The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Fifty-First Day: Tuesday, 5th February, 1946
(Part 8 of 14)


Here is an exhibit which I submit as RF 1203 and which comes from the Military Command in France under date of 4th February, 1942. (We are no longer dealing with the S.S. but with the Military Command.)
"The Reichsfuehrer S.S. and Chief of the German Police, in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, with a view to prohibiting on principle the emigration of Jews from Germany and the occupied territories."
The rest of the letter indicates that exceptions may be made. This document establishes the collaboration between the Army and the police, the Army assuring the execution of the orders given by the supreme chief of Police.

I now submit Exhibit RF 1205. This document relates to the same subject, but I nevertheless submit it because it shows the intervention of a third German authority, the diplomatic authority. This is a note of the German Consulate General in Casablanca. I read the first sentence:

"The number of European emigrants leaving for the American continent and who used to leave Casablanca at long intervals has greatly increased in the last month. 15th March..."
The rest of the letter indicates that these are Jewish emigrants. Exhibit RF 1204, which is joined to this one, constitutes a new report to the same effect from the Consul General in Casablanca, under the date of 8th June, 1942. I read the last paragraph of this document:
"As regards the emigrants leaving Casablanca, these are for the most part Jewish families from Germany and Central Europe, as well as Jewish families from France. There is no reason to suspect that young people of military age have left Casablanca with the avowed intention of entering military service on the side of the enemy. We suggest the military authorities be advised."
I have quoted this document to show that there was no question of such emigration which they would have had an interest in preventing, and also to

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show that this document would normally have concerned firstly the German Embassy, to which it was addressed, and secondly the military services which it suggests should be informed.

Now, what is the sequel to these two communications? The sequel is shown by Exhibit RF 1206, of which the two documents just read constitute appendices. This emanates from Berlin, from the R.S.H.A., and is addressed to the Chief of Police for France and Belgium.

"Attached are two copies of confidential reports from the German Consulate General in Casablanca to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for your information.

You are asked to give your special attention to the state of affairs described and to oppose, as far as possible, an emigration of this kind."

I therefore draw three conclusions. Firstly, as I have indicated, the Nazis opposed the emigration of the Jews, although they claimed that they were undesirable. Secondly, this decision was made at a higher level and with a general application. Thirdly, all the services, the police, the Army and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, intervened to ensure the execution of these barbarous orders.

I now present to the Tribunal Exhibit RF 1207. This is a voluminous German report. It is in fact 70 pages in length. It was found in the German archives in Paris. This document is interleaved with a series of graphs, drawings and models of census cards. It is mimeographed, and the copy which we present does not bear the author's signature, but simply the indication "SS Obersturmfuehrer." This is Obersturmfuehrer Dannecker, who played an important role in regulating Jewish questions in France and who was chief of this bureau.

THE PRESIDENT: That fact which you have just stated to us, has that been verified by the French authorities -- namely, that it was a captured document in Paris?

M. FAURE: According to the report submitted to the Tribunal, we took possession of these documents at the archives of the Surete Nationale. They were among the documents found in the German offices at the time of the liberation. Besides, I point out to the Tribunal that the other documents produced do bear the signatures of the German officials. This report is the only document without a signature. The fact that it was written by Dannecker will be proved by other documents, which constitute a resume of it.

I shall not read to the Tribunal the 70 pages of this report, but I should like to read certain paragraphs which I think may interest the Tribunal. Here is the first page. To begin with, it is entitled, "The Jewish Question in France and Its Treatment. -- Paris, 1st July, 1941." First page:

"Final solution of the Jewish Question. Average reasons and general aim of the operations in France of the Jewish section of the Sipo and S.D. From now on it is clear that practical results cannot be achieved without a study of the political situation in general as well as of the situation of the Jews.

The pages that follow are meant to give a view of the whole of our plan and to provide a comment on the results achieved up to now as well as on the immediate aims. All the principles which follow are to be considered from the following point of view.

Inasmuch as the chief of the Sipo and S.D. has been charged by the Fuehrer with the preparation of the solution of the Jewish Question in Europe, these offices in France are to carry out the preliminary work so that, when the time comes, they will be able to function on absolutely sure ground as branch offices of the European Commissariat of Jewish questions."

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I shall now point out to the Tribunal the chief headings of the paragraphs in order to pursue the development of the idea and of the operations of this German office.

THE PRESIDENT: I was considering, M. Faure, why this document has not got any identifying mark upon it. I mean, of course, we do not doubt for an instant what you say to us is true, but at the same time it is not the correct way to do it -- for us to have to rely on counsel's statement as to the nature of the evidence. And there is nothing on the document itself to show that it was captured in Paris or to show what it is except what it states.

M. FAURE: Mr. President, this document was included in the file of the French prosecution on the strength of a report made in Paris which I shall present to the Tribunal. As this report concerns several documents it was not attached to the file which includes this particular one. On the other hand, when I received these documents from the police, I did not wish to write anything on the document or to place it under a seal, for I wished to avoid altering its original appearance in any way.

I must state that if the Tribunal prefers not to receive this document, then, as I do recognise that it does not bear a signature, I shall not submit it, for I have a second report by Dannecker which is signed by him. I submitted both in order to make clear the continuity of the operation.

THE PRESIDENT: M. Faure, in the case of the captured documents presented by the United States, as Sir David Maxwell Fyfe reminded us the other day, there is an affidavit, I think, of Major Coogan, which states that all those documents of a certain series -- PS, L, R, and various other series -- were captured in Germany by the United States Forces. If there were such an affidavit with reference to documents captured in Paris which might be identified by some letter such as PS or other similar letters, the matter would seem to us to be in order. But when a document is presented to us which has no identifying mark upon it at all, we are in the position in which we now are of simply hearing the statement of counsel, which of course is not evidence, that the document was found in Paris or found somewhere else; and therefore it occurs to me that one way that it might be dealt with would be an affidavit by somebody who knows the fact that this document and any other documents of a similar sort were captured in the archives of the German Forces in Paris or elsewhere.

M. FAURE: I could very easily produce before the Tribunal the affidavit which it requests. I say that if we do not have it in this form it is because our habitual procedure is not exactly the same as that which may be followed in the United States. In fact, as the Charter of the Tribunal indicates that the prosecution was charged with the collection of evidence, we ourselves have authorised magistrates in our service to look for documents in the archives of the police; and if the Tribunal wishes I shall ask the police in addition for attestation of the seizure of these documents in the German archives. I shall then ask the Tribunal to allow me to produce this affidavit in a few days' time.

THE PRESIDENT: M. Faure, the Tribunal think that we might admit the document subject to your undertaking that you would do that in the course of a day or two.

M. FAURE: I cannot guarantee that I will have this document in a day or two.

THE PRESIDENT: I was not stressing the number of days. If you will undertake to do it that is sufficient.


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