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manual labor such as carrying steel girders, pipes, cables, bricks
and sacks of cernent weighing about 100 pounds. As a rule the inmates weighed
less than the cement sacks. I have seen the inmates shufile, trying to make it
in double time but unable to do it, and I have seen them collapse. The. inmates
would just lie there until it was time to go home. Often they were beaten to
try to get them on their feet again. I have seen inmates carrying cables and up
to their knees in ,and, with one of the big husky foremen beating them. 1f they
fell down the others would walk on them. They did not seem to have any sense of
feeling at all. The inmates were not permitted to help one another, such as to
pick up those who had collapsed.
We were allowed to warm by the fire
but the Jews would be kicked if they were caught doing it. They were so far
gone that they would stand over the fire and their gloves could be burning and
they would not know the difference. Their condition and treatment was so bad
that it is impossible to explain it to people in England; they just don't
understand that people could be treated like that.
There were beatings
and hangings in the Lager. We would see the chaps hanging up in the gate of
Lager IV, and the prisoners had to walk underneath them. I saw those bodies
myself; working parties passed under the gate while walking to work. There were
beatings all the time. Another form of punishment was depriving the inmates of
their food ration.
5. The concentration camp inmates had their hair
shorn close and wore round, blackberry caps, thin striped jackets, trousers and
overcoats, wooden or canvas shoes. 1 have also seen them with hand shoes [
gloves] — the mitten type — but I don't know if they were issued.
They were very poorly clothed for winter. I saw bad cases of frostbite while
working. They suffered from many kinds of skin diseases and, lice.
The
inmates were skin and bones. Each day they got one quart of thin, watery soup
and half a ration of bread — about 250 grains. We were issued soup at noon
but gave it to the inmates whom I should say were all starving to death. We
would have to line up the bowls because the inmates would fight to get the
watery soup. If the German civilians saw us give the soup to the inmates, they
would kick it over.
6. I recall in particular the case of a lightweight
fighter whom I had seen fight in about 1938. In 1943 I saw him as an inmate in
Auschwitz. He was on the same working party as myself. I never saw a bigger
wreck of any kind. I should say he had both arms broken, his shoulders were
bowed like an old man, and he looked to be about 50 years old. I would not have
recognized him if I had not known it was he. He disappeared and I don't know
what happened to him. There were quite a lot of cases of disappearance like
that. |
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