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| Evidence for the Prosecution |
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| H. O. Le Druillenec
(cont.) |
only a
wash-house room, a very, crude place with one or two dead bodies floating
about, or rather reclining on the flooded floor. The second window gave me a
terrible shock. This room was absolutely filled up, and I really mean filled
up, with dead bodies. These dead were arranged with the crown of one’s
head touching the chin of the one just below him, and in that way I should
think there were many hundreds per room. We strolled down the yard looking into
each window in turn, and in every room of that very long hut the sight was
precisely the same. I had had some experience with dead people before, both at
Bremen and at Lüneburg, but this particular sight made me wonder all the
more, after the first night at Belsen, what sort of hell I had entered. The
rest of the day was just spent lying about on the ground outside hoping against
hope some food would turn up.
What was the next night like? —
Rather worse. Some more Kommandos had arrived by then and the hut was more
crowded than on the previous night. By, the second day we realized that
although some rather primitive type of sanitation existed, it was not used by
the vast majority.
Did you receive any food or water on the second day?
— I had that day about an inch and a half of soup in an ordinary army
enamel mug which I had to go and pick up off a certain heap of discarded
effects of the dead, and there being no water to wash it in, I just had to eat
out of that like many hundreds of others. We used to have the food given us in
the hut; actually everyone had to get into the hut first. Then we went out with
our little portion, and we had to keep giving furtive looks behind and chasing
from one corner to the other, so as not to drop even a spot of rather precious
food.
What was the attitude of the S.S. guards to the prisoners? —
I did not see very much of the S. S. during my short stay in Belsen, but on one
occasion later I did see an S.S. officer whipping the women in the women’s
compound near the burial pits because they had lit some fires to do some rather
primitive cooking.
What was the attitude of the Blockältesten?
— Particularly vile. They used to have some soup apparently sent to the
block at midday, and distributed to the other officers, and to anyone who had a
few cigarettes to exchange. The usual rate of exchange being three cigarettes
to one plate of soup, though the vast majority of ordinary prisoners in the hut
never even saw that soup — if we did have a little it was at night. The
S.S. made no attempt to control the block leaders. On the fifth day I began
work, and worked roughly for the last five days.
Prior to beginning to
work were the other days much the same as the day you have described? —
More or less. There were one or two rather startling events, of course. I
remember seeing my first friend, |
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