FASCIST CRUELTY

Grey River Argus, 10 January 1944, Page 5

FASCIST CRUELTY

A DOCTOR'S REVELATIONS. (Rec. 6.30.) LONDON, Jan. 8. Personal evidence of Fascist brutality was given by Dr. Henry Ashton Wolfe, a British author & criminalogist, in an interview with the “Times.” Dr. Wolfe escaped in disguise after three years as a Fascist captive. He. described how for a five days’ journey he was chained to two other prisoners so that all three had to sit down and lie down together. Their hands were so mann acled that it was impossible for one to eat unless the others raised their hands. Dr. Wolfe said he first was imprisoned in an underground dungeon in a sixteenth century San Remocastle, where rats fought for bread which was dropped in, and where water developed slime. The prison doctor warned the authorities Dr. Wolfe’s life was endangered, after this he was sent to another prison. There he saw a Frenchman who was condemned to be shot commit suicide by dashing full speed along a corridor and crashing head on into a Stone wall. Dr. Wolfe in this prison saw many prisoners who bore marks of torture. In the famous Dachau Camp some were blind. One man, whose sight is recovering, said he was placed in a chair propped up. by bayonets, and compelled t 0 stare into a powerful electric bulb. When he shut his eye s he received a blow on the face from a flat bayonet If he dropped his head he was prodded un the chin with a bayonet point. Day and night he was forced to stare into the bulb until he became almost blind. This man was told his eyelids would be cut off if he shut them. That threat was carried out on another man. Dr. Wolfe knew others permanently blinded bv this form of torture. Dr. Wolfe said that, for attempting to escape, he was placed in an asylum among raving lunatics. Loter he was taken to a police punishment camp, where he found every third or fourth man was a Gestapo or a Questure (Italian Gestapo) spy, “whose duty it was to induce prisoner, to talk. Two men who spoke tontemptously of Hitler, and Mussolini were sentenced to life imprison“ment. •