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the gates of the city. I wasn't a general, but I expected them to
come soon.
Q. Did you assume also that the girls would be liberated if
they were taken alive by the Allied armies?
A. I assumed that the war
would intensify in such a manner that the enemy would only have been able to
free Jewesses who had been killed by bombs; things looked very grim to me, for
Essen was not to be surrendered without a battle.
Q. Hadn’t you
heard the rumor that the girls were to be murdered by the SS?
A. No,
no; that is quite new to me.
Q. Didn’t you hear it on the train
from the girls themselves?
A. No.
Q. Didn’t you hear it
from Trockel’s daughter who accompanied you on the train?
A. From
whom?
Q. From the daughter of Mr. Trockel who accompanied you on the
train.
A. No, I haven’t seen her since. I really only put her on
the train, and then I was informed that the train had arrived in Weimar.*
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| * * * * * |
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Q. You say that Lehmann instructed you to assist the SS in lining up
a train, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Why was it the SS
couldn’t do it by itself?
A. This was quite simple. For an
ordinary human being it was so difficult to find his way around in the
industrial district that one had to lead such people, and these difficulties
were increased by bomb damage to the traffic routes.
Q. Is it correct,
Mr. Sommerer, that the SS didn’t care whether they got the girls out of
Essen or not, and they didn’t care whether you got a train or not?
A. Yes, they did. When I traveled to Bochum, I talked to the local SS
leader there, during negotiations with some railway official, but this good man
said, “I can’t do it” ; and only when I pointed out all kinds of
ways to him, we succeeded at last in lining up a train in sections. This was an
idea which sometimes does not occur to an official |
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| * * * * * |
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| Q. You knew the terminus of the train, didn't you, where it was
going to? |
__________
* The Buchenwald
concentration camp was located near Weimar and was sometimes referred to as the
“Weimar-Buchenwald concentration camp.”
1195 |
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