During the following nights about 2,300 Jews were made harmless in a similar way.
In other parts of Lithuania similar actions fol lowed the example of Kowno, though small er and extending to the Communists who had been left behind."
(L-180) In working up special squads to initiate and carry through pogroms in Lithuania and Latvia, Stahlecker made it a point to select men who for personal reasons had a grudge against the Russians.
Somehow these squads were then made to believe that by killing Jews they were avenging themselves on the Russians for their own griefs.
Activity and Situation Report No. 6, prepared in October 1941, complained that Einsatz units operating in Estonia could not provoke "spontaneous, anti-Jewish demonstration with ensuing pogroms" because "adequate enlightment was lacking". However, as stated before, not everything was lost because under the direction of the Einsatzgruppe of the Security Police and Security Service, all male Jews over the age of 16, with the exception of doctors and Jewish Elders, were arrested and killed. The report then states: "At the conclusion of the operation there will be only 500 Jewesses and children left in the Ostland".
Hermann Friedrich Graebe, manager and engineer in charge of a German building firm in Sdolbunow, Ukraine, has described in graphic language just how a pogrom operates. When he heard that a pogrom was being incubated he called on the commanding officer of the town, SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Putz, to ascertain if the story had any basis in fact since he, Graebe, employed some Jewish workers whom he wished to protect. Sturmbannfuehrer Putz denied the rumors. Later, however, Graebe learned from the Area Commissioner's deputy, Stabsleiter Beck, that a pogrom was actually in the making but he exacted from Graebe the promise not to disclose the secret. He even gave Graebe a certificate to protect his workers from the pogrom. This amazing document reads:
"Messrs. JUNG R o w n o The Jewish workers employed by your firm are not affected by the pogrom.
You must transfer them to their new place of work by Wednesday, 15 July 1942, at the latest.
From the Area Commissioner Beck".
That evening the pogrom broke. At ten o'clock SS-men and Ukrainian militia surged into the Ghetto, forcing doors with beams and crossbars. Let Graebe tell the story in his own words:
"The people living there were driven on to the street just as they were, regardless of whether they were dressed or in bed.
Since the Jews in most cases refused to leave their houses and resisted, the SS and militia applied force.
They finally succeeded, with strokes of the whip, kicks and blows, with rifle butts in clearing the houses.
The people were driven out of their houses in such haste that small children in bed had been left behind in several instances.
In the street women cried out for their children and children for their parents.
That did not prevent the SS from driving the people along the road, at running pace, and hitting them, until they reached a waiting freight train.
"Car after car was filled, and the screaming of women and children, and the cracking of whips and rifle shots resounded unceasingly.
Since several families or groups had barricaded themselves in especially strong buildings, and the doors could not be forced with crowbars or beams, these houses were now blown open with handgrenades.
Since the Ghetto was near the railroad tracks in Rowno, the younger people tried to get across the tracks and over a small river to get away from the Ghetto area.
As this stretch of country was beyond the range of the electric lights, it was illuminated by signal rockets.
"All through the night these beaten, hounded and wounded people moved along the lighted streets.
Women carried their dead children in their arms, children pulled and dragged their dead parents by their arms and legs down the road toward the train.
Again and again the cries 'Open the door! Open the door!' echoed through the Ghetto."
Despite the immunity guaranteed his Jewish workers by Commissioner Beck, seven of them were seized and taken to the collecting point. Graebe's narrative continues:
"I went to the collecting point to save these seven men.
I saw dozens of corpses of all ages and both sexes in the streets I had to walk along.
The doors of the houses stood open, windows were smashed.
Pieces of clothing, shoes, stockings, jackets, caps, hats, coats, etc.
were lying in the street.
At the corner of the house lay a baby, less than a year old with his skull crushed.
Blood and brains were spattered over the house wall and covered the area immediately around the child.
The child was dressed only in a little skirt.
The commander, SS Major Puetz, was walking up and down a row of about 80 - 100 male Jews who were crouching on the ground.
He had a heavy dog whip in his hand. I walked up to him, showed him the written permit of Stabs leiter Beck and demanded the seven men whom I recognized among those who were crouching on the ground.
Dr. Puetz was very furious about Beck's concession and nothing could persuade him to release the seven men.
He made a motion with his hand encircling the square and said that anyone who was once here would not get away.
Although he was very angry with Beck, he ordered me to take the people from 5 Bahnhof strasse out of Rowno by 8 o'clock at the latest.
"When I left Dr. Puetz, I noticed a Ukrainian farm cart, with two horses.
Dead people with stiff limbs were lying on the cart, legs and arms projected over the side boards.
The cart was making for the freight train. I took the remaining 74 Jews who had been locked in the house to Sdolbunow."
5,000 Jews were massacred in this pogrom.
Special Kommando 7 which, as heretofore indicated, had shot the 27 Jews on the streets of Witebsk, announced in its report:
"The Ruthenian part of the population has approved of this.
Large-scale execution of Jews will follow immediately."
The active cooperation of the action units with the accomplishment of pogroms is evidenced by one report where the Sipo and SD want some of the credit for the murders committed:
"As a result of the pogroms carried out by the Lithua nians, who were nevertheless substantially assisted by Sipo and SD, 3,800 Jews in Kauen and 1,200 in the smaller town were eliminated."
In some areas special groups were set up:
"In addition to this auxiliary police force, 2 more independent groups have been set up for the purpose of carrying out pogroms.
All synagogues have been destroyed; 400 Jews have already been liquidated."
THE PRESIDENT:The presiding judge continues with the reading: Heading, Appropriation of Personal Effects and Valuables While no explanation was ever given as to why the Nazis condemned the Jews to extermination, the public record shows that they counted on substantial material advantage.
The levying of enormous indemnities against persons considered by the Nazis as Jews or halfJews and the expropriation of their property in Germany as well as in the countries occupied by it, brought huge returns to the coffers of the Reich. And even in the dread and grim business of mass slaughter, a definite profit was rung up on the Nazi cash register. For example, Situation Report No. 73, dated 4 September 1941 reporting on the executions carried out by a single unit, Einsatzkommando 8, makes the cold commercial announcement:
"On the occasion of a purge at Tscherwen 125,880 rubels were found on 139 liquidated Jews and were confiscated.
This brings the total of the money confiscated by Einsatz kommando 8 to 1,510,399 rubels up to the present day."
Situation Report No. 133, dated 14 November 1941, shows the progress made by this unit in a little over two months:
"During the period covered by this report, Einsatzkommando 8 confiscated a further 491,705 rubels as well as 15 gold rubels.
They were entered into the ledgers and passed to the Administration of Einsatzkommando 8. The total amount of rubels so far secured by Einsatzkommando 8 now amounts to 2,511,226 rubels."
On 26 October 1941, Situation Report No. 125 gave Einsatzkommando 7b credit for 46,700 rubels taken from liquidated Jews, Einsatzkommando 9 credit for 43,825 rubels and "various valuables in gold and silver", and recorded that Einsatzkommando 8 had increased the amount of its loot to the sum of 2,019,521 rubels.
Operation and Situation Report No. 31, dated July 1941, rendering an account of operations in Lithuania, recorded the taking of "460,000 rubels in cash as well as a large number of valuables" from liquidated Jews. The report stated further:
"The former Trade Union Building in Wilna was secured for the German Labor Front (DAF) at their request, likewise the money in the trade union accounts in banks, totalling 1.5 million rubels."
Although engaged in an ideological enterprise, supposedly undertaken on the highest ethnic and cultural level, executants of the program were not above the most petty and loathsome thievery. In the liquidation of Jews in Zhitomir and Kiew the reporting Einsatzkommando collected 137 trucks full of clothing. The report does not say whether the clothing was torn from the victims while they were still alive or after they had been killed. This stolen raiment was turned over to the National Socialist People's Welfare Organization.
One of the defendants related how during the winter of 1941 he was ordered to obtain furcoats for his men, and that since the Jews had so much winter clothing, it would not matter much to them if they gave up a few fur coats. In describing an execution which he attended, the defendant was asked whether the victims were undressed before the execution. He replied: "No, the clothing wasn't taken - this was a fur coat procurement operation."
A document issuing from Einsatzgruppe D headquarters (February 1942) speaks of the confiscation of watches in the course of anti-Jewish activities. The term "confiscate" does not change the legal or moral character of the operation. It was plain banditry and highway robbery. The gold and silver watches were sent to Berlin, others were handed over to the Wehrmacht (rank and file) and to members of the Einsatzgruppe itself "for a nominal price" or even gratuitously if the circumstances warranted that kind of liberality with these blood-stained articles. This report also states that money seized was transmitted to the Reich Bank, except "for a small amount required for routine purposes (wages etc.)". In other words the executioners paid themselves with money taken from their victims.
The same Einsatzgruppe, reporting on the hard conditions under which some Ethnic German families were living in Southern Russia, showed that it helped by placing Jewish homes, furniture, children's beds, and other equipment at the disposition of the Ethnic Germans. These houses and equipment were taken from liquidated Jews.
Einsatzgruppe C, proudly reporting on its accomplishments in Korowo (September 1941), stated that it organized a regular police force to clear the country of Jews as well as for other purposes. The men enlisted for this purpose, the report goes on to say, received "their pay from the municipality from funds seized from Jews".
Whole villages were condemned, the cattle and supplies seized, (that is stolen), the population shot and then the villages themselves destroyed.
Villages were razed to the ground because of the fact, or under the shallow pretense, that some of the inhabitants had been aiding or lodging partisans.
The reports abound with itemization of underwear, clothing, shoewear, cooking-utensils, etc., taken from the murdered Jews.
In Poltawa, 1,538 Jews were shot and their clothing was handed over to the mayor who, according to the report covering this action, "gave special priority to the Ethnic Germans when distributing it".
Even those who were destined for death through the gas vans had to give up their money and valuables and sometimes their clothes before breathing in the carbon monoxide.
Money and valuables taken from victims were sent to Berlin to the Reich Ministry of Finance. When a Jewish Council of Elders was appointed to register the Jews for the ostensible purpose of resettlement, the Council was also requested to submit the financial situation of the Jews. This facilitated the despoiliation of their possessions which went hand in hand with their execution.
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
Prisoners of War The extermination program on racial and political grounds also extended to prisoners of war.
Even in the first weeks of Germany's war against Russia, large numbers of civilians from the invaded areas were indiscriminately thrown into prisoner of war camps, run by the P.O.W. department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. On 17 July 1941, Heydrich issued Operational Order No. 8, which contained "directives" for the Einsatz units "detailed to permanent P.W. camps (Stalags) and Transit camps (Dulags)". These directives not only grossly violated the provisions of the Hague Regulations on prisoners of war and civilians in belligerently occupied territories and of century-old rules and customs of warfare, but outraged every principle of humanity. They provided for nothing less than the cold-blooded mass-murder of prisoners of war, and of civilians held in P.W. camps. The directives state as their "purpose":
"The Wehrmacht must immediately free it self of all those elements among the pri soners of war who must be regarded as Bolshevist influence.
The special situa tion of the campaign in the east, there fore, demands special measures (Italics original) which have to be carried out in a spirit free from bureaucratic and ad ministrative influences, and with an eager ness to assume responsibility."
The directives instruct the Einsatz units as to which categories of persons to seek out "above all". This list mentions in detail all categories and types of Russian Government officials, all influential communist party officials, "the leading personalities of the economy", "the Soviet Russian intellectuals", and as a separate category -- the category which was again to yield the largest number of victims of this "action" -
"All Jews" It, in fact, emphasized that in -"taking any decisions, the racial origin has to be taken into consideration."
Concerning executions, the directives specified:
Court No. II, Cass No. IX.
"The executions must not be carried out in the camp itself or in its immediate neighborhood.
They are not public and are to be carried out as inconspicuously as possible."
Further:
" "In order to facilitate the execution of the purge, a liaison-officer is to be sent to Generalmajor von Hindenburg, Commander-in-Chief of the P.W. camps in the Army Corps Area, East Prussia, in Koenigsberg, Prussia, and to General leutnant Herrgott, Commander-in-Chief of the P.W. camps in the General Gouvern ment in Kieloe."
Under this program doctors, if found in the POW camps, were doomed either because they were "Russian intellectuals" or because they were Jews. However, by 29 October 1941, Heydrich found it necessary to rule:
"Because of the existing shortage of physicians and medical corps personnel in the camps, such persons, even if Jews, are to be excluded from the segregation and to be left in the P.W.camps, except in particularly well founded cases."
Another passage in this order of Heydrich vividly demonstrates to what extent the Reich went officially in flouting the most basic rules of international law and the principles of humanity:
"The chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen decide on the suggestions for execution on their own responsibility and give the Sonder kommandos the corresponding orders."
It is apparent that all those involved in this program were aware of its illegality:
"This order must not be passed on in writing -- not even in the form of an excerpt.
District commanders for Prisoners of war and commanders of Transit camps must be notified verb ally."
It is to the credit of an occasional army officer that he objected to this shameful and degrading repudiation of the rules of war. In one report we find:
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
"As a particularly clear example the conduct of a camp commander in Winniza is to be mentioned who strongly ob jected to the transfer of 362 Jewish prisoners of war carried out by his deputy and even started court martial proceedings against the deputy and two other officers."
General Fieldmarshal von Reichenau, commanding the Sixth Army, however, was not so chivalrous as the officer indicated. The report states further:
"Generalfeldmarshal von Reichenau has, on 10 October 1941, issued an order which states clearly that the Russian soldier has to be considered on prin ciple a representative of Bolshevism and has also to be treated accordingly by the Wehrmacht."
Perhaps the nadir in heartlessness and cowardice was reached by these murder groups when one of the kommandos brutally killed helpless, wounded prisoners of war. Einsatzgruppe C, reporting (November 1941) on an execution performed by Sonderkommando 4a, stated:
"....the larger part were again Jews, and a considerable part of these were again Jewish prisoners of war who had been handed over by the Wehrmacht.
At Borispol, at the request of the com mander of the Borispol POW-Camp, a platoon of Sonderkommando 4a shot 752 Jewish prisoners of war on 14 October 1941 and 357 Jewish prisoners of war on 10 October 1941, amongst them some commissioners and 78 wounded Jews, handed over by the camp physician."
PRESIDENT: The next heading, METHODS OF EXECUTION How were the executions conducted?
What was the modus operandi? On this subject history need not remain in the dark. Several of the executioners have themselves cleared away all mystery as to just how they accomplished their extraordinary deeds. Defendant Paul Blobel, who stated that his sonderkommando killed between 10,000 and 15,000 people, described in some detail one performance he personally directed. Specifying that from 700 to 1,000 persons were Court No. II, Case No. IX.
involved in this execution, he related how he divided his unit into shooting squads of 30 men each. Then, the mass graves were prepared -
"Out of the total number of the persons designated for the execution, 15 men were led in each case to the brink of the mass grave where they had to kneel down, their faces turned toward the grave.
At that time, clothes and valuables were not yet collected.
Later on this was changed.....
"When the men were ready for the execution one of my leaders who was in charge of this execution squad gave the order to shoot.
Since they were kneeling on the brink of the mass grave, the victims fell, as a rule, at once into the mass grave.
"I have always used rather large execution squads, since I declined to use men who were specialists for shots in the neck (Genickschusspezialisten). Each squad shot for about one hour and was then re placed.
The persons which still had to be shot were assembled near the place of the execution, and were guarded by members of those squads, which at that moment did not take part in the executions."
In some instances, the slain persons did not fall into the graves, and the executioners were then compelled to exert themselves to complete the job of internment. A method, however, was found to avoid this additional exertion by simply having the victims enter the ditch or grave while still alive. An SS eye-witness explained this procedure:
"The people were executed by a shot in the neck.
The corpses were buried in a large tank ditch.
The candidates for execution were already standing or kneeling in the ditch.
One group had scarcely been shot before the next came and laid themselves on the corpses there."
The defendant Biberstein also verified this with his statement:
"The shootings took place in a sand pit, in which the bodies afterwards were buried."
The defendant Ott, who stated his kommando conducted 80 to 100 executions, told of one winter execution where the corpses were temporarily buried in the snow.
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
The business of executions was apparently a very efficient business-like procedure, illustrated by Report No. 24, dated 16 July 1941, which succinctly stated:
"The arrested Jewish men are shot without ceremony and interred in already prepared graves, the EK 1b having shot 1,150 Jews at Duenaburg up to now."
Some of the kommando leaders, however, were a little more ceremonious. These executioners called off the names of the victims before they were loaded on to the truck which was to take them to their death. This was their whole judicial trial -- the indictment, the evidence, and the sentence -- a roll call of death.
There were different techniques in execution. There were Einsatz commanders who lined up their victims kneeling or standing on the edge of the grave, facing the grave, others who had the executees stand with their backs to the grave, and still others, as indicated, who had their victims stand in the grave itself. One defendant described how the victims lined up at the edge of the ditch and, as they fell, another row stepped into position so that, file after file, the bodies dropped into the pit on to the bleeding corpses beneath.
Hardly ever was a doctor present at the executions. The responsibility of the squad leader to make certain the victims were dead before burying them was simply discharged by a glance to determine whether the bullet-ridden bodies moved or not. Since in most cases the huddled and contorted bodies were strewn and piled in a trench at least six feet deep, only one more horror is added in contemplating the inadequacy of an inspection made from the rim of a ditch as to whether life in the dark ground below was extinct or not.
In fact, one defendant did not exclude the possibility that an executee could only seem to be dead because of shock or temporary unconsciousness. In such case it was inevitable he would be buried alive.
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
The defendant Blobel testified that his firing squad always aimed at the heads of the victims. If, he explains, the victim was not hit, then one member of the firing squad approached with his rifle to a distance of three paces and shot again. The scene of the victim watching the head-hunter approaching with his rifle and shooting at him at three paces represents a horror for which there is no language.
Some kommando leaders, as we have seen, made their victims lie down on the ground, and they were shot in the back of the neck. But, whatever the method, it was always considered honorable, it was always done in a humane and military manner. Defendant after defendant emphasized before the Tribunal that the requirements of militariness and humaneness were meticulously met in all executions. Of course, occasionally, as one defendant described it, "the manner in which the executions were carried out caused excitement and disobedience among the victims, so that the kommandos were forced to restore order by means of violence", that is to say, the victims were beaten. Undoubtedly always, of course, in a humane and military manner.
Only rarely, however, did the victims react to their fate. Commenting on this phase of the executions, one defendant related how some victims, destined to be shot in the back, turned around and bravely faced their executioners but said nothing. Almost invariably they went to their end silently, and some of the defendants commented on this. The silence of the doomed was mysterious, it was frightening. What did the executioners expect the victims to say? Who could find the words to speak to this unspeakable assault on humanity, this monstrous violence upon the dignity of life and being? They were silent. There was nothing to say.
It was apparently a standing order that executions should not be performed publicly, but should always take place far removed from the centers of population. A wooded area was usually selected Court No. II, Case No. IX.
for this grim business. Sometimes these rules were not observed. Document NOKW-641 relates an execution which took place near houses whose occupants became unwilling witnesses to the macabre scene. The narrative states:
"A heavy supply traffic for the soldiers was also going on in the main street, as well as traffic of evacuated civilians.
All events could be followed from the window of the battalion's office, the moaning of the people to be shot could be heard, too.
The following morning, a lot of clothing was lying about the place concerned and surrounded by in quisitive civilians and soldiers.
An order to destroy the clothing was given immediately."
The business man, Friedrich Graebe, already quoted before, has left a moving account of a mass execution witnessed by him in October 1942 near Dubno, an account which because of its authoritative description deserves recording in its entirety in this Opinion:
"Moennikes and I went direct to the pits.
Nobody bothered us. Now I heard rifle shots in quick succession, from behind one of the earth mounds.
The people who had got off the trucks -- men, women and children of all ages -- had to undress upon the orders of an SS-man, who carried a riding or dog whip.
"They had to put down their clothes in fixed places, sorted according to shoes, top clothing and underclothing.
I saw a heap of shoes of about 800 to 1,000 pairs, great piles of underlinen and clothing.
Without screaming or weeping these people undressed, stood around in family groups, kissed each other, said farewells and waited for a sign from another SS-man, who stood near the pit, also with a whip in his hand.
"During the 15 minutes that I stood near the pit I heard no complaint or plea for mercy.
I watched a family of about 8 persons, a man and woman, both about 50 with their children of about 1, 8 and 10, and two grown up daughters of about 20 to 24.
An old woman with snow-white hair was holding the one year old child in her arms and singing to it, and tickling it.
The child was cooing with delight.
The couple were looking on with tears in their eyes.
The father was holding the hand of a boy about 10 years old and speaking to him softly; the boy was fighting his tears.
The father pointed toward the sky, stroked his head, and seemed to explain some thing to him.
At that moment the SS-man at the pit shouted something to his comrade.
The latter counted off about 20 persons and instructed them to go behind the earth mound.
Among them was the family which I have mentioned.
"I well remember a girl, slim and with black hair, who, as she passed close to me, pointed to herself and said '23'. I walked around the mound and found myself con fronted by a tremendous grave.
People were closely wedged together and lying on top of each other so that only their heads were visible.
Nearly all had blood running over their shoulders from their heads.
Some of the people shot were still moving.
Some were lifting their arms and turning their heads to show that they were still alive.
The pit was already 2/3 full. I estimated that it already contained about 1,000 people.
I looked for the man who did the shooting. He was an SS man who sat at the edge of the narrow end of the pit, his feet dangling into the pit.
He had a tommy gun on his knees and was amoking a cigarette.
The people, completely naked, went down some steps which were cut in the clay wall of the pit end clambered over the heads of the people lying there, to the place to which the SS-men directed them.
They lay down in front of the dead or injured people; some caressed those who were still alive and spoke to them in a low voice.
Then I heard a series of shots.
"I looked into the pit and saw that the bodies were twitching or the heads lying already motionless on top of the bodies that lay before them.
Blood was running down their necks.
I was surprised that I was not ordered away, but I saw that there were two or three postmen in uniform nearby.
The next batch was approach ing already.
They went down into the pit, lined them selves up against the previous victims and were shot.
When I walked back, round the mound, I noticed another truckload of people which had just arrived.
This time it included sick and infirm persons.
An old, very thin woman with terribly thin legs was undressed by others who were already naked, while two people held her up.
The woman appeared to be paralyzed. The naked people carried the woman around the mound.
I left with Moennikes and drove in my car back to Dubno.
"On the morning of the next day, when I again visited the site, I saw about 30 naked people lying near the pit about 30 to 50 meters away from it.
Some of them were still alive; they looked straight in front of them with a fixed stare and seemed to notice neither the chilliness of the morning nor the workers of my firm who stood around.
A girl of about 20 spoke to me and asked me to give her clothes and help her escape.
At that moment we heard a fast car approach, and I noticed that it was an SS detail.
I moved away to my site.
Ten minutes later we heard shots from the vicinity of the pit.
The Jews still alive had been ordered to throw the corpses into the pit; = then they had them selves to lie down in this to be shot in the neck."
The tragecy of this scene is lost entirely on the executioner. He does his job as a job. So many persons are to be killed, just as a carpenter contemplates the construction of a shed. He must consider the material he has on hand, the possibilities of rain, etc. Only by psychologically adjusting oneself to such a state of affairs can one avoid a shock when one comes to a statement in a report very casually written, namely: "Until now, it was very difficult to carry out executions because of weather conditions."
A report from Einsatzgruppe A, discussing events which occurred in the winter of 1941-42, remarks:
"The Commander in White Russia is instructed to liquida te the Jewish question as soon as possible, despite the difficult situation.
However, a period of about 2 months is still required - according to the weather."
It is all this same type of studied indifference that causes another report-writer to chronicle simply: "Hostages are taken in each new place, and they are executed on the slightest reason."
One of the Einsatzgruppen leaders complains that only 96 Jews were executed at Grodno and Lida during the first days. He manifests his displeasure and declares: "I gave orders that considerable intensification was to take place there."
Judge Speight will continue with the reading of the judgment.
JUDGE SPEIGHT:Adolf Ruebe, a former SS-Hauptscharfuerher, declared in an affidavit that now and then there were executioners who devised original methods for killing their victims:
"On the occasion of an exhumation in Minsk, in Novem ber 1943, Obersturmfuehrer Heuser arrived with a kommando of Latvians.
They brought eight Jews, men and women, with them.
The Latvians guarded the Jews, while Harter and Heuser erected a funeral pyre with their own hands.
The Jews were bound, put on the pile alive, drenched with gasoline and burnt."
It was stated in the early part of this Opinion that women and children were to be executed with the men so that Jews, Gypsies and so-called asocials would be exterminated for all time. In this respect, the Einsatzgruppen leaders encountered a difficulty they had not anticipated. Many of the enlisted men were husbands and fathers, and they winced as they pulled their triggers on these helpless creatures who reminded them of their own wives and off-spring at home. In this emotional disturbance they often aimed badly and it was necessary for the kommando leaders to go about with a revolver or carbine, firing into the moaning and writhing forms. This was hard on the executioners, personnel experts reported to the RSHA in Berlin, and to relieve their emotional sensitivity, gas vans were sent to the rescue.
These strange vehicles carried spurious windows and curtains and otherwise externally resembled family trailers. Women and children were lured into them with the announcement that they were to be resettled and that they would meet their husbands and fathers in the new place. Once inside the truck, the doors automatically and hermetically closed, the driver stepped on the accelerator, and monoxide gas from the engine streamed in. By the time the van reached its destination, which was an anti-tank ditch outside the town, the occupants were dead. And here they joined their husbands and fathers who had been killed by rifles and carbines in the hands of the Einsatzkommandos.
As distressing as may be to the average person the mere thought image of these murder wagons, they were simply articles of equipment so far as the Einsatzgruppen were concerned. Communications went back and forth, correspondence was written about these vans with the casualness which might accompany a discussion on coal trucks. For instance, on May 16, 1942, SS-Untersturmfuehrer Dr. Becker, wrote SSObersturmbannfuehrer Rauff, pointing out that vans could not be driven in rainy weather because of the danger of skidding.
He, therefore, posed the question as to whether executions could not be accomplished with the vans in a stationary position. However, this suggestion offered a problem all its own. If the van was not actually set for mobility the victims would realize what was about to happen to them, and this, Becker said, must be avoided so far as possible. He thus recommended: "There is only one way left. To load them at the collecting point and to drive them to the spot". Becker then complained that members of the kommando should not be required to unload the corpses:
"I brought to the attention of the commanders of those S.K. concerned, the immense psychological injuries and damages to their health which that work can have for those men, even if not immediately, at least later on.
The men complained to me about headaches which appeared after each unloading."
Then with regard to the operation of the lethal device itself, Becker says:
"The application of gas usually is not undertaken correct ly.
In order to come to an end as fast as possible, the driver presses the accelerator to the fullest extent.
By doing that the persons to be executed suffer death from suffocation and not death by dozing off as was planned.
My directions have now proved that by correct adjustment of the levers death comes faster and the prisoners fall asleep peacefully."
On June 15, 1942, the commandant of the Security Police and Security Service Ostland wrote the RSHA in Berlin as follows:
"Subject: S-Vans A transport of Jews, which has to be treated in a special way, arrives weekly at the office of the commandant of the Security Police and the Security Service of White Ruthenia.
"The three S-vans which are there are not sufficient for that purpose.
I request assignment of another S-van (5 tons). At the same time I request the shipment of 20 gas hoses for the three S-vans on hand (2 Diamond, 1 Saurer), since the ones on hand are leady already".Ever efficient in discharging their homicidal duties, it appears that the Einsatz authorities now even set up a school in this new development of the fine art of genocide.
The defendant Biberstein, describing one of these ultra-modern executions, spoke of the driver Sackenreuter of Nuremberg "who had been most carefully instructed about the handling of the gas truck, having been through special training courses". Biberstein was satisfied that this method of killing was very efficient because the faces of the dead people were "in no way distorted"; death having come "without any outward signs of spasms". He added that no physician was present to certify that the people were dead because "this type of gas execution guaranteed certain death". Who it was that guaranteed this was not vouchsafed to history.
The murder-vans were constructed in Berlin and then, under their own power, driven to the field of action. The reports tell of two vans which travelled from Berlin to the Crimea. It would be interesting to know the thoughts of the drivers of these murder-cars as they rolled over half of Europe, through city and country, climbing mountains and penetrating plains, travelling 2,000 kilometers with their gaseous guillotines to kill helpless women and children. One of the drivers was none other than the chauffeur of the arch-murderer Reinhardt Heydrich.
One reads and reads these accounts of which here we can give only a few excerpts and yet there remains the instinct to disbelieve, to question, to doubt. There is less of a mental barrier in accepting the weirdest stories of supernatural phenomena, as, for instance, water running up hill and trees with roots reaching toward the sky, than in taking at face value these narratives which go beyond the frontiers of human cruelty and savagery. Only the fact that the reports from which we have quoted came from the pens of men within the accused organizations can the human mind be assured that all this actually happened. The reports and the statements of the defendants themselves verify what otherwise would be dismissed as the product of a disordered imagination. The record reveals that investigators and evidence analysts have checked and rechecked. Being human they sometimes doubted the correctness of the startling figures appearing in the reports.
Thus, when one of them came across the statement of Stahlecker that Einsatzgruppe A, of which he was chief, had killed 135,000 human beings in four months, the investigator questioned Otto Ohlendorf if this were possible. Ohlendorf read the statement in question and announced:
"I have seen the report of Stahlecker (Document L-180) concerning Einsatzgruppe A, in which Stahlecker asserts that his group killed 135,000 Jews and Communists in the first four months of the program.
I know Stahl ecker personally, and I am of the opinion that the document is authentic."
How can all this be explained? Even when Germany was retreating on all fronts, many troops sorely needed on the battlefield were diverted on this insane mission of extermination. In defiance of military and economic logic incalculable manpower was killed off, property of every description was destroyed - all remained unconsidered as against this insanity to genocide.
Here and there a protest was raised. The SS-Commissioner General for White Ruthenia objected to the executions in his district - not on the grounds of humanity, but because he believed the unbridled murder program was lowering the prestige of Germany.
"Above all, any act lowering the prestige of the German Reich and its organizations in the eyes of the White Ruthenian population should be avoided.
..
I am submitting this report in duplicate so that one copy may be forwarded to the Reich Minister.
Peace and order cannot be maintained in White Ruthenia with methods of that sort.
To bury seriously wounded people alive who worked their way out of their graves again, is such a base and filthy act that this incident as such should be reported to the Fuehrer and Reich Marshal.
The civil administration of White Ruthenia makes very strenuous efforts to win the population over to Germany in accordance with the instructions of the Fuehrer.
These efforts cannot be brought in harmony with the methods described herein."
The report referred to gave a graphic description of the extermination action. It told of the arrival of a Police Battalion with instructions to liquidate all Jews in the town of Sluzk within two days. The Commissioner for the Territory of Sluzk protested that the liquidation of all Jews, which naturally included the tradesmen, would shut down the economic life of that area.