STOP PRESS NEWS

Horowhenua Chronicle, 10 April 1916, Page 3

STOP PRESS NEWS

PIILSON GAMP TRIALS. London, April t). Xo record of Germany s inhumanity could be more appalling than the report of the Government Committee (whereof Air Justice Younger was president) ' dealing with the typhus epidemic at AYitteinburg early 111 among die lii'icisli and other prisoners, ol' war. The report issued by tlie Press Bureau slates that evidence nad long been accumulating from returned prisoners, but their statements were considered so terrible that the committee awaited the return ol Major Priestly, Captain Vidal and Captain Lauder, army mcdical officers who fought- witli and' conquered the epidemic. Their statements confirm the previous depositions. . Wittenburg Camp, of ten and a halt' acres, held 10.000 prisoners during the winter of 191 I. The overcrowding was .serious; also tlie winter was of the severest type. The Heating was inadequate, obliging the men to keep the windows shut,_ thus aggravating the effects of overcrowding. The men were insufficiently clothed, and their overcoats had been taken by the Germans. Their clothing was educed to rags; many had neither boots nor socks, and others had wrapped their leet in straw. Xone were able to change, their clothes : there were no means of washing clothes; food was Ind' and insufficient, and the underfeeding was dreadful. lwen the canteen (whereat formerly those able to do so- bought additional food) was closed when the first case of typhus appeared ,and it was only when the epidemic was nearly overcome that they had enoucrh food for those able to Tftitwitlistandinn: consignments of food from England. It wa<s impossible to a 'Tege that there was a genera' n«e'~\>f medical requisites in Germany, i',7r lino-lish doctors saw abundance ot supplied in Vittneburg town; yet the plague-stricken camp was starved lor months. liavintr onlv the barest supplies of necessities for existence. Samples of drill's wore uneven and the medical men were not provided with surgical dressing. Above all the Br.twh sulI'ered from being victims ot special hostiltv from the camp's beginning, llie German® decorated Aschenbach m view of his neglect,, tor which they must answer one day. Tlie report pays the warme-t tributes to the work ol He doctors and orderlies, all of whom laboured unsparingly, fullv ™n ; c,ous <) their danger; but they risked then live" without a tTiouglTt ot ta.'ir la "go. and in anv laid down their lives tor their comrades, as full a sacrifice as l it had been d«ne on the battlefield.