NAZI BRUTALITY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 285, 2 November 1939, Page 9

NAZI BRUTALITY

REFUGEES’ ACCOUNTS. VERIFIED BY BARRISTERS. BESTIAL TREATMENT. (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.-—Copyright.) LONDON, Nov. 1. Six eminent hamsters, including Sir George Bonner, late Senior Master of the Supreme Court and King’s Remembrancer, Mr Tristram Beresford, K.C., Mr Trevor Hunter, K.C., Sir Charles Odgers, and Mr John H. Thorpe, K.C., who determined in Home Office tribunals the status of 3600 Jewish refugees from Germany, have written to the Times corroborating the White Paper statements concerning Nazi brutality. The barristers state that their investigations brought to light so much corroboration of the evidence of gross ill-treatment that they “think it right to make public 6ome of the facts proved to our satisfaction. “We have only accepted the allegations corroborated and ill our opinion proved,” they add. “The witnesses told their stories with obvious reluctance and were afraid, in the event of identification, of reprisals against their relatives still in Germany. Before leaving the concentration camp each man was warned against ever saying what he had suffered or seen or was told —‘We have our 6pies everywhere.’ BROKEN PHYSIQUE.

“We feel that the most lasting injuries of these unlortunate people are intangible and will be measured for the rest of their lives in shattered nerves and broken physique. One professional man when advised to try and forget what he had suffered replied: ‘I can never do that. I dream so often about the concentration camp.’ The distressing feature of a number of cases is the inevitable breaking-up and parting of families.” Further extracts from the letter follow: “We heard of cases where the arrest of a father was followed in a few days by the notification that lie wa6 ill in prison or iu a concentration camp. The locality was not specified. A report followed later that lie had died. In. due course a box purporting to contain liis remains way brought to the house with a demand for 500 marks —the expense of cremation. “Accounts of journeys by rail to a prison or concentration camp arc almost unbelievable. On one specific journey of which there is abundant evidence three men in one waggon were shot and their bodies thrown out of the window because they complained of the heat. On this journey we are satisfied that at least seven men were murdered. On arrival at the concentration camp young and old had to run between ranks of Black Guards, who beat them on the shoulders with sticks or prodded them with bayonets. Meanwhile they were blinded and bewildered by a searchlight directed in their faces. “AVe were told - of the old falling down and being kicked on the ground. Striking was common and uncontrolled. One man was told by a guard to strike with a spade a friend of his, formerly a Judge. VARIETY OF PUNISHMENTS. In his judicial capacity the latter had sentenced two Nazis to death for a criminal offence. The witness refused to do it. He was immediately bayoneted in the arm. Soon atter the Judge died in camp.

A doctor who worked for six months at the concentration camp put the mortality rate at this period at 10 per cent. Of these 15 per cent, died from injuries and the remainder mostly from pneumonia or diphtheria. It was impossible to provide proper treatment for the latter. The letter describes the varieties of punishments inflicted for trivial offences. One was to make a prisoner stand with his chin well forward and play a jet of water continuously on his face. Every time the victim from discomfort or exhaustion lowered his chin a sentry struck him violently. Others were made to crawl naked over broken granite. Sometimes the inmates of a luit would he left ■without a light or fire for weeks at a time. On another occasion they were compelled to stand out of doors in their night dresses through a January night. “The men from ,whom we heard these accounts represent every class —doctors, lawyers, rabbis, merchants, skilled mechanics, clerks, etc.,” the letter states. “There were few of the labouring class. The majority were well educated and obviously of considerable ability—many speak and understand English.”