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Number of pages: 4
Reference number: 1656/3/8/1030j
Catalogue ID: 106240
Subject: Mass killingsRiga-Kaiserwald (concentration camp)Riga (ghetto)
Summary:

A voluntary statement by Max Gymnich in his own defence. He was born in Cologne and was a driver by trade. In June 1940 he was conscripted and became driver to the Gestapo. Four weeks before the attack in Russia, he was sent to the police school in Pretsch/Elbe, from there to Schawli in Latvia and finally to Riga. He became the driver of Obersturmführer Krause, the Commandant of the Riga Ghetto.

Gymnich denies any responsibility for, or participation in the innumerable crimes committed there. He states that he had never beaten or shot a Jew, on the contrary,he had been punished with imprisonment for his kindness to Jews. He also denies any knowledge of the conditions in Kaiserwald or the mass murders of “Dünamünde”. He admits that on orders by Krause he inspected flats in the Ghetto “for cleanliness”. He believes that he was denounced by “the only Jew he knew by name”, Marx of Cologne, because he had to wear SS uniform.

He cites the following persons as witnesses for his innocence: Hauptscharführer Georg Ogiermann, Oberscharführer Fritz Luedecke, Hauptsturmführer Ziegler, Sturmbannführer Azeis, Oberscharführer Heinz Cords, Hauptscharführer Harry Frielrichsohn.

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