Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-067-03
Last-Modified: 1999/06/07

Presiding Judge: Why?  On what grounds do you say that these
invoices were issued only ex post facto?  That, I
understand, is what you maintain.

Dr. Servatius:  For all of them appear to be very neat, one
on top of the other, and they do not at all create the
impression that they have undergone the processing of paper
work.  Also, it appears from the statement, at the top, in
English, "Summary", and which has been submitted as a
supplement, that there are certain items here which do not
correspond, such as, for example, the date of the
consignment which was allegedly supplied in April 1945, and
the invoice is for 1944.  It is desirable that such matters
be examined in the original.

And now, with regard to the evaluation of the documents.
Here we have something very important.  For Guenther appears
here, in these documents.  This concerns the subject of the
doctors, it is connected with the doctors.  This belongs to
the "Ahnenerbe"  (ncestral Heritage), the institution set up
by Himmler for medical experiments, for so-called research,
for such matters.  At the head of this institution was a
doctor named Sievers.  Guenther appears here in another
context, in matters which have a medical aspect in other
documents as well - also elsewhere.  And here, too, it says
that it was the "Ahnenerbe," the Ancestral Heritage
Institute established by Himmler, and which had a direct
link with Guenther.

Also, from the document which Dr. Gerstein wrote in English
- and it should be observed here, in parenthesis, that his
wife declared, in fact, that he was not fluent in the
English language but somehow found a way, nevertheless, of
writing in English - he writes here as follows: "Many of
responsables (sic) of Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau" - he was
there, and there were people "men of my service, daily I
have seen them," and they were "from the Head Office of the
SS, 'D', the Sanitary Service," the public health service.
He was in contact with them by virtue of his authority as a
Reich Physician of the SS and the police in Berlin.  This
explains, to some extent, the mutual relationships, the
service channels.

It likewise says so in the summary which is in document No.
185, the English summary, in sections four and five. There,
too, appear statements that explain a great deal.  It says
there that Dr. Gerstein was at the head of office D, the
office for hygiene, since 1942, had dealt also with
materials for disinfection and liquid cyanic acid - that was
one of the disinfectant materials that were at his disposal.
He was required to supply the concentration camp with liquid
cyanic acid, so that they could use this acid there as
disinfectant material.  Subsequently came a long episode of
his visit to Lublin with the commandant of the camp named
Globocnik - although in the document it says Globocnek; it
is specifically indicated that the man received his orders
directly from Hitler and Himmler, and so forth.  This is a
most important detail for us and, therefore, I have no
objection to the submission of this document.

Presiding Judge: That is to say, your argument will
apparently be that whatever Guenther carried out here, he
was not acting within the scope of IVB4?

Dr. Servatius:  It also says there that Hitler and Himmler
had direct contact with Guenther concerning all these
medical matters; the line of communication in medical
matters, medical experiments, and so on was directly between
Hitler-Himmler and Guenther; and here, too, we have a direct
contact.

Judge Halevi:  But that is already a matter of weighing
evidence, is it not?

Dr. Servatius:  Yes, that is correct.

Attorney General: I think there is no objection to the
admissibility of the document, but there are arguments
concerning its weight and its evaluation.

Presiding Judge: We have heard both aspects, I believe.  Dr.
Servatius, what about these Swedish documents, Prosectution
No. 1391?

Dr. Servatius:  In this case, I have no objection to the
submission of the document.

Presiding Judge:

Decision No. 71

By virtue of our authority under Section 15 of the Nazis and
Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law 5710-1950, we admit in
evidence the documents which include prima facie the
statements of Dr. Gerstein, who is deceased, and also the
documents which appear to have originated from him, and also
the evidence of his widow.  We shall deal with the probative
value of these documents at the appropriate time.

Prosecution Exhibit No. 185 will be marked T/1309.

Prosecution Exhibit No. 1565 will be marked T/1310.

Prosecution Exhibit No. 1564 will be marked T/1311.

Prosecution Exhibit No. 1391 will be marked T/1312.

Attorney General: Now there remains only the inclusive
document, containing a number of statements by Gerstein,
authenticated together by the United States War Archives.

Presiding Judge: We have already marked that - is it not No.
185?

Attorney General: Document No. 185 is the first which
contains the French statement, but after that...I beg your
pardon, it has already been submitted and marked.

Presiding Judge: Is that the one you submitted as the
affidavits of the two officers - in that form?

Attorney General: No, no, it has not yet been marked, Your
Honour; the document is still before the Court.

Judge Halevi:  What number?

Attorney General: I submitted it in one copy only.

Presiding Judge: You mean these authentications?

Attorney General: No, no.  There are before the Court two
affidavits by the two officers, and apart from that there is
a consular authentication of the certificate of the War
Archives - that is a completely different document; this is
what I wish to submit as an exhibit, and I shall submit its
various parts as separate exhibits.

Presiding Judge: Either you submit the parts, and then we
shall mark them as you have submitted them...

Attorney General: That is our system of authentication,
according to the parts.

Presiding Judge: Is it not No. 185?

Attorney General: No, it is not No. 185.

Presiding Judge: I think it is.  Only the certificate of the
counsellor of the Israel embassy is missing.
Attorney General: Perhaps the Court would allow me to
approach your table.  [Points out to the Presiding Judge.]
This is what I am talking about - it is No. 185.

Presiding Judge: Where is this photostat?

Attorney General: Of No. 185?

Presiding Judge: [after examining it] Ah, that is in T/37;
now we are going back to T/37.

Attorney General: Hence this is the original that I am
asking you to admit and to allow me to submit its parts
separately.  It is T/37(184).

Presiding Judge: Where is the photostat of No. 185?

Attorney General: That is T/37(184) which has already been
submitted, together with the statement [of the Accused to
the police].  It has not yet been submitted [separately].

Presiding Judge: T/1309 was T/37(184), and what is this?

Attorney General: This is a document which does not contains
any part in French, but consists entirely of an
interrogation in English.

Presiding Judge: Must this receive a separate number?

Attorney General: This is my request, Your Honour.

Presiding Judge: What is your number for this document?

Attorney General: We have three numbers for this document:
1628, 1629, 1630, for it comprises three separate
interrogations of Dr. Gerstein.

Presiding Judge: And you have not yet submitted copies of
them?

Attorney General: We are ready to submit them immediately.

Presiding Judge: We shall mark the whole batch T/1313, and
what you will submit from it will be given subsidiary
numbers.

Attorney General: Thank you.

Presiding Judge: Are these also only statements by Dr.
Gerstein?

Attorney General: Yes.  All these three that I am
submitting. I have already submitted No. 1628. Now I submit
No. 1629.

Presiding Judge: Do you have another copy of No. 1628?

Attorney General: Are there not four copies before the
Court?

Presiding Judge: Yes, that is right.

Attorney General: There is a photostat and three copies.

Presiding Judge: We have received a photostat and two
copies.

Attorney General: There should have been three.  I shall
submit it immediately after I shall refer to it.

Judge Raveh:   There are several pages here which it is
almost impossible to read.

Attorney General: I know.  The photocopy is a very bad one.
One can rely only on the photostat.  That is all that we
were able to do.

Presiding Judge: No. 1628 will be marked T/1313(a).

No. 1629 will be marked T/1313(b). No. 1630 will be marked
T/1313(c).

Attorney General: And now, would the Court permit me to draw
its attention to a number of excerpts?

In T/1313(a), I have already drawn attention to what appears
on page 12, where there is reference to Guenther's activity.
In T/1313(b), it says that Guenther and his superior,
Eichmann, were in charge of the extermination of the Jewish
race.

Presiding Judge: Where is that?

Attorney General: On the third page - in the middle.

In T/1313(c) - this, too, I have already mentioned - on the
last page, dealing with Gerstein's journey and with the
order by Guenther to work out methods of poisoning in
Belzec, using cyanide instead of a diesel engine.

Presiding Judge: That is in T/1313(c) - on what page?

Attorney General: On page 4.

Now I pass on to 1309.  On page 2 Gerstein says: "On 8 June
1942, Sturmbannfuehrer Guenther came into my office..." He
spoke of a journey to Lublin.  The journey took place in
August.  And he relates what he discovered.  "Globocnik said
that on 17 August 1942 there were three installations in
existence: one was at Belzec, on the Lublin-Lemberg line, in
the area of the Russian demarcation line.  The maximum
number was fifteen thousand persons per day..."

Presiding Judge: On what page?

Attorney General: It is in French, on the first page at the
bottom and at the top of the second page.

[Continues reading from the document ]

     "Belzec - a capacity of 15,000 persons per day.
     Sobibor - I do not know exactly where, but I have seen
     it - 20,000 persons per day; Treblinka, 120 kilometres
     to the north-east of Warsaw, 25,000 per day.  I have
     seen it!  Majdanek, adjoining Lublin, seen in the stage
     of preparation.  Globocnik said: `You will have to
     disinfect huge quantities of clothing, ten or twenty
     times the amount that was collected in the Textile
     Materials Collection; this must be done solely for the
     purpose of obliterating the sources of the clothing of
     the Jews, the Poles, the Czechs and so on.' "My second
     task would be to replace our installations of gas
     chambers - at present operated by the exhaust of an old
     diesel engine - to something more lethal and working
     more rapidly, namely cyanic acid.  The Fuehrer and
     Himmler, who were here on 15 August - that was the day
     before yesterday - obliged me to accompany personally
     all those who had to see the installations.
     
     "Professor Pfannenstiel said: `What actually did the
     Fuehrer say?'  Globocnik, who is now the commanding
     officer of the police on the Adriatic Sea coast at
     Trieste, said: `This operation must be implemented more
     swiftly!'  Dr. Herbert Lindner, of the Ministry of the
     Interior, said: `Would it not be more desirable to burn
     all these bodies instead of burying them?  Maybe the
     next generation might have other ideas.'  Globocnik:
     `Gentlemen, if indeed we are going to be succeeded by
     such a cowardly and weakling generation that will not
     understand the great task we are fulfilling, then,
     gentlemen, the whole of our National Socialism will
     have been in vain.  On the contrary, together with the
     bodies we should have buried bronze tablets bearing the
     engraved inscription that we - we had the strength of
     purpose to carry out this tremendous assignment.'
     Hitler: `Yes, my dear Globocnik, that is the right word
     - I am of exactly the same opinion!'

     "On the following morning, we left for Belzec.  A small
     special railway station, with two platforms at the foot
     of a yellow limestone hill, immediately north of the
     road and the Lublin-Lemberg railway line.  To the
     south, near the road, there are a number of service
     buildings bearing the sign: `Local Branch of the Armed
     SS, Belzec'...no dead were seen that day, but in the
     air all around, even on the road, there was a
     nauseating smell.
     
     "Near the small railway station, there was a large hut
     marked `Cloakroom,' with a wicket marked `Valuables'.
     There was also a room with a hundred barber chairs, and
     then a passage a hundred and fifty metres long in the
     open, fenced with barbed wire on both sides, with
     signs: `To the Showers' and `Inhalation
     Establishments.'  We come to a house, the bath-house,
     which is flanked at the right and left by large
     concrete flower pots with geraniums and other flowers.
     After going up some steps, we come to three rooms to
     our right and three to our left, like garages, 5x4
     metres in area, 1.90 metres high.  At the back, not
     visible, there are piles of wood.  A brass Star of
     David is on the roof.  At the front of the building
     there was a sign which read: `The Heckenholt
     Foundation.'  This is all I saw that afternoon.
     
     "The following morning, a few minutes before seven, I
     am told that the first train will arrive in ten
     minutes.  And, indeed, the first train from Lemberg did
     come a few minutes later.  It was a train with forty-
     five cars, carrying 6,700 people, of whom 1,450 were
     already dead when they arrived.  Behind the small
     openings with barbed-wire netting, we saw children,
     yellow, scared children, and men and women.  The train
     reaches the platform.  Two hundred Ukrainians serving
     as forced labourers, push the doors open and lash the
     people with whips off the train.
     
     "Then orders are given over a large loudspeaker.  They
     must undress completely in the open, some also in a
     hut, and also remove artificial limbs and spectacles.
     Shoes are to be tied together with a small piece of
     string, handed to them by a Jewish boy of four.  All
     valuable objects and money must be handed in at the
     `Valuables' counter.  No confirmations or receipts are
     given in exchange.  Later, the women and young girls
     must go to the barber's, where their hair is cut off in
     two or three strokes.  The hair disappears into large
     potato sacks `to be used for something special, for
     submarines as insulation, etc.'  This is the
     explanation given by the Unterscharfuehrer on duty.
     
     "The march begins.  Barbed wire to the right and to the
     left, and, at the end, two dozen Ukrainians with
     rifles.  Heading the marchers is an unusually pretty
     girl - thus they approach.  I am standing in front of
     the death chambers with Police Captain Wirth.  Men,
     women, young girls, children, babies, amputees missing
     a leg - all naked, stark naked - they pass near us.  A
     SS man stands in the corner telling the miserable
     people in the voice of a preacher: `Nothing will happen
     to you.  All you have to do is to breathe deeply.  This
     inhalation is necessary because of infectious diseases.
     It is a good disinfectant.'  When they ask about their
     fate, he explains: `Of course, the men will have to
     work, to build roads and houses, but the women do not
     have to work.  At most, if they wish, they may help
     around the house or in the kitchen.'  In the heart of
     some of these doomed people, there is once again a
     spark of hope, enough to make them walk into the gas
     chambers without resistance.  But most of them know:
     the smell carries the tidings of their fate.
     

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