The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

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In Belgium between 1940 and 1944 torture by various means,
but identical in each place, was carried out at Brussels,
Liege, Mons, Ghent, Namur, Antwerp, Tournai, Arlon,
Charleroi and Dinant.

At Vught, in Holland, when the camp was evacuated, about 400
persons were shot.

In Luxembourg, during the German occupation, 500 persons
were murdered and, in addition, another 521 were illegally
executed, by order of such special tribunals as the so-
called "Sondergericht." Many more persons in Luxembourg were
subjected to torture and ill-treatment by the Gestapo. At
least 4,000 Luxembourg nationals were imprisoned during the
period of German occupation, and of these at least 400 were
murdered.

Between March, 1944, and April, 1945, in Italy, at least
7,500 men, women and children, ranging in years from infancy
to extreme old age, were murdered by the German soldiery at
Civitella, in the Ardestine Caves in Rome, and at other
places.

(B) DEPORTATION, FOR SLAVE LABOUR AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES, OF
THE CIVILIAN POPULATIONS OF AND IN OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

During the whole period of the occupation by Germany of both
the Western and the Eastern Countries, it was the policy of
the German Government and of the German High Command to
deport able-bodied citizens from such occupied countries to
Germany and to other occupied countries to force them to
work on fortifications, in factories, and in other tasks
connected with the German War effort.

In pursuance of such policy there were mass deportations
from all the Western and Eastern Countries for such purposes
during the whole period of the occupation.

These deportations were contrary to the international
conventions, in particular to Article 46 of the Hague
Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general
principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws
of all civilised nations, the internal penal laws of the
countries in which such crimes were committed, and to
Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

Particulars of deportations, by way of example only and
without prejudice to the production of evidence of other
cases, are as follows:-

1. From the Western Countries:-

From France the following "deportations"  of persons for
political and racial reasons took place-each of which
consisted of from 1,500-2,500 deportees:-

1940        3 Transports.
194I       14 Transports.
1942      104 Transports.
1943      257 Transports.
1944      326 Transports.

                                                   [Page 15]

Such deportees were subjected to the most barbarous
conditions of overcrowding; they were provided with wholly
insufficient clothing and were given little or no food for
several
days.

The conditions of transport were such that many deportees
died in the course of the voyage, for example:

In one of the wagons of the train which left Compiegne for
Buchenwald, on the 17th of September, 1943, 80 men died out
of 130.

On 4th June, 1944, 484 bodies were taken out of a train at
Sarrebourg.

In a train which left Compiegne on the 2nd July, 1944, for
Dachau, more than 600 dead were found on arrival, i.e., one-
third of the total number.

In a train which left Compiegne on the 16th January, 1944,
for Buchenwald, more than 100 persons were confined in each
wagon, the dead and the wounded being heaped in the last
wagon during the voyage.

In April, I945, Of I2,000 internees evacuated from
Buchenwald, 4,000 only were still alive when the marching
column arrived near Regensburg.

During the German occupation of Denmark, 5,200 Danish
subjects were deported to Germany and there imprisoned in
concentration camps and other places.

In 1942 and thereafter, 6,000 nationals of Luxembourg were
deported from their country under deplorable conditions and
many of them perished.

From Belgium between 194o and 1944, at least 190,000
civilians were deported to Germany and used as slave labour.
Such deportees were subjected to ill-treatment and many of
them were compelled to work in armament factories.

From Holland, between 1940 and 1944 nearly half a million
civilians were deported to Germany and to other occupied
countries.

(C) MURDER AND ILL-TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR, AND OF
OTHER MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE COUNTRIES WITH WHOM
GERMANY WAS AT WAR, AND OF PERSONS ON THE HIGH SEAS

The defendants ill-treated and murdered prisoners of war by
denying them suitable food, shelter, clothing and medical
care and other attention; by forcing them to labour in
inhumane conditions; by humiliating them, torturing them and
by killing them.  The German Government and the German High
Command imprisoned prisoners of war in various concentration
camps, where they were killed or subjected to inhuman
treatment by the various methods set forth in paragraph VIII
(A).

Members of the armed forces of the countries with whom
Germany was at war were frequently murdered while in the act
of surrendering. These murders and ill-treatment were
contrary to International Conventions, particularly Articles
4, 5, 6 and 7 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, and to
Articles 2,3, 4 and 6 of the Prisoners of War Convention
(Geneva, 1929), the laws and customs of war, the general
principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws
of all civilised nations, the internal penal laws of the
countries in which such crimes were committed and to Article
6 (b) of the Charter.

Particulars by way of example and without prejudice to the
production of evidence of other cases, are as follows:-

In the Western Countries :-

French officers who escaped from Oflag XC were handed over
to the Gestapo and disappeared; others were murdered by
their guards; others sent to concentration camps and
exterminated. Among others, the men of Stalag VI C were sent
to Buchenwald.

Frequently prisoners captured on the Western Front were
obliged to march to camps until they completely collapsed.
Some of them walked more than 600 kilometres with hardly any
food; they marched on for 48 hours running, without being
fed; among them a certain number died of exhaustion or of
hunger; stragglers were systematically murdered.

The same crimes were committed in 1943, 1944 and 1945, when
the occupants

                                                   [Page 16]

of the camps were withdrawn before the Allied advance,
particularly during the withdrawal of the prisoner from
Sagan on February 8th, 1945.

Bodily punishments were inflicted upon non-commissioned
officers and cadets who refused to work. On December 24th,
1943, three French N.C.0's. were murdered for that motive in
Stalag IV A. Much ill-treatment was inflicted without motive
on other ranks; stabbing with bayonets, striking with rifle-
butts and whipping; in Stalag XX B the sick themselves were
beaten many times by sentries; in Stalag III B and Stalag
III C, worn-out prisoners were murdered or grievously
wounded. In military gaols, in Graudenz for instance, in
reprisal camps as in Rava-Ruska, the food was so
insufficient that the men lost more than 15 kilograms in a
few weeks. In May, one loaf of bread only was distributed in
Rava-Ruska to each group Of 35 men.

Orders were given to transfer French officers in chains to
the camp of Mauthausen after they had tried to escape.  At
their arrival in camp they were murdered, either by shooting
or by gas and their bodies destroyed in the crematorium.

American prisoners, officers and men, were murdered in
Normandy during the summer of 1944 and in the Ardennes in
December, 1944. American prisoners were starved, beaten and
mutilated in various ways in numerous Stalags in Germany or
in the occupied countries, particularly in 1943, 1944 and
1945.

(D) KILLING OF HOSTAGES

Throughout the territories occupied by the German armed
forces in the course of waging their aggressive wars, the
defendants adopted and put into effect on a wide scale the
practice of taking and killing hostages from the civilian
population. These acts were contrary to International
Conventions, particularly Article 50 of the Hague
Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general
principles of criminal law, as derived from the criminal
laws of all civilised nations, the internal penal laws of
the countries in which such crimes were committed and to
Article 6(b) of the Charter.

Particulars by way of example and without prejudice to the
production of evidence of other cases, are as follows:-

In the Western Countries :-

In France hostages were executed either individually or
collectively; these executions took place in all the big
cities of France, among others in Paris, Bordeaux and
Nantes, as well as at Chateaubriant.

In Holland many hundreds of hostages were shot at the
following among other places - Rotterdam, Apeldoorn,
Amsterdam, Benschop and Haarlem.

In Belgium many hundreds of hostages were shot during the
period 1940 to 1944.

M. GERTHOFFER (continuing the reading of the Indictment)

(E) PLUNDER OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PROPERTY

The defendants ruthlessly exploited the people and the
material resources of the countries they occupied, in order
to strengthen the Nazi war machine, to depopulate and
impoverish the rest of Europe, to enrich themselves and
their adherents, and to promote German economic supremacy
over Europe.

The defendants engaged in the following acts and practices,
among others:

1. They degraded the standard of life of the people of
occupied countries and caused starvation, by stripping
occupied countries of foodstuffs for removal to Germany.

2. They seized raw materials and industrial machinery in all
of the occupied countries, removed them to Germany and used
them in the interest of the German war effort, and the
German economy.

In all the occupied countries, in varying degrees, they
confiscated businesses, plants and other property.

4. In an attempt to give colour of legality to illegal
acquisitions of property, the forced owners of property to
go through the forms of "voluntary" and "legal" transfers.

                                                   [Page 17]

5. They established comprehensive controls over the
economies of all of the occupied countries and directed
their resources, their production and their labour in the
interests of the German war economy, depriving the local
populations of the, products of essential industries.

6. By a variety of financial mechanisms, they despoiled all
of the occupied countries of essential commodities and
accumulated wealth, debased the local currency systems and
disrupted the local economics. They financed extensive
purchases in occupied countries through clearing
arrangements by which they exacted loans from the occupied
countries.  They imposed occupation levies, exacted
financial contributions, and issued occupation currency, far
in excess of occupation costs. They used these excess funds
to finance the purchase of business properties and supplies
in the occupied countries.

7. They abrogated the rights of the local populations in the
occupied portions of the U.S.S.R. and in Poland and in other
countries to develop or manage agricultural and industrial
properties, and reserved this area for exclusive settlement,
development, and ownership by Germans and their so-called
racial brethren.

8. In further development of their plan of criminal
exploitation, they destroyed industrial cities, cultural.
monuments, scientific institutions, and property of all
types in the occupied territories to eliminate the
possibility of competition with Germany.

9. From their programme of terror, slavery, spoliation and
organised outrage, the Nazi conspirators created an
instrument for the personal profit and aggrandisement of
themselves and their adherents. They secured for themselves
and their adherents:

(a)  Positions in administration of business involving
power, influence, and lucrative prerequisites.

(b)  The use of cheap forced labour.

(c)  The acquisition on advantageous terms of foreign
properties, raw materials, and business interests.

(d)  The basis for the industrial supremacy of Germany.

These acts were contrary to International Conventions,
particularly Articles 46 to 56 inclusive of the Hague
Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general
principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws
of all civilised nations, the internal penal laws of the
countries in which such crimes were committed and to Article
6 (b) of the Charter.

Particulars by way of example and without prejudice to the
production of evidence of other cases are as follows:-

1. Western Countries :

There was plundered from the Western Countries from 1940 to
1944, works of art, artistic objects, pictures, plastics,
furniture, textiles, antique pieces and similar articles of
enormous value to the number of 21,903.

In France statistics show the following:

REMOVAL OF RAW MATERIALS

Coal                    63,000,000 tons
Electric energy               20,976 kw
Petrol and fuel          1,943,750 tons
Iron ore                74,848,000 tons
Siderurgical products    3,822,000 tons
Bauxite                  1,211,800 tons
Cement                   5,984,000 tons
Lime                     1,888,000 tons
Quarry products         25,872,000 tons
and various other by-products to a total value of
79,961,423,000 francs.

                                                   [Page 18]

REMOVAL OF INDUSTRIAL EQUIPMENT
Total 9,759,861,000 francs, of which 2,626,479,000 francs of
machine tools.

REMOVAL OF  AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE
Total 126,655,852,000 francs.
i.e., for the principal products-
Wheat                                   2,947,337 tons
Oats                                    2,354,080 tons
Milk                               790,000 hectolitres
Milk (concentrated and in powder)  460,000 hectolitres
Butter                                     76,000 tons
Cheese                                     49,000 tons
Potatoes                                  725,975 tons
Various vegetables                       575,000  tons
Wine                            7,647,000  hectolitres
Champagne                          87,000,000  bottles
Beer                             3,821,520 hectolitres
Various kinds of alcohol         1,830,O00 hectolitres

REMOVAL OF MANUFACTURED PRODUCTS
to a total of 184,640,000,000 francs.

PLUNDERING
Francs   257,020,024,000 from private enterprise.
Francs   55,000,100,000 from the state.

FINANCIAL EXPLOITATION
From June, 1940, to September, 1944, the French Treasury was
compelled to pay to
Germany 631,966,000,000 francs.

LOOTING AND DESTRUCTION OF WORKS OF ART
The museums of Nantes, Nancy, Old-Marseilles were looted.
Private collections of great value were stolen.  In this
way, Raphaels, Vermeers, Van Dycks and works of Rubens,
Holbein, Rembrandt, Watteau, Boucher disappeared. Germany
compelled France to deliver up "The Mystic Lamb" by Van
Eyck, which Belgium had entrusted to her.

In Norway and other occupied countries decrees were made by
which the property of many civilians, societies, etc., was
confiscated. An immense amount of property of every kind was
plundered from France, Belgium, Norway, Holland and
Luxembourg.

As a result of the economic plundering of Belgium between
1940 and 1944 the damage suffered amounted to 175 billions
of Belgian francs.


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