Evening star., 1945-05-13


sense of satisfaction that our Es&zzzSl
people, as Nation, had played Rodu
their part in stamping out
thing so vile, so monstrous, SO
vicious, that even among those who were
closer to it than ever we were, its full
implications overwhelmed imagination.
The concentration camps were merely
one vagary of Naziism Founded by their
architects as an instrument for the eX-
termination of all opposition to the
theory of the master race, fateful
irony preserved them as a terrible in
dictment of that theory. To the soldiers
who liberated them and to the civilians
who followed behind to see what had
been uncovered, the camps shed new
light on the ultimate horror of human
depravity.
Bartered Souls for Fuehrer.
The victims were not merely the men
and women who were prisoners in the
camps, their comrades who were de-
stroyed in the efficient gas chambers
and execution rooms, or those who were
spared briefly after liberation as living
testimony of indecent death. The larger
victims are the people of Germany-the
people whose initial surrender of their
individual liberties to an all-powerful
state, whose barter of their souls as civ
ilized human beings for worship of
fuehrer god, made possible the things
of which the concentration camps were
symbols.
1t is a question as to the extent of
knowledge, among the ordinary run of
German people, about the details and
the operation of the concentration
camps. The party of ewspapermen, of
whom was one, which toured parts of
Germany on a delayed inspection of
these camps, talked with many German
civilians in an effort to find out. They
exhibited semblance of shocked sur
prise at what they had heard over the
radio about conditions exposed by hber-
alton. Such protestations naturally
were taken with grain of salt. To at
least one who heard them they were
not as indicative of the state of mind
of these people as was the accompany
41lS CAAA1bAeioAl VI q oSA v VA o6JSSo 4oeo4~
isn-an expressive shrug of the shoul-
ders, willingness to accept accounts of
the camps as unquestioned fact, 80
what?" attitude which seemed as definite
an attribute of slavery as the barbed
wire and sentinel towers which impris-
oned the inmates of the concentration
camps.
hot Il L@,, Ma
seemed to sum up an attitude indica-
tive of loss of individual responsibility,
passive acceptance of the status of
slave, belying in every word and gesture
the vaunted pride of member of the
master race.
Example of Fatalism.
Some of the people we talked to stand
out in memory
There was DR.. Franz Salzer, chief
laboratorician of the once great Schal-
ven synthetic oil plant at Gelsenkirchen.
in the Ruhr. There he stood among the
ruins of what once was marvel of Ger
man efficiency, factory annually pro-
ducing 350,000 tons of aviation gasoline
and fuel oil from coal. The ruins were
now temporary monument to the de-
structive force of air power, the great
retorts and pipes and furnaces and tanks
mass of grotesquely bent and shat
tered steel.
Newspapermen surrounded him, ask
ing him about the bombings. The plant,
he said, was first bombed in June, 1914.
- - I,,-s I, @l,o
strike. But hard work and ability put
it together, and just as it was about to
go into operation the air forces struck
again. How did the air people know it
was time to hit? An aviator suggested
aerial photographs No, DR.. Salzer said,
it was spies. Aerial photography, the
aviator protested, would show the pic
ture. But it would not show when we
had a conference said the doctor.
And two days after we conferred on
opening the plant, the bombers would
come again" Were you Nazi? he was
asked. A member of the party, yes, but
not Nazi, said the doctor. What do
you think of Hitler's death? And how,
asked the doctor, would he know about
that? The camps? He had heard of
such things, but they were not his
| business. The plant? 1t might be
built again for limited operation within
three months. What is going to happen
to Germany? eve will work-work now
for the Americans and the British"
said the doctor.
| And there was Edward Houdirment,
general director of the mighty Krupp
plant at Essen-the plant that made up
almost all of Essen. He, too stood among
ruins, acres and acres of the ruins of a
plant that had employed 10000 workers,
some 10000 of whom were Russians,
Poles, French slave labor. Beside
Houdirment stood two soldiers with
tommy guns-guarding a prospective
war criminal. We did what the gov
ernment ordered us to do, said the man
ager. Krupp did not want to make arm
ament. After the last war Krupp got
him, resident of Luxembourg, as plant
manager. He did not want a German
to be in charge.
Russians, Poles, French workers were
employed In the plant. But, said the
doctor, they were paid. They worked
| voluntarily" though they lived In
(