LIFE IN CONCENTRATION CAMP

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20923, 30 September 1939, Page 15 (Supplement)

LIFE IN CONCENTRATION CAMP

Horrors Described (Carl Harder, a young German THE SHARP TONE of a bugle announces the beginning of a new day —it is 5 o’clock in the morning. Ten minutes after that we are in front of the barracks, dressed only in our trousers; we are lined up for “defence sports.” We are freezing; we shiver in the raw morning air—but we know that after 30 minutes we will be bathed in sweat, and the trousers will stick to our weary legs. Shallow depressions in the ground are covered with planks. Anyone who might be heavier in girth would have trouble squeezing himself through the narrow spaces between them—but the billy clubs of the guards see to it that everybody “makes” it. Over there is the smooth wall —about three yards high—over which we have to climb. If there are three short signals of the guard’s whistle, we must crawl forward on knees and elbows, until we hear the signal, “Up—march—march!” We jump up; we run ahead—until the next signal commands return. But the worst is the “knee bend,” which lasts six minutes, and consists of 10 bends. This is a Speciality of All Nazi Concentration Camps. Six o’clock means breakfast. We get “coffee,” if the reddish-brown liquid can be called that name. With the coffee we get two slices of dark bread, dry, of course. Soon after breakfast we receive our spades and at 6.30 the company is ready to march to its day’s work. Each company consists of about 120 to 130 men, divided into squads of 12 to 15 Which are sent to different places. If the place of work is farther than one hour’s marching time, two prisoners have to drag the large soup kettle along which, heated over a camp fire, will provide the squad with the noon lunch. What food we get is insufficient, consisting of watery soups and rice, turnips, barley or cabbage with a few potatoes. There is no trace of meat or fat and the nourishment is grossly out of proportion to the heavy physical labour we are compelled to do. We, the prisoners, drain the swamps, cart the earth, dig up roots and tree stumps. We must accomplish the work quota assigned by the guards. If we do not complete the job we get punished—we may not get our soup at night; we may be confined in the dark in case the “offence” bears a faint trace of resistance; we may be compelled to exercise during the lunch hour. At 5 o’clock the return march to the camp begins. As soon as we arrive there, we must “engage in sports” regardless of our exhaustion. Supper at 6 o’clock again consists of soup and dry bread. Then there is a roll call, which is followed by

Inhuman Treatment n, who escaped after two years.) scrubbing and washing, polishing and shining. At 8 o’clock the doors are shut and bolted and the guards take their posts around the barracks, The signal 9 o’clock means that night has come, and that the barracks must be dark and quiet. Sundays are free from work, except for the penal companies, which consist of those prisoners who are registered “Incorrigible Enemies of the State.” A check in the prisoner’s records, made by a Gestapo official during the arrest, is sufficient grounds for this treatment. These penal companies consist mostly of Jews and of political prisoners who have belonged to an anti-Nazi party. The prisoners call this division the “Death Army.” Helpless, they are condemned to bear the abuses of their guards, who are thinking up more and more beastly and more and more sadistic methods of making these poor prisoners “harmless.” We who are not in the penal company get two hours of “national education work.” We meet in a large, bare room, where a uniformed Browm Shirt leader informs us in short, brisk sentences about the aims of the National Socialism. He tries to instruct us, for our opinions about Hitler and Nazi-ism are strong and unshakeable. Anyone who has spent weeks in the dungeons of the Gestapo, who has been kept a prisoner for months, for years, just because he thinks differently, knows only too well of the aims of the party. He knows very well what the methods of the Black and Brown Shirts are- he needs no enlightenment, Anyone who has not been against the Nazis must become an enemy of Hitler after such an experience. He must hate such a system of force and brutality, if he is to save his self-respect. If you are in a concentration camp you are in a different world. You must have lost all contact with life and with the living. No one knows where you are. There is no mail, no newspaper, no form of communication with the outer world. The treatment for the slightest infractions is inhuman and is carried out with a Brutality Which is Unbelieveable. The prisoners are left in complete ignorance of their own fate and of their families. It is not infrequent that prisoners inflict upon themselves horrible mutilations • in order to be transferred from that hell to a hospital; or to arouse public opinion. They die from such injuries; they commit suicide; they are killed by brutal hands. But no statistics include them, no report lists them. They are the forgotten victims of the Third Reich.