THE GERMANS FORMED an International Medical Commission, composed of the leading scientists, pathologists, and professors of criminology from 12 different countries of Europe. The committee heard testimony from 5 of these doctors who participated in the exhumation of the bodies. They were provided with the necessary instruments to perform their own individual autopsies. [The five doctors were Edward Lucas Miloslavich (Croatia), Ferenc Orsos (Hungary), Francois Naville (Switzerland), Vincenzo Mario Palmieri (Italy).]
All of the above-named doctors categorically and unequivocally stated to the committee that they had complete freedom of action in performing whatever scientific investigation they desired. Also, that they had complete freedom to interrogate any individual they considered appropriate.
Their unanimous conclusion was that the Poles were murdered at least 3 years ago – thus placing the time of death as the spring of 1940 when the Katyn area was under Soviet control.
Dr. Tramsen presented as an exhibit for the committee the original protocol signed by the 12 doctors in their own handwriting. He also presented a photograph of the 12 doctors signing the protocol to prove that there was no duress.
Dr. Orsos, Dr. Naville, and Dr. Tramsen definitely identified this protocol and stated that they had signed it and that they were of the same opinion today as they were when they signed this protocol on April 30, 1943.
Dr. Miloslavich gave the following testimony to the committee relative to the condition of the bodies as they were found in the mass graves:
“One body was placed on top of the other one, with their faces down. They were close together, nothing between them. All the bodies were dressed in Polish officers’ uniforms, the clothing being winter clothing, underwear, and the uniforms; and coats on some. The heads were downward. One body like this, the next one like this, and the next one like this [indicating]. This was the width of the grave. Then 12 layers down, and then multiply by the length. I don’t remember how many we found in the length. Anyway, at that time when I was examining and making my own estimations I didn’t follow anybody, and no one tried to give me any advice because I knew what to do. I estimated approximately 2,870, something like that, a little less than 3,000 officers.
“They were packed completely together by decaying fluids of the human body, the decomposing fluids, with started to penetrate, to imbibe, to infiltrate every dead body in there. That was a solid mass in which you just saw skulls you could recognize and that they were human beings.
“Then I went into the graves and studied which ones of them would give me the best information, what the dead body could tell us. With the help of two Russian peasants I picked a body, and slowly and gradually – it took them close to an hour – they removed the body and brought it out. I examined it very carefully to find out two main points. First, what was the cause of death. Second, how long a time was this individual buried. Third, who he was?
“In examining the body I found a gunshot wound at the boundary between the back of the neck and the head. The Germans gave the expression ‘nacken schuss.’ That is the precise description of the shot which was fired. The majority of them had just one shot, because it entered in here [pointing with finger] and came out here at the root of the nose, which means the head was bent downward. It was administered with such precision that the medulla was completely destroyed.”
[Dr. Miloslavich’s testimony fits later survivor and executioner accounts so closely that I am skeptical of the witnesses in the previous chapter who speak of sawdust and wire. I believe he was showing the committee that the bodies were stacked head to foot, which is how they were loaded into the trucks that carried them to the grave site, after being shot in an enclosed room.]
Both Tramsen and Naville presented to the committee numerous papers, military buttons, officers’ insignia, and, in the case of Dr. Naville, a cigarette holder, which they had taken from the Polish bodies in Katyn at the time of their own individual autopsies. Both of these doctors had preserved this material since the day they left Katyn and voluntarily offered these items to the committee.
Dr. Palmieri testified as follows: “In the bodies, at least in many of the bodies, Professor Orsos observed the presence of growths (corns) – in the inside of the cranium, pseudo growths in the internal part of the skull, which are due to manifestations of reduction of the mineralization of the brain – of the cerebral tissues and of the other substances contained in the skull.” Dr. Palmieri stated when interrogated by the committee as follows:
Question. What conclusion did you arrive at?
Dr. PALMIERI. I came to the conclusion especially [essentially?] similar to Orsos’s theory on the formation of cerebral growth.
Question. Was Dr. Orsos’s conclusion that the deaths occurred not later than April or May 1940?
Dr. PALMIERI. Yes.
Question. Do you agree?
Dr. PALMIERI. Yes, based on the researches that Dr. Orsos had made.
The five doctors heard by this committee stated emphatically that many of their observations were made independently and outside the presence or possible influence of German authorities who were supervising the exhumations. Before the committee held its hearings in Europe, word was received that Drs. Markov and Hajek, who are today in countries behind the Iron Curtain, were giving radio talks implying that they were not in full agreement with the German International Medical Commission’s protocol which they had signed on April 30, 1943.
Categorical statements are made by all five doctors who testified before this committee that all members of the International Medical Commission signed the protocol of their own free will and without duress. The five doctors specifically stated that both Drs. Markov and Hajek had made no objections and were in full agreement with the protocol when they signed it.