*

spirit of the men were extraordinarily good and praiseworthy from the first to the last day *." (L-18) These acts of removal and slaughter were not entirely without profit. The report continues:

"Together with the evacuation action, we executed the confiscation of Jewish property. Very high amounts were confiscated and paid over to the Special Staff 'Reinhard'. Apart from furniture and many textile goods, the following amounts were confiscated and turned over to Special Staff 'Reinhard'

*

"20.952 kilograms of gold wedding rings.

7 Stamp collections, complete.

1 Suit case with pocket knives.

1 basket of fountain pens and propelled pencils.

3 bags filled with rings-not genuine.

35 wagons of furs." (L-18)

The thoroughness of the looting is illustrated by an item listing 11.73 kilograms of gold teeth and inlays. (L-18)

By the end of 1942, Jews in the General Government of Poland had been crowded into fifty-five localities, whereas before the German invasion there had been approximately 1,000 Jewish settlements within this same area. This fact is reported in the 1942 Official Gazette for the General Government, No. 94, page 665, 1 November 1942.

C. Forced Labor.

The Jews, having been registered and confined within the ghettos, now furnished a reservoir for slave labor. The difference between slave labor and "labor duty" was this: the latter group were entitled to reasonable compensation, stated working hours, medical care and attention, and other social security measures, while the former were granted none of these advantages, being in fact, on a level below that of slaves.

Rosenberg set up within his organization for the Occupied Eastern Territories a department which, among other things, was to seek a solution for the Jewish problem by means of forced labor. His plans, contained in a memorandum entitled "General Organizations and Tasks of our Office for the General Handling of Problems in the Eastern Territory," and dated 29 April 1941, read as follows:

"A general treatment is required for the Jewish problem for which a temporary solution will have to be determined (forced labor for the Jews, creation of Ghettos, etc.).” (1024-PS)

Thereafter Rosenberg issued instructions that Jewish forced labor should be utilized for every manual labor task:

"The standing rule for the Jewish labor employment is the complete and unyielding use of Jewish manpower regardless of age in the reconstruction of the occupied eastern territories."

"Violations against German measures, especially against the forced labor regulations, are to be punished by death to the Jews." (212-PS)

From the ghettos Jewish labor was selected and sent to a concentration area. Here the usable Jews were screened from those • considered worthless. For example, a contingent of 45,000 Jews could be expected to yield 10,000 to 15,000 usable laborers. This estimate is based on an RSHA telegram to Himmler, marked "Urgent" and "Secret", and dated 16 December 1942.

"In the total of 45,600 are included physically handicapped and others (old Jews and children). In making a distribution for this purpose, at least 10.000 to 15.000 laborers will be available when the Jews arriving at Auschwitz are assigned." (1472-PS)

The report from Lieutenant General of Police Katzmann, to General of the Police East, Krueger, clearly cutlines the nature of the Jewish forced labor:

“The best remedy consisted of the formation by the SS and Police Leader, of forced labor camps. The best opportunity for labor was offered by the necessity to complete the "Dz.4' road which was extremely important and necessary for the whole of the southern part of the front, and which was in a catastrophically bad condition. On October 15th 1941, the establishment of camps along the road was commenced and despite considerable dieulties there existed after a few weeks only, seven camps containing 4.900 Jews."

"Soon more camps followed these first chee, so that after a very short time the completion of fifteen camps of this kind could be reported to the Superior Leader of SS and Police In the course of time abom 21.000 Jewish laborers passed through these camps. Despite the hardy imaginable culties occurring at this work I can report today that about 161 kilometers of the road are completed"

"At the same time all other Jews ft for work were registered and distributed for useful work by the labor agencies

*

When the Jews were marked by the Star of David, as well as when they were registered by the labor agencies, the first symptoms appeared in their attempts to dodge the order of the authorities. The measures which were introduced thereupon led to thousands of arrests. It became more and more apparent that the civil administration was not in a position to solve the Jewish problem in an approximately satisfactory manner. Then, for instance, the municipal administration at Lwow had no success in their attempts to house the Jews within a closed district which would be inhabited only by Jews. This question, too, was solved quickly by the SS and Police Leaders through subordinate officials. This measure became the more urgent as in the winter, 1941, big centers of spotted fever were noted in many parts of the town."

*

"During this removal of the Jews into a certain quarter of the town several sluices were erected at which all the workshy and asocial Jewish rabble were caught during the screening and treated in a special way. Owing to the peculiar fact that almost 90% of artisans working in Galicia were Jews, the task to be solved could be fulfilled only step by step, since an immediate evacuation would not have served the interest of War Economy."

66

Cases were discovered where Jews, in order to acquire any certificate of labor, not only renounced all wages, but even paid money themselves. Moreover, the organizing of Jews for the benefit of their employers grew to such catastrophical extent that it was deemed necessary to interfere in the most energetic manner for the benefit of the German name. Since the administration was not in a position and showed itself too weak to master this chaos, the SS and Police Leader simply took over the entire disposition of labor for Jews. The Jewish labor agencies, which were manned by hundreds of Jews, were dissolved. All certificates of labor given by firms or administrative offices were declared invalid, and the cards given to the Jews by the labor agencies were revalidated by the police offices by stamping them. In the course of this action, again, thousands of Jews were caught who were in possession of forged certificates or who had obtained, surreptitiously, certificates of labor by all kinds of pretexts. These Jews also were exposed to special treatment." (L-18)

D. Extermination.

(At this point a strip of motion picture footage taken, presumably, by a member of the SS, and captured by the United States military forces in an SS barracks near Augsburg, Germany, was shown to the tribunal. The film depicts what is believed to be the extermination of a ghetto by Gestapo agents, assisted by military units.

The following scenes are representative:

Scene 2: A naked girl running across the courtyard.

Scene 3: An older woman being pushed past the camera, and a man in SS uniform standing at the right of the scene.

Scene 5: A man with a skull cap and a woman are manhandled.
Scene 14: A half-naked woman runs through the crowd.
Scene 15: Another half-naked woman runs out of the house.
Scene 16: Two men drag an old man out.

Scene 18: A man in German military uniform, with his back to the camera, watches.

Scene 24: A general shot of the street, showing fallen bodies and naked women running.

Scene 32: A shot of the street, showing five fallen bodies.
Scene 37: A man with a bleeding head is hit again.

Scene 39: A soldier in German military uniform, with. a rifle, stands by as a crowd centers on a man coming out of the house. Scene 44: A soldier with a rifle, in German military uniform, walks past a woman clinging to a torn blouse.

Scene 45: A woman is dragged by her hair across the street.) The means of accomplishing the extermination of the Jews are discussed in the diary of Hans Frank, then Governor General of Occupied Poland (2233-D-PS). In a cabinet session on Tuesday, 16 December 1941 in the Government Building at Cracow, Frank made a closing address, as follows:

"As far as the Jews are concerned, I want to tell you quite frankly that they must be done away with in one way or another. The Fuehrer said once: 'Should united Jewry again succeed in provoking a world-war, the blood of not only the nations which have been forced into the war by them, will be shed, but the Jew will have found his end in Europe'. I know that many of the measures carried out against the Jews in the Reich at present are being criticized. It is being tried intentionally, as is obvious from the reports on the morale, to talk about cruelty, harshness, etc. Before I continue, I want to beg you to agree with me on the following formula: We will principally have pity on the German people only, and

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nobody else in the whole world. The others, too, had no pity on us. As an old National-Socialist, I must say: This war would only be a partial success if the whole lot of Jewry would survive it, while we would have shed our best blood in order to save Europe. My attitude towards the Jews will, therefore, be based only on the expectation that they must disappear. They must be done away with. I have entered negotiations to have them deported to the East. A great discussion concerning that question will take place in Berlin in January, to which I am going to delegate the State Secretary Dr. Buehler. That discussion is to take place in the Reich Security Main Office with SS-Lt. General Heydrich. A great Jewish migration will begin, in any case.

"But what should be done with the Jews? Do you think they will be settled down in the 'Ostland', in villages? This is what we were told in Berlin: Why all this bother? We can do nothing with them either in the 'Ostland' nor in the 'Reichkommissariat'. So liquidate them yourself.

"Gentlemen, I must ask you to rid yourself of all feeling of pity. We must annihilate the Jews, wherever we find them and wherever it is possible, in order to maintain there the structure of the Reich as a whole. This will, naturally, be achieved by other methods than those pointed out by Bureau Chief Dr. Hummel. Nor can the judges of the Special Courts be made responsible for it, because of the limitations of the framework of the legal procedure. Such outdated views cannot be applied to such gigantic and unique events. We must find at any rate a way which leads to the goal, and my thoughts are working in that direction.

"The Jews represent for us also extraordinarily malignant gluttons. We have now approximately 2,500,000 of them in the General Government, perhaps with the Jewish mixtures and everything that goes with it, 3,500,000 Jews. We cannot shoot or poison those 3,500,000 Jews, but we shall nevertheless be able to take measures, which will lead, somehow, to their annihilation, and this in connection with the gigantic measures to be determined in discussions from the Reich. The General Government must become free of Jews, the same as the Reich. Where and how this is to be achieved is a matter for the offices which we must appoint and create here. Their activities will be brought to your attention in due course." (2233-D-PS)