30 Million People Have Already Read This!

Camp News (Northern Command), Volume 1, Issue 5, 31 May 1940, Page 7

30 Million People Have Already Read This!

" It takes real talent to find anything in the Reich worth smuggling out ”

THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE “LIFE,” WHICH HAS A READER-PUBLIC OF AT LEAST 30 MILLION AMERICANS EACH WEEK. YOU CAN IMAGINE WHAT THESE NEUTRALS THOUGHT AFTER READING THE ACCOUNT BELOW OF A JOURNEY OUT OF GERMANY A FEW WEEKS AGO. IT IS WRITTEN BY WILLIAM D. BAYLES. The fun began at Osnabrueck, which is the last German station before the war zone, where all not en route for Holland are compelled to leave the train. The rest, consisting of 150 Jews and twenty Gestapo agents and myself, were crowded into two coaches, each patrolled by four guards armed with .pistols. The car’s unheated temperature was around zero. I was cramped into a compartment with nine Jews who sat shivering in overcoats. . Sitting next to the window I could see through the crack at the side of the blind. We were passing through evacuated country. The interior of our coach was completely dark as no light was turned on. The guards patrolled with flashlights and I had to watch so as not to be caught peeping. Arriving about three o’clock at Bentheim, an isolated frontier station with four tracks —this being the only frontier station now open to Holland —the guards ordered all out, pushing and prodding the Jews into the Customs room.

The windows were boarded over. “Germans on this side,” ordered the guard, and twenty Gestapos lined up at the table. “Not you scum of Israel. Whoever told you you were Germans?” he bawled when several Jews started to line up. Then began my examination, which lasted over four hours. I had been given a letter from the Berlin police requesting frontier courtesy. They had also advised me to place an unopened bottle at the top of my suitcase. This would be confiscated by the Frontier guard, but at the same time would be a sign to the guards that I was travelling with the approval of the bully boys in Berlin. The cognac was duly confiscated, the letter was read, but without result. “Why are you leaving Germany ? Why didn’t you leave three months ago?” asked the guards.

Not heeding my answers, they began to pore over my passport, checking my name with a typed list of passengers. “Now we shall see what all you are trying to smuggle from Germany,” declared a guard, ordering me to open my luggage. My retort that it would take real talent to find anything in the Reich worth smuggling angered them. The contents of two suitcases were strewn over the table, dirty hands tearing new laundered shirts • apart, holding up each garment in the light. The discovery of several articles of my wife’s clothing (forgotten when she left Germany in September) resulted in crude remarks from the guard. He held up a chemise and remarked: “Lovely panties you wear, sweetheart. We are glad to know that American men wear silk and lace undies.” Every time the examination was apparently finished, I began to repack the suitcase. But the guard interrupted, saying: “I shall have another look at those trousers,” or “Let’s see your brassiere again, darling.” After two hours of this I was ordered to undress, although the room temperature was around freezing. When I protested the guard said: “We didn’t know an American was coming, otherwise we would have heated the place and prepared a banquet.

I was permitted to keep on shorts and socks.

I stood in them for at least twenty minutes, the guards telling me the fresh air was good for the constitution.

I was finally told to dress and obtain my passport at the door when the train arrived.

Leaving the building the guard at the door said: “There’s your train. Get in and don’t look out until it stops. Give the regards of the S.S. to sweethearts in America.”

For ten minutes I was alone in the dark unheated coach.

Then a stream of Jews came from behind the Customs House, laden with luggage, urged on by guards who pushed them into the coaches, slammed and locked the doors.

The coach was permeated with the stench of excrement, but I was unable to see my co-travellers.

Peering behind the blind, I saw a treeless desolate country, an occational dark building, then a high strongly illuminated fence leading up to the tracks, and an S.S. guard standing in a shelter booth at the side of the track.

The first lighted buildings began to appear and the train pulled into 01denzaal station, where the platform was alive with Dutch soldiers, officials

and nurses waiting to take care of the Jews. • They were unshaven, filthy and redeyed, were hustled into warm washrooms by nurses who seemed accustomed to such arrivals. I entered a restaurant with steaming coffee urn, tables laden with great slabs of ham and cheese on white bread, huge tray of oranges and ap« pies, cases full of chocolate. I suddenly found myself reeling and trembling and stumbled into a chair. A Dutch waiter brought me gin without my asking and declared: “Most travellers from Germany need this when they arrive. It must be pretty bad over there.”