Sixty-First Day:
Monday, 18th February, 1946
[Page 95] [Page 96]
Hamaidas' occupation in the camp was to burn the corpses of
those who had been shot. At the same time he was a witness
to the mass shooting of the peaceful population, men, women
and children.
The testimony of Hamaidas, together with other documents
concerning the Lvov camps, has already been submitted to the
Tribunal as Exhibit USSR 6-c; I quote two lines from the
testimony of Hamaidas, from Page 55 of the document book,
eleventh line from the bottom of the page:
I refer, in confirmation of this, to the document already
presented to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR 6-c, which
contains medico-forensic reports of experts employed in the
exhumation in Yanov Camp. I shall only quote two lines of
the conclusion.
The members of the Tribunal will find the place where I
refer to the conclusion of the legal-medical experts on
Yanov Camp on Page 330 of the document book, second
paragraph. I quote this brief excerpt:-
Children were often cut in half with rusty saws and
subjected to other forms of tortures."
Children were the first victims of carbon monoxide poisoning
in the German gas vans. In confirmation I refer to the
material already submitted as Exhibit USSR 1, which is the
Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the Crimes
[Page 97]
Before the entrance of the first section of the
sanatorium, on 22 December, 1942, a German automobile
drew up. Seven German soldiers, who had arrived in the
vehicle dragged fifty-four seriously ill children,
ranging in age from three years upward, out of the
sanatorium (they were too ill to move and therefore were
not driven forcibly into the van) and stacked them in
layers inside the vehicle. They then closed the door,
let in the carbon monoxide gas and drove off from the
sanatorium. An hour later the vehicle returned to
Teberda. All the children had perished. They had been
exterminated by the Germans and their bodies thrown into
the Teberda ravine near Gunachgir."
Prisoner Cpl. Friederich Heile, of troop battalion 2-19
MKA, Naval Transport Detachment,
testified as follows:
I present to the Tribunal the summary report of the
Leningrad City Commission for the Investigation of German
Crimes. This report is being submitted to the Tribunal as
Exhibit USSR 85. I shall not quote any long passages from
this report. I shall merely draw the Tribunal's attention to
the fact that on Page 347, Volume 11, paragraph 4, in the
document book, the Judges may see for themselves the list of
targets exposed to German artillery fire, which is testified
to by the logs of the fighting units. The following are some
of those targets:
Number 708, Institute for the Care of Mothers and
Infants.
Number 192, Palace of Pioneers."
The director of School No. 26, located at 13, Rubenstein
Street, writes:
[Page 98]
Djenia Kutareva, though seriously wounded, begged that
his father should not be disturbed because he suffered
from heart disease. The teacher and all the pupils
assisted the victims."
This is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on
"The Infamous Crimes of the German Government in Auschwitz".
I shall quote several short passages from the second report
entitled "Murderers of Children"; at the same time, however,
I would ask your Honours to pay special attention to Page 47
of the Auschwitz Album (Exhibit USSR 30) as well as to Pages
48 and 49. The photographs on these pages clearly show how
emaciated these children were. I omit the first paragraph,
and I quote:
Ex-prisoner Jacob Gordon, a doctor from Vilnius,
testified:
Ex-prisoner Bakasch Waldraut, of Dusseldorf, Germany,
testified:
I omit the next paragraph and ask the Tribunal, while I
read, to refer to Page 50 of the photographic documents of
Auschwitz. Here we find the photographs of a twelve-year-old
boy, Ziehmlich, and a boy of thirteen, Mando, and the
Tribunal can see the deformation of these children from
exposure to cold. I continue:
[Page 99]
I refer this document to the Tribunal because, in their
hatred of the Slav race, the German fascist criminals even
attempted to murder the babe in the womb.
The members of the Tribunal will find the document on Page
362, in Volume II of the document book. I shall read two
short paragraphs into the record:-
The analysis of the material connected with the Hitlerite
terror in the countries of Eastern Europe is positive proof
that the atrocities perpetrated on children will remain
forever the most disgraceful page in the history of German
Fascism.
I request permission, your Honour, to present now the
photographic documentation which, owing to a technical
difficulty, I was unable to show before the luncheon recess.
With your consent I shall show it at once. Apparently the
presentation will now be more successful than earlier in the
day. I would emphasise that, in selecting the photographs I
was not, so to speak, guided by the horror of their
contents, but simply by the fact that they demonstrate
typical fascist procedures.
(Photographs were projected on the screen in the Court
Room.)
(1) Here we see one person being shot. This snapshot was
taken in the Moscow Region, during the German advance on
Moscow. The man was executed in reprisal for the death of a
German.
(2) Here we see four persons being shot. The four youths
condemned to death are standing on the edge of a pit which
they have dug. The members of the Tribunal can see for
themselves that the German criminals standing on the
outskirts of the wood are laughing at the victims.
(3) This snapshot was taken at the time of the execution.
The killing is carried out in the typical German style,
i.e., by a shot in the back of the neck. You will observe
that the victims are crying out at the moment of death.
(4) The snapshots, your Honours, which I am now showing were
taken by the German Obergruppenfuehrer Sauberstroh, Chief of
the Neapal Gestapo. It represents a German mass execution.
The victims have been ordered to strip on the execution
ground. Here you see a young girl seated, already undressed,
and next to her brother, Jacob, who has also been ordered to
strip. I wish to
[Page 100]
(5) In addition to some women condemned to be shot, this
snapshot also shows a very young girl trying to hide behind
her mother.
(6) In December, these naked women are being taken to the
execution ground. Condemned to death, these women have been
forced, by the same Obergruppenfuehrer, to pose before the
camera.
(7) Here we have a group of men and with them a small child
accompanied by his mother. They are going to the execution
ground.
(8) This is an amateur photograph, albeit a very clear one.
Here, your Honours, you see a group of people and some dead
bodies, with machine guns to the right of them. I would ask
the Tribunal to observe the disposal of the dead bodies. The
photograph is probably taken in the first months of the
German occupation because the bodies have been thrown into
the pit carelessly; in the latter months orders were given
to lay out the bodies tidily in rows.
(9) This is a snapshot of the same group. Here you see both
women and young girls who had been 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 Strich, an internee in the camp,
together with his bandmaster, Mundt. I request your Honours
to observe two points of interest in this snapshot. To the
right we see the camp commander, Obergruppenfuehrer Gebaude,
in a white uniform, and behind him his dog, Rex, known to us
through many interrogations, as having been trained to
harass living persons and to tear them to pieces. It is
evident that Gebaude is leading the orchestra to the
execution ground.
(11) One of the gallows used by the German Fascists in their
attempt 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 is seen
laughing at the foot of the gallows.
(12) A second gallows erected in the same market place, also
taken from the archives of the Gestapo.
(13) I am showing your Honours 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, similar 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 very 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 emphasise the manner in which the German fascists
mocked the chastity of the Russian
[Page 101]
(19) This snapshot will help you to understand subsequent
events. It represents a machine for grinding human bones.
Next to the machine stands the prisoner of war who feeds it.
It can grind the bones of two hundred persons at a time. As
has been proved to the Commission, it has a constant yield
of 200 cubic metres of bone meal.
(Photographs identified as Exhibits USSR 100, 101, 102, 212,
385, 388, 389, 390, 391.)
That is all.
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(Part 5 of 7)
[COLONEL L. N. SMIRNOV continues] "On 23 September, 1942, at seven o'clock in the evening,
a 5-ton truck appeared in the yard of the Children's
Home, bringing six armed Germans in military uniform.
The group leader, named Max, explained that the children
would be taken to Brest and ordered them to be placed in
the truck. Fifty-five children and their teacher,
Grocholskaya, were placed in the truck. One girl, 9-year-
old Tossia Schachmatova, succeeded in climbing out of
the truck and escaping. The remaining fifty-four and the
teacher were driven away in the truck in the direction
of the station of Dubitz, 1 1/2 kilometres from the
village of Leplevka. The car stopped at a frontier gun
emplacement, 800 metres from the River West Bug. The
children were undressed" which was proved by the fact
that the children's clothes were found in the returning
truck, - "and shot."
"I was a witness to such facts, The executioner would
seize children by the feet, tear them apart and throw
them into the fire."
Having shot the parents, the German murderers considered it
unnecessary to waste ammunition on children. When they did
not throw the children into the grave pits they often
murdered them simply by hitting them with a heavy object or
by pounding their heads against the ground.
"The executioners did not consider it necessary to waste
ammunition on children. They simply killed them by
hitting them over the head with a blunt instrument.
I ask the permission of the Court to read into the record
only one paragraph from a note of the People's Commissar for
Foreign Affairs of the U.S,S.R., dated 24 April, 1942. The
members of the Tribunal will find the place to which I refer
on Page 8, third paragraph:
"The invaders subjected children and adolescents to the
most brutal tortures. Among the 100 wounded and maimed
children, victims of the Hitlerite terror in the
districts of the now liberated Moscow Region, undergoing
treatment in the Russakov Hospital in Moscow, there is,
for instance, the case of a 14-year-old boy, Vanya
Gromov, from the village of Novinki, who had been
strapped to a table by the Hitlerites and had his right
arm sawed off with a rusty saw. The Germans chopped off
both hands of 12-yearold Vanya Kryukov, of the village
of Kryukovo, in the Kursk Region, and drove him,
bleeding profusely, towards the Soviet troops."
I omit the rest of the quotation - two pages - since similar
facts are related in the document which confirm the above-
mentioned episodes.
"It has been established that in December 1942, by order
of the Chief of the Gestapo for the town of Mikoian-
Schachar, Lieut. (Oberleutnant) Otto Weber, an
extraordinarily cruel massacre was carried out of Soviet
children undergoing treatment for tuberculosis of the
bone in the sanatorium of the Teberda health resort.
Eyewitnesses to this crime have testified as
follows:
Children were also drowned in the open sea. In confirmation,
I refer to the document already submitted, Exhibit USSR 63,
on the "German Atrocities in Sebastopol ". The members of
the Tribunal will find the place I am referring to on Page
226, paragraph 7 - I quote:
"In addition to the mass shootings, the Hitlerites
cruelly drowned peaceful citizens in the open sea.
Heavy artillery fire was openly directed by the German
fascist criminals against schools, children's asylums,
hospitals and other children's institutions in Leningrad.
'When I was in the port of Sebastopol, I saw large
groups of peaceful citizens, including women and
children, brought to the harbour. All the Russians were
loaded on barges. Many resisted. However, they were
beaten and driven forcibly on to the barges. About 3,000
people, all told, were loaded on. The barges put out to
sea. Several hours passed and the barges slipped again
into their moorings. From the ship's crew I found out
that all the people had been thrown overboard."'
"Number 736, a school in Baburinsk Street.
I also shall take the liberty of quoting a short excerpt
from the testimony of the director of School No. 218, which
the members of the Tribunal will find on Page 348, Volume
II, first paragraph.
"On 18 May, 1942, School No. 218 underwent artillery
fire. A twelve-year-old boy, Lenja Isarow, was killed. A
little girl, Dora Binamowa, turned
I conclude the quotation concerning Leningrad. I omit two
pages of the text, and draw the Tribunal's attention to Page
355, Volume II, paragraph 6. Your Honours will find there a
document previously presented as Exhibit USSR 8.
"Investigations have proved that the Germans completely
sapped the strength of children between eight and ten
years of age, by forcing them to do the same heavy work
as they gave to the adults. Toil beyond their strength,
beatings and torture soon exhausted the children - then
they were killed.
Here is what some of the children, who were saved by the Red
Army, themselves testify about the tortures to which they
were subjected.
In the beginning of 1943, at Camp Birkenau, 164 boys were
taken away to the hospital, where they were killed by
injections of carbolic acid in the heart.
'In 1943, when we worked on the construction of a hedge
surrounding crematorium No. 5, I myself saw S.S. men
throw several living children into bonfires.'"
"A nine-year-old boy, Andrazz Lerintsiakosz, a native of
the city of Klez, Hungary, testified:
I omit the next three paragraphs of the quotation, and I
read into the record the last paragraph of this section:
'After we had been driven to Block 22 of the camp, we
were beaten, mainly by German women who were put over us
as guards. They beat us with sticks. During my stay in
the camp Dr. Mengele bled me very frequently. In
November, 1944, all the children were transferred to camp
'A', known as the "Gypsy Camp ". During roll-call it was
discovered that one child was missing. Thereupon the
leader of the women's camp, Brandem, and her assistant,
Mendel, drove us all into the street at one in the
morning and left us standing there in the cold until
noon.'"
"There were, among the children liberated from Auschwitz
and examined by physicians, 180 children, fifty-two of
them under eight years of age and 128 between the ages
of eight and fifteen. All arrived in the camp in the
I submit to the Tribunal and request your Honours to accept
as evidence Exhibit USSR 92. It is a directive from the
Administration of Food and Agriculture, entitled "Treatment
of Pregnant Women of Non-Germanic Origin".
"There has recently been a considerable increase in the
birth rate among women of non-Germanic origin. Because
of this difficulties have arisen, not only as to the use
of these people for labour but, to a greater extent,
because of the sociological menace which should not be
under-estimated."
I omit one paragraph and quote further:
"The simplest method for overcoming these difficulties
would be to inform, as soon as possible, the
institutions which employ them for labour, of the
pregnancy of the non-Germanic women."
I draw your special attention to the last sentence:
"These institutions must compel the women to get rid of
their children by resorting to abortion."
I conclude my quotation.