PRISONERS TORTURED.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 December 1918, Page 5

PRISONERS TORTURED.

THE WMS Oil' THE GERMANS.

AUSTRALIANS' NARRATIVES.

The prevailing note at the Prisoners of War Luncheon at the Million Club iu Sydney a fortnight ago was "Lest We forget."

Private Potter, who was a prisoner in Germany for 18 months, said that in Delman Camp, in Germany, the ruts rttij under the floor of the huts. The Australian prisoners caught tftem, and whenever possible cooked and ate then). The men were practical!;.' starved, and he had seen the hones almost coming through their ?kin One 'orm oi' punisument was to make cne prisoners, .stand at ill in ti|e snow, perished with the cold, if any fell down they .rere prodded with bayonets or Jacked- xr. the summer they were made to sta,r4 out and face ,the sun and follow it round with then* eyes. If they dropped their eyes ffhen the strain became tou greats <tnd l ,he guards noticed it, they smashed the helpless men under the jaw fpith cheir lists. The speaker said his i'acv and that 9f the others with him had been black through being frostbitten, and they ;yould have died if one of the Russian prisoners had.npt shown thera how to rub the snow over the frost-bitten parts. , . „ •

BODIES PILED IN HEAPS. "I have seen them take the Australians," said Private Potter, ''and string them up by the hands to a tree, with their feet just touching the ground. They were swung to and fro with the wind until the pain became too great and they lapsed into ancopseipusness. Ihai'e seen them swinging like this, for about two hours. "I have also seen the 'bodies of the Australians and the other prisoners in heaps piled just the same way ias Ipgs at a sawmill or like sleepers along the railway line. These were the men who through working behind the lines'without proper food became too exhausted, and were then brought back to the camp to die like dogs. The meii went out to dig the graves of the fellows who had died the day before, knowing in many eases that somebody else would dig their graves possibly before the week .or the month was out, "They dressed our wounds once every If! data, ar.d used paper bandages- 'The only thing thai: kept u« alive was the parcels we got through the Red Cross." TREATMENT 01? WOUNDED Private ft. Wr..inch,'who also'had experience as a prisoner of '■>> mar.\\ Kftid that hj(? was one of o batch of wounded who were five days in a train without .nedicnt attention. Most ot the wounds mortified.

"We were fed twice « day," ne sa\d. "on thiu r,oup, bread, and «. jam trolit' of rhubarb, which was ".erv acid. Owing to mortification setting in, amputations wore necessary- Tim wen performed tlie operations wei'e- not surgeons, and there was little 'chloroform. "Not one ofj the, wounded wan .put Tight off \yhen jtlie operation. was being oertormed.. Tt'M Sed Cross parcels kept us alive." . , V ' • , Mi.' Justice T?ergnson niovea:-^'Tha\, after having heard fiFstnand ujforma tipn concerning brutalities of the Gerjnans to our men/, this gathering urges that the persons guilty of these rtrocities and the instigators thereof shall be handed over to the custody of the Allies in order that they receive adequate punishment." ■ i ''And when the investigations into the things the Germans have done are complied,' continued Mr. Justico Ferguson, >t' : htft>e that no guilty head will ba too high for the halter." • The motion was carried wijth' enthusiasm.