Evening star., 1945-05-13

executed.
The Germans seem to have followed
careful policy of destroying as many
records as possible, which later could be
used against them. But there Is evi-
dence they cannot destroy-the evidence
engraved on the memory of countless
victims of their brutal torture and un-
speakable cruelty. These victims have
been waiting for the day of judgment.
They have been compiling records with
names, places, dates and photographs.
Thousands of the inmates OF the concen-
tration camps were men Of learning,
men whose intellectual courage and
honesty accounted for their sentence to
concentration camps. Many OF them
have kept records. They will be as
sembled-and used.
Much Evidence Gathered.
A special section of supreme head
quarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces,
has been gathering evidence for months.
1 saw that part of it which is contained
in 10 volumes of typewriter pages. di-
vded geographically and indexed under
seven categories, as follows: 1 Mass
execution of hostages. CD Mass execu-
ton of resistance members or suspects
80 Mass repriSals. "a Indiscriminate
shooting and sacking of towns. 90
Routine methods of interrogating by
torture. 90 Rape. Cd Miscellaneous
Under each subtitle are many references
to pages and volumes, documented with
sworn testimony of the victims or eye
witnesses, the names of German army
organizations, names of the officers in
charge, in some cases the photographs
both of the officers and of the exhumed
victims whose torn bodies supported the
written testimony.
The tortures at st. Quentin Prison
(on the Aisne) are listed as: Passing an
electric current through the eyeballs of
prisoners; blows on the temples with a
light rod, like a ruler, causing intense
pain and brain trouble" which made
victims Irresponsible; trussing victims
by tying the arms together over the
knees, then rolling the body on the
floor while beating it; chaining hands
and feet so that victims could only eat
by putting their mouths in plate, like
animals; starvation, for such infraction
of the rules as looking out of the win
dow, not standing at attention or talk
ing too loud.
At another prison, victims were tor
tured by twisting an ear until the blood
came; by breaking teeth, or breaking
1f
cts; crushing toes by stamping on them;
smashing a mans face against the wall
while holding him by the hair: impal-
ing victim, alive, on hooks fused in
butcher shops to display carcasses), run
through the lower jaw, and beating him.
The commander of this prison was de-
scribed as a "22-year-old lieutenant,
slim, blue eyes, speaks French"
Mass Murder in Village.
And there is the appalling record,
from the few survivors, of the massacre
of the 695 men, women and children Of
the village of Oradour- sur Gland, on the
afternoon of Saturday, June 10, 1914, by
the Regiment of Der Fuehrer, Division
Das Reich.
Newspaper readers may remember the
stories filed by war correspondents
among them Thomas R. Henry of The
Star-when the events became known
later on. The troops approached the
village from all directions on that Satur-
day afternoon, driving before them the
people who were working in the fields.
In the village square the men were sep
arated from the women and their chill
dren. There was short discussion be-
tween the SIS officer in charge and the
Mayor. 1t involved hostages, and the
Mayor said that the only names of
hostages he would furnish were those
of himself and of his wife. The Ger
mans then divided the men into four
groups of As each and drove them into
four buildings. The women and chill
dren were ordered into the church. At
4 pm-zero hour-the Germans opened
fire with machine guns on the men,
aiming at the legs. AS they fell in heaps,
the guns were trained on the bodies.
Later, they were covered with straw
ana DuTIleQ.
At the same hour large box was car
ried into the church, left there by the
soldiers, who shut the doors. The box
exploded, and the substance it con-
tanned, evidently some sort of gas killed
many of the women and children. Those
who tried to escape were shot down as
they ran out of the doors. Some wom-
en-, with their babies, sought refuge in
the sacristry. The soldiers built fires
under it and machine-gunned it. Then
a pile was made of benches and wooden
church furniture, gasoline was poured
on and the church was burned. Then
the houses of the village were burned
THE SIS then got into their cars and
motored to the neighboring village OF
Nieul, where they passed the night"
A mysterious feature of this affair was
the reason for the selection of Oradour-
sur Gland for such monstrous punish
ment. Another village, Oradour-sur
Vayres, had been the scene of an en-
counter some months previously be-
tween the Germans and the Maquis
(see McKELWAY. Page C-eJ