Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1918-05-30
TORTURES Barred
BY A PRISONER
GERMANS HANGED HIM BY ARMS
FROM WHIPPING POST
Russian Reveals More Forms of Treat.
ment Praeticed on Those Cap
tured by kaiser's Troops.

Germans in torturing their prisoners
have been revealed to the United
States government. The latest chapter
of the crimes practiced in the prison
camps was revealed by a Russian who
had been prisoner.
Finally escaping from the prison
camp, he travelled twelve days until he
came to an electrically charged wire
fencing about the stockade which bar
red the prisoners from the rest of the
world. A terrific storm occurred that
night and drove the guards to shelter.
With a long knife he had procured,
he dug his way under the fence and
escaped.
So short was the food allowance, he
declared that the prisoners who were
forced to work, were reduced to sick
ness and many became too weak
to walk.
The prisoners allowance of bread
was one loaf of two and one-half
pounds a day for four men. Turnip
soup was the only other thing they
got to eat. Occasionally there was
meat in it from some injured horse
that had been killed. A labor bat
talon of prisoners had originally con-
sisted of 1900 men, but the processes
of starvation, accidents, exposure, un-
merciful beatings, and death have re-
duced it to about 500. The same pro-
cess Of disintegration was going on
in all the battalions.
Those men who cheated the grave
yard were either distributed among
other battalions, sent to hospitals be-
hind the front, or were assigned to in
valid commands. They were total ply
steal wrecks, and barely hung on to
life. Some of them had broken arms
or legs and fingerless hands-in a
word, men with every injury and de-
for1nity the human frame can endure
and still hold life.
The sick, the injured, and those ut
terly worn out and unfit are never
sent back to Germany to their original
camps, but are kept behind the front
there to die. The officials are afraid
of the effect on their own people OF
the horrible sight these men present.
They are like men who stalk out of
their graves, animated skeletons,
bones covered with skin, cheeks with
out flesh, deeply sunken eyes.
The informant was a sergeant and
resisted to the end all German at
tempts to compel him to work. He
said he was given the choice to work
or to be starved to death. He accept
ed the latter. For six days he was
stood at attention in an open field
from 6 a. m. till noon. After eating
his soup at noon he and thirty other
noncommissioned officers were lock-
ed up in wet cellar until morning.
This went of for six days.
They were then told that three of
the thirty of them would be picked
out by lot and would be shot unless
they consented to work. They were
led out.
The informant and ten others per
sisted in their refusal and begged the
officer to have them shot. They were
led to one side, their arms were twist
ed behind their backs, wrists were
tied with a rope and they were then
led each to post and backed against
it; wooden blocks were brought on
which they were made to stand while
their hands were tied to the post as
high as possible.
The blocks were then kicked out
from under them and they were left
suspended by their wrists with their
feet off the ground, the upper part of
their body taking dropping position.
They remained thus suspended two
hours. The next day the process was
repeated. Hanging of the victims con-
tinued and was followed by beatings
with rifle butts then followed four
seriousness left them.
Altogether he hung twelve hours on
that post German soldiers standing in
the vicinity cursed their commandant
for the Wanton cruelty.
He Was finally liberated and was
sent to work along with others. He
was given a shovel and threw it away.
This won't on for five days after which
he was sent to another barrack and
was left alone. The cook there en-
listed his services and he worked in
the kitchen. He stated that there were
ten other noncommissioned officers
who similarly resisted all German eff
forts to compel them to work.
Then party Of thirty, five of whom
were sergeants, came to his battalion.
Twenty Of them consented to work,
others refused. They were made to
stand immovable from a. m. to noon
when soup was given them and then
the standing continued to 10 p. m.
This continued eight days. The COM
mandant told them they would stand
until they were dead unless they con
scented to work. The mems legs be-
came so swoolen that they could
neither stand nor move and they were
removed somewhere.
Death often visited the prisoners
barracks during the night and brought
relief to some unfortunate. /