"In this war . . . we are not interested in
preserving even a part of the population of this large city."
The Germans destroyed 427 museums, among them the wealthy museums
of Leningrad, Smolensk, Stalingrad, Novgorod, Poltava, and others.
In Pyatigorsk the art objects brought there from the Rostov
museum were seized.
The losses suffered by the coal mining industry alone in the
Stalin region amount to 2,000,000,000 rubles. There was colossal
destruction of industrial establishments in Makerevka, Carlovka,
Yenakievo, Konstantinovka, Mariupol, from which most of the machinery
and factories were removed.
Stealing of huge dimensions and the destruction of industrial,
cultural, and other property was typified in Kiev. More than
4,000,000 books, magazines, and manuscripts (many of which were very
valuable and even unique) and a large number of artistic productions
and valuables of different kinds were stolen and carried away.
Many valuable art productions were taken away from Riga.
The extent of the plunder of cultural valuables is evidenced by
the fact that 100,000 valuable volumes and 70 cases of ancient
periodicals and precious monographs were carried away by ROSENBERG'S
staff alone.
Among further examples of these crimes are:
Wanton devastation of the city of Novgorod and of many historical
and artistic monuments there. Wanton devastation and plunder of the
city of Rovno and of its province. The destruction of the industrial,
cultural, and other property in Odessa. The destruction of cities and
villages in Soviet Karelia. The destruction in Estonia of cultural,
industrial, and other buildings.
The destruction of medical and prophylactic institutes, the
destruction of agriculture and industry in Lithuania, the destruction
of cities in Latvia.
The Germans approached monuments of culture, dear to the Soviet
people, with special hatred. They broke up the estate of the poet
Pushkin in Mikhailovskoye, desecrating his grave, and destroying the
neighboring villages and the Svyatogor monastery.
They destroyed the estate and museum of Leo Tolstoy,
"Yasnaya Polyana," and desecrated the grave of the great
writer. They destroyed in Klin the museum of Tchaikovsky and in
Penaty, the museum of the painter Repin and many others.
The Nazi conspirators destroyed 1,670 Greek Orthodox churches,
237 Roman Catholic churches, 67 chapels, 532 synagogues, etc. They