. NMT04-T1051
Volume IV · Page 1051
| proper. I informed him of all these details,
and of course, I was helped by the memory of the personnel which had worked at
Puschkau. In accordance with instructions through Captain Sicher, this liaison
officer in Brunswick, I informed him of these things. Colonel Pelikan told me
at the time that all these questions to me didn't have the purpose, as he
expressed himself, of preparing some sort of revenge, but he told me he had
been at Puschkau, and that he had carried on other investigations, and, he also
showed me pictures from Puschkau, and he assured me that he knew that the
children had been well treated at Puschkau, and that he only was requesting my
aid and assistance. He said, literally, that Puschkau was a light ray in the
dark picture of Lidice, and a similar sentence was later on quoted in the
press. Q. Was one of the children who had been at Puschkau, did it belong to the mother you talked to who was looking for her child? A. No. Sofar as I can recall we were unable to ascertain that. Q. Did you hear anything of the fact whether the thirteen children in whose search you participated actually returned home? A. I can only say about that that I read about it in the papers. Q. Two of the children from Lidice who were at Puschkau have testified at this Tribunal that they had been beaten and that they had gone without their regular meals if they spoke Czech in the home. Can you tell us something in that connection? A. I personally don't know anything about it. However, according to the regulations which were issued for the treatment of the children in our homes, and according to the personnel who were working there, I consider that to be out of the question. Q. What staff did you have there at Puschkau? A. We had a matron Frau Hoeptner there for the home, the head; then, we had children's nurses, graduates from our own schools, and I myself selected this staff from the hundreds of people who had been trained in these schools. Q. And now my final question, Witness. At that time would you have had the possibility of refusing to accept these children and refusing to find foster homes for them? A. I personally certainly could not have done so because I had to adhere to the orders my chief issued. However, at that time I believed that it was a humanitarian measure to accept these children, and here after I was interrogated by Colonel Pelikan I always asked myself whether I made a mistake there, but I still don't know that today. If the children had not been accepted by us, then probably we would have been reproached for that now. DR. RATZ: Thank you. I have no further questions. |
