SHOOTING TOO SLOW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26350, 3 January 1947, Page 6

SHOOTING TOO SLOW

MASS GASSING OF WOMEN CONCENTRATION CAMP HORRORS HAMBURG, Jan. 1., The shooting of three British women parachutists and the gassing of nearly 2400 women in the Ravensbruck concentration camp were described before the war crimes court which is trying 16 men and women guards. Major Stephen Stewart, prosecutor, read a deposition by Johann Schwarzhuber, deputy commandant, giving the names of parachutists shot as Villette Szabo (who was posthumously awarded the George Cross), Lilian Rolfe, and Danielle Williams. The deposition added that among punishments were beatings of 25 blows with sticks. This was so severe that Himmler’s consent had first to be obtained. Schw&rzhuber blamed Fritz Suren, camp commandant, who escaped from prison while awaiting trial, for starvation and bad conditions in the camp. Schwarzhuber said that 150 naked women who were too sick to work were gassed because shooting was too slow. “They were made to disrobe and enter the gas chamber on the pretext that they were to be deloused,” he said. “ The door was locked and a member of the staff climbed on to the roof and threw a gas container through a window. For two minutes I heard whimpering and moaning, then all was quiet. The bodies were taken immediately to a nearby crematorium and burned. I don’t know whether they were all dead but at least they were unconscious." Short rations, beatings and injections to induce semi-consciousness, and the binding of prisoners in a crouching position were methods Ludwig Ramdour, in a deposition, admitted using to obtain confessions. Ramdour, who was the political interrogator of the camp, said prisoners after the last-named method were usually willing to confess. Heinrich Peters, one of the accused, who was in charge of the men’s camp, stated in a deposition that he witnessed mass shootings of women, who were tied to a stake and then shot in the back.