Three thousand Jewish Red Armymen who were among the Russian troops captured in the Ukraine by the Germans, were executed in Dniepro-Petrovsk in February, 1942, in violation of all international conventions converting the treatment of war prisoners, it is revealed in testimony by a captured German, Pvt. Walter Pfeifer of the 31st Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division, made public here today. Pfeifer stated that he had personally seen his commanding officer shoot 80 Jewish prisoners in one day.
Another German prisoner, Sgt.-Major Arthur Schrants, radioman attached to the 4th Aviation Squadron, reveals in his testimony that the Germans killed hundreds of Jewish civilians, including children, in Pyatigorsk by lining them up in an open field and compelling them to grasp an uninsulated wire through which a heavy electric charge was sent, killing them instantly.
In Rzhev, 900 Jewish men, women and children were driven into a barn and machine gunned, it was disclosed by Cpl. Franz Weskalines of the 336th Regiment of the 161st Infantry Division. After the machine gunners had completed their tasks, the bodies of the victims were drenched with kerosene and set afire, he said. In this manner many Jews who had only been wounded by the bullets were burned alive.
The above incidents are typical of those reported in thousands of accounts of German atrocities against Jews which have been gathered by Soviet commissions for use in war criminal trials after hostilities have ceased, or perhaps, even before then if the perpetrators of the crimes are captured alive.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
