"A release of valuables which have been taken into custody to Jews of foreign citizenship who are in concentration camps, or to members of families of Jews who had died in concentration camps, will not be considered. The objects, as far as they belong to citizens of the former Polish State--based on the decree concerning the property of former citizens of the former Polish State, dated 17 September 1940, (Reichsgesetzblatt, page 1270) are to be reported to the Main Trustee Office, Berlin, some Street, 12."
"In any other case, I interpolate, if it was a German Jew, the competent government president on the basis of the Seizure Law of 26 May 1933 and July 1933, Reichsgesetzblatt, pages 293 and 479, had to confiscate this property. In the latter case, however, it had to be established first whether the persons were enemies to the country and the nation according to the law of the 4th of July 1933, and an accurate list had to be added to the application. All the items belonging to the owner and all the valuables which will be confiscated, have to be stated together his name and his last place of residence."
From that decree it can be seen that the property that was being kept for these people in the concentration camp property room also had to be transferred to the Chief Finance president.
Q. The Chief Finance President--is that an office of the SS or of the WVHA?
A. No, that is an agency of the Reich Finance Ministry. It would be a very interesting matter, particularly for us, in the interest of the entire recapitulation of this sad chapter, as to what the Reich Finance Ministry received in this manner in its cash boxes or steel cabinets. I read once, in a special paper, that the Jewish property in Germany, shortly before the beginning of the war, amounted to from five to six billion gold marks, I guess, and I believe I can as sert that at least 85 percent of this immense amount of money was actually credited to the Reich Finance Ministry.
I don't include in this the fortune of those Jews which directly or indirectly also was received by the Reich Finance Ministry, from those countries and territories occupied by Germany.
I would like to mention another example which will stress this fact. If a Jew emigrated before the war, or even during the war, then that Jewish fortune--excuse me, I shall give you another example in order to illustrate the whole thing better. Let's say a Jew fled into Switzerland, in 1939, and he did not emigrate officially. He tried to take his fortune along into Switzerland. In many, many cases that Jew taken as an example, was captured or caught by the investigating agencies of the German Reich Finance Office. His property and fortune was confiscated and the whole property and fortune of that particular Jew which he left behind automatically become the property of the Landes Finance President Office. In other words, this property also became the property of the Reich Finance Ministry.
I shall now come to the period of time after the 1st of October 1942. I would not like to state prematurely but only within the framework of my entire statements, what happened after the 1st of October, 1942. However, I can say that the fortune that a Jew had when he was sent to a concentration camp--and I shall repeat that, after October 1942 also became the property of the Reich Finance Ministry.
Q. Witness, when was it--let me put it this way. So far you have been speaking about the Reich Finance Minister. When was it that the WVHA of the SS was used for the first time in evaluating confiscated Jewish property?
A . That occurred with the document NO-724, which I signed. I wanted to mention that just now. That was the beginning of the confiscations of property ordered by the Reichsfuehrer in the concentration camp itself, whereas, Globocnik was an exception, he went further than.
that. I shall tell you that in connection with my statements later. All I wish to say now in advance is that through this document which I signed, and for which I now have to take the responsibility, there were three final stations for this fortune. Those were;
First, for the cash in the cash boxes, the treasuries of the concentration camps or the treasuries of the WVHA, respectively.
Secondly, for the gold and the jewelry, the final station was the Reichsbank--shall we say the vaults of the Reichsbank.
Third, for the watches and fountain pens, as we all know, the workshops of Amtsgruppe D in Oranienburg.
I believe by that I have explained what part the administration of the SS played from the 1st of October 1942 in the evaluation and use of the entire Jewish property for the benefit of the Reich.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Your Honor, I believe that this is an opportune moment to recess until tomorrow morning, because I now have to go into detail.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess until 9:30.
(At 1630 hours, 5 June 1947, a recess was taken until 0930 hours, 6 June 1947.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the Matter of the United States of America, against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 6 June 1947, 0930 - 1630, Justice Robert M. Toms, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal II.
Military Tribunal II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
AUGUST FRANK - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. Witness, yesterday I started with asking you about Document NO-724, Exhibit 472, and we had started with the preliminary question about the problem, how the confiscation of the Jewish property came about in Germany, and you mentioned that the confiscation of the Jewish property actually was not a matter with which the SS or the WVHA dealt, but rather that it was based on laws, and that it was carried out by the Reich Finance Ministry. Where did you get your knowledge from which you told us about yesterday?
A. I get that knowledge partly from official sources and partly from my own personal knowledge. The official sources were known to every German. A whole series of laws were established, as I already mentioned yesterday. These laws began before the war, and they were continued during the war. Mostly the Reich Finance Ministry, the Reich Justice Ministry, the Four-Year Plan, participated in all these laws. I am sorry if I have to mention the Reich Finance Ministry in this particular connection. However, I owe this to both my comrades and the truth. Maybe the SS has a long criminal record, but one thing you cannot reprach the SS with, and that is that the SS enriched itself with the gold of the Jews. It was not the SS that recast the gold in the State Mint. It was not the SS that used the foreign exchange. It was not the SS either which sold the Jews' pawn shops. That, for the benefit of the truth, has to be established.
Q. And then you told us how much Jewish property, or what part of the fortune shall we say, of an emigrating Jew was confiscated for the Reich. Where did you have that estimate of the amount from and therefore of the damage that was done to the Jews? Where did you have that knowledge from?
A. This knowledge of mine comes from private observations. It is, for instance, known to every German that after that crystal Sunday in October, 1938, the Reich government wanted one billion Reichsmark fine from the Jews.
THE PRESIDENT: A billion.
THE INTERPRETER: One billion indeed.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: After that what Sunday?
THE INTERPRETER: Crystal Sunday, your Honor.
A. (Continuing) A sum of one hundred billion gold marks -- that amount of one thousand million Reichsmarks, according to my opinion, went straight to the pocket of the Reich Finance Minister.
Q. (By Dr. Rauschenbach): Witness, I believe the Tribunal understood you correctly, but what do you mean by the "pocket of the Finance Minister"?
A. I mean the pockets of the Reich, of course. It was personally known to me, that is through the case which occurred to my sister, that if a Jew emigrated, and I shall assume the amount of 100,000 marks that he had, that was his fortune, then he could change those 100,000 marks into a gold deposit of 5,000 marks. That is to say 95,000 marks became property of the Reich, and he could deposit 5,000 gold marks in Switzerland, or somewhere else, wherever he emigrated.
Q. But you do not know from your official position, do you?
A. No, I knew that from my own private affairs. I shall admit gladly that hundreds of Jews who emigrated succeeded in taking their fortune along with them, and I am glad about it. Many of them, according to the law, could take along their heritage, and to transfer it to the foreign country they were emigrating to.
However, according to my knowledge, according to my private knowledge to be exact, the fact remains that most of the fortunes became property of the Reich.
Q. That is sufficient, Witness, and we will leave this subject. Now, when was it that the WVHA for the first time made use of Jewish property?
A. That was in July 1942. That was when the Chief of the WVHA, Pohl, had a conference with the Reichsbank Vice-President, Puhl, P-u-h-l.
This conference was preceded by another conference between the Reichsfuehrer Himmler and the Reichsbank president Funk who at the same time was Reich Economy Minister. Probably, at the same time, as can be seen from the documents, there was a conference Himmler-Krosigk, the Reich Finance Minister. It will be possible for me, to prove on the basis of the documents, that the WVHA a very short while before that, had not been included in the affair at all, and knew nothing at all about it.
Q. You just said that they knew nothing about it. Do you mean by this the term "Reinhardt Action"? Or do you mean the confiscation of Jewish property, generally speaking?
A. I would like to say as of now in answering this question the following: When the Action Reinhardt is mentioned, then at that particular moment when I was in the WVHA, it could never have been the extermination action. I would like to point cut clearly that the Reinhardt Action, the term as such, was always known to the WVHA as an economic use action, an action where the Jewish property could be utilized. It was approximately six weeks after the conference between Pohl and Puhl when the WVHA received a draft of an order from Lublin which bore Himmler's initials and which was the authentic basis for NO-724.
Before I speak about this document in detail I would like to state that in this draft of the order not one single word was contained of the killing or of an extermination, or any other kind of Action Reinhardt. That word did not appear at all in the draft of the order and at that time it was not even known in the WVHA.
Q. Witness, in that decree which you signed, that is, Document NO-724, it is stated that personal property, for instance watches, would also be sent to the utilization department. Now, I can't believe you without any further difficulty, that from that decree which you signed yourself you could not understand or know anything about a killing or an extermination. At least that you couldn't tell it if there wasn't.
It seems almost a matter of course that such personal belongings could not have been taken away from people who were still alive.
What do you wish to say about that.
A. If I am to talk about the question of the watches, then I have to say that it was surely unusual that a military administration dealt with the collection of watches. However, it is not absolutely necessary that a watch must originate from a man who is dead. At this moment I do not wish to speak about the question of the property, and what have you. It is not necessary that a man is killed first before his watch can be taken from him. I believe that you could find these examples in all the armies of the world. I believe that, as long as there are wars and as long as there are prisoners and as long as there are watches in the world -- these watches will be stolen. The same thing applied to us also when there were prisoners of war. I do not think it very tragic in my own case. However, the charge that glasses and gold from the teeth could not originate from men who were alive, and I knew that. I was aware of that. But it was also clear to: me that in the camp, or in a series of camps where fifty or sixty thousand, or more, people are moving about there will be death cases just like in any other city. It is also clear to me that in the East, where they had infections of typhus, the death rate was higher than in normal times. Apart from that there was a war going on and one does not really have to use percentages of death rates. Let us just use normal times. I want to say for instance three per thousand, as far as I know. Nurnberg has 1.8 per thousand as the death rate per month. Now, if I use such a figure and use that as a basis, then there are of course a couple of thousands of deceased persons per year.
On this occasion I wish to state clearly that Himmler and Globoenik were real masters of cunning and deception. Today it is absolutely clear to me why in this particular draft of the order the property of the living and of the persons who died normal deaths, and of those who were killed, were mixed up with that property coming from stocks and workshops. That was the most cunning deception that can be done, and I became a victim of that also.
One has to understand further that there was another camouflage, that, for instance, the money, the cash, went in the treasuries of the Waffen SS, and therefore to the Reich treasury; the gold and jewels went to the Reichbank, and they were stored there for months -- if not years -- until they were examined, counted, and utilized. The watches were sent to Oranienburg, the eye glasses were sent to the medical inspectorate; the various things like towels, suit-cases, rucksacks, were sent to the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle. Furthermore, napkins and towels were sent to the soldiers. Furs were sent to Ravensbruck; suits and clothes to the Reich Economy Ministry. There were ten, or perhaps a dozen, offices where these things were sent. I ask, further, not to forget that it was the fourth year of the war at the time. I wish to say that today in this clear Tribunal, with a distance behind me of four or five years, one cannot possibly judge the scale of the criticisms, and I would appreciate it if this Tribunal would permit me to take up their time and bring you back to that particular time when I signed the document; go back four or five years because only thus will it be possible to explain to you, and for you to understand the situation which I was in at the time.
Q. Witness, in order to shorten, to abbreviate, and in order not to use up too much of the time of this Tribunal with details which are not important, I would appreciate it if you could tell us as little as possible about your personal attitude and your personal activity at the time. On the other hand, however, it is important and we have plenty of time for that, to point out and to stress and to explain in detail the conditions which prevailed at the time when this order was issued around in your surroundings. In order to answer my question now, what do you know about a Reinhardt Action before you signed that particular decree. Would you tell us about that in detail?
A. At that time when I signed this document, NO-724, Germany was in the fourth year of the war. I myself was chief of Amtsgruppe A, and thus as General in the Waffen-SS, and to take care of 300,000 soldiers, roughly.
A tremendous amount of money had to be distributed in dozens and hundreds of channels; thousands of wishes from the army had to be satisfied; new administrative officers had to be trained and the groups became larger from day to day. It was a difficult task which was almost impossible to cope with, and it kept us, both myself and my few colleagues, busy day and night. It was not thus that the German army, for instance, like the American army had plenty of everything and had a peaceful hinterland.
Back in 1942 we already had to start improvising. Everywhere we had to economize. We were entering the fourth winter of the war. At the time, I had hardly anything to do with the concentration camps. It was a time during which we, that is to say, my comrades and myself, who had no knowledge of the tragedy of Majdanek and Auschwitz -- what did we know about the cruelties and tortures behind the Gestapo walls and behind all the big things that the sadistic commandants committed, that the unterfuehrers committed. I should only mention SS-Oberfuehrer Loritz. That was one of the first concentration camp commandants. Every docent SS man and leader disliked this man and he had to be transferred by the Reichsfuehrer under that pressure and, in spite of that, he was re-instated of his rights by Himmler, after that and to our great astonishment. We were said, we men from Amtsgruppe A, -- our people were speaking about it --- that we would also have been guilty and that we wanted to pass the buck to those already dead. I ask this Tribunal, those dead men, weren't they really responsible -- men like Himmler, Gluecks, Lolling, Grawitz, Globoenik, Loritz? All these men committed suicide and that could only be under the pressure of their guilt. If I myself had wanted to leave Germany, I don't think it would have been difficult for me to obtain a passport as chief of the passport section and to go abroad, if I was under the impression that I had such a guilt of blood on me. Eicke, Heydrich, Hoess, Kammler are dead. I believe that I can assert -
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Hoess didn't commit suicide.
WITNESS: No, he was executed. Koch also was executed, what I wish to say by that is that these men are dead and I believe that I can say that, if this dozen of men would be sitting here in the defendants' dock today, then the bookkeepers of Amtsgruppe A would not be sitting in the first row of the defendants' dock.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: I understood from your enumeration of these names that you were indicating that those who were really guilty realized their culpability before the world and took their own lives and in that list you mentioned Hoess, that is, H-o-e-s-s, the mass butcher of Auschwitz, but everyone knows that he was tried and convicted and hanged.
WITNESS: Yes, indeed. I did not mention Hoess amongst those who committed suicide. I only mentioned him among the dead.
Q Witness, we don't want to go too far from our subject. We shall have to come back to the question which results from the contention of the prosecution that the concentration camps, as I said in the opening speech, were the bones and the brain of the WVHA. What can you say about that?
A I deny that absolutely, namely that the concentration camps were the bones and the brains of the WVHA and of Amtsgruppe A; for Amtsgruppe A, at least, which I am talking about, the troops, the Army, the soldier, was the back bone. The prosecution has an enormous case of evidence and amongst those you probably also have the Army Regulations of the Waffen-SS and particularly those of the WVHA. Thousands of orders were contained therein and I believe that only approximately a dozen refer to specific concentration camp questions. I may, for instance, draw your attention to the fact that when the orders of the RSHA, which were established or appeared in 1942, in other words, almost exactly at the time when I signed this document, NO-724, and I mean that it was no longer possible to send the urns of the deceased Jews back to their homeland. Another decree orders that the death of a Jew in a concentration camp is to be reported immediately with an explanation of the reason for it to the RSHA by first class mail. Then, I, as a man who standing on the side in a military ministerial capacity, could not see any motive of the mass extermination.
Q These orders which you just mentioned, can you identify them more clearly?
A The first order which I have mentioned is Exhibit 157.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Your Honor, this is Exhibit 157 which is Document NO-1543 on page 11 of English Document Book No. 6
Q What can you see from this document? Just a moment until the document will be given to the judges.
A There are two documents, 156 and 157.
Q I mentioned 157 and also 156. Exhibit 156 is on page 1 of the English Document Book 6.
A May I refer to Exhibit 349 in Document Book No. 12, in which document the RSHA is complaining about the fact that in the East there is too good a relationship between the SS and the Jews. They are speaking explicitly of Jewish camp inmates.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Your Honor, this is Exhibit 349 on page 88 of the English Document Book No. 12.
Q Now, witness, what were the conditions at the time when this decree was issued, that is, what you knew about the conditions at the time as you could possibly understand from those decrees and reports? Wasn't there really any reason at all at the time just to assume that this Jewish property that had been confiscated originated from Jews who would have been killed?
A No, I could not possibly have that impression. In this connection, I might perhaps repeat the names of Funk and Krosigk. I am terribly sorry that I have to mention these names again and again in this trial. Please try to put yourself in my position and assume that the President of the Bank of England is covering some sort of business, regardless of the nature of that enterprise or business. I don't believe that an official would possibly take the liberty to make some sort of a criticism about the business itself, and it was known to me that the President of the German Reichsbank and the Finance Minister of the German Reich placed themselves before this business, I couldn't possibly criticize it.
I would not be able to criticize as much then as I would have been able to criticize if I had known it. I had nothing to do with the planning of this whole action, not did I have anything to do with the procurement of the valuables. The decree which I signed was merely the order about the utilization of already existing things.
Q Witness, you said at the beginning were we started talking about this document here that you received the draft of your decree from Lublin. How did the whole thing work out?
AAs I already said before, towards the middle of September 1942, the WVHA received this draft of an order, which can be described as fateful today. It had an accompanying letter, from which, according to my recollection, the following could be understood. Globocnik wrote the following: Through the resettlement of the Jewish population which has been ordered by the Reichsfuehrer from the towns of the Government General, and particularly from the Ghettos, larger amounts of foreign exchange, money, goods and other valuables, which upon the Reichfuehrer's SS orders have been confiscated were available -- I would like to correct myself and say that they will be available -- not that they were available -- the future, rather than the past.
Q And was there anything mentioned in the accompanying letter, about the utilization of these valuables.
A Yes, apart from the foreign exchange.
MR. ROBBINS: I am not exactly clear as to which document this letter accompanied. You are speaking about foreign exchange.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: This is not a document, this does no longer exist, but we are talking about a letter which the Defendant Frank at the time received, and the contents of which he explains here. That is neither a document in the books of the Prosecution, nor a document which should be in a position to offer.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. Will you please explain this, so that it becomes quite clear?
A. This draft of an order which I am talking about now, so to speak, was literally the same as what I had signed. Globicnik, as I already said before, added this draft order to the accompanying letter in which he informed me that himmler on the occasion of a personal visit to Lublin, that must have been around that time, reached an agreement together with him, and that Himmler had told him to issue this order as an economic order, which actually happened.
Q. I shall repeat the question which I had already asked you, witness, in this accompanying letter was the nature of things to be utilized, described in detail apart from the money which was for exchange in cash from the Jewish property?
A. The nature of the things could be seen from the draft of the order.
Q. Could you enumerate them?
A. If you want me to list them in groups, all right.
Q. Yes, please?
A. First of all we have the personal property which due to lack of space were taken away from the inmates. Then the store of goods which Globocnik had confiscated in the Ghettos, and taken from there to Lublin, whatever was left from the Jews who had died in the concentration camps.
Q. Can you say from this accompanying letter which you received from Globocnik that the WVHA was to issue the decree announcing the utilization of this property?
A. As I had already said, Himmler issued that order. That could be seen from the fact that in this particular draft of the order there was a hand written notation, by himmler which according to my recollection read as follows: "To be issued by the WVHA to be extended to Auschwitz, and with the words' Stolen property and hoarded goods' were also written down in green pencil with Himmler's handwriting, because how else was I to use the expression and I can also add how was I to know all the details because the order comprised everything what one could think of.
Q. Witness, can you describe to us, in particular make it in such a way that we can believe you, that this decree of Globocnik was submitted to the Reichsfuehrer-SS. Do we have any document which we can possibly empire with what you just stated?
A. I am sorry but the original document apparently is not here, but it can be proved, I might point out document NO-059, Exhibit No. 488.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Now, Your Honor, this is Exhibit 488 in Document Book No. 19. Unfortunately I can not give you the English page in this case. It is Document Book 19 in English.
MR. ROBBINS: It is page 27.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: It is page 27 of the English Document Book, as I have just heard.
THE WITNESS: I have also read this document here for the first time. This is Globocnik's report about the administrative development of Action Reinhardt, dated January 1944. I myself at that time was no longer with the WVHA. From the second paragraph of this letter it can be seen and one can actually see the confirmation of what I have stated.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Read that paragraph, please. Read the paragraph.
THE WITNESS: The second paragraph: "The use and materialization of the valuables were carried out according to the directive of 26 September 1942, and 9 December 1943, and the Economics and Administration Main Office was entrusted with the settlement as against the Reich Offices."
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. You deduct from that that the decree which you signed later on originated on Globocnik's own initiative, and was approved by the Reichsfuehrer, who issued this order?
A. Yes, this attains Blobocnik, first of all seemed to have acted according to the regulations which were issued by the Reichsfuhrer. Thus the regulations would not have come from the WVHA. Then I know that Globocnik always discussed everything directly with Himmler.
Q. Was his relationship with Himmler especially good?
A. Yes. Well, let me talk about Globocnik's person in one or two sentences. What I know about Globocnik personally myself, is the following: Globocnik was one of the oldest Party members of Austria. As far as I knew he was a Nazi before the seizure of power in Austria. He was locked up in the concentration camp of Woellersdorf in Austria. A short while after the seizure of power he was the Vienna Gauleiter.
It is surprising that a man of position like his was sent as SS and Police Leader to Lublin. Today I have my own personal opinion why Globocnik went to Lublin. He was sent to Lublin only for the purpose of exterminating the Jews, with the agreement between Himmler and Hitler ---
JUDGE MUSMANNO: When did you come to that conclusion?
THE WITNESS: Because I know that Globocnik immediately at the conclusion of the action he was sent to the Adriatic Sea, as I can see from the document.
Q You knew that at the time?
A No, I already said that I deduced that from the documents, I know that today. I deduced that today.
Q That is what I want to know.
A That Himmler had a very good relationship, also from the documents, because when I read this particular letter, dated January 1944, which he is writing to Globocnik, he addresses him as "Dear Globus." I can only interpret these words "Dear Globus" as a rather friendly way of using his name, it is an appreciation of his name, and he only does that if one has personal relationship with a person.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q Witness, you said that you read this document NO-059 that we are talking about here for the first time. I take it then, you probably read about the "Action Reinhardt" here for the first time, is that correct?
A No, as I have already stated before, the word "Reinhardt" was not known at all in the WVHA, at the time. It also can be seen from the particular order which I signed myself; there is not one single word of "Reinhardt Action" in there. Today the word "Reinhardt" receives a special and horrible sense.
At that time the few people of the WVHA who knew about Reinhardt, understood by it the utilization of the Jewish property. This Tribunal will possibly ask me why was the whole matter dealt with so much secrecy. All I have to say is that it was certainly necessary not to make too big a story about it at that time, because I admit frankly that it was not a very fair deal.
Q Now then, you say it was not a fair deal. I can only interpret that on way, namely, it did not feel as a fair deal to you even at the tiem. What did you in order to be spared in the future to have anything to do with the entire matter?
A. This question cannot be answered so easily. At that time when I signed that document there was no doubt left in my mind that such a decree, apart from the fact that it was in connection with the killing of human beings - I say that at the time I did not know about it anyway, but the pure fact that their property was taken away from them had to create some sort of a conflict in my own personal attitude about the term of property. It was exactly the contrary of what we in Amtsgruppe A particularly told our young leaders, namely, about the fact that personal property was taboo.
At the time I did not understand why Himmler requested that his administrative people on the one hand adhere to the principle of loyalty concerning other people's property, and that on the other hand he charged the same people with the taking away of personal property.
It was written down in law, undoubtedly, but in spite of that fact, for our men who had to deal with those things, there was an immense danger of corruption. That was the reason, possibly, which made me deal with those things, because I said to myself, "If such valuables are not exactly seized in a proper manner and regulated accordingly, then nothing else will result but a throwing around and corruption on a large scale."
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q. Witness, some time back you said that certain conflicts arose within you, certain doubts, when you contemplated the seizure of these articles from deceased Jews. It wasn't clear to me whether in your declaration you intended to tell us that you had some doubts as to whether these Jews had died a normal death or had been violently done to death.
A. This question, Your Honor, can be answered in the following manner, that is, that it should have been quite clear to me that these things originated from people who had died a violent death. If I had seen the total amount or a list of the number of things that were confiscated, if I had seen the 26,000 eyeglasses that were among them which had been confiscated in Lublin and transferred to the Medical Inspectorate, then I could not have possibly told myself that those eyeglasses had come from people who had died a normal death.