TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT D-964

Affidavit of Szloma Gol
I, SZLOMA GOL, declare as follows:
1. I am a Jew and lived in Vilna, Lithuania. During the German occupation I was in Vilna ghetto.
2. The administration of Vilna ghetto was managed by the SA. The Town Commissioner of Vilna (Stadtkommissar) was an SA officer called Hinkst. The Landkommissar for Vilna was an SA officer called Wolf. The Advisor on Jewish questions was an SA officer called Muerer.
3. In December 1943,. 80 Jews from the ghetto including 4 women and myself and my friend Josef Belie were ordered by an SA Sturmfuehrer, whose name I forget, to live in a large pit some distance from the town. This pit had originally been dug for an underground petrol tank. It was circular, 60 meters in diameter and 4 meters deep. When we lived in it the top was. partially
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covered with boarding, and there were two wooden rooms partitioned off, also a kitchen and lavatory. We lived there 6 months altogether before we escaped. The pit was guarded by SA guards about whom I give details below.
4. One morning the Sturmfuehrer standing on the edge of the pit accompanied by 14 or 15 SA men said to us "Your brothers and sisters and friends are all near here. Treat them properly and if you complete your work we will send you to Germany, where each man can practice his own vocation". We did not know what this meant.
5. Thereupon the SA men threw chains into the pit, and the Sturmfuehrer ordered the Jewish foreman (for we were a working party) to fasten the chains on us. The chains were fastened round both ankles and round the waist. They weighed 2 kilos each, and we could only take small steps when wearing them. We wore them permanently for 6 months. The SA said that if any man removed the chains he would be hanged. The 4 women (who worked in the kitchen) were not chained.
6. After that we were taken out to work. We walked in chains 5 to 6 meters.
7. Our work consisted in digging up mass graves and piling the bodies onto funeral pyres and burning them. I was engaged in digging up the bodies. My friend Belie was engaged in sawing up and arranging the wood.
8. We dug up altogether 68,000 graves. I know this because two of the Jews in the pit with us were ordered by the Germans to keep count of the bodies—that was their sole job. The bodies were mixed, Jews, Polish priests, Russian Prisoners of War. Among those that I dug up I found my own brother. I found his identification papers on him. He had been dead two years when I dug him up, because I know that he was in a batch of 10,000 Jews from Vilna ghetto who were shot in September, 1941.
9. The procedure for burning the bodies was absolutely methodical. Parallel ditches 7 meters long were dug. Over these a square platform of boards was laid. A layer of bodies was put on top, the bodies had oil poured on them and then branches were put on top and over the branches logs of wood. Altogether 14 such layers of bodies and fuel were put on each pyre. Each pyre was shaped like a pyramid with a wooden funnel sticking up through the top. Petrol and oil were poured down the funnel, and incendiary bombs put round the edge of the pyre. All this work was done by us Jews. When the pyre was ready the Sturmfuehrer
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himself or his assistant Legel (also in the SA) personally lit the pyre with a burning rag on the end of a pole.
10. The work of digging up the graves and building the pyres was supervised and guarded by about 80 guards. Of these over 50 were SA men, in brown uniform, armed with pistols and daggers and automatic guns (the guns being always cocked and pointed at us). The other 30 guards consisted partly of Lithuanians and partly of SD and SS. In the course of the work the Lithuanian guards themselves were shot presumably so that they should not say what had been done. The Commander of the whole place was the SA officer Muerer (the expert on Jewish questions) but he only inspected the work from time to time. The SA officer Legel actually commanded on the spot. At night our pit was guarded by 10 or 12 of these guards.
11. The guards (principally the SA guards) hit us and stabbed us. I still have scars on both legs and on my neck. I was once knocked senseless onto the pile of bodies, and could not get up, but my companions took me off the pile. Then I went sick. We were allowed to go sick for 2 days, the third day we were taken out of the pit "to hospital"—this meant to be shot.
12. Of 76 men in the pit 11 were shot at work. Forty-three of us eventually dug a tunnel from the pit with our bare hands, and broke our chains and escaped into the woods. We had been warned by a Czech SS man who said "they are going to shoot you soon, and they are going to shoot me too, and put us all on the pile. Get out if you can, but not while I am on guard".
I declare the above to be correct.
[signed] Szloma Gol
9 August 1946.