Pakket 4 pagina 14

Pagina 14

of witness XXXX;
that in the view of the Krijgsraad it is not at all impossible that this witness is mistaken when it comes to the person who raped her on the opening night of the brothel, so that – now that her statement is not confirmed in any other evidence – the facts indicted to this defendant have not been proved legally and convingly and for that reason he must be acquited;
Regarding the third defendant XXXX:
Considering that he has denied all responsibility concerning the selection of women in the camps and transporting them to the Kanarielaan;
that he has nonetheless admitted to having known about the plan to take Dutch women away from the detentioncamps and to have requested the permit needed to proceed and to station them in 4 established brothels on behalf of Major XXXX and Colonel XXXX, with the Headquarter of the 16th Army;
that he has further admitted travelling to Bandoeng, completely on his own initiative, to see how European women, working there in a brothel, were being treated and to gain experience;
that after Colonel XXXX’s departure for Japan, by the end of January/beginning of February 1943, he took over his tasks concerning heitan-matters, which means everything that is related to the entertainment and welfare of the soldiers;
that he has denied to have been involved with the selection, since that was left to the civil servants of the residential office;
Considering that defendant nonetheless knew that the Headquarter had only consented under the condition that the women would leave their camp voluntarily and work in a brothel voluntarily;
that such includes that they were fully informed as to the objective of the selection and thus had been given the opportunity – before signing the declaration of willingness – to consider the consequences;
that the condition of voluntariness further includes that the officer, who actually supervised the signing of the declaration of willingness, convinced himself that these women were indeed completely informed and that their voluntariness was beyond all doubts;
Considering that the defendant – although as an officer he was not only in charge of the Heitan-matters and as such also knew about the conditions set by the Headquarter of the 16th Army, but as the highest officer present at the place should have supervised the course of action – he has neglected this duty and as he claims himself, has left everything to civil servants, so that, according to his own statement, it is unknown whether the contents of the declaration of willingness have been properly explained to the women;
Considering that the picture that arises from the statements of all heard witnesses, is completely different: they were forced to sign a document of which the content was not made known to them and that they could not read either, because it was written in the Japanese language, whereas all questions about it were being cut off roughly;
that some witnesses, moreover, have declared that some girls and women were crying;
Considering that a civil servant of the residential office has informed defendant – as he himself has admitted – that many women and girls had refused in the camps and that the women did want to go one day and didn’t on the other;
that defendant, instead of taking this information as a warning to be extremely cautious, simply concluded that all women present were volunteers;
Considering that from these facts, admitted by the defendant, in connection with the above declared proved facts, it follows that the defendant reasonably should have suspected that the main part of the women and girls gathered in the Kanarielaan were not informed about what to expect and that consequently, they would not voluntarily submit themselves to prostitution and that coercion would be needed to make them do so;

The original transcript is in Dutch, to find it, scroll to page 14 here.