GERMAN MURDER CAMP.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLVII, Issue 13047, 9 January 1917, Page 5

GERMAN MURDER CAMP.

Appalling revelations concerning the typhus epidemic at the Gardelegen internment* camp in Germany are contained in-a report by the Prisoners of War Committee issued as a White Paper. Even the horrors of Wittenberg, which were the subject of an earlier report, are eqiialled by the horrors: ■of Gardelegen. It is stated that: — The overcrowding was unimaginable; the prisoners were .constantly a prey to the pangs of hunger, and suffered acutely from insanitary condition. All the prisoners were brutally treated, but the British were subjected to special harshness. When the epidemic began the . Germans deserted the camp.

Necessary drugs and dressing were refused. When an official of the American Embassy in Berlin visited the camp he was shown carcases of mutton outside a kitchen. These were removed immediately after his departure. 11,000. MEN IN THE OAMP.

Gardelegen camp measures about 350 yards by 550. Into this small .space were crowded no fewer than 11,000 prisoners, including 200 British, who were lodged in a number of wooden huts. The sandy soil was "in winter a sea of most appalling mud and in summer a perfect horror of dust." ' The epidemic occurred during the first- six months of 1915. -What happened has been described by Major P. C. T. Davy, R.A.M.C., Captain A. J. Brown. R.A.M.C., from whom the committee have obtained detailed accounts.

Major Davy says:—"The overcrowding .was such as I have never before seen or imagined anywhere. The hutcontained in the breadth four rows of straw or shaving palliasses so arranged that laterally they were touching and terminally only left the narrowest passage-way between. Here men of all nationalities were crowded/ together. In these huts, devoid of tables and stools, the ,men lived., slept, and fed. They sat on their bags of" shavings to eat their meals; they walked over each other in passing in and out; they lay there sick, and, later on, in many cases, Vied there cheek by jowl with their fellow-prisoners. The atmosphere by day, and still more by night, was indescribably fetid, and this was their sole alternative to going outside in their meagre garments for fresh air. The prisoners were not only over-crowded; they were also insufficiently fed." "I have no hesitation." .states Major Davy, "in saying that the diet the pri, soners received was not sufficient to keep an adult in a normal state of nu-! trition. I wish to be clearly understood; .1 mean that every .man who subsisted on -what was issued to him was. gradually getting emaciated and anrerme, and was constantly a orey to the pangs of hunger." BRUTA\L TREATMENT,. The sanitary conditions were such as "cannot properlv. be repeated." The task of emptying' the latrines into tubular tank carts was as a regular practice specially allotted to the British prisoners until sickness had so much reduced their number that a fatigue party of sufficient strength in any one company could not be obtained. Dining this period the prisoners were treated by their guards yith the utmost harshness. Major Davey states that a reign of terror and brutality existed.

Thus the seeds of epidemic were sown.

It appears that the camp authorities were afraid that something of the kind was impending, for they sent to Gardelegen a number of British, French, and Russian medical officers who had been interned elsewhere. These officers found that the equipment of the camp hospital was far less than would be found in a workshop dispensary. The authorities were not mistaken in their fears, for the sick rates mounted rapidly. A commission of German doctors arrived. Within half an hour of their departure there was a stir among the German guards. They were packing up and preparing apparently for' a hasty retreat. In two hours there was not a German inside the camp. Every German hospital orderly bad gone. The sick were left quite unattended. The orison kitchens were empt-v, the German women foimerlv employed there having departed. Presently the sentries were seen drawn up in a cordon twenty paces outside the outermost bn'-iiod-wire fence. Tile medical officers strove heroically l o cone with the situation. The sick

bad to be dumped down anywhere, for f-here was not at first a sufficient number of attendants to cone with the work. There were no--heels- for them ; nor P'ilk or eggs or other invalid fare \vs> = forthcoming. l)r Wenzel. the German medical offic«'i- .fell a victirvi to his own neglect. *lt-hough he left the camp with the o'her Germans, he sickened shortly Tfterwards and died of typhus. ' A CONTRAST. Two other German medical officers arrived in succession, but never passed through the cordon. Towards the end of March Dr Kranski, an elderly German, who had spent twenty-three years in Africa, and' had been deported from Egypt, reached the camp and entered it." He devoted himself assiduously to his task, and his conduct is the one. redeeming feature of the scandal..

But Dr Kranski was in the hands of Colonel Brunner, tVo camp commandant, who was always brutal to the prisoners, and ■ who refused; to simply drugs or dressing. Many cases had! to go as long as eight days without a change of dressing. Before the epidemic burned itself out more than 2000 oases were dealt with. Fortunately the type of -disease was milder than that which attacked other German camps. The. mortality was approximately 13 per cent, of those attacked, oi'3oO in all. The camp began to look forward with misgivings Jo the return of the Germans. It is this fact which seems to the: Committee to be one of the most painful incidents' in a dismal record. That which must strike the ordinary man as the greatest-shortcoming attributable to responsible military . or medical authorities —namely, the deliberate abandonment to their fate when danger threatened of helpless men committed to their charge—was to the prisoner?' themselves a positive relief. Dr Ohnesorg, of the American Embassy at Berlin, visited the camp in April, but owing to its plague-stricken condition he was unable to enter it. He astonished Captain Brown by saying that he had seen several carcases of mutton outFiide the kitchen of No. 2 Battalion. Captain Brown, who had never before seen meat enter the camp, went, after Dr Ohnesorg's departure, to inquire, only to find- that the meat had ivever come inside the camp. It had been taken back to the town after its exhibition purpose Had' been fulfilled, and Dr Ohnesorg. whose visit was ex-" pected. had' been duly and favorably impressed.