion were arrested,
five thousand only returned; sixteen thousand patriots were
arrested, six thousand only returned. Out of a total of
126,000 deportees, 11,000 were repatriated after the
liberation.
In Belgium, 197,150 deportees, not including the prisoners
of war - including the prisoners of war, 250,000.
In Luxembourg, 7,000 deportees. More than 700 Jews, 4,000
Luxembourgers, out of these 4,000, 500 died.
It is Documents 681-F, 231-F, 659-F, which we submit as
Exhibits RF 343, 341 and 342.
In Denmark (see Document 666-F already submitted, page
three) 614 Danes were interned, 583 died.
There were camps within Germany and outside of Germany. Most
of the latter were used only for the sorting out of
prisoners. However, some of them functioned like those in
Germany and among them, that of Westerbork in Holland must
be mentioned. This camp is dealt with in Document 222-F
already submitted as Exhibit RF 324, which is the official
report of the government of the Netherlands. The camp of
Amersfoort, also in Holland, is the subject of Document 677,
which will be submitted as Exhibit RF 344, the eleventh
document in the book.
What we already know, through direct testimony, of the
regime of the Nazi internment camps makes it unnecessary for
me to read the whole report, which is rather voluminous, and
which does not bring any noticeably new facts on the regime
of these camps.
There is also the camp of Vught in Holland; then in Norway
the camp of Grini, Falstatt, that of Expetend and that of
Sipsizen which are described in a document provided by the
Norwegian Government, Document 240, which is the fifth in
your first document book, and which we have already
submitted. The Tribunal will excuse me for not reading this
document, which does not give us any information that we
have not heard already from the witnesses.
The camps in Germany, like all those outside of Germany
which were not only transit camps, must be divided into
three categories, according to the German instructions which
fell into our hands. You will find these instructions in
your second document book, Page 11. The pages follow in
regular order. It is Document 1063-PS, which we submit as
Exhibit RF 345, Page 11 of your second document book. We
read :
Category 1a: For aged prisoners and those whose health
will not permit them to do much work.
Category 2: (Page 12, second document book): For
prisoners with more serious charges, but still qualified
for re-education and correction.
Category 3: For all prisoners charged with particularly
serious crimes. [Page 267]
THE PRESIDENT: Will your address take much longer, because
we are going to adjourn unless you are going to close in a
few moments?
M. DUBOST: It will be five more minutes, and I could finish
then with details to which it will not be necessary to come
back tomorrow morning. The organisation and functioning of
these camps had a double purpose: The first one, according
to Document 285, which is on Page 14 of the second document
book, is to reduce the labour shortage, in obtaining a
maximum output at a minimum cost.
This document will be submitted as Exhibit RF 346, but we
shall not read it in extenso. However, on Page 14 of your
second document book you will read in the first paragraph
(this is at the date of the 17 December 1942 and coincides
with the difficulties resulting from the Russian campaign)
that because of great difficulties of a military nature not
to be discussed here the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the
German Police has ordered on 14 December 1942 that, by the
end of January 1943 at the latest, 35,000 internees fit for
work shall be sent to concentration camps.
Paragraph 2: "To obtain this number the following is
ordered:
It was further intended to exterminate all unproductive
forces which could no longer be exploited by German
industry, and which might hinder the Nazi expansion.
Evidence for this is furnished by Document 91-R, Pages 20
and 21 of the second document book, submitted as Exhibit RF
347, which is a telegram from the Chief of Staff of the
Reichsfuehrer SS, received at 0210 hours, 16 December 1942,
from Berlin.
2. Start of transportation 11 January 1943.
End of transportation 31 January 1943.
3. (The most important part of the document).
Composition: the 45,000 Jews are to consist of 30,000
Jews from the District of Bialystok. 10,000 Jews of the
Ghetto Theresienstadt, of which 5,000 are capable of
working and who until now were used for small tasks in
the ghetto, and 5,000 generally incapable of working,
including those over 60 years of age. In order to use
this opportunity for reducing the number of inmates, now
amounting to 48,000, which is too high for the ghetto, I
ask that
special powers be given to me." [Page 268]
If it please the Tribunal, my report will finish here this
evening, and will be continued tomorrow, dealing with the
utilisation of this manpower, which I shall endeavour to
deal with as quickly as possible in the light of the
testimonies we have already had.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 30th January 1946, at 1000 hours)
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(Part 9 of 9)
"At the station of Rheims water was refused us by the
German Red Cross."
Second paragraph:
"We were dying of thirst. In Breslau the prisoners again
begged nurses of the German Red Cross to give us a
little water. They refused and remained unmoved by our
appeals" etc.
To prevent escape, in disregard of the most natural and
elementary feelings of modesty, the deportees were obliged
in many trains to strip themselves of all their clothes, and
thus they travelled for many hours entirely naked from
France to Germany. A testimony to this effect is given by
our official document already submitted as Exhibit RF 274,
page 17 of the French text, second paragraph...
"One of the means used to prevent escape, or as
reprisals for the same, was to unclothe the prisoners
completely," and another report adds: "This was also
aimed at the moral degradation of the individual."
The most restrained testimonies report that this crowding
together of naked men barely having room to breathe, was a
horrible sight. When escapes occurred in spite of the
precautions, hostages were taken from the cars and shot.
Testimony to this effect is provided by the same document,
page 18, at the top of the page :
"5 deportees were executed."
Thus near Montmorency five deportees from the train of the 5
August, 1944 were buried, and five others of the same train
were executed by pistol shots by German Police and officers
of the Wehrmacht at Domremy. Added to this quotation is that
of another official document, Exhibit RF 321, which we have
already submitted. On page 20 you will read. (page 11 of the
German text, page 2 of Exhibit RF 321):
"Several young men were rapidly chosen. The moment they
reached the trench each policeman seized a prisoner,
pushed him against the side of the trench, and fired a
pistol into the nape of his neck."
The same rule prevailed in deportations from Denmark. The
Danish Jews were particularly affected. A certain number
warned in time had been able to escape to Sweden with the
help of Danish patriots. Unfortunately eight to nine
thousand persons were arrested by the Germans and deported.
It is estimated that 475 of them were transported by boat
and truck under inhuman conditions to Theresienstadt
(Bohemia and Moravia). This is stated in the Danish document
submitted as Document 666. The Tribunal will find it in the
first volume of its document book, and the quotation which I
have just made is on page two of this document. That is the
sixteenth (second to last) document in the first document
book.
"In most places the policemen were dismissed immediately
after having been disarmed; only in Copenhagen and in
the nearby provincial towns
And for the frontier guards the following paragraph:
"The policemen were brought to Buchenwald. They were
kept under indescribably insanitary conditions, and a
very large proportion of them fell ill. About one
hundred policemen and frontier guards died, and several
still bear signs of their stay."
When this deportation had been carried out all the citizens
of the subjugated countries of the West and of Europe found
themselves in the company of their Eastern comrades of
misfortune in the concentration camps of Germany. These
camps were mere means of realisation of the policy of
extermination which Germany had pursued ever since the
National Socialists seized power. This policy of
extermination would lead, according to Hitler, to the
installing of 225,000,000 Germans in Europe, in the
territories adjoining Germany, which constitute her vital
living space.
"The total number of deported: 250,000.
On the following page a few names of deported French
officials:
"The Reichsfuehrer SS, and Chief of the German Police
has given his approval relative to the division of the
concentration camps into various categories, which take
into account the prisoner's character and the degree of
danger he represents to the State. Accordingly, the
concentration camps will be classified into the
following categories.
Category 1: For all prisoners accused of minor
delinquencies and definitely qualified for reform.
"As from this date and until 1 November 1943, all workers
from the Eastern countries, and those of foreign
nationality, who escaped or broke their contracts, and
who do not belong to allied, friendly or neutral states
shall be sent back to concentration camps by the quickest
means possible."
Arbitrary internments with a view to procuring at the least
possible cost the maximum output from labour which had
already been deported to Germany, but which had to be paid
since it was under labour contracts.
"In connection with the increased transfer of labour to
concentration camps, to be completed by 30 January 1943,
the following procedure may be applied regarding the
Jews:
At the very end of this paragraph:
1. Total number: 45,000 Jews.
"The number of 45,000 includes the invalids (appendix
"old jews and children" included). Through rational
means, the screening of the newly
And now here is an official document which corroborates the
testimony of Mme. Vaillant Couturier, among various other
testimonies on the same question, according to which the
systematic selections made in each shipment arriving at
Auschwitz were not made by the mere will of the Chief of the
camp of Auschwitz but ordered by members of the German
Government itself.