. |
| Evidence for the Prosecution |
| |
| Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson
(cont.) |
(1)
starvation. There was obvious evidence of extreme and systematic starvation
both in the living and the dead. (2) Gross overcrowding combined with totally
inadequate sanitation. In Camp No. 1 things varied to some extent from hut to
hut, but in every case the accommodation was grossly inadequate. It is a fair
general statement to say that in Camp No. 1 ten people were being accommodated
in space reasonably sufficient for one person, whilst in Camp No. 2 four people
were being accommodated in space reasonably sufficient for one person. The
sanitation in Camp No. 1 would have been quite inadequate even if this camp had
housed only a reasonable number — say one-tenth of those found there. This
state of affairs had led inevitably to the outbreak of diseases, particularly
typhus in Camp No. 1, the whole aggravated in Camp No. 1 (but not initially
caused) by failure to bury the dead.
7. It is impossible to give exact
figures, but I have no doubt whatever that many of those who were lying dead
and those who afterwards died were killed from the effects of starvation pure
and simple, combined with the appalling conditions under which the prisoners
were forced to live. Of those who died of disease it is fair to say that the
vast majority, at the very least, had been so weakened by starvation as to have
no chance of resisting the onset of disease.
8. In my opinion all
those in any way responsible for ordering, or carrying out orders, which
resulted in the state of affairs hereinbefore described, must inevitably have
known that it was bound to result in deaths on a gigantic scale, and that such
deaths were the only possible outcome of such orders and the carrying out of
such orders.
9. The medical arrangements made by the Germans for the
succour of the sick were so grotesquely inadequate as to be fairly described as
‘nil.’ All those concerned in the German medical services, by failure
to provide any adequate succour, were making it quite certain that none of the
very large number of deaths arising from the state of affairs hereinbefore
described would be prevented, and the German medical services must be held as
responsible as all others concerned.
11. It is not possible to tell how
long the state of affairs had existed in Camp No. 1, but it would appear
probable that they had existed for some considerable period and certainly for
two months before I arrived on the 17th April, 1945.
12. It has been
impossible to obtain exact figures existing at the beginning as the German
authorities at the camp had caused their records either to be destroyed or
removed. It would appear that there were approximately 40,000 people still
living in Camp No. 1, but a number of these were on the point of death from
their previous treatment. In |
| |
| Page 46 |
|
