CAMP STAFF ON TRIAL

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 25061, 18 December 1946, Page 7

CAMP STAFF ON TRIAL

EVIDENCE OF BRITISH AGENT WOMEN DRAGGED TO CREMATORIUM HAMBURG, December 16. Mrs Odette Sansom, holder of the George Cross for operations in Europe as a British agent during the war, and who was imprisoned by the Germans for nearly a year in the Ravensbruck women’s camp, gave evidence in the court which is trying the camp staff. Mrs Sansom said that when she Was arrested in France the Germans told her and other women that they were being taken to Germany to work, and that they would afterwards be killed. Mrs Sansom said that she allowed the Gestapo to believe that she was a relative of Mr Churchill’s. The name

of her senior officer for the operations in France was Churchill and, for the purposes of their work, they posed as man and wife. She, therefore, told the Gestapo that her name was Mrs Churchill.

“That seemed to impress them,” she said. “It certainly had something to do with ipy treatment because, although the Gestapo wanted me roughly handled, the commandant Suhren (who escaped before the trial), regarded me as a valuable hostage.’’ She described how the smells from the crematorium penetrated her cell, while ashes from the chimney drifted down. She said that her cell was next to the punishment cell and almost every night she heard blows and screams. Women were given 15 or more lashes—as many as they could stand —and when they fainted water was thrown over them and the flogging was renewed. From her cell she could also hear the noise of the crematorium doors opening and shutting and the victims screaming. Mrs Sansom described seeing hundreds of naked women standing outside the hospital, many covered with sores or suffering from dreadful diseases. She herself was taken to hospital after being kept for a week without food.

Mrs Sansom said that all the women staff had savage dogs, which always accompanied them. When Mrs Sansom described how she saw women being dragged screaming to the crematorium, the deputy-judge-advocate asked her: “Are you saying that people were being thrown into the furnace?” Mrs Sansom: Yes, certainly. The judge advocate: Being put in alive?

Mrs Sansom: Yes, certainly The judge advocate: Can you say you saw them put in alive? Mrs Sansom: I cannot swear to seeing them put in. During the last days of the war I saw people screaming and struggling and being dragged to the crematorium and I heard the crematorium doors opening and shutting. I never saw them again, but I heard them screaming. Mrs Sansom and Captain Peter 1 Churchill are to be married when Mrs Sansom returns to London from Germany.