Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-072-05
Last-Modified: 1999/06/08

Attorney General: The next document is our No. 46.  It has
already been submitted as T/37(95).  Sievers writes to
Eichmann on 21 June 1943: "With reference to your letter
dated 25 September 1942, IVB, and the personal discussions
that have meanwhile taken place" - there was personal
contact between the two of them - "I hereby inform you that
Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Bruno Boger, of this office, who was
entrusted with the implementation of the special task, ended
his work on 15 June 1943 in the Auschwitz concentration
camp, owing to the prevalent danger of an epidemic.  In all,
115 persons were processed, of whom 79 were Jews, two Poles,
four Central Asians, and 30 Jewesses.  These prisoners have
been accommodated, for the present, men and women
separately, in hospital buildings of the Auschwitz
concentration camp and are kept in quarantine.  For the
purpose of additionally processing those persons who were
selected" - the German expression is Bearbeitung - "an
immediate transfer to the concentration camp at Natzweiler
is required, and this must be speeded up, in view of the
epidemic at Auschwitz.  A list of the names of the people is
attached."

And later on: "We ask you to send clean prisoners' clothes,
not contaminated by epidemic, for eighty-five men and thirty
women from Natzweiler to Auschwitz," and, so that no doubt
should be left as to what is being discussed, there is an
addition at the end: "Arrangements must be made for
accommodation for thirty women for a short time in the
concentration camp for men at Natzweiler."  For a short
time, because these people were destined for the collection
of skeletons.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1366.

Dr. Servatius:  May I ask you to give me the number of the
document?

Attorney General: No. 46.  Our next document is a portion of
the Sievers' diary.  I ask for it to be admitted in
evidence.  Sievers' diary was submitted as evidence in his
trial.  Sievers is no longer alive - on that there is no
dispute.

Presiding Judge: Was Sievers one of the accused in the
Doctors' Trial?

Attorney General: Yes, and he was executed.  In his diary
the entry of 28 April 1943 says that he had a meeting at
10.45 a.m. in the Head Office for Reich Security IVB4.  He
saw Sturmbannfuehrer Guenther.  And it says: "Examinations
at Concentration Camp Auschwitz now possible.  Discussion of
procedure."  After that, there are more notes:  on 16 June
1943, concerning anthropological survey at Auschwitz, and on
23 June 1943, on the re-adaptation of the Auschwitz
conclusions and carrying out the skull X-rays at Natzweiler.
That is Sievers' diary.  Our document is No. 913.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, do you have any comment on
that?

Dr. Servatius:  No, I have no comments.

Attorney General: I request the Court to exercise its power
and decide to admit the document.

Presiding Judge: This is the English translation.  Do you
also have the German original?

Attorney General: We do not have it, Your Honour.  This is
how it appeared in the document, taken from the Doctors'
Trial.

Presiding Judge: Did you copy it from the Green Series?

Attorney General: No, we found it in the N.O.

Presiding Judge: Why did you not take the original?

Attorney General: Because it is not there; they did not
publish the original documents.  The Court will find in the
Green Series, only very few of the documents that were
submitted.

Presiding Judge: Where did you take this from?

Attorney General: If the Court will remember the evidence of
Superintendent Bar-Shalom, we found at Yad Vashem the court
documents of both the defence and the prosecution of the
Nuremberg Trials, and we are using them just as we found
them.

Presiding Judge: Did you not find the German original at Yad
Vashem?

Attorney General: We did not find it.

Presiding Judge:

Decision No. 75

We decide to admit in evidence the extracts from the diary
of Sievers.

This document is marked T/1367.

Decision No. 76

The Attorney General has applied to submit as evidence the
report of an interrogation of a man by the name of
Michelson, which was conducted on 24 January 1961, by the
prosecution authorities at Hamburg.  We are not prepared to
apply Section 15 of the Law for the Punishment of Nazis and
Nazi Collaborators 5710-1950 in respect of the statement
that was not made under oath nor in the presence of a
representative of the Accused before us, at a time so close
to the case now being heard by us. Consequently, we reject
the application.

Dr. Servatius:  Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, I have no
objection to the submission of the document relating to the
interrogation of Hoess in Hungary...no, in Poland...no, the
interrogation of Rajewski.

Attorney General: I shall submit it at a later stage, at the
end of the chapter which I am dealing with now, in order not
to interrupt the order of the documents which I am about to
submit, with the Court's permission.

Presiding Judge: Very well.

Attorney General: In order to complete the chapter of the
skeletons at Strasbourg, it appears that these skeletons
were supplied - or, more accurately, the human beings for
the skeleton industry were supplied - how and who they were,
that we do not know.  We do know that when the Allied armies
were approaching Strasbourg, concern grew amongst SS circles
as to what should be done with the skeletons, and, most
important, what should be done with the bodies of the people
whom they had not yet managed to convert into skeletons,
those who had already been put to death for this purpose,
but whose flesh had not yet been removed from their bones.

We have document number 914, dated 5 September 1944.
Sievers writes to Brandt: "According to the suggestion of 9
February 1942" - and he refers to the document which is
before you - "the collection of skeletons was undertaken by
SS Sturmbannfuehrer Professor Hirt.  In view of the extent
of the scientific work involved, the work of preparing the
skeletons has not yet concluded.  If it has to be taken into
account that Strasbourg may be threatened by the enemy, and
considering the time required for dealing with the
collection of bodies located in the anatomy cellar, Hirt
asks for instructions regarding eighty units.  He is able to
deal with the removal of the flesh ("Entfleischung") and in
this way to conceal their identity, but part of all the work
done will then be to no avail, and this will cause a great
loss for this unique collection..."

Presiding Judge: "A great scientific loss" is what he
writes: "ein grosser wissenschaftlicher Verlust."

Attorney General: Thank you, Your Honour.  "...for it will
be impossible to make Hominit moulds."  Apparently,
`Hominit' is a technical term.  "A collection such as this,
by itself, does not attract attention, and it will be
possible to explain the soft parts that remained as if they
came from the remnants of old corpses that were left behind
by the French and handed over for incineration."  That is to
say, the problem was what to do: To convert all of them to
skeletons - and then it would be possible to say that this
was an anthropological collection, a collection which would
not arouse suspicion.  If, by chance, soft parts should
remain, it would be possible to say to the Allied army which
would enter Strasbourg that these were old bodies, dating
back to the year 1940, already before the Germans arrived,
and that these bodies had been left behind to be burned.

Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/1368.

Attorney General: But they did not succeed in covering up
the traces, and when the army of liberation entered
Strasbourg, it found the bodies there, and we have the
testimonies from the trial of Karl Brandt and others who
were accused also regarding this collection.

Our document No. 1050 is the evidence of Henri Henripierre,
a Frenchman.  He worked in Dr. Hirt's laboratory.

Presiding Judge: A Frenchman?

Attorney General: Yes, a Frenchman.

Presiding Judge: In what capacity did he work there?

Attorney General: He was a prisoner and was employed there.
I ask the Court to admit this testimony in evidence.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, do you have anything to say?

Dr. Servatius:  No, I was present when this witness was
being questioned, and I have no formal objection.

Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/1369.

Attorney General: Henri Henripierre testifies that he worked
in the institute, and that he remembers three transports of
bodies that reached them at the institute, which were still
warm.  They were bodies of Jews.  He made a note for himself
of the numbers on their arms, and some of the bodies were
preserved and found by the Allies.  He identified them.  He
was asked how he knew that these people had been
deliberately killed for the collection.  This is what he
says:

     "Before I began the preservation of the bodies of these
     eighty-six victims, I preserved at least two hundred
     and fifty Russian and Polish prisoners who died as a
     result of bad treatment in the Hutzig fortress.  That
     will suffice to prove to you that I know exactly what
     the difference is between death caused by violence and
     death through natural causes."

Afterwards, he speaks of a visitor to Professor Hirt.  The
visitor was a senior officer, as proved by the fact that he
had his own chauffeur.  The bodies from the Hutzig camp
arrived with death certificates.  These eighty-six victims
did not have death certificates.

Sievers' own evidence on this point is our document No. 912.
I ask you to accept that also in evidence.  Sievers is not
alive.  I trust Defence Counsel will remember him and his
testimony - it was in that same trial.

Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/1370. Dr.
Servatius, do you have anything to raise here?

Dr. Servatius:  No, I have no formal objection.

Attorney General: I should like to draw the Court's
attention only to a number of extracts.  On page 5776 it
says as follows:

     "Now we have the next document, No. 116, a letter from
     Brandt to Eichmann.  Now, why was there need for such a
     letter to Eichmann, who was, after all, a Head of
     Section at the Head Office for Reich Security, if
     Gluecks was already aware of this order?  Gluecks,
     after all, was the man who was in charge of all
     concentration camps."

And now, the reply of Sievers:

     "Gluecks sent me to Eichmann, who until that moment was
     absolutely unknown to me.  Eichmann actually had been
     informed by telephone by Gluecks, but said that he
     still also needed a letter from Himmler or from his
     personal headquarters and, as a result of that, this
     letter was written.
     
     Question: So then, what did you yourself discuss with
     Eichmann?
     
     Answer: I handed over to Eichmann the report and the
     data from Hirt, and I told him that Hirt's assistants
     wanted to perform anthropological tests, and that he -
     Eichmann - should provide them with suitable conditions
     at Auschwitz, in accordance with Himmler's
     instructions."

On page 5787, he is questioned on the report of Dr. Boger
concerning the work at Auschwitz - whether that report had
come to his notice, and he says:

     "Yes, Boger returned from Auschwitz and announced that
     he had stopped the work there, since an epidemic had
     broken out at Auschwitz, and he declared that he would
     have to report about it to the Head Office for Reich
     Security - at the head office."

Our next document, which I submit only for the purpose of
identifying photographs showing the bodies which the Allied
army found at Strasbourg, those that were supplied for the
skeleton industry - that is our No. 790. This is an
interrogation of the commandant of Bergen-Belsen, Kramer,
who is not alive.  He was executed.  And we also have here
an official certificate of the French police.

Presiding Judge: Perhaps we should take them one by one.
Here are photographs.  What is that about Kramer?

Attorney General: This is attached to the interrogation of
Kramer.

Presiding Judge: The photographs?

Attorney General: The photographs were submitted to Kramer
when he was questioned and, as additional identification of
them, we have the certificate of M. Eugene Helffer, head of
the investigation branch of the Strasbourg police
(Commissaire Principal de Police Judiciaire a Strasbourg).
It also confirms the photographs.  We require Kramer's
evidence, since we have an exact description here.

Presiding Judge: Maybe this is a technical detail, but it
must be cleared up.  You have on your table a number of
photographs, and you have the evidence of Kramer - how do
the two link up now?

Attorney General: Kramer killed the people.

Presiding Judge: But you have just taken a paper clip and
attached the photographs to the certificate.

Attorney General: I shall divide the document into two.
This will be simpler.  Although we had attached them for the
technical reason that all this was No. 807, and that is how
it was kept in the files of Yad Vashem - all together - that
is to say, the evidence of Kramer, the French certificate,
and the photographs all constituted one document.

Presiding Judge: But is there any mark on the photographs
themselves?

Attorney General: There is a description of the photographs
themselves on that same NO, a description of twenty-one
pictures.  As far as we are concerned, the authentication
was that of Mr. Bar-Shalom, taken from the Yad Vashem tape,
of course.  This is one of the documents whose authenticity
he swore to.

Presiding Judge: On the photographs themselves?

Attorney General: As part of all the documents which he
identified, certainly he also identified the photographs
themselves.

Presiding Judge: Then let us take them separately.

Attorney General: As you please, Your Honour.  This is the
interrogation of Kramer at Strasbourg - it was an exhibit in
the trial of Brandt.

Presiding Judge: Was Kramer at the Doctors' Trial?

Attorney General: Yes.

Presiding Judge: I presume, Dr. Servatius, that if you have
nothing to say about these certificates, you have no
objection to their being submitted.  I can also turn to you
each time.  What about this testimony, Dr. Servatius?

Dr. Servatius:  I have seen this declaration by the French
judge, and also the photographs, and I have no objections.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1371.

Attorney General: Now we have the certificate of a member of
the French police - in French, with an English translation;
with a detailed list of the photographs, and the photographs
themselves, of bodies of persons preserved in  formalin, in
various stages, by various methods of killing, which were
supplied through the Accused, for the purpose of putting to
death, to the skeleton industry at Strasbourg.  Twenty-one
photographs.

Judge Halevi:  Where were they killed?  Was it in Stutthof?

Attorney General: No, in Struthof - that was another camp,
part of the camp of Natzweiler, and not Stutthof near
Danzig.  Kramer describes this in his evidence; I wanted to
spare the Court the reading of these shocking details.

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