Soviet Victimhood Through Witness Testimony at Nuremberg
By: Chloe Morton
At the Nuremberg Trials following World War II, the Soviet prosecution utilized more witness testimonies than any of the other Allies. Soviet witnesses played a vital role in providing details on Crimes Against Culture and Crimes Against Humanity committed by the Nazis. However, providing evidence for Nazi atrocities was not the only role of Soviet witnesses. The Soviet prosecution selected and questioned its witnesses with the intention of cultivating a certain image of what it meant to be a victim of the Nazis; more specifically, the Soviets created a desired image of Soviet victimhood that aligned with their ideals. Through the examination of Soviet witness testimony at Nuremberg, this paper will show that the Soviet prosecution purposefully developed the idea of Soviet victimhood to encompass collective suffering over individualistic suffering, heroism and resilience in the face of adversity, the peacefulness of Soviet citizens, and the idolization of Soviet culture.
The first section of this paper will examine the initial group of Soviets chosen as witnesses for Nuremberg; by comparing the initial group to the group that ended up testifying, this section will show that the Soviet prosecution privileged testimonies that showed collective suffering of (particularly Russian) Soviets, heroic acts, civilian peacefulness and innocence, and the uplifting of Soviet culture. The second section of this paper will break down individual testimonies based on what crimes they provided evidence for: the treatment of Soviet prisoners-of-war (POWs), the Siege of Leningrad and the destruction of culture, and atrocities against civilians. By examining trends in the prosecution's questioning as well as trends in the testimonies, this section will highlight the traits of victimhood favored by the Soviets.
Before examining the witnesses themselves, it is important to situate the Soviet prosecution at Nuremberg in its historical context; prior literature on the topic reveals why the USSR felt the need to cultivate and promote a positive image of Soviet victimhood. In his work, Moscow’s Road to Nuremberg, George Ginsburgs considered how Soviet foreign policies and academic frameworks shaped the pretrial processes and eventual prosecutorial framework. Through his investigation, Ginsburgs concluded that, while the Soviet Union’s actions before and during the war were not damning enough to exclude the USSR from the Nuremberg prosecution, Soviet actions during the war tainted their claims to innocence; the USSR both collaborated with Nazi Germany too much and committed too many atrocities to be considered a true victim. Ginsburgs’ findings introduced how the Soviet prosecution used witness testimony to change their image of innocence and explained why this image needed to be cultivated.
In terms of the trial itself, Francine Hirsch paved the way for scholars studying Nuremberg from the Soviet perspective. Before Hirsch, scholars largely overlooked the Soviet prosecution at Nuremberg and focused on the story of the Western powers; this erasure emerged from a combination of Cold War tensions, prevalent narratives of Western power, and a focus on Soviet wrongdoings. Hirsch utilized Soviet archival sources to analyze the full scope of Soviet motivations, preparations, and actions at the trial as well as the interplay between the prosecutorial powers. Through this analysis, Hirsch identified the cultivation of Soviet heroism as a goal of the Soviet prosecution team at large. While invaluable to fully understanding Nuremberg, Hirsch’s work left room for further research. Hirsch took a top-down approach to researching Nuremberg; she worked with official Soviet documents to reconstruct the trial. This approach does not necessarily consider how the witnesses themselves built particulars of the Soviet case. Therefore, building on the prior literature, this paper will introduce a new bottom-up perspective to examine the case for victimhood built by Soviet witnesses.
Witness Selection
The initial group of Soviet witnesses gathered in Moscow consisted of nine people. In the end, the Soviet prosecution only called seven witnesses, with only four belonging to the original group. An analysis of the Soviet prosecution’s prioritization and pruning of witness testimony reveals the favored image of victimhood; the Soviet prosecution chose witnesses and prioritized certain stories to convey collective suffering of Soviet (particularly Russian) citizens, heroic acts, civilian peacefulness and innocence, and the greatness of Soviet culture.
The initial group of Soviet witnesses shared two primary characteristics: they were Soviet citizens and they themselves were victims (not just witnesses) of Nazi atrocities. This initial selection made it evident that the development of victimhood was a clear motive behind witness testimony; the Soviet prosecution considered witnesses who could develop an image of Soviet victimhood. Of the initial witnesses, three were chosen to testify to the Siege of Leningrad and the subsequent destruction of culture, two were chosen to testify to the mistreatment of Soviet POWs at the hands of the Germans, and the final four were chosen to testify to crimes committed against Soviet civilians. Based on this initial selection, the Soviet prosecution favored testimonies involving crimes against a peaceful civilian population; they centered witness testimony around the crimes most likely to garner sympathy in order to create the image of a peaceful, innocent Soviet victim.
The day before the nine witnesses left Moscow for Nuremberg, the NKVD interviewed another potential witness: Abraham Sutzkever. Sutzkever fit the initial mold of a Soviet witness: he was a Soviet citizen and a victim of Nazi atrocities (in particular, a victim of Nazi atrocities against civilians). However, Sutzkever differed from the mold in two crucial ways: he was a renowned poet and he was Jewish. Sutzkever’s inclusion reinforces the image of victimhood the Soviet prosecution wished to convey with the initial witnesses. The most prominent Soviet newspaper Pravda featured Sutzkever’s escape from the ghetto in Vilna, partisan activities, and poetry during the war; the Soviet Union proudly embraced Sutzkever, his accomplishments, and his story as intrinsically Soviet. Sutzkever himself encapsulated the greatness of Soviet culture, an aspect of victimhood the Soviet prosecution wished to convey. Additionally, Sutzkever’s story of escape and his resilience (shown through his story and poetry) added to the overall image of resilience within Soviet victimhood.
Sutzkever’s Jewish identity added an interesting facet to Soviet victimhood. In his testimony, Sutzkever clearly spoke to the suffering of Soviet Jews in Vilna; the inclusion of Sutzkever’s testimony implied that the Soviet prosecution did not intend to hide or downplay the atrocities committed against the Jewish community. However, by tying Sutzkever himself to Soviet culture, the atrocities against Jews he described were absorbed by the broader category of Soviet suffering and victimhood.
The trip to Nuremberg did not go smoothly for the group of ten witnesses. Weather and illness delayed the group’s arrival, which, in turn, forced the Soviet prosecution to present their case without their intended witnesses. By the time the witnesses arrived and the prosecution started their segment on Crimes Against Humanity, they had less than a week to call and question their witnesses. These circumstances forced the Soviet prosecution to cut their witness testimonies and select the witnesses who most embodied the desired traits of Soviet victimhood.
While the second half of this paper will focus on the testimonies of the chosen witnesses, analysis of those cut reinforces the ideal traits of Soviet victims. Of the witnesses chosen to testify to the Siege of Leningrad and the destruction of culture, Joseph Orbeli and Nikolai Lomakin testified while Yuri Dmitriev did not. However, the Soviet prosecution read an affidavit from Dmitriev while the group of witnesses traveled to Nuremberg. The other cut witnesses did not have their affidavits read, which implies that Dmitriev still possessed the qualities of an ideal victim. Indeed, like Orbeli, Dmitriev was an expert witness; both men were academics specializing in art and culture. However, Orbeli, as the State Hermitage Museum director (which was a location heavily damaged during the Siege), was both more decorated than Dmitriev and had slightly more relevant knowledge to present. By putting forward their most decorated expert witnesses, the Soviet prosecution conveys a great, academically rich Soviet culture. Additionally, by putting forward expert witnesses in the first place, the Soviet prosecution gathered objective, academically-backed testimonies to the greatness of Russian history and Soviet culture. Overall, the exclusion of Dmitriev’s testimony and the inclusion of his affidavit show that the Soviet prosecution favored testimonies of victimhood that enriched the perception of Soviet culture, both through the prestige of the witnesses and the objectivity of their cultural testimonies.
Of the witnesses initially chosen to testify to the mistreatment of Soviet POWs at the hands of the Nazis, Evgeny Kivelisha testified and Stanislav Tarkovsky did not. Very little information on Tarkovsky exists outside of classified Soviet archives, however, in his memoir, Sutzkever stated that Tarkovsky was a prisoner at Slavuta, a Nazi-occupied military hospital. Kivelisha, a Red Army doctor, testified to both the medical mistreatment of POWs and the daily mistreatment of POWs as they marched. As a doctor, Kivelisha represented a type of unbiased expert witness that Tarkovsky was not; by virtue of their scholarly achievements, these expert witnesses uplifted Soviet culture in a way that “ordinary” witnesses like Tarkovsky did not. Therefore, the exclusion of Tarkovsky’s testimony demonstrates the desire for Soviet victimhood to include the idolization of Soviet culture.
The final group of witnesses, those testifying to crimes against civilians, represented the most dramatic change from the initial witness group. From the initial ten witnesses, Abraham Sutzkever and Iakov Grigoriev testified while Liubov Sopilnik, Evgeniya Panasiuk, and David Budnik did not. In fact, two entirely new Polish witnesses replaced Sopilnik and Panasiuk at the last second: Seweryna Szmaglewska and Samuel Rajzman.
Within the Soviets, Sutzkever, the aforementioned acclaimed poet, testified to crimes against Jews (particularly in Vilna, Lithuania), and Grigoriev, a peasant, testified to the complete destruction of the Russian village Pskov. Sopilnik and Panasiuk intended to testify to their experiences imprisoned at Auschwitz and Majdanek respectively while Budnik would have testified to the events at Babi-Yar. One similarity between Sopilnik and Budnik is that they had a prominent identity outside of being a Soviet citizen; Sopilnik was Ukrainian and Budnik was Jewish. While Pravda claimed Sutzkever and his achievements as intrinsically Soviet, Soilnik and Budnik did not have the same strong claim to their Soviet identity; it is plausible that their testimonies did not appear Soviet enough to build an image of Soviet victimhood.
While Budnik’s testimony never saw the light of day, Sutzkever included a portion of Budnik’s tale in his memoir. Budnik told Sutzkever that he was drafted into the Red Army and taken prisoner by the Nazis at Kiev. Budnik spent years as a POW until the Nazis took him, along with 100 other prisoners, to Babi Yar. The Nazis forced Budnik to work as a corpse-burner at Babi Yar. Right before they planned to kill Budnik, he, along with thirteen other corpse-burners, managed to attack the Nazis and escape. On the surface, this seems like a story of victimhood the Soviets wished to tell: the tale of a heroic Red Army soldier who never gave up and rose against the Nazis; with this idea of victimhood in mind, it is understandable why the Soviet prosecution initially chose Budnik to testify. However, an issue raised by Ginsburgs offered an explanation for why Budnik’s testimony might not have been ideal. As Ginsburgs stated, at the onset of the trial the Soviet Union faced allegations of being too closely associated with Nazi Germany; the public saw the Soviet Union as closer to villain than hero. Because of this public perception, the Soviet prosecution had to do everything in its power to remove any trace, no matter how false, of Nazi support from witness testimony. While the Nazis clearly forced Budnik to work as a corpse burner, this could have been seen as pseudo-corporation by the Soviet prosecution. The Soviet Union wanted to incorporate resistance and resilience into Soviet victimhood to counter the allegations that they cooperated with the Nazis, thus they cut Budnik’s testimony.
The exclusion of Sopilnik and Panasiuk’s testimonies was a byproduct of the inclusion of Szmaglewska’s testimony. The events Panasiuk intended to testify to are comparable in theme to the events Szmaglewaska testified to; Panasiuk intended to testify to atrocities committed against Belorussian children at Majdanek while Szmaglewaska testified to the atrocities committed against children at Auschwitz-Birkenau. While Panasiuk’s testimony would have only included details about victims from a Belorussian orphanage, Szmaglewaska specified that children of several nationalities, including Russian, were murdered at Auschwitz. Szmaglewaska, while not Soviet herself, attested to Russian suffering and equated Russian suffering to the suffering of other groups (particularly Poles and Jews), thus her inclusion implies the desire to incorporate great Russian suffering in particular to Soviet victimhood. Since Sopilnik also intended to testify to the atrocities of Auschwitz, the inclusion of Szmaglewska made Sopilnik’s testimony repetitive.
A Soviet victimhood framework does not fully explain the inclusion of Szmaglewska and Rajzman. It should be noted that both witnesses published accounts of their experiences during the Holocaust before the trial, and the Polish government gave these accounts to the Soviet prosecution team. While the scope of this paper does not include international factors, it is possible that the inclusion of Szmaglewska and Rajzman’s testimonies was politically motivated.
From the initial selection of witnesses to the time they took the stand, the Soviet witness lineup dramatically changed. A comparison of the excluded testimonies to the included testimonies shows that the Soviet prosecution chose witnesses who captured core values of Soviet victimhood: the collective suffering of (Russian) Soviets, the idolization of Soviet culture, resilience, and the peacefulness and innocence of the Soviet people.
Testimonies to the Siege of Leningrad and the Destruction of Culture
The Soviet witness testimony at Nuremberg can be broken up into three groups: witnesses to the Siege of Leningrad and the Destruction of Culture, witnesses to atrocities against Soviet POWs, and witnesses to atrocities against civilians. Witnesses to the Siege of Leningrad both began and ended the Soviet witness testimony. An analysis of Joseph Orbeli’s and Nikolai Lomakin’s testimonies show that Soviet victimhood included the idolization of a grand Soviet culture (both past and present), the resilience and heroism of the Soviet people, and the peacefulness and innocence of Soviet citizens.
Joseph Orbeli started the Soviet witness testimony with his account of the Siege of Leningrad. Immediately at the beginning of the testimony, Counsellor Raginsky for the USSR insisted that Orbeli state his entire scientific title, rather than just his basic occupation as the Director of the State Hermitage; the Soviet prosecution made it clear that Orbeli was an informed, reputable witness of Soviet suffering. In Orbeli stating his membership in English and American institutions, the Soviet prosecution lifted the Soviet victim to the same greatness as the West.
When describing the damage done to Leningrad by the Nazis, Orbeli used descriptive language to capture the greatness of Soviet culture. For example, Orbeli used phrases like “the most sumptuous halls in the Winter Palace” and “the precious oak carvings.” Orbeli’s perceived objectivity combined with this descriptive language emphasized the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the Soviet victim. In using this descriptive language, Orbeli highlighted the physical greatness of Leningrad and, by extension, the greatness of the Soviet victim and tragedy of Leningrad’s destruction.
Orbeli’s testimony also paid homage to the greatness of Russian history. Every time Orbeli detailed the damage done to a building, he included a historical fact about the structure meant to emphasize its distinction. For example, in describing the damage done to Monplaisir, Orbeli added, “in Monplaisir, the oldest building of Peterhof, built by Peter the Great….” This trend continued to smaller-scale descriptions, such as “the ancient Dutch tile stoves, of the time of Peter the Great, disappeared without trace….” This repetitive addition of historical facts intentionally cultivated an image of Soviet greatness; it was not enough that the Nazis tried to destroy a culture, Orbeli’s testimony emphasized that they tried to destroy a great culture.
Orbeli’s testimony also praised Soviet culture, rather than strictly Russian history. The Winter Palace suffered major damage during the Siege of Leningrad, so Orbeli’s testimony frequently brought it up. However, the Winter Palace and its ties to the October Revolution were repeatedly brought up even when the information was not entirely relevant to the topic at hand. When referring to all the damaged buildings, Counsellor Raginsky singled out the Winter Palace by saying, “the Winter Palace as well as the other cultural monuments.” Furthermore, Orbeli specifically mentioned the October Revolution when he gave a summary of the history of the Hermitage’s location. Through the repetitive mention of the Winter Palace and the Bolshevik Revolution, Orbeli sought to uplift Soviet culture in his testimony of Soviet victimhood.
Nikolai Lomakin ended the Soviet witness testimony with his account of religious persecution during the Siege of Leningrad. Lomakin, as the Archdean of the churches of Leningrad, was a type of expert witness in the religious field. This theme of Soviet expert witnesses created the image of Soviet victims as educated and culturally great, both in the past and present.
Lomakin’s testimony reflected the heroism of the Soviet victim. Toward the beginning of the testimony, Counsellor Smirnov of the USSR pointedly mentioned Lomakin’s medal “For the Defense of Leningrad.” This question prompted the idea of the Soviet victim as a hero, which Lomakin elaborated on during his testimony. At the end of his testimony, Lomakin gained permission to make his own statement regarding the heroism of the Soviet victim, “the Russian people and the people of Leningrad have fulfilled their duty to their fatherland to the very end.” Lomakin, an officially distinguished hero, endorsed the heroism of the entire Soviet people, thus creating an image of Soviet victimhood that encompassed a heroic struggle.
In his testimony, Lomakin repeatedly referenced the peacefulness and innocence of the Soviet people in the face of Nazi atrocities. During the Siege, churches became a place of refuge for civilians seeking shelter; as a priest, Lomakin bore witness to countless civilian casualties at the hands of the Nazis. Every time Lomakin told a story of attacks against civilians, he emphasized the innocence of the citizens through phrases like “the peaceful citizens of our town” and “these innocent, peaceful citizens.” In an effort to counter claims of villainhood, Soviet witness testimony cultivated an image of peaceful, innocent victims.
The witnesses to the Siege of Leningrad create both the initial and final impression of Soviet victimhood. Through the testimonies of Joseph Orbeli and Nikolai Lomakin the Soviet prosecution created an image of Soviet victimhood that highlighted the richness of past and present Soviet culture, the heroism of the Soviet victim, and the peaceful, innocent nature of the average Soviet citizen.
Testimony to the Treatment of Soviet POWs
The Soviet prosecution chose a single witness to testify to the Nazi atrocities against Soviet POWs: Dr. Evgeny Kivelisha. Kivelisha started as a Red Army physician at the beginning of the war, but the Nazi invaders captured his unit in August of 1941. Kivelisha’s testimony created an image of Soviet victimhood that included collective suffering of the Soviet people and the innocence of civilians.
Through both his story and his language, Kivelisha’s testimony highlighted the collective suffering inherent to Soviet victimhood. The first part of Kivelisha’s testimony recounted the typical regime of Soviet POWs; he did not single out his own experience, rather he situated his experience in that of the broader POWs. For example, he spoke about how all of the prisoners were not given anything to eat or drink for the first several days after their capture. Kivelisha furthered this idea of collective over individual suffering by using plural pronouns rather than singular pronouns to describe his experiences. For example, Kivelisha used phrases like, “we were deprived of food and water” and “we were forced to spend the night in the open.” By referring to the experiences of POWs as a whole rather than just his own, Kivelisha helped create an image of Soviet victimhood that encompassed collective Soviet suffering.
The Soviet prosecutor, Colonel Pokrovsky, emphasized collective suffering as a facet of Soviet victimhood through specific questioning. During Kivelisha’s testimony, Pokrovsky specifically asked Kivelisha to compare the food quality and its effects on health of all the camps he was imprisoned in. Kivelisha noted that the food and health conditions did not vary in their abysmal quality between camps, thus painting an image of collective maltreatment over an individual experience.
Kivelisha’s testimony also emphasizes the peaceful, innocent nature of Soviet victimhood. In his testimony, Kivelisha noted that the Nazis purposefully refused to give the Soviet prisoners food or water. In recounting this fact, Kivelisha spoke about how “the peaceful population” of the Soviet Union tried to feed the prisoners and were killed for their attempts. Accounts of goodness, peacefulness, and innocence accompanied nearly every mention of the civilian population. Through this testimony, Kivelisha emphasized the innocence of Soviet victims.
Through his testimony to the abysmal conditions of Soviet POWS, Evgeny Kivelisha informed an image of Soviet victimhood that included the collective suffering of all Soviets and the peaceful, innocent nature of the Soviet people.
Testimonies to the Atrocities Against Civilians
Testimonies to the atrocities committed against Soviet citizens make up the final category of witnesses. Iakov Grigoriev and Abraham Sutzkever were the Soviet witnesses in this category and Seweryna Szmaglewska and Samuel Rajzman were Polish witnesses. Since the scope of this paper pertains to Soviet victimhood, this section will primarily focus on Grigoriev and Sutzkever, with a few comments on Szmaglewska and Rajzman. Grigoriev and Sutzkever constructed the Soviet victim to include collective suffering, resilience and heroism, peacefulness and innocence, and cultural greatness.
Iakov Grigoriev was a Russian peasant from the village of Kusnezovo, which was completely destroyed by the Nazi invaders. Unlike some of the other testimonies, the Soviet prosecutor,Counsellor Smirnov, specifically asked Grigoriev why the Nazis attacked and destroyed his village. In his response, Grigoriev noted the innocence and peacefulness of his village, “we had no partisans in the village… only old people and small children were left in the village.” Smirnov asked this question to purposefully prompt a response that attested to the innocence and peacefulness of the Soviet victim, thus adding to the curated image of Soviet victimhood.
The Soviet prosecution specifically used Grigoriev’s testimony to highlight the collective suffering of the Soviet population. Smirnov asked Grigoriev if the destruction in his village was unique. In response, Grigoriev said no and recounted the casualty statistics of surrounding villages, “no, they were not alone. The German soldiers shot 43 persons in Kurysheva, 47 in Vishivova….” By asking this question and prompting this response, the Soviet prosecution highlighted that it was not individuals who suffered under the Nazis, the USSR as a collective were the victims of the Nazi regime.
Abraham Sutzkever was a famous poet who lived in Vilna, Lithuania during the Nazi occupation. As discussed in the first section, Sutzkever himself represented the greatness of Soviet culture by virtue of his inherently Soviet work. This promotion of Soviet culture through Sutzkever himself appeared in his testimony. Unlike the other witnesses, the Court permitted Sutzkever to speak in long, uninterrupted blocks; the prosecution gave him few prompts, electing to let him tell his own story. Sutzkever utilized his poetic language and descriptive words in his testimony to emphasize German atrocities. For example, he used a metaphor to describe the violence in the streets, “blood streamed through the street as if red rain had fallen.” Sutzkever’s descriptive, story-like testimony represented the very culture the Nazis tried and failed to destroy. In creating an opportunity for Sutzkever to tell his story, the Soviet prosecution created an opportunity to tie present cultural greatness to Soviet victimhood.
Sutzkever’s testimony embodied the Soviet ideals of heroism and resilience. An image of victimhood that encompasses both collective suffering over individual suffering and heroism seems paradoxical, but the way in which Sutzkever, as well as the other witnesses, presented heroism and resilience made it seem like an inherent, ordinary aspect of a victim. Sutzkever’s tale of heroism was embedded in his broader story; the prosecution did not particularly question Sutzkever about his heroism and resilience and Sutzkever himself did not particularly emphasize it. Sutzkever’s escape story lasted one sentence and was directly followed by the mention of his wife’s escape. By presenting resilience in a nonchalant manner, it became an inherent part of Soviet victimhood; resilience was an assumed characteristic not to be celebrated as something individualistic, but as a characteristic of the collective.
While Szmaglewska and Rajzman were Polish, not Soviet, there is a characteristic of Rajzman’s testimony that does not appear in the Soviet witness testimonies. Rajzman was sent to Treblinka and only survived due to a friend, who was already in a labor brigade, convincing the Nazis to add Rajzman to the brigade. Rajzman was the only testimony that included being forced to work for the Nazis. Kivelisha’s scenario mirrored Rajzman the most, but, while Kivelisha worked in the POW camp, his work mostly involved helping other POWs. This fact supports the notion that Soviet victimhood sought to distance itself from claims of collaboration with the Nazis by excluding any sort of Nazi-adjacent witnesses, even if they were innocent of wrongdoing; by choosing a Polish man to testify to working in a forced labor brigade, the Soviet prosecution emphasized their idea of what an innocent victim was.
Overall, the testimonies regarding atrocities committed against Soviet civilians highlighted facets of the ideal Soviet victim, including collective suffering, resilience and heroism, peacefulness and innocence, and cultural greatness.
Conclusion
This paper explored the creation of Soviet victimhood through the selection and testimonies of Soviet witnesses. Through comparing and contrasting which witnesses testified and which did not, the first part of this paper showed the Soviet prosecution developed an image of Soviet victimhood that encompassed the collective suffering of specifically Russian Soviets, the idolization of Soviet culture, resilience, and the peacefulness and innocence of the Soviet people. The second part of this paper analyzed the testimony of Soviet witnesses to show that Soviet victimhood encompassed collective suffering, the idolization of a grand Soviet culture (both past and present), the resilience and heroism of the Soviet people, and the innocent, peaceful Soviet citizen. Overall, the analysis of Soviet witnesses revealed how the Soviet Union wished to be perceived in the post-war period. This information is invaluable in understanding the aims and decisions of the Soviet Union both during the Holocaust trials and in the aftermath.
Bibliography
“65th Day, Friday, February 22, 1946.” Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, Volume 8. Avalon Project at Yale University Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/02-22-46.asp#orbeli1 (accessed May 29, 2024).
“68th Day, Tuesday, February 26, 1946.” Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, Volume 8. Avalon Project at Yale University Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/02-26-46.asp (accessed May 29, 2024).
“69th Day, Wednesday, February 27, 1946.” Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, Volume 8. Avalon Project at Yale University Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/02-27-46.asp (accessed May 29, 2024).
Ginsburgs, George. Moscow’s Road to Nuremberg: the Soviet Background to the Trial. Cambridge: Kluwer Law International, 1996.
Hirsch, Francine. Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: a New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.
Hirsch, Francine. “The Soviet Union at the Palace of Justice: Law, Intrigue, and International Rivalry in the Nuremberg Trials.” In Stalin’s Soviet Justice: “Show” Trials, War Crimes Trials, and Nuremberg, edited by David M. Crowe, 171-198. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.
Sutzkever, Abraham. From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony. Translated by Justin D. Cammy. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021.