Prisoners Tortured

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 8, 10 January 1936, Page 3

Prisoners Tortured

DRASTIC MEASURES That political prisoners aro beaten until they faint with pain and loss of blood has become so commonplace in German gaols that it is taken for* granted. German Socialists and Communists who are doing “underground” work —and they number many thousands —all know that to be treated in this fashion once or twice is among the risks of their dangerous calling. If they are arrested and get off with no more than this they consider themselves lucky. But to be beaten is also the fate of innumerable persons -who have nothing to do with tho “underground’ movement, but are suspected, often on the flimsiest evidence, of having some knowledge of it, says a writer in the Manchester Guardian. To arrest men or women to wring from them information either about themselves or about others by torture has become tho common practice of the “Gestapo.” One of tho latest methods used by the “Gestapo” is to starvo a prisoner until ho gives information. A prisoner who has been starved for several days will then have food placed just out of his reach.

Tho following case, which has just come to my knowledge, is typical:—A workman was chained in his cell so that his body was kept bent for threo days, during which ho got nothing to eat. On the fourth day lie was chained with his back to the wall, his hands being just behind his back. lie was allowed just enough free play to be able to kneel and bend forward. Then a bowl of food was placed before him. As he bent down to eat straight out of the bowl like a dog, the bowl was dashed against his face by a warder and the food was scattered.

The taking of hostages has also grown common in Germany. A workman was arrested in Cologne. Ho broko down under torture and gave information that would have led to tho arrest of his sister had she not received timely warning and fled across the frontier. Thereupon another sister, who never had anything to do with politics and had committed no offence, was arrested and is still in prison,

In Hamburg several persons have been put to the torture. One woman prisoner has been chained for six weeks. Even at nightfall tho chains are not removed, but only loosened a little. She is told that she will havo to stay' in chains until she is prepared to give the information desired. This she has steadfastly refused to do.

At Plauen a workman named Hellmut Walter was tortured to death. His solo offence was that several letters for members of the German Socialist Labour Party (S.A.P.) had been sent to his address. Ho refused to say a word that would incriminato anybody, and his steadfast courage cost him his life. In September there wero numerous arrests at Chemnitz-Hillbersdorf. A Communist prisoner died in his cell. It was declared that he had “hanged himself.” The body was not handed over to the relatives, but was cremated so that tho injuries inflicted by his tormentors should not be seen.

The Terror was relatively mild in Bremen during the first two years of Herr Hitler’s Chancellorship, but it became almost as severe as elsewhere this autumn. In September a dockyard labourer was overheard saying that Streicker would not hate the Jews as much as ho did if he were, not Jewish himself. The man was arrested and so beaten that ho lost consciousness. He was taken to hospital, where he died after lingering for three days. Prison conditions get steadily worse in Germany, quite apart from the physical maltreatment of prisoners. Luckau, in the Lausitz, is regarded as one of the “better” German prisons, but the inmates suffer from hunger the whole time and constantly break down tkrougn weakness caused by under-nourishment when they are at work. The inmates of Luckau number 900, of whom about 650 aro “political,” mostly Communists. These include several former members of the Reichstag and of the Prussian Diet.

Political prisoners are still being sent to the concentration camps, where conditions show little sign of improving.