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and the foremen issued their order to the kapos or the men in charge
of details. I have never witnessed a case where an inmate had been subject to
improper treatment by an IG functionary. It was a matter of general knowledge
to the inmates that the IG management had issued strict orders to its personnel
prohibiting any kind of improper treatment of camp inmates, especially
beatings, on its premises.
The quality of the food we received in the
buna camp was better than in any other camp I know. The food in the buna camp
and the food in the Birkenau was as different as day and night. Considering the
conditions at the time, the quantity was also adequate [angepasst].
The
quarters in camp IV were not bad. We had nice triple-deck beds and the place
was kept scrupulously clean. I am at a loss to account for the assumption that
we were forced to sleep on rotten straw. As to the clothing and shoes of the
inmates of the buna camp, I should like to remark that every time we left camp
we had to pass inspection, inmates with torn shoes or clothing were picked out
and sent hack to camp to be given a better outfit. In my time, the inmates
working on outside jobs even had leather shoes.
There were ample
facilities in camp IV for the sick. Four hospital blocks and a reconvalescent
block were available. Medical treatment and the dispensation of medicine was
adequate. Several inmate-comrades from camp Sachsenhausen who had worked in the
hospital block as nurses made statements to me to this effect. There also was a
dental clinic in camp.
There also had been some provisions in the buna
camp for entertainment. During my stay I witnessed several sport events
(soccer).
It is true that inmates not fit for work were frequently sent
from camp IV to Birkenau or Auschwitz I. It is quite possible that many of them
were killed there; but I also remember quite distinctly that when I was in the
main camp I afterwards met some of the inmate-comrades who had been sent away
from the buna camp as unfit for work enjoying good health now, from which fact
I must assume that they completely recovered in the main camp after their
removal from the buna camp. There can be no question of a labor turnover of 300
percent in camp IV. Perhaps this assumption is based on the fact that during
the first years frequent changes in the camp’s population took place which
was the result of transfers among the individual camps. For instance, in March
1943 some blocks with approximately 2000 inmates with their block seniors (I
remember the names of Hermann Dimanski and Van Felsen) were transferred in a
body to another camp, for what reasons I do not know.
Finally, for the
sake of justice, I should like to state expressly that all the inmates who
worked for the IG were better off in regard to housing, food, clothing, et
cetera, than any other concentration camp |
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