OCR Text |
Show TELLS OF TiTURES IETEO OUT . TO WAR PRISONERS IN GERMANY Belgian Describes How Guards, Chosen Especially for Their Brutality, Bru-tality, Beat Helpless Captives Into InsensibilityMany Are ';' Worked to Death Under Horrible Conditions Food Intentionally Is Made Revolting. i r: The exact conditions of prisoners of war in Germany are told In all their revolting particulars in abatement Issued Is-sued by the Belgian legation at Washington, Wash-ington, D. C. Introducing the subject matter, the legation statement says: "The Information comes from a Belgian Bel-gian soldier, whom , we must Here call simply D , who was taken prisoner at Narhui1 August 23, 1914. was Interned' Intern-ed' August '28 at'TMunsterlager, Hanover, Han-over, and remained there'-until the beginning be-ginning of-: January, 1917, at which time he was transferred to the camp of Soltau." The statement declares that tlie veracity ver-acity of D has been established and then gives his statement In full. Extracts from It follow: "At the beginning," says D , "the brutality of our overseers was extreme. ex-treme. The chief of the camp was a general who did not do anything. His aid-de-camp, MaJ. von Valentine, a brother of the private adviser of William Wil-liam II, used to Insult us every time he came to see us, and he excited his subordinates against us. .. ! ... , Some Tortured to Death. " ' '"His subordinates 'naturally' 'Were not tender, to begin with, and the bad treatment : they made us Tendure :was shocking. For the least lack of discipline disci-pline they .made, us. undergo the punishment pun-ishment of the-post;1 :- A -certain sergeant ser-geant major took a malignant Joy In making the sufferer get up on the box placed against the post, tying his victim vic-tim and : then removing the' box. ; The man would remain hanging. Several of -. the prisoners died . as a - result ; of this' treatment.' . "In .April,--1016, new instructions were sent to the camps. I have seen them with my own eyes. They en-Joined en-Joined upon the commanders of the camps to utilize the prisoners as much as possible and to send them to the Ttommandos' farms,'' . factories ' 'or mines as they were needed, "without distinction, even those whom the Germans Ger-mans called 'Gebijdete Teute,' . educated edu-cated people.; f : ; rv r J ,. In August, 1916, further Instructions were sent all the chiefs of detachments,' detach-ments,' or ..'kommando'. heads, connected connect-ed with the Munsterlager prison camps. These instructions declared that the prisoners did not do enough "work," and that by some, means or other the amount must be increased. . , Even the III Forced to Work. "Against - those who did not work enough proceedings should be taken as follows: "1. By not delivering mall to them ; showing It to them, but not letting them have It. "2. If this should not succeed, holding hold-ing back their parcels from home, yet letting them see the parcels. "3. By employing force, .using the butts of rifles, though without wounding wound-ing the prisoners and making them incapable in-capable of working. u4. If withholding letters and parcels, par-cels, If forcible treatment and beating them with rifle butts do not succeed, then by shooting. !'. "The consequence -of such orders, given to soldiers naturally brutal and to noncommissioned officers especially chosen for the Job, was bound to be a fresh -outburst of savage treatment. ous vapors which bring on an Irresistible Irre-sistible drowsiness. Guards Chosen for Cruelty. "At the end of a few months the laborers la-borers break out with persistent bolls and Incurable running sores, the slightest scratch often developing into a deepening wound, which grows larger and larger. The fate of the captives employed In these mines Is horrible and would excite pity even In their guards if the authorities had not been so cunning as to appoint for this office soldiers and noncommissioned officers of well-tested 'energy.' "The chief of .the' detachment Is a German noncommissioned officer whom the prisoners have nicknamed 'the Crocodile.' He Is a regular giant, hideously deformed, but' of enormous strength. His hands, elbows, shoulders, shoul-ders, knees and ankles are all out of shape. His face Is bestial and bears, like, his body, the characteristics of a criminal. Not a day passes but that he strikes the prisoners. To do this, he takes the victim to his own room, shuts and locks the door, places his watch on the . tablo--for the time of the torture, five, ten or fifteen minutes Is fixed beforehand. ,Theri he falls to with his fists, his booted feet and even sometimes a bayonet. When his victim , has - fainted ' the -'Crocodile' opens the door1 and kicks him out.. "Anyone who complains of being III Is thrown from hlsbed and beaten for,a long time with the butts of rifles by guards under the 'Crocodile's' orders. or-ders. On December 10, 191G, the Ger-mans Ger-mans treated four ; English prisoners in this way, beating them until they had lost consciousness. Then they '.carried them Into the mine, where they were left until they had dug or loaded their quota of car.loads of salt Injured Men Unattended. "This mine. Is such a hell that some of the prisoners, In-order to he let out of It have not hesitated to mutilate themselves. The Germans, fearing these acts might be .repeated, decided 'to .leave; all wounded men. without treatment for three weeks, whether their Injuries were., voluntary -or not." '.' The ; statement says that-accidents are very frequent in these mines, and that the most elementary precautions are neglected and tjvery week the local newspapers tell of some catastrophe In the mines In which 10, 20 or 30 prisoners pris-oners have been killed. , D also tells in detail of the Work the prisoners have to do In the marshes and swamps, and say that In some of the swamp "kommandos" the conditions are as' horrible as the mines, and especially mentions the Teufel-moor Teufel-moor swamp, which Is supplied from the prison camp at Hameln, in the province of Hanover. He says : . - Food Is Revolting. ; "At Teufelmoor the prisoners are fed especially with food made for them of bran, chopped straw and other substances, sub-stances, of which the nature is not known. The soup Is intentionally made of stinking material and Intentionally debilitating. Blows with the butts of rifles are dealt for no reason whatsoever. whatso-ever. They must toll without respite. Under this treatment they rapidly waste away. Some hold out for two months. Some try to find ways to kill themselves. "When a prisoner reports himself as ill nnd hi - r'-'m is disallowed the sergeant ser-geant m:'.j"i r. ndemns him ro fill a 200-galloi' with a sardine box, bringing ll v.atvr from a pump about 250 feet dl.iiut. In doing this he Is constantly wrtched by a guard, who beats him and insults him at his pleasure. pleas-ure. Another punishment very frequently fre-quently employed consists in making prisoners run at full speed around the camp with sacks full of stones on their heads. Every 60 feet the victim must stop, put down the sack In the mud, then lift it to his head again, begin be-gin to run once more, and so on, over I and over." . I "At the beginning of March, 1917, still move urjrnt instructions from Berlin iv:ue! tha camps. Without distinction' of :r,'; rank or aptitude, the prisoners v, hn were still in the j camps and occupied in various services-! clerical, postal,', express, taking ! care of the yards, barracks and kitchens kitch-ens indeed, all private soldiers, were Lto be sent to 'kommandos' and their places were to be taken by non-commissioned officers. ... Even the sick were to work according to their ! strength. . and not to -be admitted to hospitals or Infirmaries unless they were really Quite Incapable of working. When cured they were to go back to i work 'the next day." . Working Sixteen Hours a Day. i The statement then tells ' of how prisoners suffering from serious and painful diseases' were made to do the hardest kind of labor in the "kommandos", "kom-mandos", . The statement continues "The prisoners who work on farms, like those In camps, mines and factories, fac-tories, are fed on turnips,, nettles, barley gruel and Indian cornmeal almost al-most exclusively. Practically all potatoes po-tatoes have been requisitioned. The orders are that the hours of labor shall be determined by the farmers. In summer sum-mer the prisoners work 14, ; 15, and even 16 hours a day." D tells of the severe labor the prisoners have to perform in loading and unloading vessels, generally unloading un-loading Swedish ores and loading coal ; men who are suffering from disease, far gone with tuberculosis, driven to heartbreaking tasks long hours every day. Then the statement tells about conditions In the Bait mines. It says: VAn Increasing number ef prisoners are being put to work In the salt mines. The salt Is used today especially espe-cially for the manufacture of suffocating suffo-cating gases. The galleries are at depths which vary from about 630 to 2,300 fet. The heat Is so great j that the meu work absolutely naked except for wooden shot's. The sweat drips from ihelr It'tdis Tli air Is r.t fit to brentlu- f p.iison |