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least a good hiding. On one occasion I recall seeing one of our boys
toss something over to one of the inmates and as the inmates stooped to pick it
up, a big, stout foreman pulled his revolver and shot him.
3. Having
been selected by the Chief Red Cross Trustee, Regimental Major Lowe, for the
position of Red Cross Trustee for our group, I was able to move about without
too much difficulty. My functions as trustee included all matters relating to
the welfare of the British prisoners of war such as the issue of clothing for
the International Red Cross, British and American Red Cross, and the
distribution of food parcels.
One day one of the inmates told me that
there was a British ship’s doctor among the inmates in the IG
concentration camp. He said that the ship on which the doctor had been was
torpedoed and the doctor, being a Jew, was separated from the others who were
captured by the Germans and brought to the concentration camp. The doctor was
not permitted out on work details, but he had managed through this inmate to
get a note to me, asking me to write to his sister or daughter in Sunderland,
England, and to notify the authorities. I wanted to get in touch with this
ship’s doctor and arranged with one of the guards, for some cigarettes, to
let me swap clothing with one of the inmates and to march into the camp with
the inmates. At 6:00 in the evening I dirtied myself and fell in with the
inmates and marched into the concentration camp itself. We went straightaway to
a sort of a wash room and from there into the barracks. We were not allowed to
walk around. There I found wooden beds, three tiers high. These beds, which
would not have been comfortable even for one person, had to accommodate two or
three inmates. As a result, it was practically impossible to sleep since, if
one man was in a reclining position, the others would have to sit up or lie
over him. I remained in a sitting position the whole night and was dead tired.
Each one could get a little sleep if they changed positions; but if the
slightest noise was made, the guards would come in. The, tiers of beds were
lined up and down the whole room. In the middle there were about three tables
where they would fight to get their bit of soup. They got their soup in the
evening and nothing else. This particular night it was potato soup. We had been
counted when we marched out of the factory but were also counted when we came
into the camp. When the inmates were counted, the other chaps would hold up the
dead for counting purposes. Some were held up the night I was there. One of the
reasons they stood the dead men up for roll call was to draw their rations. In
the morning the kapos would come around to see that everybody was up and would
kick or beat anybody who had not gotten up. Those who could not get up were
just carted away.
When we got back to the factory, I swapped back the
clothing with the chap whom I had made the exchange and gave him a few
cigarettes. |
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