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Protocol,
Kovno, December 26, 1943
We,
the undersigned, a group of prisoners from the Ninth Fort, who
escaped from there during the night from the 25th to the 26th
of December of this year, consisting of: J.L. Vaslenitzki
[Vasilenko], A. Diskant, A. Faitelson, M. Gelbtrunk, P.
Krakinowski, M. Daitz, A. Wilenczuk, T. Pilownik, Gempel, Sh.
Idelson, and A. Menaiski have put together this protocol
regarding the following:
1.
In the period of the years 1941-42, the area of the Ninth Fort
was used by the German Command to carry out mass shootings.
2.
In order to conceal this crime, the German Command, in the
person of the Commander of the Kovno Gestapo, arranged for the
re-opening of all the graves where the victims of the
executions had been buried and set about burning the bodies.
3.
In order to carry out this work the Gestapo collected 72
persons at the Ninth Fort at the end of October and beginning
of November of this year. These were 34 Soviet prisoners of
war, 14 Jewish partisans, 3 local Russians, caught while
carrying out sabotage, 4 women -- 3 of them Jewish, one Polish
-- and 17 Jews from the Kovno ghetto.
4.
The work was organized in such a fashion that the surrounding
population should not find out anything about it, and in fact
that nobody should know what was being done in the area of the
Ninth Fort. Notices were put up everywhere at a distance of 2
kms. forbidding closer approach under threat of execution. The
working area of 2-3 acres was surrounded with a canvas
(screen). None of the people who carried out the work was
intended ever to leave the Fort alive. This is supported by
the fact that one of the Jews from the ghetto, who was taken
ill with appendicitis, was shot on November 5, and 7 of the
prisoners of war -- older men and invalids were shot on
November 13 of this year. There then remained 64 persons for
the work.
5.
During the period of the work, i.e., from November 1 until
December 25 (the day of the escape), 4½ graves were opened,
each of them 100-120 meters long, 3 meters wide and 1½ meters
deep. More than 12,000 bodies were taken out -- men, women,
children. These bodies were piled up together, 300 at a time,
to be burned. What was left after the burning (charcoal and
bones) was ground down to powder in pits. This powder was then
mixed with earth so that no trace of it should remain.
6.
In order to prevent any escapes during work, the workers were
linked together with chains. There were towers for
machine-guns. The guards were armed with submachine-guns and
pistols.
7.
Among the 12,000 bodies burned there were about 7,000 Jews
from Kovno....
8.
The position of the bodies was proof that groups of people
were driven into the graves and shot afterwards. The result
was that many were buried when they were only wounded or even
had not been wounded at all by the bullets.
9.
On the day of escape there were many graves still unopened.
The Gestapo Commanders had figured that they would finish the
work by April 1, 1944....
Eleven
signatures
Z.A.
Brown and D. Levin, Toldoteha shel Mahteret
("History of an Underground"), Jerusalem, 1962, pp.
172-173. |
