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Volume IV · Page 565
[Obersturm...] bannfuehrer Eduard Strauch. At about 6 o'clock in the morning the Kommando was called together. A Hauptsturmfuehrer made a speech in which he told us that the Jewish ghetto in Slutsk would be liquidated this day and that he expected the highest discipline from every member of the Kommando. A certain number of the men were assigned to carry out the shootings. Another group got the order to guard those who were supposed to be shot. The older people, including me, were supposed to be available at the entrance of the ghetto. A man in the uniform of a political leader made a speech addressed to the Jews, informing them that they would be resettled. The Jews were then put on the trucks. As a rule the individual trucks were given different destinations, such as OT (Organization Todt), Reichsbahn, etc. But, as a matter of fact, all the trucks headed straight towards the execution place which was some kilometers outside of Slutsk. There the mass graves had already been prepared. In the same vicinity there were mass graves which originated from a shooting of Jews in summer 1942. The Jews were taken into the ditches where they were murdered by separate shots from behind. At approximately 3 o'clock in the afternoon the executions were completed. Obersturmbannfuehrer Strauch and Brigadefuehrer von Gottberg were present at the executions." |
| In response to a question regarding the
Jewish problem in White Ruthenia, Strauch replied that the Fuehrer Order was
valid in White Ruthenia, as everywhere else. He testified that he had a
conference with Kube and that Kube told him Jews were needed and he could not
do without these Jews, since they should be used in bringing in the harvest,
working in an armament factory, and doing other jobs. The defendant thereupon
talked to Heydrich and was directed to postpone the execution of the Fuehrer
Order until the harvest was brought in. The defendant testified that, in February — May 1942, 7,000 Jews had been killed. When Strauch arrived, Kube asked him not to continue this system, and the defendant said that he could not begin to shoot Jews on the first day of his arrival. Responding to a question as to the number of Jews executed during the defendant's time of service he replied — |
"You mean my time? Oh yes, well, if I count those Jews who were later killed by Gottberg, when I was G-2, when I count them along with the others, then I would say 17,000." |
| He admitted that, to his own
knowledge, a Jew had to be killed just because he was a Jew. The defendant admitted that he saw probably 60 to 90 executions. Regarding the affair of Slutsk, he testified that the number |
