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"There's no way to rule innocent men ... but just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted, and you create a nation of law-breakers, and then you cash in on the guilt."

ANONIMOUS




First it starts in his chest. His breathing tightens and there is a
sensation which could only be described as a mixture of panic and
pleasure. If the shot is really good, it knocks the wind out of him,
and his heart stutters for a second. This is one of the best parts,
because it is right before the rush hits his head, and he has a
blissful anticipation of what's going to come. It then moves into his
mouth - he can taste the heroin inside of him. His whole body
tightens, but tightening adds to the pleasure of release. It makes him
think of the beginning of the universe - compression, light, and then
an explosion of stars into the void.

Finally it hits his head. A wave, the true apex of bodily pleasure and
psychic euphoria, washes over his body. Every iota of ugliness and
pain that he carries melts away in a sigh, to nothing. It is replaced
by warmth, all that is pure and good, happy and hazy and colorful. All
that is complete in itself, all that needs nothing. History is
rewritten; truly nothing bad has ever happened to him - not that it
matters, since the present is the only point in time he has ever lived
in. He is glowing in mind, body and soul. As though he has ascended to
a higher state of being, rinsing off all the baseness of human
existence and finding a perfect angelic being underneath, who can live
in peace and contentment in its own dreams.

Dramatic, no?

And now, the ballad of the question
What keeps mankind alive?

You gentlemen who think you have a mission
To purge us of the seven deadly sins
Should first sort out the basic food position
Then start your preaching, that's where it all begins

You lot who preach restraint and watch your waist as well
Should learn for once the way the world is run
However much you twist, or whatever lies you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on

So first be sure that those, who are now starving
Get proper helpings, when we all start carving

What keeps mankind alive?
What keeps mankind alive, the fact that millions
Are daily tortured, starved, silenced, and oppressed
Mankind can keep alive, thanks to his aptitude
For keeping his humanity repressed
And now for once, you must try to face the facts
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts
And now for once, you must try to face the facts
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts

That day we were awakened at three. The day of the execution was probably July 10, 1941. At first we were ordered to line up, armed with "98" rifles and ammunition. The task was to take all the males in the Jewish neighborhood out in the streets. The could get dressed and take as much luggage as they could carry. We were told that Jews were being sent to work in Germany...
The gathering of Jews and their arrangement in the streets inside the Jewish neighborhood went on until six in the morning. Part of our battalion was sent to the site of the execution in trucks. The rest guarded Jews on their way there.

The site was located to the south of Brest-Litovsk, outside the forts, and looked like dunes. A ride to this place from the downtown would take fifteen minutes.

When we arrived, i.e., at 6:30, we were met by an SS unit, obviously a company. The SS soldiers, armed with sub-machine guns surrounded an area (a circle) 600 meters in diameter. Besides the SS, there were SD soldiers in gray uniforms. Judging by what I heard later, these units, after the execution of the men, took care of the women and children who were brought by SS units to the site of the execution after noon. These soldiers were also armed with automatic weapons.

There were twelve ditches: ten meters in length, 2.5 meters in width, and three to four meters deep. I think one could fit 600 corpses in such a pit. To avoid a mistake concerning the number of Jews that were shot that day (since I gave the figure of 10,000 before), I want to emphasize that during the described action about 6,000 male Jews were shot. From later discussions I learned that the figure was 10,000.

We did not have chloride or lime or any other disinfectants. Shortly after we had arrived, a big column of Jews came from the town. It was stopped about 300 meters from the ditches. While the Jews were turning in their luggage, platoon commanders designated shooting soldiers. After this we were given instructions on how the execution should be conducted...

According to the instructions, groups of fifty people were taken to the ditches and laid down on both sides of them, face to the ground, so that their heads stuck out above the pits. Behind each Jew there was a designated soldier with a "98" rifle, bayonet attached. A shot was made as following: the tip of the bayonet was put to the back of a victim's head. After this, a rifle was to be moved to an angle of forty-five degrees, and a shot was to be fired. It often happened that a skull was torn off along a bullet path. From time to time, if an angle was too wide or a victim was holding his head too high during a shot, a bullet would go through the neck. In such cases an officer or a platoon commander would finish off victims, shooting them from hand guns.

We soldiers had to throw corpses into the ditches. No one was putting the corpses into stacks. In such fashion the execution went on until the afternoon. In the beginning, one of the long sides of a ditch would be approached by ten to twelve men to be shot. But later it became impossible to maintain such a uniform rate, and the shooting became sporadic.

The Jews were dressed when approaching the pits. They did not need to undress in advance. This action ended by 4 p.m. After it ended we were taken back to barracks in trucks. Our service for the day was over.

As far as I remember, we did not get any food and, this is for sure, alcoholic beverages during the day. There were no festivities.

We were not to keep the action secret. There were no discussions among us servicemen after the action. And if there were, then only condemning it.

Almost all of the Jews that I am describing accepted their fate with stoicism and heroic self-control. I personally lived throughout this in a state of trance and could not help being amazed by the Jews.

From the testimony of Heinrich, a serviceman in the 307 police battalion, concerning the massacre of the Brest-Litovsk Jews on July 10, 1941.

On the day specified, the gas van arrived from Cherkessk with a driver and his co-driver. An Untersturmfuhrer accompanied them in an automobile. He was to supervise the operation. On the mayor's orders, the Jews assembled in the freight shed of the railroad station. It is not true that I reassured the Jews by telling them they had to climb into the gas vans so that they could be taken to be deloused. That was the group's business.

I was standing next to the gas van. It was the first time I had seen one. It is not true that as the van drove off I reassured the Jews by telling them that those who got into the gas van would return. I did not even enter the freight shed where the Jews were waiting, and I do not remember that the van made several trips. The victims had to strip completely before getting into the vehicle. I drove ahead of it to the mass grave, where I had already stationed some of my men. All the Jews who had been assembled - forty to fifty men - had to get into the van. So far as I can remember, the exhaust was diverted into the interior as it approached the mass grave. Then we heard a muffled trampling sound coming from the inside . . . The van remained stationary, with its engine running, near the mass grave for about ten minutes. Then it backed up to the edge of the grace, the rear doors were opened, and the cargo compartment tipped up. This made the victims fall out into the grace. It was at night, by moonlight, that this operation took place.


Johannes Schlupper, Einsatzkommando 12 Cherkessk

One further incident I remember was a large-scale execution by firing-squad which took place at a well on the way to Kachowa. There was a hole in the steppe measuring about six to seven metres on the upper edge. Near by there were piles of grain in rows.

The grain may have been haystacks or rings of sheaves drying out or something else. We Schutzpolizisten were driven to this well in troop carriers. There was not a village in sight for miles. There was not even a barn in the vicinity. The victims - several hundred, or even a thousand, men and women - were transported in trucks. I cannot recall whether there were any children. These people were made to lie or kneel about a hundred metres from the well in a depression which had been hollowed out by the rain and remove their outer garments there. They were lined up ten at a time at the side of the well and were then shot by a ten-man execution squad, which included myself. When they were shot the people fell forwards into the well. Sometimes they were so frightened that they jumped in alive. The firing-squad was switched a great many times. Because of the psychological pressures to which I too was exposed during the shooting I can no longer say today, try as I might, how many times I stood by that hole and how many times I was relieved from that duty.

Obviously these shootings did not proceed in the clam manner in which one can discuss them today. The women screamed and wept and so did the men. Sometimes people tried to escape. The people whose job it was to get them to stand by the well yelled equally loudly. If the victims didn't do as they were told there were also beatings. I particularly remember a red-haired SD man who had a length of cable on him with which he used to beat people when the action was not going as it should. Many, however, came without resistance to the execution area. It is not as though they had any alternative...

The firing-squad at the well consisted of Schutzpolizisten, Waffen-SS personnel and members of the SD. We Schutzpolizisten used our own carbines, the SD men used sub-machine-guns and pistols. At any rate everyone used his own weapon. All the ammunition we needed was kept ready in boxes. The execution area was a terrible sight. The ground round the well was covered in blood; their was also bits of brain on the ground which the victims had to step in when they were brought over. But it wasn't at that point that they realized what lay ahead for them. They could already hear the shooting and screaming from the place where they were kept waiting...

It took barely an afternoon before the last victim was in the well. Something I still remember clearly about this execution is that afterwards the SD people got drunk, so they must have received a special ration of schnapps. We Schutzpolizisten did not receive anything and I remember that we were very angry about that.

Testimony of Schutzpolizist Togel, Einsatzkommando 10a

Blobel ordered me to have the children executed. I asked him, "By whom should the shooting be carried out?" He answered, "By the Waffen-SS." I raised an objection and said, "They are all young men. How are we going to answer them if we make them shoot small children?" To this he said, "Then use your men." I then said, "How can they do that? They have small children as we" This tug-of-war lasted about ten minutes....I suggested that the Ukrainian militia of the Feldkommandant
should shoot the children. There were no objections from either side to the suggestion....

I went to the woods alone. The Wehrmacht had already dug a grave. The children were brought along in a tractor. I had nothing to do with the technical procedure. The Ukrainians were standing around trembling. The children were taken down from the tractor. They were lined up along the top of the grave and shot so that they fell into it. The Ukrainians did not aim at any particular part of the body. They fell into the grave. The wailing was indescribable. I shall never forget the scene throughout my life. I find it very hard to bear. I particularly remember a small fair-haired girl who took me by the hand. She too was shot later....The grave was near some woods. It was not near the rifle range. The execution must have taken place in the afternoon at about 3:30 - 4:00. It took place the day after the discussions at the Feldkommandanten....Many children were hit four or five times before they died.

SS-Oberstrumfuhrer August Hafner description of Paul Blobels's order to kill of children