BUCHENWALD CAMP

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 28 April 1945, Page 2

BUCHENWALD CAMP

INHUMAN BRUTALITY POLICY OF STEADY STARVATION BRITISH PARLIAMENTARIANS’ REPORT ( Rec. 10.0 a.m.) Ru„by, Apl. 27. ] Ten members of the British Parliament, nine men and one w°man, to-day issued the following report on the Buchenwald concentration camp, which requires no comment but their own. “We have endeavoured to write with restraint, objectivity and to avoid obtruding personal reactions °r emotional comments. We could conclude, however, by stating that it is our considered unanimous opinion on the evidence ava-iable to us that a policy of steady starvation and inhuman brutality was carried out at Buchenwald f°r a long period and that such camps as this mark the lowest point of degradation to which humanity has yet descended. The memory of what we saw and heard at Buchenwald will haunt us ineffaceably f°r many years.” The report of the delegation, which visited the camp at General Eisenhower’s invitation, is issued as a White Paper. Describing the layout of the camp, the report gives one significant detail; “Over the main gate is the inscription: ‘Recht Oder Unrecht —Mein Faterland’ (My Country. Right or Wrong).” The report continued: “The size of the camp is indicated by the fact that its maximum capacity is said to have been 120,000. The number in the camp on Ist April was 80.813. A few clays before the arrival ofthe American forces on 11th April the Germans removed a large number of prisoners, variously estimated from 18.000 to 22.000. Some of those they wished to remove because they knew too much. “It is impossible to form an accurate estimate of the percentages of the various nationalities still remaining in the camp. We met many Jew's, non-Jew-ish Germans. Poles. Hungarians, Czechs, French, Belgians. Russians and others. A detailed report by representatives of the anti-Fascist Committee slated that to Ist April the total of those who had died or been killed at* Buchenwald or immediately on removal from there to subsidiary ‘extermination camps' was 51.572 including at least 17,000 since Ist April. THE MAIN CATEGORIES “The camp has now been thrown open, and a certain number of inmates must be left independently. The inmates were in three main categories: (1) Political internees and Jews from Germany. (2) As the Third Reich expanded, political internees and Jews from Austria, Czechoslovakia, etc. (3) From 1940 onwards men and youths imported for forced labour from various occupied countries. There were few Britons at any time. One estimate was a few dozen, almost all of them civilians. “We obtained a document signed by Squadron Leader Yeo-Thomas, Captain Harry Poole and Lieutenant Stephane Hessel of France’s War Ministry, testifying that they were saved from execution by amazingly clever planning under perilous circumstances by Heinz Baumeister of Dortmund and Dr Eugen Kogon of Vienna, w'ho are still inmates of the camp.” TERRIBLE SIGHTS The report goes on to describe the terrible sights members of the delegation saw% although as they point out. the cleaning of the camp had gone on busily for more than a week before the visit. “Our immediate continuing impression,” the report says, “was of the intense general squalor. The odour of dissolution and disease still pervaded the entire place. One of the first of a number of huts we entered was one of the best. It was divided into small rooms w’ith cement floors and window’s. Four of these rooms had been used. American authorities informed us, as a brothel to which higher grade prisoners (those employed in various supervisory jobs with extra rations and other privileges) w'ere allowed to resort for 20 minutes at a time. When the Americans arrived 15 women weve found and thev w'ere transferred to the care of the Burgomaster of Weimar. This hut w'as one of those now? used as transit hospitals for some of the w'orst cases of malnutrition. Many were unable to speak. They lay in semi-coma or following us with their eyes. Others spoke freely, displaying sores, severe scars and bruises which could have been caused by kicks and blow’s. They lay on the floor and under quilts. All were extremely emacia*ed. “American authorities told us that since their arrival the daily death rate had been reduced from about 100 to 35 on the day before our visit. The usual clothing was a raeged shirt, vest or cotton jacket beneath w’hich protruded thighs no thicker than normal wrists. One half-naked skeleton tottering painfully along the passage as though on stilts drew’ h : "->self up when he saw our party, snv * I .and saluted. Medical members of our delegation expressed the opinion that a percentage of them could not Ibe expected to survive, even w’ith the treatment they are now receiving, and that a larger percentage, though they might survive, w’ould probably suffer from sickness and disablement for the rest of their lives. TIERS OF WOODEN SHELVES “The o” ary huts we saw w’ere lined on each s «_.e w’ith four tiers of wooden shelves supported and divided by upright struts. In each small open cubicle thus formed five or six men had to sleep. Even in their wasted condition there was room for them to lie only in one position—on their side. For bedclothes they had such rags as they could collect. The huts were still verminous. There had been similar overcrowding in Block 61 w’hich had been used as a rough hospital chiefly for those suffering from tuberculosis and tiystentery. Thishut w r as about 80 feet long and 24 feet wide. Estimates of its normal sick population varied from 1300 to 1700. Four, five or six men. including those who had undergone operations (performed w’ithout anaesthetics by prisoner doctors on a crude operating table at one hut in full view of the other patients) had to lie on a small shelf in the cubicles. Here too there were no mattresses.

The excreta of dysentery patients dropped from tier to tier. If the living were strong enough they pushed the dead out into the gangway. Each night the dead were thrown into a small annexe at one end of the hut and each morning were collected and taken in carts to the crematorium. or if required as specimens ,to the pathological laboratory of German doctors.

“Many ordinary prisoners worked in a large munitions factory near the camp or in quarries. These were able to obtain more than the basic ration of a bow'l of watery soup and a chunk of dry bread each day. Children, like adults, were made to work eight or more hours for seven days a week. We were told there were some 800 children in the camp. One 14-year-old boy said he saw his 18-year-old brother shot dead and his parents taken away, he believed for cremation. He never saw them again.” “The report continues: “The mortuary block consisted of a ground floor and basement. Access to the basement was by a steep stone staircase or by a vertical chute below a

trapdoor. Down either of these, we were told, refractory or useless prisoners would be precipitated for execution. Hanging appears to have been the regular method of killing. In a yard near a pile of white ashes there was a gibbet."