HORRORS OF BELSEN CAMP

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVII, Issue 23202, 16 May 1945, Page 5

HORRORS OF BELSEN CAMP

N.Z. Parliamentarians Pay A Visit Inmates Still Dying By The Score N.Z.P.A.—Special Correspondent (8.30) BELSEN (Germany), May 15. Deaths are still occurring in the Belsen concentration camp at the rate of 150 a day. Since the British look it over on April 17, 22,000 unknown people, mostly Jews, have been buried in communal graves holding from 2000 to 5000 corpses. They died from the effects of starvation and disease, including typhus. These facts were learned by Messrs W. J. Jordan (New Zealand High Commissioner), S. G. Holland, and F. W. Doidge, M.P.’s, when they spent an afternoon at Belsen. They saw sights they will remember all their lives. It was a day of vivid contrasts. They lunched with a brigadier, sitting on crisp grass under the shade of pine trees, while armed guards took up positions at various points around them. In brilliant sunshine they drove through a smiling countryside, where farming folk went about their work as though there had never been a war and Germany was not defeated. Here and there were German uniforms to be seen and once they caught a glimpse of naked children bathing happily under the blue skies. At various intervals along the road were notices: “To Belsen Concentration Camp." Abruptly there appeared a plain white board and, in scarlet lettering, the words, “Danger: typhus.” They were entering the camp confines. Brown huts could be seen through the pines and then clean, grey buildings appeared—the former Wehrmacht barracks—and at one they met the camp commandant. From him and the senior officer they learned the stark facts of Belsen. Deliberate Starvation The concentration camp run by ths SS was a short distance from the barracks and in it the Germans had placed 60,000 men, women and (Children, mostly of German nationality, the majority of them Jews. Their policy was one of deliberate starvation. The meagre ration had to be collected by the prisoners and those who could not find for themselves went under first. They lived in huts which were filthy beyond description, since there were no sanitary arrangements of any kind and no privacy. The dead were dragged out from the huts and stacked in piles and stripped naked for their clothing. In huts where the prisoners became too weak to drag out the bodies they tore up the floorboards and stuffed the corpses below. In a hut built for about 50 soldiers no fewer than 500 persons were crowded. ■ When the British arrived there were between 8000 and 10,000 dead lying all over the camp. In one hut were 200 women absolutely naked and with no bedding. One pile of dead bodies was stacked three feet high. Some doctors and nurses said the prisoners had been doing their best without any medical supplies, and one Polish nurse, whose husband and children had all died, had done excellent work and was now matron of the hospital. It is estimated that 17,000 people required immediate hospital treatment when the British arrived, the most serious cases being typhus and tuberculosis. Eighty per cent, were suffering from starvation. The Wehrmacht barracks were immediately taken over and a suitable hospital found. One hundred students came from England to help to care for the sick and they are doing wonderful work. Large numbers of German doctors and nurses were also obliged to help. They were somewhat resentful, since their patients were mostly Jews. One had been found maltreating a small Polish child. He would be dealt with in the “correct manner.”

The visitors learned that 300 SS, both men and women, had been in charge of the camp, but the Wehrmacht professed to know nothing about it. A German doctor also declared that he was unaware of the conditions and, when a British senior medical officer forced him to walk through, the German was still unimpressed by the human suffering and misery he could see on all sides.

Precautions Taken Before- entering the camp Messrs Jordan, Holland and Doidge and the escort were all carefully sprayed with special D.D.T. powder as a precaution against lice and typhus. Then they drove past four glaring typhus danger signs. On the barren, brownish-black earth were rows of long wooden huts, some brown, some black and some maroon. Them gaunt men and women, some still wearing the blue and white striped regulation dress of the camp, could be seen and even under the brightening influence of a summer day the place was. a gloomy, wretched hovel. The first stop was at a half-filled grave dug by bulldozers. Raw earth was piled up round the sides and in the pit were uneven heaps of sandy soil mixed with lime. At least 1000 corpses lay below those uneasy mounds. Stretching- at intervals from this pit was a long row of neat raised squares of black soil mixed with grey streaks of lime. They were about 15 yards square and each had a small white notice board which stated simply the number of the grave, the approximate total of the corpses contained and the date. The figures varied from 2000 to 5000. In the next huts they entered everyone was carefully smoking, including some who had not smoked for eight years. A disgusting- stench insulted the nostrils. It came from a long row of small square rooms on either side of the road corridor. It exuded even from the wood itself and from the soil which could be seen below the floorboards which had been ripped up in many places and where corpses had previously lain. In the rooms were women and some children lying in wretched wooden bunks or on the floor itself, gaunt, pale and drawn, eyes feverishly bright, clad in rags, listless and shameless. One who spoke English told Mr Jordan: “We are all right now that the English have come.” In one room a perspiring young student sat on a box feeding a gaunt figure, while around him women lay sprawled on the pigsty of the floor, one chattering feverishly in German. Here there were little piles of cooked potatoes, raw onions and bread which it was explained these people preferred to anything else. Haggard and Listless In other rooms women who once had been young- and pretty were now haggard and listless. One said she came from Berlin. “Why did they send you here ” asked Mr Doidge. “Oh, I did not like Hitler,” was the despondent reply. In another part of the camp was a lorry. In it were standing two strapping- young Germans clad in longcoats and heavy gloves. Behind them was a twisted pile of blankets and among the folds could be seen gaunt limbs, putty coloured flesh and sticklike bones. That day's dead were being collected by the Germans who stared indifferently and sullenly. In another hut naked women, thin, emaciated and listless were beingwashed tenderly by British soldiers, then wrapped carefully in blankets and carried out on stretchers into the fresh air among the pine trees. Conditions Improved Shocked and silent I,lie New Zealand visitors drove from the camp to the hospital among the barracks, and here they saw the other side of the pictureclean beds, fresh white linen and cheerful, smiling patients. To-day there are still more than 28,000 German victims in the camp and barracks. Conditions have been improved enormously. They could have been no worse when the British arrived. The daily death rate has been reduced from 450 to 150, but many more deaths most occur since men and women have long been marked out by death. Mr-Jordan said: “Tire scenes in this camp are the worst I have ever experienced. They have not been exaggerated by previous reports. They could not be exaggerated. I think we all have the highest possible admiration for tire medical staff and everyone who is working in the camo to I

save poor wretches whose only crime was that they agreed with us and did not like those very things for which we fought this war.” Mr Holland said: “I have been deeply shocked by the sights we saw at Belsen. It. is a terrible thing to realise that human beings could treat others like this, and it makes me more determined than ever to ensure that we must work to make certain that such things can never occur again.” Mr Doidge said: “Belsen camp is an everlasting stain on Germany. I will never forget the things we saw to.day. Thank God We have been able to win the war and put an end to such inhumanity.” Kramar, who the German commandant called “the beast of Belsen,” has not been executed as previously reported. He is stated to have asked to be shot, but with others of his SS he is being held for trial.

BELSEN PRISON AREA

To Be Burnt Out LONDON, May. 14. The entire area of the concentration camp at Belsen is to be erased by tire, writes a correspondent in Germany. Medical authorities 'say that this Is (he only way to deal with the danger of infection. British military authorities plan to remove the remaining inmates within the next few days. They have provisionally fixed May 21 as the day on which army personnel will burn the camp.