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1/ Today's doc is 2620-PS, NMT Trial 9, defendant Otto Ohlendorf's affidavit about how the Einsatzgruppen operated. Intro: "Himmler said important part of our task. . .extermination of Jews: women, men, children - and of Communist functionaries." @BenFerencz, prosecutor. 
@BenFerencz 2/ "Men/women/children led to place of execution next to a deeply-excavated anti-tank ditch. Then they were shot, kneeling or standing, and corpses thrown into ditch. . .I ordered that several of the men should shoot at same time in order to avoid direct personal responsibility."
@BenFerencz 3/ These images show typical Einsatzgruppe in action, plus the piles of clothes left over afterwards. Sometimes these were distributed among villagers, sometimes collected in trucks for shipment elsewhere.
@BenFerencz 4/ Ohlendorf then talked about the gas (asphyxiation) vans that were ordered as next step. One reason for these was to relieve mental stress on the shooters (some of whom became suicidal or unbalanced after a day's work).
@BenFerencz 5/ In the "Einsatzgruppen Trial" presided over by @BenFerencz all of the 24 defendants found guilty. Four executed, including Ohlendorf (in pic). Many lived on for decades after short prison terms. (# of defendants was limited by size of the dock in the courtroom).
@BenFerencz 6/ For living witness testimony, see yahadinunum.org, where the "Holocaust by Bullets" is fully explained. Here is their work-in-progress map of the execution sites. So far they've documented 1,658 sites. They have a lot more exploration planned. @yahadinunum
