BESTIAL CRUELTY

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 256, 8 November 1939, Page 4

BESTIAL CRUELTY

NAZI POLICE METHODS EFt A PEI) MAN’S STORY ■Rudolf Gorthcn, aged 32, an Austrian. who, having made hi* escape from a German concentration camp and got himself smuggled into Hie United Kingdom, stood in the dock at the Mansion House, charged as an •‘enemy alien.” .lie pleaded guilty to landing without permission, hut expressed his utter loathing of Germany, declaring that if given the opportunity he would! bo prepared to soive Britain in any capacity whatever. Having been harboured for a short time alter his landing by a Polish man at Hampstead, Gefthen gave himself up to the City Police. He was then scarred practically from head "to foot, and his wrists and ankles were marked by tlie shackles lie said’ he had worn. He described the bestial cruelty ho had received in the camp, and instanced as a sample of Nazi irony that, having statedl that lie (the accused') was liy profession a dentist, his teeth were promptly knocked out. The Lord Mayor said one could not help feeling sympathy for a man who had undergone what this man had, but he had no alternative to sending him to prison for a month. What was to become of him after that would 1)0 decided by tint proper authority. The prisoner, through an Interpreter expressed the gratitude he felt for the humane treatment lie had received since landing in England.