mit Bezug zu: Kurt Wagenseil, "Bloomsbury Group"
According to British Library guidance, if the article is unsigned, copyright expires 70 years after publication. Hopefully this text, published anonymously before more than seventy years, is in the public domain. If not please mail me.
"A NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP
Somewhere in Germany, August, 1933.
[The following letter, which gives a description of life in a Nazi concentration camp, was smuggled out of Germany and posted to us from a neighbouring country. Its authors - a group of intellectuals from a large German city - naturally cannot give their names, and we have suppressed indications of their whereabouts, but the names of the camp and of the people mentioned in the report are in our possession. - EDITOR, N.S. & N.]
ABOUT thirty miles from X can be found one of those places, innumerable in the present Fascist Germany, where a savage inquisition is master: a concentration camp. Here the Nazi dictatorship has interned people of all conditions, Communists, Social-Democrats, workmen and intellectuals, who for the most part cannot have been guilty of reprehensible action under the Nazi regime, since they were interned at the very beginning of the Terror. They are there, about 1,000 of them, because of their opinions and their former political activities. The camp is centred in an old house which, having been unused for years, is now in a state of complete dilapidation. Of the prisoners, about 80 per cent. are Communists, workmen and intellectuals, and the rest Social-Democrats or people who belong to no political party. Many of the latter are absolutely harmless and have been the victims of informers; they include men over seventy years old and disabled ex-soldiers.
In each of the rooms of the building, which are about twenty feet square, are quartered twenty to twenty-five prisoners. They live on the floor, which, with a covering of filthy straw, takes the place of beds, tables and chairs. The camp is guarded by S.A.s of the ----- Regiment. The food is very badly cooked and of doubtful quality; the prisoners are obliged to eat without seats or tables and to peel the potatoes which are given to them with their fingers. Each is supplied with one tin spoon. The daily ration per prisoner is worth at the most forty or fifty pfennig. The prisoners have to sleep in rooms brilliantly lit by electricity and with all the doors wide open, constantly disturbed by the noise of the sentries and the cries of those who are being subjected to corporal punishment. They are frequently turned out of doors, so that they cannot sleep. Water for washing drips, drop by drop, from the ceilings, where the pipes have been perforated, and groups of thirty or forty struggle to catch it. The prisoners are treated with extreme brutality. The guard of S.A. is composed mainly of young men who seem with a few exceptions to be sadists. Complaints addressed to the Camp Commissioner generally produce effects contrary to those hoped for and are ferociously punished by the S.A. When a prisoner wants to ask for something or other, such as permission to wash or to relieve nature, he must stand at attention before a soldier and make a military 'about turn' after speaking to him. The same rule applies when a prisoner is spoken to by one of the guard. Each soldier insists on a different position; for one, the arms must be stretched out straight, for another they must be bent, for a third the hands must be opened, and so forth. It is impossible to satisfy them, though there are many old soldiers among the prisoners. This business often ends in blows from rubber life-preservers. The prisoners are forced to sing nationalist songs under the instruction of 'teachers' from X. 'Fatigues' are many and various carting cinders, carting coal, emptying privies, scullery work, etc.
Visits are allowed only once a fortnight and must not last more than ten minutes. On these occasions the prisoners are surrounded by S.A. During the visits it is, of course, impossible to speak of anything of importance. Orders are sometimes given to cross-examine prisoners and visitors, and this leads to the greatest abuses. Prisoners are ordered to their rooms and forbidden to stay in the corridors. A tub of water is placed in front of the door of a room. The prisoner who is being questioned in the room must stand before a table, holding up his hands. A 'commissary,' surrounded by about twenty S.A., does the questioning. When it is finished he leaves the room. The S.A. then throw the prisoner on the table and fall upon him with their life-preservers. They beat him on the loins, the back, the buttocks, etc. His cries are heard in the neighbouring rooms. After the beating the prisoner collapses into the tub of water. Then he is thrown into a cell until he recovers.
New arrivals are subjected to all sorts of teasing. First they are obliged to do exercises, during which they are thoroughly knocked about. A whole contingent of prisoners from -----, in ----- were beaten up. An ex-soldier who had lost a leg in the war suffered the same treatment as the rest. A contingent of seventy prisoners from ----- were so ill-treated that the Nazis' female cook and the wife of the S.A.M. were horrified and begged for mercy. One of them, a workman and a former Social-Democrat, who was suffering from a nervous disorder, went mad. Other prisoners saw him taken away from the camp in handcuffs, with foam on his lips. Prisoners say that some of their number, whose names they can give, had festering wounds; their shirts were soaked with blood and pus. Among many others, six names are specially mentioned. Prisoners are punished by being made to remain standing or to run for hours on end, to stand up all night, holding up one arm, and so forth. A Social-Democrat party secretary and a cashier have been chosen out for particularly brutal bullying.
Now comes the worst: all the prisoners who are released have to sign a promise that they will say nothing unfavourable about their food, their treatment, etc., and that they will take no part in 'Marxist' propaganda. Some time after their release they receive a paper form, signed by the police authorities, stating where and for how long they were interned and ordering them to pay a sum amounting to two marks a day (fourteen marks a week) for the expenses incurred in keeping them in the internment camp. The dole allowed to an unemployed family is 15 marks per week, from which two marks must be deducted for rent.
The result of this incarceration is that the prisoners go home with increased hatred for the present regime; a fact which in the near future will have grave consequences for the responsible authorities. The prisoners hold their political views more strongly than ever. An army of thousands of workmen and intellectuals is being prepared, and German Fascism will soon come to an end.
We venture to send you this account of the terrible life in one of the concentration camps of Germany and ask you to make it known to the German-speaking populations. The report is authentic and is based on the reports of many released prisoners. While leaving aside the political reasons for which these workmen and intellectuals have been imprisoned, one should surely take account of the principles of humanity. Compassion for these unhappy people impels us to ask you to make known to the civilised world what is happening in Germany. This banditry, based upon incitement to war, may well plunge the whole world once more into fire and blood. We count on your support.
Unfortunately the present state of affairs in Germany compels us to send you this communication unsigned. We offer you our anticipated thanks for your help.
A FEW INTELLECTUALS OF X".
Inhaltlich könnte der Text dem im Juli erschienenen "Braunbuch über Reichtagsbrand und Hitlerterror" nahestehen / In respect of its content, the text could be close to the "Brown Book on the Fire of the Reichstag and Hitler's Terror" published in July.
Register der Überlieferung der Übersetzungen bis 1950
Personenregister (Übersetzungen etc.)
Adressregister
Zurück zum Inhaltsverzeichnis
E-Mail: kriswagenseil [at] gmx [point] de