CALCULATED PLAN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 56, 15 December 1945, Page 4

CALCULATED PLAN

STARVING OP JEWS

NAZI ATROCITIES REVEALED

EVIDENCE AT TRIALS (N.Z. Press Association-—Copyright.) (Rec. 1.30.) NUREMBERG, Dec. 14. A series of German documents and directives which clearly indicated a calculated plan to starve millions of Jews to death by shutting them off from supplies and stopping them working the land from which they might get food, was introduced at the war crimes v trial to-day. , The documents showed that Frank after promulgating new food laws for Poland in August, 1942, noted in his diary: “We have now sentenced 1,200,000 Jews to die from hunger. AntiJewish measures: will be speeded up if they do not starve to death.” Another document showed that the S.S. prescribed the death penalty for Jews who talked while marching or working. The American prosecutor produced a letter from a German official in Riga complaining that the numbers of Jews coming in for execution would overtax the existing three gas vans, and asking for another van to improve the situation.

Quoting from a German official report on the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto in April and May, 1943, the prosecutor said the S.S. chief decided to destroy the entire residential area by setting fire to every block of houses. The report complimented the troops for carrying out the task “with indefatigable devotion to duty.” The prosecutor then screened a number of still photographs showing the Germans using smoke to drive the Jews from their hiding-places. A group of smiling S.S. chiefs watched a Jew jumping from the upper burning storey of a house. An official Polish Government report described conditions in concentration camps where 4,000,000 Jews were killed, in addition to 2,000,000 shot by security police. Plans Cancelled

Hitler cancelled plans for rebuilding Warsaw and reconstructing Polish industry, said the American prosecutor, Captain Sam Harris. The German re-settlement plan envisaged large-scale reshuffling of the Polish population in order to create space for Germans. The document stated that the re-settlement of several million Jews, perhaps in Madagascar, could also create space. The plan envisaged 7,000,000 slaves, mostly Poles, remaining in the “liberated east. 7 ’ The report showed that the Germans intended to reduce Poland to colonial status as a testing ground for policies for occupied Russia. Himmler’s predilection for stealing children from “inferior races 1 ' and rearing them as Germans was revealed in a speech he made in October, 1943, said Captain Harris. Himmler, referring to conquered peoples, said: “Obviously in’such a mixture Ihei;e must be some racially good, types. It is our duty to remove such children from their environment. The end of the war will mean the incorporation of 30,000,000 human beings of our blood, so that we shall lie a nation of 120,000,000 Germanic souls—a decisive power in Europe.”

Mr Justice Jackson, opposing a request from Kaitenbrunner’s counsel that the court should refuse to admit affidavits from the prosecution if witnesses could be summoned to testify in person, said: “We want to get this, trial finished within the lifetime of living men.” The request was refused.

The prosecution then submitted an affidavit from tire Sturmband Fuhrer, Wilhelm Hoetl, stating that he helped to compile a report from Himmler estimating that the Germans killed 6,000,000 Jews in Eastern Europe. Himmler was not satisfied with the report, considering that the number was over 6,000,000.