The Trial of German Major War Criminals
Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany
14th February to 26th February, 1946
Fifty-Ninth Day:
Thursday, 14th February 1946
(Part 13 of 15)
[Page 34]
I submit to the International Military Tribunal Exhibit USSR
29. It is a communique of the Polish-Soviet Extraordinary
Commission for the Investigation of the "Crimes perpetrated
by the Germans in the Extermination Camp of Maidanek in the
city of Lublin". The Tribunal will find this communique on
Page 63 of the document book. I quote Section 3 of this
document: "Tortures and Murder in the Extermination camp"
Page 64 reverse side of the document book beginning with the
last paragraph:-
"The forms of torture were extremely varied. Some
of them were in the nature of so-called jokes
which frequently ended in death. They included
mock shooting when the victim was rendered
insensible by a blow over the head with a blunt
instrument, and mock drownings in the pond of the
camp which often ended in actual drowning.
Among the German executioners were specialists in
particular methods of torture. Prisoners were
killed by a blow with a stick on the back of the
head, by a kick in the stomach, in the groin, etc.
The S.S. torturers drowned their victims in the
dirty water flowing from the bathhouse through a
narrow ditch. The head of the victim was plunged
into the dirty water and held under by the boot of
an S.S. man until he died. A favorite method of
the Hitler S.S. was to hang prisoners with their
hands bound behind their back. The Frenchman, de
Courantin, who suffered the torture in question,
stated that a man hanged in this manner lost
consciousness very rapidly, whereupon the hanging
would be interrupted. He
[Page 35]
was hanged again as soon as consciousness was
recovered and the process was repeated several
times.
For the smallest offense, particularly for any
suspicion of escape, the camp internees were
hanged by the German fiends. In the middle of each
field stood a post with a cross beam two meters
above ground, from which the victims were hanged.
'I saw from my barracks,' said witness Demashev,
former camp internee and Soviet prisoner of war,
'how people were hanged from the beam in the
middle of the field.'
Close to the laundry, on the landing between the
first and second floor, was a special shed, where
prisoners were hanged in whole groups from the
cross beams."
The women interned in the camp were subjected to the same
ill-treatment and torture; they suffered the same forms of
control, of work beyond their strength, of beating and ill-
treatment. The greatest cruelty was inflicted by the female
personnel of the S.S. The worst were the Chief Woman
Supervisor Erich, and the supervisors Braunstein, Anni,
David, Weber, Knoblick, Ellert, and Radli.
The Commission has established many facts of unparalleled
brutality perpetrated by the German executioners in the
camp.
The German, Heinz Stalbe, chief of the camp police, stated
that he had seen with his own eyes how the director of the
crematorium, Oberscharfuehrer Mussfeld, tied the arms and
legs of a Polish woman and threw her into the furnace alive.
The witnesses Yelinski and Olech - workers in the camp -
also stated that internees had been burned alive in the
crematory ovens.
"An infant was snatched from its mother's breast
and dashed before her eyes against the wall of the
barracks," stated witness Atrochov. "I saw for
myself how infants were taken from their mothers
and murdered before their eyes: the executioner
would seize one small leg, stand on the other, and
the infant would be torn in half," stated witness
Edward Baran.
The deputy camp commandant, S.S. Obersturmfuehrer
Tumann was particularly noted for his sadistic
tendencies. He forced groups of internees to kneel
in a row and then killed them by blows on the head
with a stick. He set Alsatian dogs on the
internees. He participated actively and
energetically in all executions and killings of
the prisoners."
Thus hunger, work beyond their strength, torture, torment,
ill-treatment and murder accompanied by unheard-of sadism
were employed for the mass extermination of the captives in
the camp.
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