Evening star., 1948-12-08
BY Crosby S. Noyes

| mere cannot verify the young man S
claim, because DR.. Paul Heller. "a,
formerly of Prague, Czechoslovakia,
never was formally classified as a
DIP by the American Military Gov
ernment in Germany. When he was
liberated from the Buchenwald con-
centration camp in 1945 he still
could have gone home to Prague.
Lapse of Six Years.
If he had gone home then he
would have been returning to a
place he had not seen for six years
since the early morning of day
in the spring of 1899, when the
Nazi guard arrived at his family's
home to place him under arrest.
"Of course I knew why they came
for me-" he says. When I was a
medical student at the German
university in Prague the place was
full of young Nazis. They got to
know me very we'll as member of
student organizations which op-
posed them. Incidentally, we op-
posed the Communists, too"
From that day until the 9Th
Armored Division of the 3rd Army
smashed its way into Buchenwald in
April, 1945, young DR.. Paul Heller
was number in German concen-
tration camp.
Perhaps. as he sat in the court
room yesterday and listened to the
woman talking about the apprecia-
ton of freedom, Dr. Heller may
have remembered something of those
years. Possibly he did not. Because
he has found the most important
thing to a man who has lived in
concentration camp is to forget.
1t was not with enthusiasm that
he spoke of those years to a re-
porter yesterday. .ss,,,sss s.sssS..
Healthier to Forget.
What happened there lis a story
that has been told by many people.
No one has told it all. Maybe 1t
cannot all be told. 1t is better and
much healthier to forget"
When he speaks of Isle Koch,
the wife of the commandant of
Buchenwald whose life sentence re-
Gently was commuted to four years,
it is with something approaching a
scientific detachment.
1T was not so much the beating
of prisoners herself that was dan
gerous," he said "She seemed to
get a certain satisfaction also. out
of melting the guards to brutality
equal to her own. They were strong
er than she and could better beat
man to a point just short of
death"
Like all the prisoners there, DR..
Heller received his share OF brutal
tity. But all I have to show for it
! is a couple of false teeth. 1t was
mere luck"
It was while he was at Buchen-
valid that DR.. Heller learned that
his mother had been killed-gassed
| in concentration camp somewhere
in Germany. She was partly Jew
ish, DR.. Heller explained. Early in
1943 he was told he was being
transferred from Buchenwald to
Auchwitz, some 500 miles to the
east. There was a gas chamber
! there, too.
Death Day Passes.
"When we arrived" he said. I'VE
knew that we were supposed to be
killed the same day. But we got
there on Sunday. The SIS SER
geant was very drunk and no one
else seemed to pay any attention
to us. About so of us were sent
that day to barracks in the camp,
and after that nothing was done" "
In the spring of 1945 the Russians
started an offensive which neared
the Eastern German frontier. DR..
Heller and the other prisoners at
the camp were marched back to
Buchenwald. For 500 miles, often
without food and water, in the cold
and with inadequate shoes and
clothing, the men walked. It was
death march for many of them.
Three months later, it was all
over. Liberated from the horror
camp, DR.. Heller decided to come
to the United States, which he did
in April, 1916, as an immigrant via
England. When he arrived here he
married a girl he had known in
Prague before the war, who had
come to the United States in 1888
and had become a naturalized citi-
zen.
They moved to Washington last
July and now live at 1902 Third
street Sc. Their first son, Thomas
Allen, has been born since then
DR.. Heller is practicing medicine
at the Group Health Association
1928 I street NV.
Before Judges Bench.
The woman wound up her speech
in court yesterday advising her lis
teners to read carefully the pamphlet
put out by the OAR which would
instruct them in their duties ano
obligations as citizens:
THE more we learn" she tolo
them, "the more we realize that
the advantages and decencies-the
good life-did not just happen, but
came down to us from our pioneer
patriots and tHAir successors who
dared to be free and who came here
to escape old world ideologies."
DR.. Paul Heller came quietly for.
ward when the clerk called hi'
name. He stood still before the
American flag in front of the judges
e bench. The man from the immigra.
ton service looked up.
= Paul Heller, from Czechoslovakia
, vo1ir LJo,,orD ko cold