Q. What can you say to the sanitary conditions at the camp; what facilities, what toilet facilities, what stool facilities, what laboratory facilities were available to you? Do you understand the general import and scope of ray question?
A. Certainly. Up to the year of 1944 the laboratories were sufficient, washing facilities were adequate too, there was a bath which was quite adequate so that every innate was in a position to bathe once a week and some inmates could even bathe twice a week. There was a shower in the camp Buchenwald which was well equipped and there was an irrigation institution which only had one fault, namely, that the bones from the corpses from the crematories were put there so that in the year of 1944 this irrigation institution was stopped up because of the boxes of the corpses. But, up to the year of 1944 one can say that all sanitary institutions were adequate, including the delousing. After the year of 1944 it failed to an increasing extent.
In the year of 1945 one could detect, especially in the little camp where they were several 1000 inmates, one could speak no longer of any sanitary institutions. They were not at all adequate. In addition to that, came the lack of water which started. Before the air attacks the camps had a large reserve to use. After the air attacks, whatever water facilities there were damaged and afterwards there resulted a terrific deficiency in the sanitary institutions of the camp Buchenwald
Q. You made some statement to the effect that this latter facility about which you talked did not function well after a certain period in 1944, because it became clogged up with corpses that went into the crematorium. Was it ashes from the corpses
A. Bones of corpses.
Q. You mean after the bodies had been burned and the bone ash removed?
A. The crematorium toward the end failed. We had been told that the crematorium could not destroy the amount of corpses as a crematorium should. Therefore, not only ashes could be found but also parts of big bones which were not burned, since inmates mostly serviced the crematorium. The SS at that time did not participate. They did not know what to do with these bones, and they put them into the irrigation system and into the canal system. In the terrible year 1945 there was a large amount of dead going from where I sit to the partition, and I repeatedly went to Schidlausky and asked him to do something. The second chief of staff of the camp, Sturmbanfuehrer Bannewaldt, tried to do everything to keep his stores in order so are as supplies were concerned. He showed me how the rats which showed themselves went into his store through the canal system and there ate the goods. Dr. Schidlausky answered that there was no coal and I told him that there are other methods than burning of these people, but then nothing could be done because one could recognize the corpses when they were buried, and he insisted that no other methods be used, namely, burying the corpses. Only when the situation was such that there were too many corpses permission was given to bury them. At first they were put into the ditch and there they were found by the American authorities a few months or weeks later.
Q. What corpses were supposed to go into the crematorium, the corpses of all inmates who died from any cause at Buchenwald?
A. There was a directive that every inmate who died in the camp had to be burned.
Q. That efforts were made to keep records of each of the inmates who died there?
A. The card index system of all inmates was carried, on by the inmates themselves. There were offices of the hospital and offices of the camp administration, where all the inmates were registered by the inmates themselves. All inmates were registered there the were either admitted, released or who were transferred or who died. Naturally in the hospital one was never clear about the cause of death. Every patient who died in the hospital was given a case history which was compiled by a clerk who of ten not even had seen the patient. He wrote down precisely what injections and what drugs that patient had received. Whether the diagnosis was put down as influenza or as accident was of no interest at all, but everything was done very meticulously, and the case history was written down very exactly. We certainly never had any evidence as to what causes lead to their death. We only knew that they had died.
Q. I believe you stated this once before, but will you please be good enough to state again what was Dr. Hoven's official position at the camp Buchenwald?
A. Dr. Hoven when I entered the camp was the deputy of the first physician of the camp.
Q. Who then was the first physician of the camp?
A. That was Dr. Hoven afterwards. Allegedly the first camp physician fell ill with typhus, was treated somewhere outside Buchenwald, and then Dr. Hoven took over his position.
Q. Then Dr. Hoven became the first camp physician, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. During the period of time you were there, what doctors or other medical men were under Hoven's command?
A. Do you mean SS?
Q. Yes, I mean regular SS or Wehrmacht and other German official physicians or surgeons or researchists, not taking into account concentration camp inmates themselves?
A Dr. Hoven was the camp physician.
Q I understand he was the camp physician until the liberation. Thank you.
A Not until the liberation - until he was arrested. Dr. Hoven was arrested in March 1943. Up to that time he was the first camp physician. Then there was another position there called "Standart physician". I cannot tell you to what extent the camp physician was subordinate to the Standart Physician. For sometime SS physicians of the SS divisions were there who had their own physicians. I don't know what the relationship was between one SS physician to another. There were two or three physicians in the entire camp, that is, two to three SS physicians, but no more than that.
Q Then I understand that after Dr. Hoven's arrest he finally came back to Buchenwald in some position or other?
A No, he didn't come in the capacity of a camp physician. He merely entered the camp as a visitor. That was shortly before it's liberation. I think it was three or four weeks before it was liberated. He only entered the camp as a physician at that time. Schidlausky was the first camp physician, and there were two or three subaltern SS physicians in the camp with him.
Q Then is it your testimony that after his arrest Dr. Hoven had no official position in Buchenwald so far as you knew?
AAfter his arrest, that is, the beginning of September, 1943, Dr, Hoven was imprisoned in the prison of Weimar, and as far as I know he had no official mission any longer in the camp of Buchenwald.
Q Let us divide the period of your stay at Buchenwald into two periods, the period prior to the time that Dr. NO 1Hoven left there, and the period subsequent to the time that he left there, and I understand he left there approximately September 1, 1943.
Prior to September 1st, 1943, whom did you understand was in charge, general charge of health, and sanitation at Buchenwald?
A The health and medical service was directed by an office in Berlin and a certain staff Officer, a doctor, was put in charge, his name was Lolling or Loelling.
Q Who was tho doctor actually at the camp who was in charge of general health and sanitation? Was it Dr. Hoven?
A Yes.
Q In other words, as the chief physician at Buchenwald, I assume that he would be the responsible officer in charge generally of the health of Inc prisoners, the sanitary conditions under which they lived, the general conditions of the food and it's preparation, so far as the food was furnished to him, charged with the responsibility of keeping some accurate official check of those inmates who came to the hospital for treatment, charged with some general over-all responsibility of keeping some statistics concerning the death rate of inmates and the causes of death, is that not true?
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now be in recess until one-thirty o'clock.
(The Court adjourned for the noon recess)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 1 April 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. VIDESLAW HORN (Resumed) EXAMINATION (Continued) BY THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE SEBRING):
Q. Doctor, do you know of specific instances of punishment that were meted out to concentration camp inmates at Buchenwald while you were there, and if so, what were their nature?
A. You are referring to punishments meted out by the SS on the inmates?
Q. Yes.
A. In the period until this process was stopped, most of the penalties were as follows. The smallest penalty was that the prisoner was condemned to so and so many strokes. These prisoners had to come to the hospital where they were examined and then when this penalty was executed an SS doctor was always present. Then prisoners were called to the gate and some of them did not come back. It was said that many prisoners that were called to the gate did not come back end that a court had ordered that they be hanged. This took place particularly in the period when these beatings took place. Almost every day there were executions or hangings of prisoners. That happened mostly in the afternoons. Otherwise we knew of no other camp punishment nor did we see any.
Q. Did you witness or know of any such occurrences at Buchenwald prior to September 1, 1943?
A. Toward the end of 1943 or 1944 these beatings were a normal course of events, and I myself in the later so-called movie room saw how a table was brought in. The prisoner was laid on this table and beaten. Prisoners from my immediate neighborhood were also beaten. I once saw how a gypsy was beaten on this table. I never saw any hangings. But in 1944 I saw the gallows which were near the crematorium.
Q. Can you recollect whether any such punishments were inflicted during the period of time that Dr. Hoven was the official camp physician?
A. Precisely at the time when Dr. Hoven was camp physician these beatings were the order of the day, but they were always done on the orders of the High Rapport Leader. The beatings of which I spoke yesterday, namely, twenty-four strokes, had to he approved by Berlin, and for a week the SS carried out such punishments without permission. So, on the other hand, if you were going to administer a penalty of more than twentyfour strokes, you had to have permission, but if less, then you did not have to have permission. This had nothing to do with the camp physician but was the camp management. It was the camp management that ordered such punishment.
Q. Was it necessary for an authorization to be given by a SS physician who first had inspected the man's physical condition before severe punishment of that sort could be administered?
A. The men were brought to the hospital, in the office, and the physician's office where they were examined. This formality was observed for quite awhile before prisoners were officially beaten. There were also other official beatings, and this procedure with the table on which beatings were carried out had to have a physician's approval before it could be done.
Q. Approval by whom?
A. The SS doctor who was present in the office of the hospital -
Q. Who would that be?
A. (Continuing) It also happened with the medical noncommissioned officers who examined these persons, but mostly it was the physician who examined them, and that a physician was also present at the punishment, and, as I said yesterday, as in the case of Falldorf from Bremen, Dr. Hoven prevented punishment for reasons of health.
Q. What can you tell us about Block 46; what was Block 46?
A. In the period when Dr. Hoven was there, I never entered that block. Only later did I enter Block 46. There were prisoners there who at first were well fed. They were examined. Blood tests were made. Their blood pressure was taken. Everything was examined about them. It could be seen that the prisoners were walking around, and were playing games of one sort and another, and so on. Then I once saw how prisoners were then treated of typhus. One time Dr. Ding called me to Block 46. I was to perform an operation on the kidney. There is a covering to the kidney which was to be cut away.
Why? It is well known that the kidney when not functioning properly, can be restored to its function, if it is so opened. There was a time in the History of surgery where this procedure was carried out only in extreme cases, and I believe that this method of treatment has not been used for the last ten or fifteen years in the larger surgical institutes, because it was not successful as had been hoped, but since there was a misunderstanding in Block 46, those with typhus had high fever, and the kidney, as an organ effected by typhus, was damaged, and Dr. Ding wanted to restore the working condition of these persons' kidneys. I even said that it was correct in some cases, or rather until some years ago it was correct to perform this operation, but in the case of a man with typhus who has a very low blood prossure, and with a high fever, this operation could not be performed, because the man would die under the knife. Dr. Ding slowed me literature on several of these kidney operations, but even on the grounds of this literature he showed me, I could prove medically that in any case of typhus the operation under these circumstances should not be carried out. After showing that I was right about that, Dr. Ding no longer discussed such operations with me again. From the First World War there had been cases of typhus, and I know of cases here where they were most certainly sick with typhus. You could see this also from the temperature chart, and the blood reactions that are characteristic of the typhus, as set forth in this chart.
Q. I understand you to say that you did not actually enter Block 46 until after Dr. Hoven had left Buchenwald?
A. Yes, of that I am sure.
Q. Prior to the time that Dr. Hoven left Buchenwald, that is to say, prior to September 1, 1943, did you have any under standing which you had gained either by actual observation, or actual knowledge, or the reputation that Block 46 had gained, as to the nature of the things that went on there?
A. It was generally known in the camp that in Block 46 experiments were being carried out on prisoners, and as I said yesterday I discussed that question about Block 46 only once with Dr. Hoven, and was told by him that in Block 46 Dr. Ding was doing some work for Dr. Mrugowsky.
Q. Did you understand whether or not there was any official collaboration of any kind between Dr. Ding and Dr. Hoven at that time?
A. I was never present there, but I can test my observation in this form, Dr. Hoven was greatly interested in the medical administration, and also in the relations between the prisoners. The hospital was a large one, and consequently the first camp physicians like Dr. Hoven who is the medical director of the hospital, it is understandable he should concern himself with these administrative matters. Dr. Hoven never dodged the doing of medical work, and he would attempt to learn somethings surgically, but he did not have the time for that. It was characteristic that we prisoners were forbidden to treat members of the SS. That, however, was a regulation that was not observed. The second staff officer, Sturmbannfuehrer Bannewald fell sick. He was a member of the camp management. He had erysipelas. It was interesting that at that time that the clinic in Jena said they could not accommodate Sturnbannfuehrer Bannewald, because, I believe, that even a German civilian clinic had to have special permission to treat a member of the SS. Then I was called once to the camp commander, that I should tell him how serious this disease was. I fought it out, that Sturmbannfuehrer Bannewald was over fifty years old, that I had taken X-ray pictures of him, and had ascertained that his heart was in a rather poor condition.
I openly told the commander that I believe that Sturmbannfuehrer Bannewald did a little more drinking than was good for himself, and this heart condition and possibly liver condition could suffice for a disease like erysipelas to be fatal. The commander of the camp asked me, "Is equipment and medicine in the camp sufficient for the handling of Sturmbannfuehrer Wannewald, the same way that he would be treated in a clinic?" He said that he was to be sent to an SS Hospital in Thuringia, Berga, but that this SS hospital was a very poor one. Consequently, he would take the responsibility himself, if Dr. Hoven would undertake the treatment, and that he would use the prisoner physicians in addition. I told the commander, frankly, that there was a considerable danger and risk. After two hours I was fetched by Dr. Hoven, and we went to see this Sturmbannfuehrer. We used the medicines we had in the camp; this was during the first half of 1942. Treatment was made with injections. We prepared everything for Dr. Hoven to give the injection. Even in this case Dr. Hoven held himself back, and what was there unpleasant to me I had to give the injections at first in his presence, and then later on alone. From this it can be seen that Dr. Hoven except for technical measures, did not concern himself with this.
Q. What did you understand room 11 was, Dr. Horn?
A. As I said, room 11 was in those barracks which we were not allowed to enter, we three doctors signed a statement that we would not enter those barracks; there was the room 11, and, as I have heard, and what was the general opinion in the camp, was that prisoners were there on orders. The prisoners, as I say, were to be done away with there. That was the general opinion in the camp.
Q. Was there any general opinion in the camp as to what prisoners or what race of prisoners, or what class of prisoners, were to be eliminated in room 11?
A. Dr. Hoven divided the prisoners into the so-called decent prisoners and, on the other hand, the others. This subdivision corresponded with the opinion of the old political prisoners in the camp, so that I had the impression that Dr. Hoven subdivided the prisoners in accordance with the opinion of the old political prisoners in the camp. I myself a few times had to tell Hoven that a man wanted to be operated on, then he would say, what sort of man is that? And it was sufficient for me to say, He is a decent prisoner, and in that case he was taken into the hospital and operated on.
Q. If it should happen that he was not in that class that one of you in whom Dr. Hoven had confidence was was classified as a decent prisoner, what, then, would become of that man? Suppose, for example, you had told Dr. Hoven, this is not a decent man, bat he is one of the trouble makers. What would be the outcome of that case?
A. I was not in such a position that I was obliged to say that a person was not decent. These, as far as I was concerned, were sick people, and I as physician never made that subdivision.
I emphasized that - that I belonged to the legal management of the camp. I did not belong to that illegal management but was a doctor, and other criteria were made to me and in this division between decent and non-decent.
Q. Bat let us assume that there would be people in the illegal camp administration who did not have the upright, ethical aspect and concept of the situation that you had, and who would not hesitate to brand one of these prisoners as being indecent, let as say; and that one of these prisoners became in ill health, and was so classified by a member of the illegal camp administration as being a trouble maker, or as being an indecent sort of fellow. What would be the outcome of that man, and his treatment, so far as Dr. Hoven, and the hospital, and the medical facilities, at the camps were concerned.
A. Mostly, the prisoners carried out the business of taking prisoners into the hospital, and it happened that a non decent prisoner was not taken into the hospital. Of course, such a thing was not present for prisoners, and those prisoners whom the illegal camp management called not decent, as I said yesterday, I was against this illegal management; but they said to me again and again, what can we do with these people, we can't turn them over to the SS; consequently, it sometimes happened that sometimes the members of the illegal management killed such a man. I can remember a case of a capo who was a block leader, whom the political prisoners beat to death because of a crime. In other words, the fate of the so-called indecent prisoners was the same no matter what their race was.
and even if they were political prisoners their fate was certainly unfortunate. They went on the worst transports.
Q. I have one more question, please. There were two separate witnesses who took the witness stand, and one testified to one incident, and one to another, which I shall combine for the purpose of the question which I am now about to put to you.
One of these witnesses said that he visited one of the concentration camps - I don't recollect the name of it at this time - and that the inmates there seemed to be well taken care of, that the sanitation facilities, the housing facilities, the living conditions, were good; and that he saw some of the inmates there coming down the camp streets playing harmonicas and singing songs. And the other one said that at the concentration camp he inspected he found that for the inmates who had to go to hospitals for treatment there was champagne and coffee for them.
Did you have any champagne and coffee for inmates in Buchenwald, and was it the general thing for them to come marching down the street playing the harmonica and singing light songs?
A. I certainly didn't have any champagne, but such visits or inspections of the camps took place, very often visitors who were brought there by the Wehrmacht and were lead through the camp-and I must confess that many visitors did not see the camp in its worst aspects. They walked down the camp street at a time when the worst work commandos were outside the camp; and on the camp streets during a period of inspection you saw prisoners who had administrative functions of one sort or another; in other words, the prisoners who were best off. They then came to the hospital, and then they went to the kitchen, and then they went to a special block, and all of this was,of course, prearranged, and could consequently not have made a poor impression.
That the prisoners played their mouth organs - that must have been after hours, after work hours. That could have been true, yes; but in the case of this testimony that you just quoted that those were not inmates of the camp, and it cannot be claimed that that was anything like a normal state of affairs. The visitors and Wehrmacht officers who came there were not allowed to speak to us, but in their inspection, if there were fifty visitors, they were accompanied by the camp management and the SS, but a few of them did succeed in asking a few questions on the side, and they asked whether this was a normal street in the camp, or whether these wore normal conditions and, of course, none of us gave an answer that would have tipped them off. That is quite understandable. In 1939 a large group of journalists came to the fort prison of Spielberg -- the most horrible, terrible Gestapo prison in Czechoslovakia -- and you can still read today what good conditions prevailed in that prison because they didn't see the worst that was to be seen there. Thus, these visits and the opinions expressed by them who did the visiting are of no value, and anybody who was drinking champagne was certainly not a prisoner. That they were playing mouth organs, that could be possible.
Q. How difficult would it have been for a high ranking officer, medical officer or otherwise, of the WaffenSS, or the Wehrmacht, to have come to Buchenwald and to have actually discovered the true conditions prevailing there?
A. Neither the Wehrmacht nor any SS officer of the troops, or even SS Buchenwald officer who did not actually belong to the camp, could have found that out at all. Any visitor had to report to the commander, and someone was appointed to accompany him. It is quite possible, or rather, it was quite impossible for anyone, even an SS member, to enter the camp without the permission of the camp commander, or to move around freely within the camp. In my experience which lasted six years, I think that is comparatively out of the question.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Witness, a good deal of reference has been made to Room 11. What was the physical nature of that room? Was it a ward room or an operating room?
A. I assume that it was a ward room. It was certainly not an operating room. Later, the room was rebuilt into a dining room for the nurses. The equipment there would seem to indicate that it was a normal ward room.
Q. Have you any idea as to what was done to the camp inmates who were taken to Room 11?
A. The American liberators, the military authorities, concerned themselves greatly with this question. This Room 11 was one of their major problems, and to get right to the point we fetched bearers of corpses who went to this room, but this room was used as a dining room for nurses from 1943 on and, in the meantime, the bearers of corpses who were the only ones who had entered the room, had disappeared on transports, so we had very little to tell and we wanted to be helpful to the American authorities but we could not ascertain, despite the fact that the American authorities asked almost every old prisoner about this matter and heard: "Yes, room 11 was a death room." However, the method, the methods that were used there could not be ascertained and I was very anxious to help in this matter myself. I believe even a representative of the American War Department was there and I really wanted to help out in this affair. We did everything we could to investigate this matter and tried to find some one - not some one who had heard about it but some one who had actually been there - who had carried biers from the room. Unfortunately, the people had disappeared. We wanted to find physicians who had been there, but when the basic question was asked: "Were you there or not" the answer was in the negative. Polish stretcher bearers who had done service in Room 11 could not be found now after the liberation. Many had disappeared on transports and names were written down and we tried to look them up.
We even applied to the Russian authorities, a representative of whom came to Buchenwald and the American Security Office looked into this matter, and since these were Poles from Eastern Galicia; namely, the area occupied by Russia, we spoke with them, as I say, and our delegate who was in Warsaw as a delegate to a congress of freed prisoners also could not find any of these Polish stretcher bearers who had been used in Room 11.
Q. What was the general reputation and report concerning this Room 11 before it was converted to a nurses' dining room?
A. The reputation was of the worst.
Q. Just what do you mean by that?
A. It was a death room.
Q. How long did it bear that reputation, if you know?
A. What one experiences there one wants to forget quickly and when the room was remodeled as a dining room, even as early as 1944, there was no further talk about its previous reputation and prisoners who got there in 1944 and 1945 perhaps had not even heard about this reputation that Room 11 had.
Q. Do you know of any persons who were eliminated in Room 11 as the result of any action taken by any physician - any camp physician?
A. I can name no one. I was once told about a homosexual German writer whom I did not know personally, but I really can name no one.
Q. By whose order would any people be taken to Room 11?
A. The specific order - I have already answered that indirectly in my classification of the SS. It is certain that people were killed in the camp and I am convinced that these measures which might be considered under the euthanasia - I am sure that these were orders by the highest SS authorities and Gestapo authorities. However who actually chose the prisoners - I believe that that actually took place in Buchenwald, but who did it, that I do not know; and when I heard that in other camps the SS doctors paid a visit once a week for instance, in Mauthausen, Auschwitz and other camps - where the policy was that very ill prisoners were particularly selected for extermination - then I must say that in this period in Buchenwald that is, from December, 1941, on, that such an action as this, that an SS doctor went through the hospital and picked out those to be exterminated, that did not happen in Buchenwald.
Even if I didn't visit the rooms myself, I would have heard of such a thing had it happened and I can say that they were not selected in that manner at that time. Now, before that period, there was a doctor by the name of, I believe, Eisele, of whom it was said - this took place before the period when Hoven was there - and it was said that he did select the prisoners who were to be exterminated.
Q. Was he a doctor?
A. Yes, he was a camp doctor and I believe he was the chief camp physician.
Q. Who administered the lethal doses or whatever was given to cause deaths in Room 11? Were they administered by a physician?
A. Let us assume that during this period - now, please remember this is an assumption ... Let us assume that Dr. Hoven did that. Now, who did away with these prisoners after Dr. Hoven left? For instance, that Polish Consul whom I frequently mentioned here. At that time Dr. Hoven had already left. At that time Dr. Schiedlowsky most assuredly did not do it. I summed that up this morning that the people who did this are unknown. There were other SS doctors there - other medical officers there, but if you please ....
Q. (Interrupting) I understand that you said you had no information as to what particular person administered the lethal measures - whatever they were - but do you consider that they must have been administered by a doctor?
A. I can't even say that. It was unclear to us in the camp just how this took place. There were, of course, rumors throughout the camp.
Q. What were the rumors?
A. Well, the rumors that the people were killed or the prisoners also told various stories. They always assumed that Block 50 was perhaps not there simply for purposes of vaccine production and that it was used for other purposes. A large team worked there. It is possible that some of the prisoners had chemical experiments carried out on them but, in general, these were fantasy stories, and regarding Room 11 there were tales also, as I have said. Some people accused Dr. Hoven but, as I said, who actually carried out the killings in this period when I myself was in the dissection room, and this was a time when Dr. Hoven was not in the camp, and Dr. Schiedlowsky, as chief physician, certainly did not do it.
Q. What were the other purposes for which it was reported that Block 50 was used besides the production of vaccines?
A. The only other matter that can be taken seriously was the matter of putting a corrosive on the skin, but I don't know what to think about this whole business because small wounds were unimportant and large wounds we would have known about. That was about all that was heard about Block 50, but I would like to say that we regularly visited Block 50 because the main library was there and we doctors met in the evenings and discussed matters and heard lectures. These were Dr. Hoven's orders. All physicians could, from all nations, enter Block 50 and I never heard from the doctors that they had heard anything different from the fact of this vaccine production except this one thing I mentioned.