21 Nov. 45
question of an action against the
Jews any more. It rather looked like a revolution ...."
There are reports which merely tabulate the
numbers slaughtered. An example is an account of the work of
Einsatzgruppen of SIPO and SD in the East, which relates that:
In Estonia, all Jews were arrested immediately upon the arrival
of the Wehrmacht. Jewish men and women above the age of 16 and
capable of work were drafted for forced labor. Jews were subjected to
all sorts of restrictions and all Jewish property was confiscated.
All Jewish males above the age of 16 were executed, with the
exception of doctors and elders. Only 500 of an original 4,500 Jews
remained. Thirty-seven thousand, one hundred eighty persons have been
liquidated by the SIPO and SD in White Ruthenia during October. In
one town, 337 Jewish women were executed for demonstrating a
'provocative attitude.' In another, 380 Jews were shot for spreading
vicious propaganda.
And so the report continues, listing town after town, where
hundreds of Jews were murdered:
In Vitebsk 3,000 Jews were liquidated because of
the danger of epidemics. In Kiev 33,771 Jews were executed on
September 29 and 30 in retaliation for some fires which were set off
there. In Shitomir 3,145 Jews 'had to be shot' because, judging from
experience they had to be considered as the carriers of Bolshevik
propaganda. In Chèrson 410 Jews were executed in reprisal
against acts of sabotage. In the territory east of the Dnieper, the
Jewish problem was 'solved' by the liquidation of 4,891 Jews and by
putting the remainder into labor battalions of up to 1,000 persons.
(R-102)
Other accounts tell not of the slaughter so much as of the depths
of degradation to which the tormentors stooped. For example, we will
show the report made to Defendant Rosenberg about the army and the SS
in the area under Rosenberg's jurisdiction, which recited the
following:
"Details: In presence of SS man, a Jewish dentist has to
break all gold teeth and fillings out of mouth of German and Russian
Jews before they are executed."
Men, women and children are locked into barns and burned alive.
Peasants, women and children are shot on the pretext that they
are suspected of belonging to bands. (R-135)
We of the Western World heard of gas wagons in which Jews and
political opponents were asphyxiated. We could not believe it. But
here we have the report of May 16, 1942 from the German SS Officer
Becker to his supervisor in Berlin which tells this story: