A I repeat that on that afternoon I was in Block 11, which was situated opposite the crematorium, and if we did not see the execution itself, every shot reached our ears, and we saw the men who were condemend face to face with us, kissing one another before taking leave, going up in the stairway.
QWho were these men who were condemned?
AThe majority of them were Soviet officers, political commissars, or members of the Bolshevick party.
QI beg your pardon, but there were officers among them?
AYes.
QDid you know where they came from?
AIt was very difficult to know from what camp they came because, as a general rule, they were locked up as they arrived in camp. Either they were taken directly to prison or else to Block No. 20.
QHow did you know they were officers?
ABecause we had the possibility of communicating with them.
QDid all of them come from prisoner-of-war camps?
AProbably.
QYou din't really know?
ANo, we really didn't know. It was a question of knowing the nationality of individuals by other details.
QWith respect to the British officers and American officers and Dutch officers, about whom you have just spoken to us who were executed in the stairway of the quarry, did you know where they came from?
AThey were fliers, air corps officers. It is possible that their aircraft had been brought down. They might have parachuted and they sought clandestinely to rejoin their country.
QThen it is a fact that at Mauthausen prisoners of war were executed, officers? That was a common occurrence?
AYes, a very common occurrance.
QAre you familiar with a few collective executions of the men incarcerated in Mauthausen?
AI know multiple examples.
Q Could you cite a few?
ABesides those that I have already described, it is correct to recall the executions under a special method, of part of a convoy coming from Sachsahusen. This took place on the 17th of February 1945.
In face of the advance of the Allied armies different camps had been taken back toward Austria. A convoy of 2,500 internees left Sachsahusen. They arrived on the morning of the 17th of February at Mauthausen. There were about 1700 approximately. 800 had died from cold or had been brought down in the course of the journey.
The Mauthausen camp was at that time, if I may use this expression, really overcrowded. Therefore, from the very moment of arrival of these 1700 survivors of this convoy, Kommandant Dachmeier had 400 of them selected from among the group insisting that the sick and the old and the weak prisoners should come forward with the idea that they might be taken to the infirmary. These 400 men, who either were designated or were just simply selected were stripped entirely naked.
It was 18 degrees below zero.
For 18 hours they remained between the laundry building and the wall of the camp.
QYou saw that thing yourself, did you not? You are citing this as a direct witness?
AExactly.
QWhere were you at that time?
AI was at Mauthausen. This scene lasted, as I said, 18 hours, and when we came in or out of the camp we had before our eyes the spectacle of these unfortunate men.
QVery well. Will you please continue? You have spoken to us of the visit made by Himmler and the execution of Soviet Officers and People's Kommissars.
Did you see German personalities frequently in the camp?
AYes, but I can't give you the names.
QYou didn't know them. I must say that Himmler was somewhat special, but you did know they were eminent personalities?
AYes, I did.
QYou did know that they were important personalities who were coming there?
AIndeed we did. First of all, the visit of these personages was always surrounded by a complete staff, and they went through part of the camp in the area near to the prison and in the prison itself.
If you will allow me, I'd like to go on with my explanation of the murder of these 400 people who came from Sachshausen.
I was saying that after selecting the sick, the feeble and the older prisoners, Dachmeier, the Commander of the camp, gave orders that these men should be stripped entirely naked in a cold of 18 degrees below zero.
Several of them were immediately struck by pulmonary infection, but it seemed to the SS that it wasn't going fast enough.
Three times during the night these men were sent down to the showers, three times a half hour under freezing water.
Then they had to come back outdoors again without having wiped themselves.
In the morning when the commando went to work the corpses were strewn over the area.
Let me add that the last of them were completed with blows of an axe.
I now bring the most absolute testimony of a fact which can easily be verified.
Among the 400 men I have mentioned there was one Captain in the French cavalry, Captain Dodionne, who today is a Major in the French Ministry of War.
This man, this Captain, was among the 400.
He owed his escape to the fact that he hid amongst the corpses and thus escaped the blows of the axe.
When the corpses were taken to the crematorium he succeeded in skipping away by fleeing through the camp, not without having received a blow on the shoulder which has left an indelible scar for the rest of his life.
He was caught again. He owed his salvation to the fact that the SS found particularly pleasant that there should be a man alive running from a mass of corpses.
We took care of him. We helped him, and we brought him back to France.
QDo you know why these executions were carried out?
ABecause there were too many people in the camp; because the internees were coming from all the camps that were folding back, and they could not be processed onward at a rhythm sufficiently rapid to place them with working commandos.
The blocks were over populated.
That is the only explanation that was given.
QDo you know who gave the order to exterminate British, American, and Allied officers that you saw put to death in the quarry.
AI believe that I stated that these officers had been condemned to death by German tribunals.
Probably a few for many months prior to that were shipped to Mauthausen in order that the sentence might be carried out.
It is probable that we are here dealing with an order from Berlin.
QDid you know the conditions under which the wall was constructed?
Would you please tell us that?
AHere quite objectively I must state that the construction of the revier preceded my arrival into the camp.
QSo you are giving us indirect testimony?
AYes, indirect testimony. But all of the internees knew of it, including the SS themselves.
The revier was constructed by the first Soviet prisoners who arrived in Mauthausen.
Four thousand Soviet soldiers were massacred during the construction of these ten blocks of the revier or hospital.
The memory of that massacre remained so sharp that never at Mauthausen did anyone call the revier or hospital by any other name than by "Russian Camp."
The SS them selves called the revier the "Russian Camp."
QHow many Frenchmen were at Mauthausen?
AWe were in Mauthausen about 10,000 Frenchmen, including the Commando.
QHow many of you came back?
AThree thousand of us came back.
QThere were some Spaniards with you also.
AThe Spaniards arrived in Mauthausen in 1941 toward the end of the year.
When we left at the end of April, 1945, there were still about 1,600.
All the rest had been exterminated.
QWhere did these Spaniards come from?
AThese Spaniards came from labor companies which had been organized in 1939 and 1940 in France or were delivered by the Vichy Government to the Germans.
QIs this all you have to tell us?
AWith the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to cite another example of an atrocity which remains clearly in my memory.
This took place also during September, 1944. I am sorry if the date is not quite accurate in my memory.
What I do know is that it was on a Saturday, because on Saturday at Mauthausen all the outside commandos had to answer evening roll call inside of the camp.
That took place on Saturday night, and also there was another roll call on Sunday morning.
On that Saturday evening roll call was prlonged more than ordinarily.
Someone was missing. After a long wait and searches made in the various blocks they found a Russian, a Soviet internee, who perhaps had fallen asleep, had forgotten to answer roll call;whatever the reason we have never known, but he was not present at roll call.
Immediately the dogs and the SS went toward the unfortunate man, and before the whole of the camp--I was at the very front row, not because I had sought this, but because that is the way the arrangements were--we witnessed the fury of the dogs let loose upon this unfortunate Soviet man.
He was torn to shreds in the presence of the whole camp.
I should add that this man, in spite of the suffering, was particularly worthy and noble in his attitude.
QWhat kind of conditions weren't placed on all prisoners?
Was there any difference according to the nationality or the origin of the prisoner?
Or perhaps their racial background--would that cause any distinction to be made amongst them?
AAs a general rule the camp had a uniform regime for all nationalities, with the exception of the quarantine blocks and the annex political blocks.
The conditions under which we worked, the selection of the commandos to which we were assigned, sometimes permitted some of the guards to accentuate the harsh treatment.
As to the things that we were able to obtain, those who worked in the kitchen or in the stores or other places where supplies were available naturally had more than others.
QWhat about the Jews? How did they work? Under what conditions?
AAt Mauthausen the Jews had the hardest of the commandos. I must call attention to the fact that until December 1943 the Jews did not live more than three months in Mauthausen. There were very few of them at the end.
QWhat happened in that camp after the murder of Heydrich?
AThere is in this connection a particularly dramatic episode. Mauthausen included 3,000 Czechs, 600 of whom were intellectuals. After the murder of Heydrich the Czech colony in the camp was exterminated with the exception of 300 from the 3,000, and six intellectuals from the 600 that were in the camp.
QDid anyone speak to you of scientific experiments?
AThey were commonplace at Mauthausen, as they were in other camps. But we have testimony which I think has been recovered: the two craniums which were used as paper weights for the chief SS medical officer. These craniums came from two young Dutch Jews who had been taken from a convoy of 800 selected because they had fine teeth.
The SS doctor to make this selection had let it be believed that these two young Dutch Jews would not be exposed to the fate of their comrades on the convoy. He had said to them "Here the Jews do not live. I need two healthy, solid, strong men to make surgical experiments. You have your choice; either you will accept that these experiments be performed on you or else you will have the fate of others."
These two Jews were brought to the hospital, and they underwent, one of them, the removal of his kidney, the other the removal of his stomach. Then they were inoculated in the heart with benzin. They were decapitated, and I have told you that the two craniums had fine sets of teeth, and they could be seen until the time of the liberation on the desk of the chief doctor of the SS.
QAt the time of Himmler's visit -- I'd like to come back to that -- you are certain that you recognized Himmler and you saw him presiding over the executions.
Do you think that what was taking place in Mauthausen could be ignored, could be unknown by members of the German Government?
The visits that you knew about, were they visits by the SS, or were they simply other personalities?
AFor the first of your questions, we all knew Himmler, and if we hadn't known him everyone knew in the camp, and the SS told us, that this visit was anticipated. We were told of that a few days earlier. He was present at the beginning of the executions of these Soviet individuals. I said a little while ago that this execution lasted throughout the whole afternoon so he didn't remain until the end.
With regard to -- will you tell me your second question again?
QIs it possible that only the SS came to the camp, or was the camp visited by other personalities other than SS? Did you know the SS uniforms? The people you saw, the authorities whom you saw -- did they all wear the same identical uniform?
AThe personalities that we have seen at the camp were, generally speaking, soldiers, that is, officers. More recently, a few weeks before the liberation, we had a visit from the Gauleiter of the Oberdonau. We also had frequent visits from members of the Gestapo. But the people, that is, the Austrian population, were perfectly aware of what was going on at Mauthausen. The commandos were nearly all external commandos, commandos from the outside.
I said a little while age that I was working at Messerschmidt. The leaders were German civilians who were mobilized. In the evening they went back to their families. They knew quite well our sufferings and the conditions in which we were. They frequently saw in the shop individuals summoned from the shop to be executed, and they were witnesses of the most of the massacres that I mentioned a little while ago.
I should add that we received - I am sorry to use this expression there arrived once in Mauthausen 30 firemen from Vienna. They were locked up for having participated in some sort of labor activity. The firemen from Vienna told us that in Vienna when one wanted to frighten children they were told "If you are not a good boy I will send you to Mauthausen."
Perhaps it is a detail, but this detail is more important. One-fourth of Mauthausen was situated in the village, and every night the chimneys of the crematorium could throw their light in the sky over the whole region, and everyone knew the use to which the crematorium was put.
Another detail, the town of Mauthausen was situated five kilometers from the camp. The convoys of deportees were brought to the station of the town. The whole population could see the parade of these convoys. The whole population knew under what conditions these convoys were brought and taken to the camp.
THE PRESIDENT:Does the Soviet prosecutor wish to ask any questions?
GEN. RUDENKO:I should like to ask a few questions.
BY GEN. RUDENKO:
QCan you tell me, witness, who ordered the execution of the 50 Soviet officers?
AThe case that has been cited of the 50 officers, I know not the reasons for their condemnation or for their execution, but as a general rule, all the Soviet officers, all the Political commissars, or known members of the Bolshevist Party, were executed in Mauthausen. If a few among them succeeded in getting through it is because their identity was not known to the SS.
QYou have told us that at the execution of the 50 Russian officers, Himmler was present.
AI certify to the fact, because I have seen him with my own eyes.
QCan you give us any details about the 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war which you have mentioned?
A I could not add much to what I have said, except that these men were assassinated in their job because probably the burden placed upon them, as far as requirements were concerned, the lack of food to which they were subjected did not permit them to carry out the tasks assigned to them.
They were murdered on the spot with sticks - beatings from sticks, and sometimes just shot down by the SS or sometimes they were obliged to go to the wires, and they were brought down by the guards. I cannot give more details, since, as I said, I was not a witness, visual witness, of that scene.
QIt is quite clear. And one more question: Can you tell me in detail about the relation of the Czech colony?
AThe same reservations must be made that I voiced a moment ago. I was not in the camp at the time of the extermination of the 3,000 Czechs, but the Czech survivors with whom I had relations in 1944 were unanimous in certifying to the accuracy of this fact, and probably as far as their own country is concerned have established a list of these murders.
QIf I understood you correctly, where you were there was a right to kill people and to shoot people without any jurisdiction?
AThat is exactly a fact. The life of a man at Mauthausen counted for absolutely nothing.
GEN. RUDENKO:Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT:Does any member of the Defendants Counsel wish to ask any questions of this witness? Then the witness may retire. Wait a minute: one moment. BY THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle):
QDo you know how many guards there were at the camp?
AThe guard was varied in number, but there was, as a general rule, 1,200 SS and also soldiers of the Volkssturm. However, it should be stated that only 50 to 60 SS were authorized to come inside the camp.
QSixty SS men? Were they SS men that were authorized to go into the camp?
AYes, they were.
QAll SS men?
A All of them were SS.
THE PRESIDENT:Then the witness can retire.
M. DUBOST:With your permission, we shall proceed with the presentation of our case on German atrocities in the western countries of Europe from 1939 to 1945 by introducing in regard to this testimony all of the details which prove common law crimes. This general idea on which we are going to base our whole thesis of terrorism by Germany was conceived as a means of exercising government over all the people who had been subjected to German domination.
We shall remember the testimony which was brought before you by the French witness, according to which, in Vienna, when one wishes to frighten a child one says to them something about Mauthausen.
The people who were arrested in the western countries were therefore deported to Germany, where they were placed in camps -- locked in camps or in prison.
With regard to the prisons, the information that we have concerning them has been taken from the official report of the Ministry of Prisoners of War, which we have already given, and which is this bound volume which was placed in your hands this morning. You will find therein, specifically on page 35 and page 36, down to page 42, a detailed statement as to what the prisons were like in Germany.
THE PRESIDENT: 174?
MR. DUBOST:I beg your pardon. It was 274, on page 35. The Tribunal may read that the prison of Cologne where numerous Frenchmen were interned, was placed between the freight station and the main station, so that the Prosecutor in Cologne wrote in a report, which is used by the Ministry of Deportees and Prisoners of War in the book which is before us, that the location of that prison is so dangerous that one could not instal a factory in that area; the internees could not seek shelter during the bombardment. They remained in their block, locked in even if fire developed.
The victims of bombardment in the prisons themselves were numerous. The May 1944 bombardment killed 200 victims in the prison of Alexander Platz in Berlin.
The buildings were always dirty, damp, and very small. The internees were three or four times as numerous as the facilities permitted in Aix-laChapelle. In Munster the women who were there in November 1943 lived underground without any air. In Frankfurt the internees had sort of iron cages, two metros by one fifty metres for cells. Any hygiene was impossible. At Aix-La-Chapelle, as in many other prisons, the internees had only one bucket in the middle of the room, and it was forbidden to empty it during the day.
The food ration was extremely limited. As a general rule, ersatz coffee in the morning with a thin slice of bread; a soup at noon; a thin slice of bread at night with a little margarine or sausage or marmalade.
The internees were exposed to extremely heavy labor. Whatever the work that was carried out, the duration required, the day's labor, was about twelve hours.
At Cologne, specifically, from 7 o'clock in the morning to 9 O'clock or 10 o'clock in the evening, that is to say, 14 or 15 consecutive hours. This is still from the file of the Public Prosecutor of Cologne, Document No. 87 of the Ministry of Prisoners. There was a shoe factory. Most of the workers were Frenchmen who had refused firmly to work in war industry; for example, the fabrication of gas masks, sliding guns for shells, radio or telephone apparatus intended for the Army. In such cases Berlin gave orders to send the recalcitrants to reprisal camps. For example, the shipment of women from Kottbus to Ravensbruck on 13 November 1944. The Geneva Convention was, of course, not applied.
The political internees frequently had to retrieve unexploded bombs. This is a German official text from the Public Prosecutor of Cologne.
There was practically no medical supervision. There was no prophylactic measure taken in these places in the event of epidemics, or else the SS doctor knowingly and willingly gave the wrong kind of medicine to the patients.
At the prison of Dietz on Lahn, under the direction of Director Gammradt, who was a former major in the German Army, the SS or SA guards fought the internees savagely. Dysentry, diphtheria, pulmonary lesions, pleurisy, were not any reason for stoppage of work, and those who were gravely ill were forced to work until the very limit of their strength, and they were only admitted in the hospital as an exception.
In Aix-La-Chapelle the presence of a Jewish internee in the cell caused the other internees to lose half of their ration. You had to go to toilets on order. At Magdebourg any recalcitrants had to make one hundred genuflexions before the guards. The interrogations were carried out in the same manner as in France, that is, with brutality and also were a complete farce.
At Asperg the doctor had innoculated the heart of an internee which caused death.
At Cologne there was a worker condemned to death who was perpetually in chains. At Sonnenburg those who were dying were put away by the absorption of greenish liquor. In Hamburg six Jews were forced to dig their own graves until exhausted, and they fell within the grave. We are speaking of Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Luxembourgers and Danes interned in German prisons. These methods were only applied on citizens of these countries in the Prison of Boers in Berlin, and at which place Jewish babies were massacred under the eyes of their mothers. The number of sterilizations of men is confirmed by German documents in the file of the prosecutor of Cologne. He had foreseen the victims could not be sent back and re-interned in their military territories. These files include documents which show the role played by children who were in prison. They had to work inside the camp, and the German functionary of the penitentiary service required instructions as to the decision to be taken with regard to Baby Fairwell, which was brought to the prison at the same time as that of the father and mother. That was the surveillance personnel, page 39, last paragraph. They were recruited amongst the NSKK and the SA because of their political views. They were above any suspicion and applicability to a harsh discipline. This is also from the public prosecutor at Cologne.
This is at Rheinbach. Those who were condemned and who were intended to be executed in Cologne were left for dead, as the result of blows which were inflicted upon them by the guards as a result of the above-mentioned discipline, and we can easily imagine the brutality of the men who were in charge of the internees. As a result of the executions, the German official text will furnish what comprises these executions in detail; those who were condemned were executed with brutality. Nearly all the condemned were surprised, say the German documents which we are analysing for you as charged; that they didn't like accusations and not charged for acts of patriotism. They were declared internees and they thought they deserved to be treated as soldiers.
Of those who were executed in Cologne, there was some children eighteen and nineteen years of age, and one woman. There were some French women who were political internees were selected from the Lubeck Jail to be executed in Hamburg, but the grounds of all accusations were almost a new identical. The files are incomplete, but we do believe that the prosecutor of Cologne, in any event, that the offenses committed were of militaristic nature, rendered to the assistance of the enemy, and all deals were systematically rejected, and they were rejected by some actions.
However, in the many times available, the condition of the people held in prison were still less cruel by far than those who had the misfortune of being sent to a concentration camp. These concentration camps the Tribunal are already familiar with them, my colleague from the United Nation having already submitted to you a long explanation of this problem, and, then the Tribunal will remember that they have had under their very eyes a map indicating the exact locations of every one of the camps which existed in Germany, and in the occupied countries. We shall not, therefore, return to the geographical distribution of the camps.
With permission of the Tribunal, for this evening I should like to deal with the conditions under which Frenchmen and Nationals of the Western Occupied Countries were taken to those camps. At the time of the deportment of internees who were the victims of arbitrary arrest, such as those that I have already described to you this morning, were brought together in France in prisons, or in assembly camps.
The main assembly camp in France was at Compiegne. It is there that most of the deportees would be shipped, and from there away to Germany. There are still two more assembly camps, Pithiviers, specially a camp for Jews, and Drancy. The conditions under which the people were interned in those camps and were living were rather similar to those prevailing for internees in the German prisons. With your permission I shall not insist on naming them, and perhaps the Tribunal will consider as established the declaration made by Mr. Belchmall and Mr. Jacob in document No. 457, which I am now placing before you under No. 328.
THE PRESIDENT:What book is it in?
MR.DUBOST: 11th. That is in the 11th group of papers in the new file, in the new book.
THE PRESIDENT:It is the book that is described as "deportation"?
M. DUBOST:That is correct. It is entitled "Deportation" and it is the 11th document, the 11th paper in the book.
THE PRESIDENT:The index perhaps does not include that. 457 is it?
M. DUBOST: 457.
THE PRESIDENT:Yes, I got it.
M. DUBOST:To avoid lengthening and weighing down these debates with quotations of testimony, which after all are all similar, we shall limit ourselves for the present, if the Tribunal please, to the reading of passages from the testimony of Jacobs -- Madame Gilberte Jacob.
As to what was the attitude of the German Red Cross, this passage is to be found on page four at the very bottom of the French document, "We received a visit of several German and French personalities, such as Stuelpnagal, Du Paty de Clam, and Col. Bar en von Berg, vice president of the German Red Cross." This von Berg was very "protocolaire" and very spectacular. He constantly wore the small insignia of the Red Cross, which didn't prevent him being inhuman and a thief.
And on page 6, the penultimate paragraph, Colonel Von Berg was, as we have already said earlier, very spectacular.
I skip two lines, to the last three lines of the penultimate paragraph:
"In spite of his title of Vice-president of the German Red Cross, he dared to wear theinsignia when he would select, by chance, the number of our comrades who were deported."
On the assembly center of Compiegne, the Tribunal will find that, in Document F-174, pages 14 and 15, there will be some details on the fate of the internees. I don't think it is necessary to read them.
In Norway, in Holland, and in Belgium there were, as in France, assembly camps. The most characteristic of these camps is their best known, certainly the Breendonck Camp in Belgium, about which it is necessary to give a few precise details to the Tribunal because a great many Belgians were interned there and they died of privation, of hardship, torture of all sorts, and were executed either by shooting or by hanging.
This camp was established in the Fortress of Breendonck after 1940, and we are now extracting, from a document that we have already deposited under No. F-231, which is also known under UK-76, a few precise details on the conditions prevailing in that camp. It is the fourth document which appears in your new document book. It is marked F-231, and is entitled, "Report on the Camp of Concentration of Breendonck."
THE PRESIDENT:What did you say the name of the camp was?
M. DUBOST:Breendonck, B-r-e-e-n-d-o-n-c-k.
We will ask the Tribunal to be kind enough to grant us a few minutes. Our task is to present with more detail the case of this camp because of the considerable number of Belgians who were interned there and the rather special character that internements had in that camp from the month of August 1940.
THE PRESIDENT:Are you asking for an adjournment now or not?
M. DUBOST:Not at all, Mr. President. It must have been very badly translated. It must have been very poorly translated. I was, on the contrary, asking the Tribunal to grant me more time. The translation was liberal.
The Germans occupied that fort in the month of August 1940, and they brought their internees there in the month of September.
They were Jews.
The Belgian Government could not know how many people were interned from September 1940 to the month of August 1944, which was the date of the evacuation of the camp. Nevertheless, it is thought that there came through the camp of Breendonck about 3,000 to 6,000 internees. About 250 died in there from privation; 450 were shot, and 12 were hanged.
But we must take into account the fact that the majority of the prisoners in Breendonck were transferred to the camps of Germany at various times. Most of these prisoners thus transferred did not return. There should, therefore, be added to those who died in Breendonck, all those who did not survive their captivity in Germany.
The camp sheltered various categories of prisoners: Jews -- and in this connection the regime was more severe than for the others -- Communists and Marxists who were interned in rather large numbers, but these who conducted the inquiries did not give precise detail; persons who belonged to the resistance in the various countries; individuals who were denounced to the Germans; hostages, among whom -
THEPRESIDENT: (Interposing): Where are you now?
M. DUBOST:The fourth paragraph of the second page, part b on page 2.
-- hostages, among them Mr. Bouchery, former Minister, and Mr. Van Kesbeek who was a liberal deputy, who were interned there for ten weeks in order to expiate the explosion of a grenade on the main square of Malines. Both of them died after their liberation as a result of their ill treatment which they endured in that camp.
There were also in that camp some black market operators, and the Belgian Government said of them that they were not mistreated, and they were, indeed, favored. That isin paragraph (e) ofpage 2.
The prisoners were obliged to work. Collective punishments of most repugnant sorts were inflicted on them for any reasons whatever. One of such punishments consisted of forcing the internees to crawl under the beds and to stand up by command, a movement which can be executed to the accompaniment of whipping. You will find that at the top of page 3 of the first paragraph.
In the second paragraph of the same page is a description of the conditions of the prisoners interned.
They were isolated from other internees, and they were subjected to a very severe regime in their cells. They were forced to wear a hood each time they had to leave their cells or when they had to be placed in contact with other prisoners.
THE PRESIDENT: This is a long report, is it not?
M. DUBOST:That is why I am summarizing it rather than reading it, but it seems to me it is necessary not to be too brief in summary because it was given to me by the Belgian Government, and they attach a great deal of importance to the brutalities and atrocities that were committed by the Germans in the Camp of Breendonck and upon the whole of the population, and particularly the Belgians suffered.
THE PRESIDENT:Then you are summarizing it?
M. DUBOST:I am now proceeding with the summarizing of it, Mr. President.
I had reached in my summary the description of the life of the prisoners who were interned and who, at times, carried manacles and chains on their feet.
They could not leave their cells without wearing a hood.
One of these prisoners, Mr. Paquet, states that he spent eight months under such a regime, and having at one time sought to lift the hood which he were in order that he might find his way, he was hit with a gun butt violently, and that broke three vertebrae in his neck.
On the following page is discipline labor, acts of brutality, and murders.
We are told that the work of the prisoners consisted of dismantling the fort and removing the dirt from the embankments, in order to take this dirt to other areas and put it in the path around the fort.
This labor was done by hand, was very painful, dangerous, and caused the loss of a great many human lives.
Small lorries were utilized on rails. The lorries were hurled on rails by the SS and they would break the legs of the prisoners who were not warned of the fact that these lorries were approaching.
The SS made a game of this, and the moment the work stopped they would rush upon the internees and beat them very harshly.
One page further we are told that frequently without motiviation-
this is in paragraph 5, in the middle of the page--prisoners were thrown into the hollow surrounding the fort.