Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-09-08

paper III A@utOtNh. iiiS iioiiSb
/ believe was SollmitZ.
His voice was high, almost
like that of a woman. One
night, when the Command for
Special Purposes invaded his
cell, he yelled:
Protest! Protest."
A trooper cried triumph
antly:
Listen TO the Jew. The
Jew complains
BEATEN TO DEATH
The Death Head guards as
sembled in this mans cell.
SollmitZ was beaten to death.
1t lasted until dawn. when a
guard banged against the cell
doors of other prisoners,
shouting:
Extra! Extra! VIII jemand
einen krepierten Juden
seben:"
The days dragged on. The
future stared at you with
gray, implacable hostility.
You lay awake. You stared
and stared and searched for a
way out. You stared and
searched, and pain and fear
and hatred were your con-
slant companions.
Sometime in the middle of
February l was transferred TO
the infirmary. / prayed and
begged for death, but death
would not come. The bed
was clean, and the food
plentiful-white bread, milk,
eggs.
Elite Guards sat silently be-
tween the beds to see to il
that no prisoner could speak
to another. The grizZled doc
tor, whose face was disfigured
by saber scars, did not permit
the Gestapo TO enter his
wards. On the same corridor.
already for weeks in a water
bed. lay Edgar Andree. The
Elite Guards made bets from
day to day as to whether
Comrade Andree would live
or die. They showed an I'M
disguised admiration for his
fortitude.
The prisoners in the in
Urinary were men whom the
Gestapo considered too val
liable to let them die without
the propagandistic show of a
high treason trial.
On the ninth day I was dis
charged from the infirmary.
l still felt dull pain in the
right side Of my head. My
ear had been smashed; I was
half deaf. My kidneys were
damaged. I had received an
abdominal injury that was be-
yond repair. Before left the
infirmary, the doctor shook
my hand.
"WelI, my boy, times have
changed" he said.
TAKEN TO TRAIN
A Gestapo agent escorted
me to the railway station.
We rode in an open car. The
sights and sounds of traffic,
the shop windows. the people
in the streets they all
seemed to belong TO a far
away world. They sailed over
my line of vision like marion
cites in a distant and unin-
teresting show.
Only the outstretched arm
of girl wiping the pane of a
window fixed itself indelibly
into my mind; small, firm
hand, and a half-bared arm
moving swiftly over the
smooth surface. Long after
il had disappeared. I still saw
it move in front of my eyes.
"Where are we going to-"
I asked the Gestapo man.
ITO Berlin"
We had third-class COM
partment to ourselves. My
guard was a man Of 28, with
a long head. a narrow face
and a whip-like body.
I'VE have respect for fell
lows who don't cringe." he
told me. after the train had
pulled out of Ham burg
Hamptbahnhof. But 1t Is our
duty to break them. make
them harmless once and for
all. In the interest Of the New
Germany"
In the course Of the Jour-
ney, he told me his life story.
and ] smoked his cigarets. He
had been the son Of a gym
nasium teacher and became
a member of the NaZi Party
when he studied chemistry at
the University Of Hamburg.
lie had to give up his studies
for the lack Of money and be-
came ditch digger for the
government relief organiza-
tion-the Wohlfahrt.
OFTEN MANHANDLED