1947-06-30, #2: Doctors' Trial (late morning)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. HARDY: The prosecution has no further questions to put to this witness, Broers.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness Broers is excused from the witness stand.
MR. HARDY: Before I proceed to the next witness, Your Honor, the question of the formal introduction of the prosecution's documents which have been marked for identification is one which the Tribunal discussed in the presence of the prosecution and the defense counsel at a meeting in chambers several weeks ago, and the Tribunal stated that they would look over the documents and then indicate which ones or take an assumption that they would all be subjected to objections and so forth. Now, in order to assist the Tribunal in that matter I have now prepared two sets of all the documents marked for identification, with an index. I will have, before the end of the day or by tomorrow morning, additional complete sets prepared and likewise maybe one or two for defense counsel. Everybody has copies of these particular documents but I will give these two sets to the Tribunal now in the period of the next half a day or this evening and they can look over these two sets and instruct us in a most expeditious way to introduce these for formal acceptance.
THE PRESIDENT: Has the prosecution any evidence to introduce this afternoon?
MR. HARDY: I have a witness to call now, Your Honor, and this afternoon I have no evidence to introduce, other than these documents which are marked for identification. And if it is possible for me to get all books together, that is, two or three more books together, by this afternoon, I will be able to take up the identification problem. After that time the prosecution may have one more witness to call and may have two or three other miscellaneous rebuttal documents; other than this, we have no further testimony to offer.
DR. GAWLIK: Mr. President, I ask the prosecution first to submit a list of documents which are offered really for identification up to now and which are finally to be admitted in evidence, so that we will have a period of twenty-four hours to examine these documents.
MR. HARDY: Of course, Your Honor, that is unnecessary but I will have the list. The twenty-four-hour period does not apply here. The defense has had some of them since January 26th.
THE PRESIDENT: These documents have already been offered to the Tribunal and marked for identification and copies delivered to defense counsel. I see no occasion for any further delay in the proceedings.
DR. GAWLIK: Mr. President, it is not a question of the submission of the documents, but as long as the documents were only offered for identification we had no formal objections. Now, when these documents are to be admitted finally, we have to determine whether there are any formal objections. I am merely asking for a list of the numbers.
MR. HARDY: He will get that, Your Honor, in due course.
THE PRESIDENT: The list will be delivered to counsel for the defendants.
MR. HARDY: At this time, Your Honor, the prosecution wishes to call the witness Gerrid Hendrick Nales to the witness stand.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal will summon the witness Gerrid Nales to the witness stand.
MR. HARDY: The witness's first name is spelled G-e-r-r-i-d, rather than the way it is spelled on the notice. His middle name is spelled H-e-n-d-r-i-c-k, rather than the way it is spelled in the notice. The last name is the same — N-a-l-e-s.
This witness will testify in the German language, Your Honor.
GERRID HENDRICK NALES, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
JUDGE SEBRING: Please hold up your right hand and be sworn.
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
Proceed.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MR. HARDY:
Q: Witness, do you hear in the German language?
A: Yes.
Q: Witness, during the course of this interrogation, after I propound a question to you, you will kindly hesitate a moment before you answer to enable the interpreters to put the question into the German language and the answer back to me in the English.
Witness, what is your full name?
A: Nales, Gerrid Hendrick.
Q: When were you born?
A: On 1 October 1915.
Q: Where were you born?
A: In Rotterdam.
Q: You are a Dutch citizen?
A: Yes.
Q: Would you outline to the Tribunal you educational background?
A: Public school.
Q: Did you go any further than public school?
A: No.
Q: How many years of school did you have in total?
A: Eight years.
Q: What was your occupation prior to the time that you were arrested by the Gestapo?
A: I was a fashion designer and draftsman.
Q: Witness, when were you first arrested by the Gestapo?
A: On 20 August — only one day.
Q: What year?
A: 1940.
Q: Were you ever arrested for any crimes prior to the arrest by the Gestapo?
A: No, never.
Q: What was the purpose for which you were arrested in August 1940 by the Gestapo?
A: I was in a Gestapo raid on the resistance movement.
Q: Would you remember whether or not you were given a trial after your arrest by the Gestapo for underground activities?
A: Yes.
Q: You were given a trial?
A: No.
Q: Well, did they merely keep you in prison or did they release you after having arrested you in August 1940?
A: I was freed by the Dutch police. Later I was rearrested again on 13 November 1940 until 1945.
Q: And when you were arrested on 13 November — that is, rearrested were you then given a trial?
A: Yes.
Q: And what was the result of that trial?
A: We were separated and we were sent to the concentration camp Buchenwald.
Q: Well, at that trial did they pass sentence on you?
A: No.
Q: Did you have a trial before a court of judges?
A: It was a court martial. I was not convicted.
Q: How many men sat on that court martial? Did you appear before a court martial board, a group of men?
A: I don't remember exactly.
Q: And then you were sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp?
A: Yes.
Q: When did you arrive in the Buchenwald concentration camp?
A: 18 April 1941.
Q: How long did you remain in the Buchenwald concentration camp?
A: Until March 1942.
Q: And then where did you go?
A: Then I was sent on a transport to Natzweiler, concentration camp Natzweiler in Alsace.
Q: How long did you remain in Natzweiler — from March 1942 until when?
A: From 14 March 1942 until 4 September 1944.
Q: And then what happened to you?
A: Then we were transferred to Dachau.
Q: How long did you remain in Dachau?
A: Until the liberation by the Americans on Sunday, 29 April 1945.
Q: After you were transferred from Buchenwald to the Natzweiler concentration camp in March 1942, what work detail were you assigned to?
A: First I worked on barracks construction and then transport columns, the stone quarry, the DEST, and I went through all the details in the camp.
Q: When did you first become an assistant nurse?
A: November 1942, perhaps — assistant nurse.
Q: And what were your duties there in the hospital?
A: I was used as a nurse only when the Ahnenerbe [Ancestral Heritage] research station was set up.
Q: What is this name "Ahnenerbe" that you mentioned?
A: Ahnenerbe was a experimental station that was set up in a special department of the hospital, the prisoners' hospital.
Q: When was this Ahnenerbe research institute, as you call it, set up in the prisoners' hospital in Natzweiler, on what day — in November 1942 — the same time that you were there?
A: November 1942, in the course of the month of November.
Q: And you were assigned to work at this experimental or research station, is that right?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you know anything about experiments being conducted on human beings in Natzweiler?
A: When the first experiments were carried out, a test, a burning test, on the arms and the body—
Q: Were those experiments with gas?
A: I think — I can't say because I am not a doctor. I can only tell you what I saw, the procedure.
Q: Will you tell the Tribunal just what was done to the inmates in this burning procedure?
A: When the experiments were started, there were 14 German prisoners. First these people were given the army food. They were fed a little with the army food and then the experiments started. The professors came from Strasbourg and on these fifteen people on their lower arm they rubbed something that was yellow material, and then the people were told they had to go to bed and keep their sleeves up. Most of the people lost consciousness and parts of their body were burned. After 24 hours they were covered with wounds. It had eaten up to their upper arm and then the parts of their body that were touched by their arms.
DR. TIPP (Counsel for defendants Schroeder and Becker-Freyseng): Mr. President, the witness is testifying in German but he is incomprehensible.
He is apparently a Dutchman and does not speak German well enough to testify in German so that it can be understood. Since the testimony is apparently rather poor, it might be advisable to have the witness testify in his mother tongue, that is, in Dutch, and to have an interpreter.
MR. HARDY: What does the interpreter think of that? Are you able to interpret this man's German into English? I am talking to Miss von Schon.
THE INTERPRETER: The German is rather difficult, Mr. Hardy.
MR. HARDY: Is it understandable enough so that the testimony here is clear; so it can be translated into English?
THE INTERPRETER: I think that so far I have understood the witness.
THE WITNESS: I speak German as I have learned it.
MR. HARDY: Your Honor, my interrogators have talked to this witness all day yesterday and had no difficulty whatsoever in understanding him. I think Miss von Schon has done a creditable job in translating this morning and the evidence she has given coincides with the interrogations given by the witness yesterday, and we are not in a position to put in a Dutch translator.
JUDGE SEBRING: I would ask whether or not the translator in the box who is listening can understand well enough to translate whatever the witness is saying into German for the benefit of those counsel who are apparently having difficulty with their version of their mother tongue.
MR. HARDY: Is that question addressed to Mr. Lamm?
JUDGE SEBRING: It is addressed to whom it may concern.
MR. HARDY: May I put two or three questions to the witness, your Honor?
BY MR. HARDY:
Q: Witness, when you were in the Natzweiler concentration camp what language did you talk?
A: German.
Q: What language did you talk when you were in the Dachau concentration camp?
A: Only German.
MR. HARDY: That's all, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: It appears that the translators are satisfied that they are getting the gist and translating what the witness has said. I think we may proceed.
BY MR. HARDY:
Q: Witness, you were describing the details of the experiments which you preferred to as burning experiments. Will you continue your description of those experiments?
A: I have already said when the material was put on the lower arm the people were put to bed.
DR. TIPP: Mr. President, the witness has just used the word "procede" and none of us knows what that word means. Perhaps the interpreter understood it. I did not.
MR. HARDY: The word means lower arm, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I would ask the interpreter the meaning of that word.
INTERPRETER VON SCHON: I assumed that the witness was using the French word "procede", your Honor, which I translated as "material".
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel states that no interpreter from the Dutch language is available?
MR. HARDY: No, your Honor and the prosecution feels that there is no necessity for it. This man was compelled to speak German from November 1942 until April 1945, and the Germans certainly understood him at that time.
THE PRESIDENT: No one knows whether they did or not and it may be that when one is engaging in conversation that questions can be asked back and forth until the meaning is ascertained.
MR. HARDY: I think this objection is being pushed a little too far. The objection is over the use of one word "material" or "lower arm", whichever one they are referring to. I don't know whether they have an objection to any of the other words that he has used.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I wonder if the German reporters are able to transcribe what he is saying in German.
THE SECRETARY GENERAL: They write what they hear regardless of what it is.
MR. HARDY: Well, do they understand what they are writing?
THE SECRETARY GENERAL: No.
MR. HARDY: I haven't any solution, your Honor. What languages do you speak, witness? Do you also speak the French language?
THE WITNESS: No.
MR. HARDY: You speak only the Dutch language?
THE WITNESS: Dutch and German.
MR. HARDY: Dutch and German. Have you ever had any complaints about your ability to speak German before this time?
THE WITNESS: No never.
DR. TIPP: Mr. President, if I may comment on this, it is not to be denied that the witness does speak to some extent German. But what he certainly cannot explain in his broken German are those technical expressions, and we know that in these points on which the witness is to be examined—lost experiments, perhaps typhus experiments individual technical expressions are important and I am sure that the witness will not be able to give them in German. That is the objection that I have.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if the witness does not know the technical expressions he cannot even attempt to give them, but the witness ought to be able to say what he has seen, and then the interpretation of what he has seen may be for a technical witness to interpret. The matter may proceed until at least it become further complicated than it appears now.
MR. HARDY: Would the witness choose to testify in the Dutch language?
THE WITNESS: I have no difficulty in German.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the matter may proceed. I will instruct the interpreters that if they find difficulties in the translation and don't understand it, that they will immediately advise the Tribunal to that effect. I will also instruct the witness to speak very slowly and distinctly.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
BY MR. HARDY:
Q: Now, witness, would you continue your explanation of what you saw in the experimental station concerning these burning experiments?
A: As I have already said, the material that was put on their arms had the effect that their arms were burned and other parts of their body too. Then the people were unconscious for a few days and they were blind because there was an effect on the eyes. Some died, three. And others in the course of the month became more or less invalids and were sent back to the camp.
Q: Now, witness, do you know whether or not any of these experimental subjects died? Did you say three?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you know what kind of gas was used in these burning experiments?
A: No.
Q: You don't know that?
A: No.
Q: Now, was the result of these burnings terrible and atrocious looking to you; that is, the wounds created?
A: Yes, terrible.
Q: Do you know the names of the doctors who performed these gas burn experiments?
A: Professor Hirt and Bickenbach.
Q: Professor Hirt, who was Professor Hirt?
A: Professor Hirt, as far as we know, was from the University of Strasbourg.
Q: And who was Professor Bickenbach?
A: That was a colleague of his or an associate of his or something like that.
Q: How many times did you see Professor Hirt performing such gas burn experiments?
A: How often?
Q: Yes.
A: The experiment with the fifteen people, that was only once.
Q: Did Bickenbach assist him in that entire experimental series of the fifteen people?
A: He was there several times. I am not certain, but I think he carried on the examination and Professor Hirt had an autopsy on a person who had died in the room of the Ahnenerbe station.
Q: How long did these gas burn experiments last, for a period of several months or just a week or so?
A: The treatment lasted a noon on one day and then the people were sick for some time, for some months, from April and May, '43 approximately.
Q: And these three experimental subjects who died in the gas experiments, did you see them?
A: Yes, I saw them.
Q: Did you know the name of an inmate named Holl?
A: He was the nurse in this ward.
Q: What type of a man was he? Was he a very decent character or was he a rogue or what description could you give us about him?
A: He was a political prisoner. He had been in the concentration camp for many years. He was very decent to these fellow prisoners, and he did a great deal for the people in the experimental station. Otherwise more than three would have died.
MR. HARDY: If you recall, your Honors, the testimony of the witness Holl corroborates the testimony of this witness.
Q: Now, witness, in a later period of time did you have any knowledge or connection with work by Professor Hagen?
A: Yes.
Q: Can you tell us who Professor Hagen is or was?
A: Professor Hagen was a Luftwaffe Officer or a professor who worked in Strasbourg at the University. He wore the Luftwaffe uniform with the staff of Aesculapius on it, and in October, 1943 approximately, he came to Natzweiler for the first time.
Q: And what happened after Professor Haagen arrived in October 1943?
A: What did you say?
Q: What happened after Professor Haagen arrived in October 1943?
A: Shortly before that a transport of gypsies had come from the Birkenau camp near Auschwitz for experimental purposes for typhus experiments. And then Haagen came to Natzweiler and examined these people and had them X-rayed. And his finding was that he could not use these people for his experimental purposes and I heard that in the Ahnenerbe station he told the camp doctor of Natzweiler that he couldn't do anything with these people and he sent a protest to Berlin and said he had to have stronger people immediately, also gypsies. Shortly after that these first one hundred of the group, a large part of them had already died on the way and then while they were in Natzweiler for a few weeks they were sent away again on the Himmelfahrt (Ascension to Heaven) transport, that means the transport where people didn't have any destination and after a few weeks, it was in November 1943, the new people arrived. I can't give an exact number but it was about 90. These people were examined again and they were found to be alright. Then Professor Haagen divided these people into two rooms, two groups, he made out of them. One group went to room one and the other to room two and then he divided these again into groups one and two. Then the people of the first group were given a vaccination against typhus. The second group was given nothing. I think 10 to 14 days later all the people were artificially infected with typhus. I can't tell you how, I am not a doctor, but I was there when they did it. There was a woman there, too. In the course of this matter about thirty gypsies died. And, the rest in the course of the month, until March or April, the people had recovered to a certain extent and were sent to Camp Neckar-Eltz.
As I said, about thirty died. I have evidence of that.
Q: What evidence do you have of that, witness, that thirty of these subjects used in the typhus experiments died?
A: I said about thirty. I have the death records of Natzweiler. When I was put on transport to Dachau I stole the death records. I copied them so that I could use them later and under great difficulty I took them with me to Dachau.
Q: And do these records show that thirty of these experimental subjects died in the typhus experiments?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, witness, reviewing your statement concerning the typhus experiments you state that in October 1943 a transport of 100 gypsies arrived from Auschwitz concentration camp to be used in the typhus experiments. Is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: And then these 100 gypsies were not used as experimental subjects because their state of health did not permit it and Haagen himself then complained about it and asked for further gypsies to be sent to him at Natzweiler, is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: And then the further gypsies arrived?
A: Yes.
Q: There were about 90 you said, in that second group?
A: Yes.
Q: And this experimental group were physically fit so that they could endure the experiments to the satisfaction of Haagen, is that correct?
A: Yes, they had recently been released from the Wehrmacht and the SS and sent to the concentration camp.
Q: Now, these prisoners they were, that is the 90 prisoners the gypsies were they well fed before the commencement of the experiments?
A: Well, fed.
Q: For a period of how long?
A: I mean when they came in they were well fed. They hadn't been in a concentration camp such a long time as we had or as other gypsies had. They had just recently been arrested.
Q: Yes, I see. Well then after their arrival they were divided into two groups?
A: Yes.
Q: In the experimental station Ahnenerbe?
A: Yes.
Q: And then Professor Haagen vaccinated one group and did not vaccinate the other, is that correct?
A: Not the other one, that's right.
Q: Were you in a position to see the vaccinations take place?
A: Yes.
Q: Then after a period of a number of days Professor Haagen returned and injected these two groups with artificial infected typhus?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you see him inject with artificial infected typhus?
A: I was there. The people were all stripped naked and then I had to line the people up and bring them into the room where it was done and I saw how they were inoculated.
Q: Inoculated or injected?
A: Injected. I cannot tell you what it was injected into them.
Q: Well, how do you know that this was an artificial typhus that they were injected with? How do you know but that it was some sort of another vaccination?
A: That was no secret. A number of guinea pigs and white mice had been used, had already been injected before we had prisoner doctors and they were able to judge these cases.
Q: And the prisoner doctors stated that these subjects were artificially infected with live typhus?
A: Yes.
Q: Now in any event after this infection did the experimental subjects get decidedly sick?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you see them yourself?
A: Yes, I nursed them.
Q: And you say that some of them died, thirty died as a matter of fact?
A: Yes.
Q: How often did Haagen visit this experimental station?
A: In the first days of the experiment he came two or oven three times a day. Later he came every day, sometimes he came on Sunday too.
Q: And you say he wore the uniform of a Luftwaffe officer?
A: Yes, I am certain of that.
Q: Can you remember what rank he held?
A: Stabsarzt [Staff Surgeon].
Q: Did he ever wear civilian clothes?
A: Once or twice. I saw him in a blue suit and once in a grey suit.
Q: Now, can you tell us whether or not these experiments of Haagen, that is the typical typhus experiments conducted in the experimental station of the Ahnenerbe had any association with the typhus epidemic that was raging in Natzweiler?
A: No, certainly not.
Q: Now of these people that survived the typhus experiments what happened to them?
A: They were put on a transport to Neckar-Eltz.
Q: Well, were any of them used in other experiments?
A: Yes.
Q: Will you tell us about that please?
A: About May 1944 Haagen came back and asked for the two rooms of the Ahnenerbe again. They were already full of patients, the phlegmons, and foot and leg wounds, etc., customary diseases in the camp, and he asked for these two rooms again and experiments began — gassing experiments. He used some of these gypsies who had already been used once with the typhus experiments and some groups who were already in the camp. Then he had four groups of gypsies. He took one group after the other down to the gas room and brought them back up again. I know very well Haagen went down with these people and he came back up with the, too. What happened down there at Stutthof, where the gas chamber was, I don't know but I only know when they came back they were in a very bad way. They couldn't breathe, etc. Professor Haagen with several of the groups started with the oxygen apparatus and then gave instructions first every 1/2 hour, then every hour, then every two hours, that the bolld pressure was taken and breathing, etc. Some of these people died, too.
Q: How do you know they died, witness?
A: Because I nursed them myself and because I had to take them down when they died. I know with certainly that, they died of lung edema.
Q: Well now you say that Haagen ordered them to the poison experiments, to be used in the poison experiments, these eight people?
A: I don't understand you.
Q: Did Haagen himself select these gypsies to be used in the poison experiments?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, these poison experiments are not to be confused with the experiments by Professor Hirt and Bickenbach, is that correct?
A: No, that was something entirely different.
Q: Now witness, in these experiments did the experimental subjects volunteer? That is in the first experiments of Hirt and Bickenbach, the typhus experiments of Haagen, and these poison gas experiments of Haagen?
A: Yes.
Q: The experimental subjected volunteered?
A: In the first experiment there were German volunteers, professional criminals and homosexuals — they were volunteers. A number of people volunteered for them but they had been promised their freedom if they volunteered. In the second experiment, the Haagen typhus experiments, they definitely were not volunteers, definitely not. I talked to these people for hours and days. In the third experiment I saw how the people cried when they were picked out after the second experiment and they cried but they couldn't do anything but do it — they couldn't get out of it because they were gypsies; definitely they were not volunteers.
Q: Well, then, in the first experiment you state that the fifteen subjects used were former Wehrmacht soldiers who were sent to concentration camps for some breach of duty, is that right?
A: Yes, some of them; most of them were criminals and homosexuals.
Q: And they absolutely volunteered — you are sure of that?
A: Yes. And they were offered a pardon if they went through the experiments?
A: Yes.
Q: Did they ever get it?
A: No.
Q: Now the experiment with gas burns, were the experimental subjects exclusively Germans or were there some Poles or Czechs or Austrians or Russians or Frenchmen used?
A: No. There were only Germans in the first experiment.
Q: Now in the typhus experiments you state that they were decidedly not volunteers?
A: Decidedly not.
Q: And were they also of just the German nationality or were the gypsies and the people used in the typhus experiments of various nationalities?
A: Various nationalities.
Q: Any of the Polish?
A: Poles, Czechs, mostly Poles and Czechs, some Hungarians and then some German gypsies.
Q: Now these subjects used in the gas experiments, the poison gas experiments by Haagen, you state that they were not volunteers also?
A: No, they were not.
Q: They were not?
A: No.
Q: Were they also of various nationalities?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, witness, you have stated here that you had an opportunity to copy the death books of the Natzweiler Camp. Do you have the copies that you made with you or are they in your possession?
A: Yes.
Q: Could you explain to the Tribunal —
THE PRESIDENT: I would like to ask the witness a question before you proceed any further. Witness, referring to the last experiment concerning which you testified, you said that the experimental subjects were of various nationalities. What nationalities were they?
A: Czechs and Poles and one Hungarian.
THE PRESIDENT: Proceed, counsel.
Q: Now, would you explain to the Tribunal just what those books and copies are that you have made and would you try to point out to the Tribunal what deaths are listed in the books which coincide with your testimony that deaths occurred in these particular experiments? Would it be possible to do that from a study of your books?
A: Yes.
Q: Would you do that for us and tell us just what the books purport to be?
A: Yes. I have these books here. We did not have the names of the Gypsies. We had just the numbers and when they died we just put down "1 gypsy, 3 gypsies" etc., but not the names and not the numbers either. We were not given those. In the last experiment I do have the names and the other people who died, died in Dachau because in the meantime there was the evacuation from Natzweiler.
Here is the book.
Q: Would you kindly pass those books up to the Tribunal first, so that they can look at them?
(Book is passed up to the Tribunal.)
Q: Witness, is this book a copy? Is that the original book that was made by yourself or other inmates?
A: That is a copy of the original.
Q: When was that copy made?
A: Until the last day of the evacuation.
Q: Who made that copy?
A: A Norwegian prisoner, a Luxembourg prisoner, and myself.
Q: Now, will you point out to the Tribunal what entries in that book indicate the deaths that you have outlined here in your testimony?
A: Yes.
Q: While the Tribunal is still looking at the book I will ask you another question. Did you ever draft charts at the experimental station, inasmuch as you were a draftsman in civilian occupation?
A: You mean did I make drawings for Professor Haagen?
Q: Yes.
A: I kept the list of statistics that showed the course of the case history of the last experiment; I mean from hour to hour.
Q: That is the poison gas experiment?
A: Yes.
A: And did you work together in making that chart with Professor Haagen?
A: It was like this. Haagen wanted somebody who could draw well and my Capo, the hospital Capo, assigned me to do this because I was already working there. When I made this list Haagen sat next to me and gave me instructions on how I was to do it.
Q: Well, could you ascertain from this chart whether or not the experimental subjects had died?
A: I don't know. I don't remember.
Q: Well, was Haagen particularly interested in whether or not these subjects died? Just what was his interest in these experiments — do you have any idea?
A: The course of the disease and if people died they were taken down to the crematorium. I don't know how many, but an autopsy was performed there.
Q: Well, now, you state that by the death books, 4 of these subjects used in the gas experiments, poison gas experiments by Haagen, died. Can you point out what you mean by that by use of the book?
A: Yes.
Q: Would you do that please? What page in the book would you find that, and explain the entry that you have there in the book, and just what it means, to the Tribunal.
A: Yes. Hodassi, Andreas; Rebstock, Zisko, born 28 May 1901. There was an autopsy performed on him. I know that for certain.
Q: Well, now, was he one of the subjects used in the experiment?
A: Yes.
Q: How do you know that?
A: He was in my ward.
Q: You knew the man?
A: Yes, I knew all these people. I can remember many of them very well. And Robstock, I had to wash him, I remember, because he was to be taken down to the autopsy room.
MR. HARDY: Do you have a question, your Honor?
BY THE PRESIDENT: Under what date is that annotation contained in the book?
A: At the end of June 1944.
Q: Are the pages of this book numbered?
A: Yes.
BY MR. HARDY:
Q: What page is that on — that entry that you referred to?
A: No, there was just a number and it was entered under the month of June — at the end of the month of June — but in the original book there were the dates of death, June 1, June 2, etc. — but not in this copy.
Q: Well, now, is that copy numbered — is each page numbered? In other words, is it paginated 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. — the pages?
A: No. No.
Q: Well, then, how could I find that entry in that book. What would be the method for me to identify what page that is on?
THE PRESIDENT: I would suggest that during the noon hour —
A: It says June, 1944.
Q: And the book goes through in calendar order, is that correct? In other words the first page of the book starts with what date? What date is the first page?
A: The first page begins 1942.
Q: And it goes through to what date, to the end of the book?
A: August 1944.
Q: And, now, there are actually two book, aren't there?
A: One book for European and one book for Polish and Russian prisoners. The Russian and Polish prisoners were kept in a separate book. That is this book.
Q: Well, now, were any of the deaths in these experiments of people in the second book — the Russian and Polish prisoners?
A: Only the Polish people and the Russians. Not the gypsies. Only Poles and Russians.
Q: I see. Well, now —
A: Yes, those are all deaths.
Q: Would you give those books to us so that we can offer them in evidence here before this Tribunal, or do you wish to retain them?
A: I would like to have them back later.
Q: Then could we have them reproduced and keep them on loan from you for a period of several weeks and return them to you at a later date?
A: Yes.
MR. HARDY: If your Honor please, I would like to paginate the book, with permission of your Honors, with perhaps a red pencil, so that we can refer to them more thoroughly.
THE PRESIDENT: I was about to suggest that the books be paginated with a red or blue pencil and carefully numbered from one on, and the —
MR. HARDY: Other than having the witness point out the particular death in the book I have no other questions to put to him, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: This pagination can be done during the noon recess today and, of course, defense counsel will have an opportunity to examine the books. I think they might examine them during the noon recess also. Give the books in the custody of the secretary of this court and they could examine them in his custody.
MR. HARDY: All right, your Honor. Then in that case, your Honor, I have no further questions, other than the questions I wish to put to him concerning the book and I cannot very well put them without identifying the pages therein.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now be in recess until 1:30 o'clock.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)