Evening star., 1949-08-14
Soviet Zone
.PoliceHard
.OnGern1ans
Prisoners
Confined to Camps
used by Nazis
By Flora Lewis

WV
BERLIN. - Estimates Of the
numbers of political prisoners and
internees held in the Soviet zone
of Germany vary from 10000 to
200 900. 1t is certain that up
wards of $4,000 Germans are at
present confined in former Nazi
concentration camps which were
put back into full-scale operation
very shortly after the conquering
Russian troops forced open their
gates. Many more are held In
prisons, Interrogation cellars"
and other places of detention.
Reports on police terror in East
ern Germany come for the most
part from people who have either
escaped or been released from
camps and prisons and have fled
the zone rather than risk REIN
generation at some future date.
1t is impossible to obtain truly
accurate gauge from these people
of just how far the population OF
Soviet Germany is gripped by fear
of informers, torture, forced Ia
Dor and imprisonment which
often leads to death by starva-
ton. Carefully sifted information
has, however, shown that there is
plenty to fear and that. on the
whole, force and the threat of
force has been the major instru-
ment of Russian policy in Eastern
Germany.
The Russian secret police has
an active hand in the camp and
prison system. but lately increased
control has been turned over to
German Communists.
Ex.Nazis Are Informers
The German political police
force in the Soviet zone is small,
but it is reinforce. by a paramil-
itary organization of about 5000
to 10000, by the so-called "Volks-
polizei peoples Police Of 10000
to 10000, and by a corps of Soviet
agents, whose number cannot be
ascertained. They work through
an enormous network of spies and
informers, some of them os-
tensibly officials of the Socialist
Unity Party or of the provincial
administrations, many more OF
them part-time informers who re-
port on their neighbors out OF
greed or because they have been
intimidated. It is impossible to
know just how many OF these
informers actually operate for the
Russians, but Germans in the
Soviet zone are sufficiently aware
of their. existence to be constant
lily careful. ri
I A. list of 300 in the province OF
/ Brandenburg recently fell into
West German hands and was pub
lished in West Berlin newspapers
as warning. The American
radio in Berlin has also broadcast
names and addresses Of known
agents. Information trickling
back from the East has disclosed
that in the town of Koethen an
actress was hooted off the stage
and a pharmacist forced to close
his shop because their traffic with
the Soviet military government
had been unmasked.
Many of these spies are re-
cruited from among minor ex-
Nazis, black marketeers and 9TH
ers who can be blackmailed into
serving as informers. Sometimes
they flee to Western Berlin after
having been summoned to police
headquarters. AS often as not.
they have to return eastward since
nothing can be done for them in
the West. Only those in real dan
ger are encouraged to remain,
since the figure of refugees is al
ready so high. Among these are
many who have been released
from concentration camps.
Camps Eisted
They have revealed that there
are still two types of German
prisoner in these camps-in-
ternees, that is people who were
picked up in the year or SO after
the end of the war on suspicion
of having had some part in the
Nazi regime or of having improper
contacts with the West, and pris-
oners, people who were arrested
and sentenced with or without
trial. Some ex-internees claim
that the only reason for their con-
finement was that they had been
released by American troops from
Nazi concentration camps and
therefore tainted with the dread
mark of possible espionage.
Two well-knoWn Nazi horror
camps are among the sites which
the Russians have taken over to
house these people. They are
Buchenwald and SachSenhausen,
and the tales brought out by re-
leased internees are stories OF
starvation and inhumanity which
differ primarily from Nazi prac-
tices by their apparent lack Of
purposeful sadism but which have
approximately the same results.
Other known camps are Baut-
zen, secret police prison which
was formerly a German peniten-
tiary; Torgau, an old Saxon fort
ress housing $500 to 1000 prjs-
oners; Michalkin, a newly built
prison for forced laborers in Sax
ony, which already holds 5000
Facilities for another 3,000-4, 900
are being constructed; Neu Bran
denburg, a transit camp for peo-
pie Of Russian or Baltic origin
on the way to deportation, and
Hohenschonhausen, q former fac
tory which has been transformed
into a police-operated prison for
the most important cases.
A collection of 1000 case his
tories on internees and prisoners
has shown that over so per cent
died, mostly of starvation but