Evening star., 1945-08-18
Todoy's War Story
BY THOMAS r. HENRY,
Star Staff Correspondent

WITH UNITED. STATES 3RD
ARMY IN GERMANY,-Massacre
OF all prisoners in Buchenwald con-
centration camp at Weimar ap-
parently had been ordered on the
approach of American troops.
IS men intrusted with carving
out the order lost their nerve and
fled at the last moment. A few
minutes later the telephone rang
in the administration building. A
prisoner answered and pretended
to be camp official. The call was
from the police chief of Weimar.
He wanted to know if camp COM
mandant Pister had already started
the abolition of the dwellers of
the camp" as scheduled.
This story comes from q Dutch
journalist, Jack S. Hoek, who was
one Of the prisoners. Mr.. Hoek
tried to write it for me in English.
His English Is not good but the
narrative seems more poignant as
he has written 1t than If it were
expressed in the most correct Ian
guage. Following is his story:
THE liberation of the prisoners
In the Buchenwald concentration
camp was the escaping from a sure
death, for in the afternoon just a
few minutes after the Commandant
Pister and his fellows had run
away the Police President Schmidt
Of Weimar phoned. One of the
prisoners who sat with other COM
rades in the commandant buildings
picked up the phone, saying he was
service officer of the guard. Schmidt
asked II the commandant had al
ready begin with the abolition of
the dwellers of the camp.
Prisoners Called to Theater.
"On April 3 all the German pris-
oners had to come in the theater.
Oberfuehrer Pister communicated
that the Americans were on their
way into Thuringen. He said there
was supposed to be a secret radio
station in the camp which had
asked the Allies for arms for abo-
lition of all Germans in Buchen-
wald. He had received an order
from Berlin to give up the whole
camp without evacuating or to kill
the people.
THE Germans believed that the
commandant was trusting. If you
compared the commandant with the
other one Koch he was not so bad
Only those horrors happened of
which he was ordered from his
chiefs. We received more food and
the discipline was not so strong.
But the foreigners could not be-
lieve him. They suspected him.
I'm the afternoon the outside
workers were ordered to stay all in
the camp. Wednesday afternoon,
5 April, they called all Jews to be
at 5 o'clock outside the gate. All
were afraid because they believed
that 1t was the total elimination of
the camp. Nobody went outside. It
was very quiet in the camp But
happened. At o'clock all
the people had to come to the main
place. They ordered all the Jews
to come out, but many Jews stayed
In camp. The IS men looked for
them and those who were find were
thrown in an empty house, At 10
in the evening the Gestapo in Wet
mar ordered the transportation of
46 persons.
"a secret meeting of prisoners
took place and they ordered the 46
to stay and hide in the camp, and
If the IS men would find them they
would use power to save the men.
The whole next day the SIS men
looked for them but they found no.
body. We got the impression that |
hey looked not seriously. The out
side group of workers entered in
The evening. They were in miser-
able condition. They had lost about
500 men on their way to the camp.
Many Of them became neck shot.
(Mr. Hoek means that they were
executed on the way, when they
became too weak to walk, by hypo-
iermic shots of formaldahyde in
me of the blood vessels Of thu peck Il