War Crimes Trials - Vol. II The Belsen Trial. 'The Trial of Josef Kramer and Forty Four Others'

(63) DEPOSITION OF MAX MARKOWICZ (French, aged 25)

1. I was employed in this camp in making a list of those who died. I was therefore frequently in Block No. 2, where Keith Meyer [Mayor] lay ill.

2. I have read the statement of Klink and I can say that the Unterscharführer to whom he referred in his statement is Unterscharführer Wolf, because at that time he was the only storm-trooper who wore a black rubber coat, and because he otherwise corresponds with the description given in it.

3. I saw the body of Meyer [Mayor] lying near the kitchen on a heap of straw with his arms outstretched. He had a small hole in the centre of his forehead made by a pistol bullet. The sentries around this place were so disposed that, had Meyer [Mayor] been shot attempting to escape from the camp, he could not possibly have been shot through the centre of the forehead. Furthermore, the sentries in the watch tower had repeating weapons, and when they killed somebody, the bodies would be riddled with bullets. The other sentries would have been some distance behind Meyer [Mayor] had he been trying to leave the camp and were armed with French Lebel rifles, shots made with these making much larger holes. The marks of those prisoners who were shot with these weapons were entirely different from that of Meyer [Mayor].

4. As it was my duty to register the dead, I brought the matter to the notice of Emmerich. I believed that, if I seemed to know about this body, I might place myself in danger. So I said to Emmerich, "Who is this man? I do not know him." Emmerich answered, "Call it an unknown body."

5. Usually when prisoners were shot without an execution there were a lot of formalities to be gone through. I used to have to get the name and number of the man and make a sketch of the place where he was found, so that they could be shown to have been shot escaping. In this case no such formality was carried out. I consider it likely that they had an order to kill Meyer [Mayor] from the Political Department of the camp. The general policy was laid down in Berlin, but the Political Department in the camp had authority to kill individual prisoners. The Political Department was under Obersturmführer Friedrich and Unterscharführer Pott.