By destroying monasteries, churches, mosques, and synagogues and robbing their property, the German invaders sadistically mocked the religious feelings of the people. These blasphemous crimes assumed a general appearance in all the territories which were under German rule. Soldiers and officers organized bloody orgies in places of worship, kept horses and dogs in the churches, donned the church vestments, and made sleeping bunks out of the icons.
I shall not trespass on your time by reading all the numerous documents at the disposal of the Soviet Prosecution, and shall merely dwell on some of these, in particular on the documentary photographs, an album of which I present to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-99 (Document Number USSR-99).
With your permission, I should like to read a few more documents and particularly a short extract from the document which has already been presented to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-51(3) (Document Number USSR-51(3)). You can find this extract in your document book on the back of Page 321. I quote:
“The Hitlerite invaders do not spare the religious sentiments of the believing section of the Soviet population either. They have burned, looted, blown up, and desecrated hundreds of churches on Soviet territory, including several irreplaceable monuments of ancient church architecture.”
I omit two paragraphs, and I quote the next one:
“The priest Amvrosy Ivanov writes from the village of Iklinskoye, in the Moscow region:
“‘Before the arrival of the Germans the church was in complete order. A German officer ordered me to take everything out of the church. . . . At night troops arrived, occupied the church, brought in their horses. . . . Then they began to smash and break everything in the church and to build bunks. They threw out everything: the altar, the holy gates and banners, and the holy shroud. In a word, the church was turned into a robbers’ den.’”
I omit the remaining part of Page 88, and I read Page 89 of the report:
“In the village of Gosteshevo, the Germans plundered the church, broke up the holy banners, threw the books about, robbed the Reverend Mikhail Strakhov and carried him off with them to another district. In the village of Kholm, near Mozhaisk, the Germans robbed and beat up the 82-year-old local priest. In retreating from Mozhaisk, the Germans blew up the Church of the Ascension, the Church of the Holy Trinity, and the Cathedral of Nicholas, the miracle worker. As a rule, before retreating, the Germans would drive part of the population of the villages destroyed by fire into the churches, lock them up, and then set fire to these churches.”
