The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

The Trial of Adolf Eichmann
Session 72
(Part 5 of 8)


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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