I feel sure that, with your readiness to meet the wishes of the Tribunal in expressing your presentation, you will perhaps be able to do that.
M. FAURE: I understand perfectly the feeling of the Tribunal. I simply intended to say a few words referring to the feeling shown by Frenchmen in regard to these persecutions. But these words have now been spoken, and I have just arrived at the object of the demonstration which I am to present to the Tribunal with the documents. To show the Tribunal that the spirit of my presentation is in accordance with the requirements of the Tribunal, I should like to indicate that I am not presenting in this brief any document which constitutes an individual story or even a collective story, and no document which comes from victims themselves, or even from impartial persons.
I have tried to select only a certain number of German documents in order to furnish evidence of the execution of a criminal enterprise consisting in the extermination of Jews in France and the western countries.
I should like to observe first of all that the Nazi persecution of the Jews included two sets of actions. This is important from the point of view of the direct responsibility of the defendants. The first category of actions is that resulting from the actual texts of laws and regulations and the second category is that resulting from the way in which these were applied.
As regards the texts of laws and regulations, it is evident that these texts, which were issued by the German authorities—either military authorities or commissioners of the Reich—constituted particularly flagrant violations of the sovereignty of the occupied countries.
I do not think that it is necessary for me to present these laws and regulations in detail, for their main features are common knowledge. In order to avoid reading, I have had two tables drawn up and these are before the Tribunal in the document book, although they are not documents properly speaking. These documents are to be found in an appendix. I should like to explain what the two tables in this appendix show. The first table, in the left-hand column, is arranged in chronological order; the other columns indicate the names of the different countries. The Tribunal will find arranged in chronological order the measures taken against the Jews in different countries.
The second table classifies them according to subject—the concept “Jews,” economic measures, bullying and petty irritations, the yellow star—and you will find in this table appropriate texts, arranged according to subject.
I likewise present in the form of documents under Document Number RF-1200 a certain number of decrees which were issued in France concerning the Jews, and as these decrees are public acts I shall simply ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of them.
I must now make this observation: These texts, taken as a whole, considerably lowered the status of the Jews. Yet there are no texts in existence of German decrees ordering the mass deportation or murder of Jews. On the other hand, you must remember that this legislation was developed by progressive stages up to 1942, after which a pause ensued. It was during this pause that, as we shall see, genuine administrative measures for the deportation and consequently for the extermination of the Jews were introduced.
This leads us to consider the fact that we are not dealing with two separate actions—the legislative action, to be ascribed to the military authorities, and the executive action, to be ascribed to the police. This point of view, which regards the military authority only as the author of the decrees and, therefore, as bearing a lesser degree of criminal responsibility, would be false. In reality we are looking at the development of a continued action which employs by turns different means. The first means, that is to say, the legislative means, are the necessary preparatory measures for putting into force the other, or directly criminal means.
In order to put into practice their plan of extermination, the Nazis had first of all to single out the Jewish elements in the population and to separate them from the rest of the population of the country. They had to be able to find the Jews easily and to find them with decreased powers of self-defense and lacking in the material, physical, and intellectual resources which would have enabled them easily to avoid persecution.
They had to be able to destroy the whole of this doomed element of the national community at a single blow, and for this reason they had first to put an end to the constant interweaving of interests and activities existing between all the categories of the population. The Germans wished to prepare public opinion as far as possible; and they could succeed in this by accustoming the public to no longer seeing the Jews, as the latter were practically forbidden to leave their houses.
I shall now present to the Tribunal a few documents bearing on this general extermination deliberately undertaken by the Nazis. I shall first present a series of documents, Documents RF-1201, 1202, 1203, 1204, 1205, and 1206. I present these documents with reference to a particular question, the emigration of the Jews who tried to leave the occupied territories.
Inasmuch as the Germans made their desire to get rid of the Jews apparent in every way, it would seem logical for them to look favorably on the solution offered by emigration. On the contrary, as we shall see, they forbade emigration and did so by a permanent measure of general application. This is a proof of their will to exterminate the Jews and a proof of the ferocity of the measures employed. Here, to begin with, is Document Number RF-1201. These documents are submitted to the Tribunal in a series of photostatic copies for each member.
Document Number RF-1201 is a letter of 22 July 1941 emanating from the Bordeaux service and requesting certain instructions from Paris. I wish to read the beginning of this message:
“It has just been established that about one hundred and fifty Jews are still in the territory of the District Command of St. Jean de Luz. At the time of our conversation with the District Commander, Major Henkel, the latter asked that these Jews should leave his district as quickly as possible. At the same time, he pointed out that in his opinion it would be far better to allow these Jews to emigrate rather than to transfer them to other departments or even to concentration camps.”
Here is the reply to this telegram. It is Document Number RF-1202, dated 26 July 1941. The second sentence:
“We do not approve Major Henkel’s point of view as the Reich Security Main Office has stipulated again in a decree the principle that the emigration of Jews residing in the occupied territories of the West, and if possible also of those living in Unoccupied France, is to be prevented.”
Here is an exhibit which I submit as Document Number RF-1203 and which comes from the Military Command in France under date of 4 February 1942. We are no longer dealing with the SS but with the Military Command.
“The Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police at the R.M.d.I. has given orders that the emigration of Jews from Germany or the occupied territories has to be prevented, on principle.”
The rest of the letter indicates that exceptions may be made. This document establishes the collaboration between the Army and the police, the Army assuring the execution of the orders given by the Supreme Chief of Police.
I now submit Document Number RF-1205. This document relates to the same subject, but I nevertheless submit it because it shows the intervention of a third German authority, the diplomatic authority. This is a note of the German Consulate General of Casablanca. I read the first sentence:
“The number of European emigrants hitherto leaving Casablanca for the American continent only at long intervals has greatly increased during the last month. On 15 March . . .”
The rest of the letter indicates that these are Jewish emigrants.
Document Number RF-1204, which is joined to this one, constitutes a new report to the same effect from the Consulate General Casablanca, under