. NMT06-T0807
Volume VI · Page 807
| whole communities,
the population of which consisted in the main of Poles. Through my owning real
estate I often met farmers and found that in the farmers' families foreign
workers lived as the family did, and I can only say when I looked around there
was no question of slave labor. As time went on — Q. May I interrupt you for a moment? At the moment I am less concerned with the good, patriarchal treatment at home in Germany. That will come later. But at the moment I am concerned with the kind of recruitment, whether voluntary or otherwise and you have given us exhaustive statements about the time of your complete confidence in the correctness of the press; but perhaps it may help your memory if in this connection I give you the cue — your journey to Lwow. If you would rather tell about that later it is all the same to me but I think in this connection, namely your knowledge of compulsion, the impression you got in Lwow at that time is important; but I leave it to you. It is only that you must not forget it. A. When in the late summer of 1942 I went to Lwow, on the edge of the Ukraine, for private reasons, I saw trains of foreign workers on their way to Germany. I also saw many posters, recruiting posters, and the impression I gained of these trains on their way to Germany and of the eastern workers in them was indeed to the effect that they were freely recruited workers. I did not see anything to suggest a different impression. The people were cheerful; they were singing; they were playing musical instruments. I often passed the transports traveling in an express train, and I never got the impression at that time that there was any question of compulsory deportation. Q. That was in 1942 if I understand correctly? A. Yes, it was. Q. Please continue. A. As time went on, of course I noticed that the number of eastern workers continued to grow, that one could perhaps imagine that not all of them came of their own accord; but at the same time I learned that in France there was a "call-up" of labor — universal labor compulsion — introduced by the French Government. Therefore, I assumed there was something of a similar nature in the East, arranged by the German occupation authorities. I did not know that but I assumed it. It was an unclear situation. Later, I don't know exactly when, it was when the number grew bigger and bigger, perhaps toward the end of 1943 or the beginning of 1944, I gained the feeling and the moral conviction that not all of them — that it was unthinkable that all of them had come voluntarily to Germany. But that was my own surmise. I had no knowledge to this effect. |
