Sometimes they were pulled out before the victims were slain. A secret report of the German warden of the prison at Minsk disclosed that after he had commandeered the services of a Jewish dentist all the Jews “had their gold bridgework, crowns and fillings pulled or broken out. This happens always one to two hours before the special action.” The warden noted that of 516 German and Russian Jews executed at his prison during a six-week period in the spring of 1943, some 336 had the gold yanked from their teeth.
