At the beginning of 1944 in the Ozarichi region of
the Bielorussian S.S.R., before liberation by the Red Army, the
Germans established three concentration camps without shelters, to
which they committed tens of thousands of persons from the
neighboring territories. They brought many people to these camps from
typhus hospitals intentionally, for the purpose of infecting the
other persons interned and for spreading the disease in territories
from which the Germans were being driven by the Red Army. In these
camps there were many murders and crimes.
In the Estonian S.S.R. they shot tens of thousands of persons and
in one day alone, 19 September 1944, in Camp Kloga, the Germans shot
2,000 peaceful citizens. They burned the bodies on bonfires.
In the Lithuanian S.S.R. there were mass killings of Soviet
citizens, namely: in Panerai at least 100,000; in Kaunas more than
70,000; in Alitus about 60,000; at Prenai more than 3,000; in
Villiampol about 8,000: in Mariampol about 7,000; in Trakai and
neighboring towns 37,640.
In the Latvian S.S.R. 577,000 persons were murdered.
As a result of the whole system of internal order maintained in
all camps, the interned persons were doomed to die.
In a secret instruction entitled "the internal regime in
concentration camps", signed personally by Himmler in 1941
severe measures of punishment were set forth for the internees.
Masses of prisoners of war were shot, or died from the cold and
torture.
(b) Murders and ill-treatments at places in the Eastern
Countries and in the Soviet Union, other than in the camps referred
to in (a) above, included, on various dates during the
occupation by the German Armed Forces:
The destruction in the Smolensk region of over 135,000 Soviet
citizens.
Among these, near the village of Kholmetz of the Sychev region,
when the military authorities were required to remove the mines from
an area, on the order of the Commander of the 101st German Infantry
Division, Major-General Fisler, the German soldiers gathered the
inhabitants of the village of Kholmetz and forced them to remove
mines from the road. All of these people lost their lives as a result
of exploding mines.
In the Leningrad region there were shot and
tortured over 172,000 persons, including over 20,000 persons who were
killed in the city of Leningrad by the barbarous artillery barrage
and the bombings.
In the Stavropol region in an anti-tank trench close to the
station of Mineralny Vody, and in other cities, tens of thousands of
persons were exterminated.