DUTCH WOMAN’S ORDEAL IN CAMP

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22201, 11 December 1946, Page 5

DUTCH WOMAN’S ORDEAL IN CAMP

NAZI BRUTALITY TRIAL OF STAFF FEET FROZE IN CELL GUARD'S SAVAGERY (11.30 a.in.) HAMBURG, Doc. 10. Eugenie vcm Skene, one of the 16 accused in the trial of the staff of the Ravensbruek women’s concentration camp slumped in the dock and fainted when the hearing was resumed Skene claims she married a British Army officer who has not been traced. Counsel said that Skene received drugs each morning to keep her fit to attend the court. The president summoned a doctor, a German official, who examined Skene and pronounced her fit. Skene broke down, sobbing and protesting. It was then discovered that the doctor was

only a first-aid man, and the court directed Skene to be examined by a • British doctor. Daily Beatings of Prisoners Necltje Epker, a Dutch midwife, told the court that the Germans sent her to the camp for advising parents to name a baby girl after Queen Wilhclmina. She worked in the tailor's shop, where the accused guard, Gustav Binder, beat the prisoners daily when they failed to reach the work target. “Binder was not happy until he had seen blood,” she said. Binder often made women in the shop strip on the excuse that he wanted to see if they were hiding pieces of cloth to supplement their ragged clothes. Witness was kept for six weeks in a pitch-dark underground punishment cell. She had no food for the first five days and then was given one slice of oread daily. The cell was so cold that her feet froze. She thought the cell was artificially cooled. She said she saw one accused. Vera Salvequart, on top of a heap of dead women kicking out their teeth. Salvequart, who was in a white fur coat sitting in court, threw back her head and laughed at Epker’s accusation.