Fifty-Eighth Day: Wednesday, February 13, 1946
COLONEL POKROVSKY: I return to the "Report of the
Extraordinary State Commission for the Investigation of
Crimes committed by the German Fascist Invaders in Smolensk
and in the Region of Smolensk." The greater part of this
report is dedicated to the mass annihilation of prisoners of
war by the Germans. I should like to read into thr record
excerpts from this document, submitted to you as Exhibit
USSR 56, Page 6, paragraph 4 from the top; you will find it
on Page 58 of our document book. It reads as follows:
In the autumn of 1941 the German occupational forces
drove a party of prisoners of war from Vyasma to
Smolensk. Many of the prisoners were unable to stand,
as a result of continuous beating and exhaustion.
Whenever the citizens attempted to give any of the
prisoners a piece of bread, the German soldiers drove
the Soviet citizens off, beat them with sticks and
rifle butts, and shot them dead. On the Bolshaya
Sovetskaya Street, on the Roslavskoye and Kievskoye
high roads, the Fascist blackguards opened a disorderly
fire on a column of prisoners of war. The prisoners
attempted to escape, but the soldiers overtook and shot
them up. In that way nearly 5,000 Soviet people were
shot dead. The corpses were left lying about the
streets for several days."
We are only completing the document by factual evidence. On
the same Page 6 (which corresponds to Page 58 of the
document book) two lines lower down, it is said:
[Page 319]
Thousands of prisoners of war were shot in the camp
under the directions of 'Sonderfuehrer' Eduard Gyss.
Sergeant Gatlyn brutally avenged himself on the
prisoners. Being aware of the fact, they tried to keep
out of his way. So Gatlyn dressed in the uniform of a
Red Army soldier, mixed with the crowd, and, having
picked himself a victim, would beat him half-dead.
Private Rudolf Radtke, a former wrestler from the
German circuses, himself prepared a special lash made
of aluminum wire, with which he beat the prisoners
black and blue. On Sundays he would come to the camp
drunk, throw himself on the first prisoner he met,
torture and kill him.
Emaciated and exhausted Soviet invalids were forced by
the Fascists to work at the Smolensk power plant. Many
occasions were observed when prisoners, worn out by
starvation, would collapse under the strain of work
beyond their strength and were immediately shot by
'Sonderfuehrer' Szepalsky, 'Sonderfuehrer' Bram,
Hofmann Mauser, and `Sonderfuehrer' Wagner.
There was, in Smolensk, a hospital for prisoners of
war; Soviet doctors working at that hospital stated:
"Up to July, 1942, the patients lay un-bandaged on the
floor. Their clothes and bedding were covered not only
with dirt but with pus. The rooms were unheated and the
floors of the corridors coated with ice."
I shall read into thr record only such excerpts from the
findings of the experts' investigation as have a direct
bearing on my subject.
You will find the paragraph which I am now quoting on Page
61 of your document book, corresponding to Page 9 of our
Exhibit USSR 56:
In some cases partly preserved articles of clothing and
tattoo marks alone could help in establishing the
identity of the deceased." [Page 320]
An objective proof of death from starvation, over and
above the total absence of all subcutaneous fatty
tissues, as disclosed during the autopsies, was the
discovery, in a number of cases, of grassy substances,
remains of rough leaves and plant stalks in the
abdominal cavity."
The victims, in an overwhelming majority of cases, were
men, and men mostly in the prime of life, that is,
between the ages of 20 and 40." [
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(Part 11 of 19)
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel, the Tribunal proposes to adjourn at
4.30 this afternoon, as they have some administrative work
to do.
"The German Fascist invaders systematically
exterminated the wounded and captured Soviet prisoners.
Physicians A.N. Smirnov, A.N. Glasunov, A.M. Demidov,
A.S. Pogrebnov, and others, formerly interned in the
war prisoners' camp, stated that on the road from
Vyasma to Smolensk the Hitlerites shot several thousand
people.
It is not difficult to see that this extract fully coincides
with the statement in Document 081-PS, which has already
been read into thr record, the contents of which I have once
again related to the Tribunal very briefly and in my own
words.
"The German military authorities tortured the prisoners
of war. On the way to Smolensk, and especially at the
camp, the prisoners were killed by tens and hundreds.
In Prisoner of War Camp No. 126, the Soviet people were
subjected to torture; sick people were sent to heavy
labour; no medical assistance was rendered. The
prisoners in the camp were tortured, forced to do work
beyond their strength, and shot. About 150 to 200
people died every day of torture, by starvation, typhus
and dysentery epidemics, freezing to death, exhausting
work, and bloody terror. Over 60,000 peaceful citizens
and prisoners of war were exterminated in the camp by
the German Fascist invaders. The facts of the
extermination of the imprisoned officers and men of the
Red Army and of the peaceful citizens were confirmed by
the testimony of physicians imprisoned in the camp;
Smirnov, Hmyrov, Pogrebnov, Erpylov, Demidov, hospital
nurses
Shubina and Lenkovskya, and also by Red Army soldiers
and inhabitants of the city of Smolensk.
A report of a medico-legal examination is appended, Your
Honours, to the statement of the Extraordinary State
Commission which I have just quoted. Experts such as
Academician Burdenko, member of the Extraordinary
Commission, Dr. Prosorovsky, chief medico-forensic expert of
the People's Commissariat for the Care of Public Health in
the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, Doctor of
Medical Sciences, Smolianov, Professor of Forensic Medicine
at the Second Moscow Medical Institute, and other
specialists conducted -- from 1st to 16th October, 1943 --
numerous exhumations and medico-legal autopsies on the
corpses in Smolensk and the vicinity of Smolensk.
"The corpses found in the pits were for the most part
either partially or completely naked, or else clothed
in worn-out underwear; only in the minority of cases
did the bodies disinterred wear clothes or military
uniforms."
It is stated, in paragraph 2 on the next page of the
document book:
"Identity documents were found in 16 cases only (3
passports, 1 Red Army book and 12 military identity
'medallions'). By 'medallions' I mean the small tub-
like cases, not unlike a needle-case in appearance,
issued to each soldier in the Red Army. A document
giving the soldier's name, patronymic, surname, and
rank, together with his home address, is slipped into
this tube.
This circumstance confirms the fact that the Germans
endeavored to make the identification of their victims
impossible, as demanded in special German directives. The
first paragraph on Page 11 of this exhibit, corresponding to
your Page 63 in the document book, says:
"The autopsies performed on corpses taken from graves
in the area of the large and small concentration camps
at Plant 35, of the former German hospital for
prisoners of war, of a sawmill and of concentration
camps near the villages of Becherskaya and Rakytna,
revealed that according to the data of the autopsies,
death, in an overwhelming majority of cases, could be
ascribed to hunger, starvation and acute infectious
diseases.
On the same page, but rather lower down, in paragraph 4, we
read:
"The considerable number of burial-pits opened (87),
filled with masses of corpses, together with the
estimated differences in the time of burial,
differences ranging from the second half of 1941 to
1943, testify to the systematic extermination of Soviet
citizens.
Somewhat lower, on the same page:
"Special attention was attracted by the fact that the
exhumed corpses, with few exceptions, regularly lacked
footwear. Clothing, too, was absent as a rule, or
consisted of worn-out underwear or parts of outer
garments. The natural conclusion drawn from these facts
is that the removal of clothes and footwear of any
value had become the usual and officially recognized
procedure preceding the extermination of Soviet
citizens."
In conclusion, the Commission deals with the means of
extermination, i.e., shooting, asphyxiation by gas and so
forth. All this is not new to us and it is not necessary, at
present, to part of the conclusion.