Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 3, p. 514
		13 Dec. 45 which I have already placed in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-249. This is also an official report of the office of the Judge Advocate General of the United States 3rd Army, dated 17 June 1945. 1 wish to refer to the conclusions on Page 3 of the English text, at paragraph numbered Roman V, beginning with the second sentence as follows: "V. Conclusions. There is no doubt that Mauthausen was the basis for long-term planning. It was constructed as a gigantic stone fortress on top of a mountain flanked by small barracks. Mauthausen, in addition to its permanency of construction, had facilities for a large garrison of officers and men and had large dining rooms and toilet facilities for the staff. It was conducted with the sole purpose in mind of exterminating any so-called prisoner who entered within its walls. The so-called branches of Mauthausen were under direct command of the SS officials located there. All records, orders, and administrative facilities were handled for these branches through Mauthausen. The other camps, including Gusen and Ebensee, its two most notorious and largest branches, were not exclusively used for extermination; but prisoners were used as tools in construction and production until they were beaten or starved into uselessness, whereupon they were customarily sent to Mauthausen for final disposal." Both from the showing of the moving picture and from these careful reports, which were made by the 3rd Army of the United States on their arrival at those centers, we say it is clear that the conditions in those concentration camps over Germany — and in a few instances outside of the actual borders of the Old Reich — followed the same general pattern. The wide-spread incidence of these conditions makes it clear that they were not the result of sporadic excesses on the part of individual jailers, but were the result of policies deliberately imposed from above. The crimes committed in these camps were on so vast a scale that individual atrocities pale into insignificance. We have had turned over to us two exhibits which we are prepared to show to this Tribunal only because they illustrate the depths to which the administration of these camps had sunk shortly before, at least, the time that they were liberated by the Allied Army. The Tribunal will recall that in the showing of the moving picture, with respect to one of the camps, there was a showing of sections of human skin taken from human bodies in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp and preserved as ornaments. They were selected, these particular hapless victims, because of the tattooing which appeared on the skin. This exhibit, which we have here, is Exhibit Number USA-252. Attached to the exhibit is an extract 514
		Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 3, p. 514     Last modified: October 10, 1998 Copyright © 1998 The Mazal Library and The Holocaust History Project. All rights reserved. Technical/administrative contact: webmaster@holocaust-history.org Find a typo? Let us know.