"One of the most usual punishments was 50 blows with a stick on the loins. They were administered with a machine which I saw, a swinging apparatus manipulated by an SS."
"In Block 25 ("waiting block for the gas chamber"), in the courtyard, there were rats as big as cats running about and gnawing the corpses and even attacking the dying who had not enough strength left to chase them away."
"M. DUBOST:
(prosecution counsel)
What did they do to the internees who came to roll call without shoes?
VAILLANT-COUTURIER:
The Jewish internees who came without shoes were immediately taken to Block 25.
M. DUBOST:
They were gassed then?
VAILLANT-COUTURIER:
They were gassed for any reason whatsoever."
For details of prisoners shot for breaking the 'NO underpants in bed' rule,
see here
"She was called "little Marie" and she was the only
one, the sole survivor of a family
of nine. Her
mother and her seven brothers and sisters had been
gassed on arrival. When I met her she was employed
to undress the babies before they were taken into
the gas chamber."
"One night we were awakened by terrifying
cries.
And we discovered, on the following day, from the
men working in the Sonderkommando-the
"Gas Kommando" - that on the preceding day, the gas
supply having run out, they had thrown the children
into the furnaces alive"
The Jewish
women, when they arrived in the first
months of pregnancy, were subjected to abortion.
When their pregnancy was near the end, after
confinement, the babies were drowned in a bucket of water."
Quarantine camp at Birkenau, 2005
"M. DUBOST:
Would you, Madame, please
give us some details as to what you saw when you were about to leave the camp, and under what circumstances you left it?
VAILLANT-COUTURIER:
We were in quarantine before leaving Auschwitz
M. DUBOST:
When was that?
VAILLANT-COUTURIER:
We were in quarantine for 10 months, from the 15th of July 1943, yes, until May 1944. And after that we returned to the camp-for 2 months. Then we went to Ravensbruck."
She claims to have spent TEN MONTHS of her 18 months stint at Auschwitz-Birkenau in quarantine. But the Quarantine camp was for new arrivals!
source
Regarding Ravensbruck:
"On leaving Auschwitz we were sent to Ravensbruck There we were
escorted to the "NN" block meaning "Nacht und Nebel", that is, "The Secret Block." With us in that block were Polish women with the identification number "7,000." Some were called "rabbits" because they had been used as experimental guinea pigs. They selected from the convoys girls with very straight legs who were in very good health, and they submitted them to various operations. Some of the girls had parts of the bone removed from their legs, others received injections; but what was injected, I do not know."
For more unlikely Nazi experiments,
see here
"In
Auschwitz, obviously, extermination was the sole aim and object. Nobody was at all interested in the output. We were beaten for no reason whatsoever. It was sufficient to stand from morning till evening but whether we carried one brick or 10 was of no importance at all. We were quite aware that the human element was employed as slave labor in order to kill us, that this was the ultimate purpose"
"During this period, in all the Revieren, selections were
made and all patients considered unfit for work were sent to the
gas chamber. The Ravensbruck gas chamber was situated
just behind the wall of the camp, next to the crematory. When the trucks came to fetch the patients we heard the sound of the motor across the camp, and the noise ceased right by the crematory whose chimney rose above the high wall of the camp."
Lie, there were no gas chambers at Ravenbruck,
proof
"At the time of the liberation I returned to these places.
I visited the gas chamber which was a hermetically sealed building made of boards, and inside it one could still smell the disagreeable odor of gas. I know
that at Auschwitz the gases were the same as those which were used against the lice, and the only traces they left were small, pale green crystals which were swept out when the windows were opened. I know these details, since the men employed in delousing the blocks were in contact with the personnel who gassed the victims and they told them that one and the same gas was used in both cases."
Builds on her lie, but doesn't actually confirm the type of gas used to kill prisoners in the non-existent "Ravensbruck gas chamber"
Regarding the Kangaroo court:
"THE PRESIDENT:
Head judge
wiki page, 2nd in from right
è The details of the witness' evidence as to Ravensbruck. seem to be very much like, if not the same, as at Auschwitz. Would it not be possible now, after hearing this amount of detail, to deal with the matter more generally, unless there is some substantial difference between Ravensbruck and Auschwitz.
Strange, no details wanted! Wouldn't be the last time
either M. DUBOST:
I think there is a difference which the witness has pointed out to us, namely, that in Auschwitz the prisoners were purely and simply exterminated. It was merely an extermination camp, whereas at Ravensbruck they were interned in order to work, and were weakened by work until they died of it."
When Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, leaves the witness box & before the next witness is sworn in, the head judge of the Nuremberg Trials says to the prosecution counsel:
"THE PRESIDENT:
Well, you won't lose sight of the fact that there has been practically no cross-examination of the witnesses you have already called about the treatment in concentration camps? The Tribunal, I think, feels that you could deal with the treatment in concentration camps somewhat more generally than the last witness. Do you hear what I say?
Translation: Do not complicate things. What do you think this is, a fair hearing?
sarcasm impliedM. DUBOST:
Yes, Your Honor."
Nuremberg Trial
Proceedings Vol. 6
FORTY-FOURTH DAY Monday, 28 January 1946
Morning Session