The Wilmington morning star., 1945-03-22

MIA, was the meQ1cal officer IN
charge. He watched as the last of
the prisoners filed out of the grim
red brick building, and his voice,
as he spoke, was not quite steady.
For three days, with almost no
sleep, he had seen the results of
unspeakable Gestapo cruelties.
Working with him were Captain
James G, Vanoot of Richmond,
Virginia, and Corporal Abraham
]. Levy of Los Angeles.
Typhus had begun to spread in
the prison, and one of the first
duties of the detachment was to
try to check it. Fortunately, they
had an ample supply of DOT
powder, one of the wars great
constructive discoveries, which
kills insects almost instantly and
yet does no harm to humans. AS
they sprayed the prisoners with
the white, odorless powder, they
said you could hear lice falling
onto the papers spread on the
floor. That may have been a slight
exaggeration, but only slight.
The Americans who cleaned out
the prison found whips with knot
ted thongs that had been used to
beat prisoners. They found hand
cuffs fastened to a wall from
which victims had been suspend
ed. On a straw mattress in one
cell, they found the imprints of a
body-head, torso, arms and legs
in blood. Apparently, this was
where some man or woman had
died after a beating.
At Gestapo headquarters in the
heart of Cologne, not far from the
cathedral, they found other in
struments of torture and the re-
mains of a gallows where hang
ings took place. When / visited
this building four days after the
occupation, the bodies of some
prisoners were still in the cells,
where they had been trapped in
debris during the bombing and
Smelling of the city.
While one American deta chment
was cleaning out the prison, an
other was preparing a camp on
the outskirts of Cologne for dis
placed persons" which is the
term applied to all Allied citizens
inside Germany. The only avail
able place was concentration
camp, around which were bar
racks where slave laborers had
been housed.
Here, on the fifth day after the
occupation, the Americans were
segregating various nationalities.
Among $50 persons already in the
camp, there were nine different
nationalities. This is a small ex-
ample of the tremendous job of
unscrambling which must be done
as result of the deliberate Nazi
policy of confusing nationalities
within the Reich.
One of the largest national
groups was Russian, with young
women predominating. They were
mostly in their early twenties,
and what impressed you at once
was their remarkable vitality and
cheerfulness. One had a guitar,
and they did four-part singing in
voices which were sweet and
clear.
Their favorite song was one thew
themselves had made up in the
course of their long, enforced
wandering from the Ukraine.
where most of them had been
seized by the Germans for forced
labor. The song was about Stain.
We asked, through an inter-
prefer, what they thought of Stain.
Almost as one, they repeated sew
eral times, Father Stain, Father
Stain" Their faces, as they said
this magic phrase, were wreathed
with smiles. Asked how life in
Russia would be after the war.
they said Father Stain would see
to it that there was plenty for
everyone.
The Polish barracks were far
less cheerful. Here were a mother,
father and four daughters, all of
whom had worked for a German
farmer since their enslavement.
A son had been carried off across
the Rhine by the Germans when
they fled.
talked with a 23-year-old
Dutchman, Hans Muder-Smid,
who was seized in Amsterdam two
years ago when he refused to
work for the Germans. He said
he had collapsed with typhus
Observation-Disclosures