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Volume IV · Page 452
[to...] gether. Everywhere in the town shots were heard, and in different streets the corpses of shot Jews accumulated. * * * In conclusion I find myself obliged to point out that the police battalion has looted in an unheard of manner during the action, and that not only in Jewish houses but just the same in those of the White Ruthenians. Anything of use such as boots, leather, cloth, gold, and other valuables, has been taken away. On the basis of statements of the members of the armed forces, watches were torn off the arms of Jews in public, on the street, and rings were pulled off the fingers in the most brutal manner. |
| For a nation at war nothing can be more
important than that ammunition reach the soldiers holding the fighting
frontiers. Yet, many vehicles loaded with ammunition for the armed forces were
left standing in the streets of Slutsk because the Jewish drivers, already
illegally forced into this service, had been liquidated by the execution
battalion. Although the very life of the nation depended on the continued
operation of every type of food-producing establishment, 15 of the 26
specialists at a cannery were shot. The blood bath of Slutsk brought about some interesting correspondence. The commissioner general inquired of the Reich Minister of Occupied Eastern Territories if the liquidation of Jews in the East was to take place without regard to the economic interests of the Wehrmacht and specialists in the armament industry. The Reich Minister replied — |
"Clarification of the Jewish question has most likely been achieved by now through verbal discussions. Economic considerations should fundamentally remain unconsidered in the settlement of the problem." (3666-PS.) |
| A German inspector of armament in the Ukraine, after a thorough investigation into the Jewish liquidation program, reported to General of the Infantry, Thomas, Chief of the Industrial Armament Department, that the project was a big mistake from the German point of view. In the Ukraine he found that the Jews represented almost the entire trade and even a substantial part of the manpower. |
"The elimination, therefore, necessarily had far-reaching economic consequences and even direct consequences for the armament industry (Production for supplying the troops)." |
| The report goes on — |
"The attitude of the Jewish population was anxious — obliging |
