PRISON CAMP HORRORS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17324, 25 May 1918, Page 8

PRISON CAMP HORRORS

SLAVERY IN GERMANY. A British medical officer just returned from Germany, who volunteered for medical work in tho prisoners' camp at Minister, Westphalia, the heart of the coal-mining fields in Germany, says:— " The men are hired out to mine-owners and factories after examination by German medical officers—our own medical officers not being allowed to examine them. They are sent to the coal mines and factories under German N.C.O.'s, who are not only in the pay of tho German Government, out also in the pay of the mine-owners, and these N.C.O. s are paid according to the work they can extract out of the prisoners—in some cases. The prisoners are paid 3d a day for a 12-hour shift, and every seven days they have to do a double shift. Tho food given these men by th'e Germans is absolutely unfit for human consumption, and consists of a pint and a-half of imitation coffee made from sunflower seed, without sugar or milk. This is breakfast. One pint and a-half of soup for lunch, made of bone fertilisers, with a little kale and potatoes, or else soup made of bad, decomposed mussels. For sutler the Mma kind of coffee or watery soup. About 200 grammes of black bread allowed per day. If the men go sick from any cause, they must first present themselves to the N.C.0., and if they cannot produoe a wound of any kind they are not allowed to see tho German doctor. If they go before the German doctor, and ho 6aya they aro fit for work, they are given three days' solitary confinement. The condition of these working commandoes as to food, sleeping accommodation, sanitary arrangements, and the slave-driving powers of the N.C.O.'s are such that the men, after six or eight months of this hideous life, almost invariably inflict some injury on themselves, such as driving a pick through their feet, placing their hands between the buffers of cool trucks, or else burning themselves with mustard leaves, in order to be returned to camp for a rest. While the men are here for these wounds, or the -wounds sustained whilst working on commando no bandages, except unsterilised paper, are supplied, so that when they get away back to camp it usually means amputation. Medicines given to the prisoners in Germany are often Ersatz, or merely shams, and of no medicinal value. Should & man on one of these commandoes attempt to escape, he is not given five days' solitary confinement as laid down by The Hague Convention, because they do not want to lose his labour. He is, instead, taken into tho German guarjoora, and then seized by four or five German soldiers, and beaten, usually within wire-bound rubber hose. He is then returned to work, very often in such a condition that he cannot work. He is then treated as malingering. Ho is tied to a pole with his hands above his head and his feet on two bricks. The bricks are then kicked away, and he is kept there until ho volunteers to go back to work. On working commando 47 Zangendreor. these conditions not only prevail, according to a letter received by "this officer ten days before he left, but the N.C.O. in charge had threatened to stop men's parcels if any more attempted to escape. This is not allowed •under recent agreement. That is why tha letter is shown. ■ ' " Ettapon men are those men captorcd in raids and aro not sent to Germany, bnt are kept workine behind the German line« with German soldiers, and are not allowed to go to Germany till quite incapable of working, and their capture is not notified, bo that their relations do not know what has happened to them. This also applies to the recently-captured American soldiers. These men hare to do work of military importance. All private soldiers captured at Comhrai are working behind German linos at Douai. Tho neutral representatives at* not allowed to visit the TVestphalian mine commandoe® or factories. They are shewn onlj; camps or t farm commandoes. Professional and scientific men hove to vwk in those mines just as oikem*