Evening star., 1945-04-29

and ball In his hand furnished by
the Red Cross, looking up at US with
smile as we entered the room. II
asked an interpreter to find out from
the boy where he came from and
where his parents were. He was a
Polish Jew. He said his parents
had been killed. And all the rest Of
the time we were there this little
boy stood there, with the new ball In
one hand and the racquet in the
other, trying to keep saddened tears
away, occasionally brushing his eyes
with his coatsleeve. On his face
was written all the tragedy and all
the wrong that this camp stands for.
Nobody knows what to do with these
boys, or what will become Of them.
In this same building, in an apart
meut occupied by former comman-
dant, were some Of the souvenirs said
to have been collected by his wife,
whose hobby evidently was the COL
lection of tattoo marks. Human
skin bearing tattoo marks was said
to have been used as lamp shades.
There were uncovered metal frames
for lamp shades there, but the skins,
which looked like fine leather were
in table drawer. One story is that
the skin was taken from living men.
Another is that the man in charge
OF. the crematorium cut out interest,"
ing tattoo specimens for the COM
mandant'S wife. do not know. All
saw was the skin with the tattoo
marks on it.
Established in 1893.
According to Louis Lochner, the
former distinguished chief of the
Associated Press Bureau in Berlin,
the camp at Buchenwald was notori-
GUS as long ago as 1898. 1t was
established in 1888, according to an
official statement by investigators,
for political prisoners, and Mr.
Lochner told me that stories Of the
death of many people sent there
were circulating underground in
Berlin before the war.
Later on, when the war came,
munitions factories and quarry
were opened near the camp and the
prisoners used as slave labor There
apparently was a change for the
better about that time-the house
of prostitution was opened for the
prisoners and moving pictures and
other entertainment furnished. The
Germans probably wanted to keep
their slaves contented. Later on,
when the Germans overran Poland,
Russia, France and other countries.
thousands of new prisoners were
jammed into the camp, some OF
them arriving after forced marches
OF hundreds of miles, weak, i'll and
emaciated. The food was poor. con-
sisting of turnip, potato or cabbage
soup and a thick slice of bread as
daily ration. But many Of the
hundreds of inmates whom we saw
appeared to be healthy while others,
suffering from dysentery, typhus.
tuberculosis and other diseases, were
living skeletons. The guide, Satnor,
said that there were five categories
Of prisoners. which he described as
Jews. political prisoners, homo
sexuals. criminals and members Of
the religious sect which corresponds
with Jehovah's Witnesses in America,
who refused to bear arms and were
/ imprisoned and otherwise disposed
Of.
One Jew to Gentiles.
A Hamburg Jew, previously law
student, and Otto Feuer, who
said he had a brother in Syracuse
and another one in Gary, Ind, esti-
mated that there was one Jew to
FIVE Gentiles in the camp. Some OF
| the prisoners, the trustees, won
favors for themselves, he said, and
were assigned to supervisory work
within the camp. The workers IN
the factory and quarry were fed
enough to keep them working. I
asked further whether he thought
the German people, generally speak
ing, were familiar with what went
on within the camp. He said he did
not think so. He did not think even
the people of Weimar knew and he
said that anybody on the outside
who talked about the camp would be
found out and punished by the
Getapo.
A man whose name I did not
get, who said he had fought In
the Spanish war against Franco and
who may have been a German Com
munist, thought the people on the
outside did know about the condi-
tions inside the camp. He said
they could not help but know. Some
body asked him what he thought
should be done to the German peo-
Pile. He put his finger to his chest
and said: Let us handle them" He
seemed confident that ''us" would
know what to do.
Criminals as Guards.
| A French newspaperman, de-
scribed by his American colleagues
as a high-grade journalist, Chris
tian Ozanne, formerly with the
Havas Agency, was in the camp
for about l6 months. He said Ger
man criminals were often assigned
as guards inside the prison and
they and the SIS men were not
often inside the camp. In the war
factories-on which, incidentally,
the air forces did q remarkably
complete job-foremen were civilians
and they were described by Ozanne
as worst of all. In the nearby
quarry. he said, one method OF
Furnishing prisoners was to drop a
hat and order prisoner to pick
it up. When he stopped to do so,
the prisoner would be pushed OF
the cliff into the quarry.
asked Ozanne-now home In
Paris-if he thought sadism was
practiced in the camp as a policy,
or whether it was incidental to the
obviously rotten management. He
said that the prisoners did not
themselves witness executions or
torture and most of the reports Of
such things were hearsay.
Well-Fed People Of Weimar.
Whether the well-fed, comfort
able looking people of nearby Wei
mar knew what was going on in
side the prison do not know. Gen.
Eisenhower ordered parties of them
to the camp and made them bury