Communist female prisoner testifies at Nuremberg Trial

(Paris 528) War Crimes Trials, Nuremberg, Germany, January 28, 1946. Marie-Claude Vaillant Couturier, Communist member of the French National Assembly, testifies. The witness speaks about being a prisoner of the Germans and the maltreatment of Jews in concentration camps. She describes the procedures of selection etc. at the arrival of transports in the camp. Women in good health conditions in their 20s and 30s, as well as twins, were taken aside for experiments. She says she does not know what they did with them, apart from taking blood and measuring them. She says that the people were very sad about parting with their relatives, but they had no idea that they went to their deaths. She tells about a "general roll-call" on February 5, 1943, where they had to stand in the snow from 3.30 a.m. until 5 p.m., when they were chased back to the barracks. Those who could not run were driven to barrack 25 (waiting room for the gas chamber).