GERMAN MURDER CAMP.

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13432, 10 March 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

GERMAN MURDER CAMP.

Appalling revelations concerning the typhu9 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 equalled 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 drug 9 and dressing were refused'. When an official of the Amencan Embassy in Berlin visited the camp he was shown carcases of mutton outside a kitchen. These were removed immediately after his departure. 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 hats. 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 hanpened 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 nefer before seen or imagined anywhere. The hut contained 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, Ceroid of tables and * stools, the men lived., slept, and fed, - They sat on their bags of shavings to eat their meals; they walked ovar,each

■ — try —biuv, Waa^H describaWy foetid, and thtriras theU sole alternative to going outside in their meagre garments for fresh air! Tilt prisoners were not only over-crowded: they were also insufficiently fed!" "I havo no hesitation/' States Major Davy, "in saying that the diet the prisoners received was not sufficient to keep an adult in a normal state of no* trition. I wish to be clearlv under. stood; T mean that everv man who subsisted on what was issued to him was gradually getting emaciated and ansemic. and was constantly a prey to the pangs of hunger." * The sanitary' conditions were such as 'cannot properly be repeated." The •<isk of emptying the latrines into iioular tank carts was as a regular ►ractice specially allotted to the British. >nsoner» until sickness had so much educed their number that a fatigoe >arty of sufficient strength in any one ompany could not be obtained. during this period the prisoners >ere treated by their guards yith the itmost harshness. Major Davey states ifsted rCl " n ° f tCrr ° r and brutalit y Thus the seeds of epidemic were sown.

It appears that the camp authorities '.ere afraid that something of the kind was impending, for they sent to Gatdelegen a number of British, French. md Russian medical officers who had been interned elsewhere. These officers found that the equipment of the camp hospital was far less than would ;>e found in a workshop dispensary. ihe authorities were not mistaken m heir fears, for the sick rates mounted rapidly.

, A commission of German doctorg arrived. Within half an hour of theif departure there was a stir among the German guards. They were packing •ip and preparing apparently for a J hasty retreat. In two hours there wt|. '1 Tot a German inside the camp. : Every hospital orderly had gone. The i r.ck were left quit© unattended. The £ orison kitchens were empty, the German women formerly employed there : having departed. Presently the sentries were seen drawn up in a cordon twenty paces outside the outermost '>arbed-wire fence. The medical officers strove heroically to cope with the situation. The sick had to be dumped down anywhere, for there was not at first a sufficient number of attendants to cope with the work. There were no beds for them; nor milk or eggs or other invalid fare ' was forthcoming. Dr Wenzel, the German medical officer ,fell a victim to his own neglect. Although he left the camp wrUTtho other Germans, he sickened, shortly v afterwards and died of typhus. Two other German medical officers! tT* lived in succession, but never passed through the cordon. Towards the end of March Dr Kranski. an elderly Ger* man, 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 f Colonel Brunner,.the camp command' . | ant, who was always brutal to the prisoners, and, who refused to supply drugs or dressing. Many cases had! to go as long as eight days without a change of dressing. Before the epidemic burneoMtself out more than 2000 cases 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, or 300 in all. The camp began to look forward with misgivings to the A' \ 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 charger—was to the prisoners themselves a positive relief. Dr Ohnesorg, of the American Embassy at Berlin, visited the camp in 'l April, but owing to its plague-stricken condition lie was unable to enter it. He astonished Captain Brown by saying that he had seen several carcases or

mutton outside 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 never 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 expected, had been duly and favorably impressed.