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| migration of Jews from German-controlled
territory into Romania, and that in the operation some of the Jews were shot.
The defendant admitted that he had led some 6,000 to 7,000 Jews across the
Dnestr River, but denied that in this movement any of the Jews were shot. In
fact he endeavored to convey the impression that in this particular affair a
great favor had been done the Jews in repatriating them. A witness, Harsch,
called to testify on the subject stated that he witnessed the arrival of the
Jews on the Romanian side of the river, and that once they had gained that
point they evinced their gratitude to the German escort by crying "Heil
Hitler". Although this contingent of Jews escaped the German firing squad by
leaving German territory, it is not so certain what fate awaited them in
Romania. The defendant Nosske, in this regard, testified, as stated before in
the general opinion |
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"I assume that the Romanians wanted
to get rid of them and sent them into the German territory so that we would
have to shoot them and we would have the trouble of shooting them. We didn't
want to do the work for the Romanians." |
The witness Harsch said that later he saw
these same Jews within barbed wire enclosures on Romanian territory.
The defendant made frequent references in his testimony to shootings by
his Kommando. |
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"From 21 June until 15 September
certainly, because during the time from 10 to 25 or 23 (of August), the
shooting in Babehinzy took place and then later on several
shootings took place.
"This territory where the Kommando 12
moved was declared Romanian sovereign territory; certain shootings
occurred but we didn't quite know. Our own and other people's reports mentioned
this. I already said, after looking at the final records of the Kommando I read
it. Of course, shootings were carried out, in particular in this whole
territory, and shootings were reported about on the principle that not
only our own shootings but also shootings by others were reported
later on, including events which had been in other territories.
"In
this connection many reports were made out by me about many executions,
that is, our own executions, as well as foreign executions."
[Emphasis supplied.] |
| In addition, he affirmed that Kommando 12
contributed to the total killings of the parent organizations, Einsatzgruppe D,
but refused to name any figure or even an estimate of the number of persons his
Kommando had executed. He said that in his entire period of service in Russia
he had only seen two people killed and then, after vividly narrating the
details of an incident which |
557 |