COL. AMEN: What were (the S.S. officers') instructions with respect to the
Jews and the Communist functionaries?
OHLENDORF: The instructions were that in the Russian
operational areas of the Einsatzgruppen the Jews, as well as the Soviet
political commissars, were to be liquidated.
COL. AMEN: And when you say "liquidated" do you mean "killed?"
OHLENDORF: Yes, I mean "killed." (...) Some of the unit leaders did not
carry out the liquidation in the military manner, but killed the victims
singly by shooting them in the back of the neck.
COL. AMEN: And you objected to that procedure?
OHLENDORF: I was against that procedure, yes.
COL. AMEN: For what reason?
OHLENDORF: Because both for the victims and for those who carried out the
executions, it was, psychologically, an immense burden to bear. (...)
Until the spring of 1942, yes. Then an order came from Himmler that in the
future women and children were to be killed only in gas vans.
COL. AMEN: How had the women and children been killed previously?
OHLENDORF: In the same way as the men, by shooting.
COL. AMEN: What, if anything, was done about burying the victims after
they had been executed?
OHLENDORF: The Kommandos filled the graves to efface the signs of the
execution, and then labor units of the population leveled them. (...) I
received the report that the Einsatzkommandos did not willingly use the
vans.
COL. AMEN: Why not?
OHLENDORF: Because the burial of the victims was a great ordeal for the
members of the Einsatzkommandos.