. NMT05-T0975
Volume V · Page 975
were found necessary during the action to dissolve the ghetto in Lwow [Lvov] where the dugouts mentioned above had been established. Here we had to act brutally from the beginning, in order to avoid losses on our side; we had to blow up or to burn down several houses. On this occasion the surprising fact arose that we were able to catch about 20,000 Jews instead of 12,000 Jews who had registered. We had to pull at least 3,000 Jewish corpses out of every kind of hiding place; they had committed suicide by taking poison." |
| The "special treatment" referred to, means slaughter on the spot. The periodic reports of Stroop, SS Brigadefuehrer and brigadier general of police, who was charged with the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto, portrayed an astounding adventure in wholesale murder and robbery, ending with the terse statement, "There is no Jewish ghetto in Warsaw any more." The action terminated, he says, by blowing up the Warsaw synagogue. He then submits an inventory of his victims: 56,065 Jews exterminated plus an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 destroyed by being blown up or dying in burning buildings, 4,400,000 Zlotys (Polish units of currency) seized and counted, with five to six million more uncounted. Also gold and paper money and large amounts of jewelry are listed. What strange mental twist induces this man to constantly refer to the inmates of the ghetto as "bandits"? The German inspector of armament in the Ukraine reports in December 1941: |
"* * * later specially detached formations of the police executed a planned shooting of Jews. It was done entirely in public * * * and in many instances with members of the armed forces taking part voluntarily. The way these actions, which included men, old men, women, and children of all ages, were carried out was horrible. So far about fifteen to twenty thousand Jews have been executed in the part of the Ukraine belonging to the Reich." |
| In October 1941, Reich Commissioner Carl for the territory of Slutsk, reports: |
"The town itself offered a picture of horror during the action. With indescribable brutality * * * the Jewish people were taken out of their dwellings and herded together. Everywhere in the town, shots were to be heard, and in different streets the corpses of shot Jews accumulated. * * * The police battalion has looted during the action in an unheard of manner * * *. Everything of use such as boots, leather, cloth, gold, and other valuables has been taken away." |
| The Tribunal is quite willing to accept these statements of these high-ranking German officers, who were eye-witnesses, as conclusive proof of the facts related. |
