TERRIBLE SUFFERING

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 270, 13 November 1943, Page 6

TERRIBLE SUFFERING

RUSSIANS IN GERMANY INHUMAN NAZI TREATMENT (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service) CAIRO, Nov. S. Five thousand Russians captured in East Poland in July, 1041, were used for propaganda purposes for two weeks after their capture, said Major G. H. Thomson, of New Plymouth, a medical officer who was captured in Greece and was recently repatriated. They were then started on a "grand tour" of Germany in cattle trucks, packed so tightly that they did not have room to sit clown. The trucks carried huge posters, reading: "This is what Bolshevism means to people. This is what your beloved Feuhrer is saving you from." Of the 5000, only 3500 reached Marburg, the other 1500 dying en route.

Housed in old concrete barracks, without floor covering and with no extra clothing or bedding, they were given one boAvl of potato soup daily, suffering terribly from starvation, scurvy and beriberi. Their average weight was only five and a half stone. They were sent out in the snow for delousing, in batches of 400, and many dropped in their tracks. The death rate averaged 55 daily. Some New Zealanders threw part of their rations to them, but those Russians who .yielded to their frantic desire for food and snatched at the gifts were bayoneted by the guards.

"They did not look like men," said Major Thomson. "They looked more like inhuman beasts. Their clothes were moving with lice. They were in a terrible condition. That was in November, 1941. On March 1 of the following year only 27 of the 3500 Russians remained alive."

When Major Thomson protested against this inhuman treatment of prisoners of war, the Germans tried to compel him to sign a certificate that the Russians were dying of typus. He refused.