Friday, September 7, 1945 DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle I Was in a Death Camp By ALFRED WERNER Before the Anschluss, Dr. Werner was a newspaperman in Vienna. He spent a half year in the Concentration Camp of Dachau, Bavaria, to be released in the spring of 1939 or condition that he leave the Reich immediately. After a lengthy internment in England as "enemy alien" he managed to go to the United States where he con- tinued his career as a writer. cal ,ne of aid of iew ritll "Infamous Dachau Falls; 32,000 Freed"—when I read this head- line, I had to draw a deep breath. I almost wept with joy when I learned how the commanders of the U. S. divisions that captured the prison camp were hoisted to the shoulders of the seething, swaying crowd of liberated Rus- sians, Poles, French, Czechs and Austrians who cheered the Amer- icans in their native tongues. I myself happened to spend six dreary months at Dachau, having been one of the thousands who had been imprisoned by the Nazis in November, 1938, after a des- perate young Polish Jew, Hershel Grynszpan, has assassinated a minor German official in Paris. Needless to say, the pogroms of the "Black Thursday" had been prepared long in advance, and young Hershel's deed merely served the Nazis as a welcome pretext. .. . Before 1933 the small, neat, somewhat old-fashioned city of Dachau was a rendez-vous of painters, the Woodstock of South- ern Bavaria, for it offered the artists beautiful vistas, especially when you got a glimpse of the snow-covered Alps in the South, glittering like blue mountain peaks in a fairy-tale. But there are also swamps a few miles off the city, and the Nazis selected them as site of their "model camp" for "recalcitrant ele- ments." It will never be estab- lished how many hundreds, or even thousands of anti-Nazis, in- cluding many Jews, died while draining the grounds and con- structing the buildings, under the kind supervision of Elite Guards who "made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of serv- ice in the field," as the Pharaos dealt with the children of Israel. To write a book on Dachau, one must have the descriptive genius of a Dante, and to illus- trate it with pictures, one would have to be as great a painter as Breughel. Superficially, the camp did not look much different from an average American army camp, except that the Dachau camp was surrounded by a high wall, the top of which was covered with glass splinters and nails, by a structure of barbed wire charged with electricity, and a moat filled with swiftly streaming water. In addition, a dozen ma- chine gun towers were distrib- uted all over the camp; at night, huge search lights penetrated the grounds. It was almost imposible to escape. Once in a while we actually heard the tack-tack-tack of machine guns when a prisoner had run towards the wall, not be- cause he had thought he could elude the Nazis, but because he preferred quick death to a life of torture and shame. "How did they treat you in Dachau?" When I was there, the Nazis still refrained from sys- tematic mass murder of their prisoners, and the "Brausebad" (shower-bath) had not yet been converted into a gas chamber. But the camp commander, SS Haupt- strumfuehrer Gruenewald did not interfere when his "boys" wish& GREETINGS AND BEST WISHES TO THE JEWISH COMMUNITY FOR A HAPPY AND VICTORIOUS NEW YEAR .:411 4p, HOTEL WOLVERINE Page Five REFUGEES EXHIBIT ARTS AND SKILLS AT FORT ONTARIO Viewing examples of the skills of the residents at the recent Arts and Crafts Exhibit of the Emerg ency Refugee Shelter at Fort Ontario, Oswego, N. Y. Ma- terials for use in the art classes are supplied by NRS. Other exhibits come from the workshops of the Voca- tional Training Courses whose instructors are provided jointly by the National Refugee Service and ORT. From left to right: Joseph Silverstein, newly elected chairman of the Coordinating Committee for Fort Ontario; Edwin Rosinberg, First Vice-President Of NRS; and Alexander S. Holstein, Vice-Chairman of the Coordinating Committee. to have some "fun" with the pri- and the Steel Helmet organiza- signed to Jews—and Gypsies! soners. If the "fun" resulted in tion) wore green somewhat warm- Nevertheless, the Nazis failed to the death of a few "Untermen- er winter clothes, "decorated" create a kind of superiority com- schen," so what! Quite a few with a red triangle. We received plex among the "Aryan" prison- Jews already had perished during only half of their bread ration— ers who, in general, behaved most or immediately after our jour- and bread was the staple food. A decently at the rare occasions we ney to Dachau which we made in number of particularly disgust- got in touch with them. pitch-dark, hermetically closed ing and humiliating "jobs" like We Jews were of various ages. freight cars. Crowded together cleaning the camp grounds from There was among us an eighty- like herrings, we had, for twenty- all kinds of dirt was chiefly as- (Continued on page 12) four hours, neither food nor water; we had to answer the calls of nature on the spot. A few of us were beaten to death by the We Greet Our Friends and Wish guards, others collapsed, and others went crazy. All of Them a Happy, Victorious, At the camp, Gentile prisoners were in charge of the Jewish bar- racks, each comprising 700-800 and Peaceful New Year - - men, a number which was gradu- ally decreased through death and release. These trustees, political prisoners who, in general, sym- pathized with us and treated us as humanely as possible, had to see to it that we kept our "homes" painstakingly clean and that we adhered to all strict camp rules. In general. Jews and Gen- tiles were forbidden to mix. We Jews were housed in a separate section of the camp, we wore a Star of David (a red triangle topped by a yellow one) on the right breast above the prisoner's number. We were given only the thin blue and white striped sum- LE SHONO TOVO mer garb which we wore even TIKOSEVU when the temperature was below zero, while the Political Prisoners (Communists, Social Democrats, MAY THE ENTIRE HOUSE OF ISRAEL BE BLESSED WITH members of the Catholic Party HERCULES MACHINE TOOL DIE, INC. DETROIT Witherell and Elizabeth Detroit 1945 5706 BUY MORE WAR BONDS GOOD FORTUNE, PEACE AND CONTENTMENT, AND A MEASURABLE SUCCESS IN THIS NEW YEAR BE ROSH HASHONAH GREETINGS And Best Wishes To All • IRVING'S, Inc. 1530 A Happy New Year to All FRIENDS AND DETROIT JEWRY. Coolidge Auto Glass Co. • 2690 W. DAVISON MR. and MRS. JOSEPH FRENKEL and FAMILY Bring the Boys Home Sooner By Buying More Bonds 1655 BOSTON BOULEVARD A JOYOUS NEW YEAR TO ALL WASHINGTON BLVD. FISHER'S WALL PAPER E PAINTS ROSH HASHONAH GREETINGS! Upon this momentous occasion in the lives of the Jewish people we extend best wishes for a holiday replete with peace, happiness and contentment JANET'S "A TYler 4.9296 a .44 V oN eo kfr ..\, 41.4,Vv 9021 TWELFTH STREET Neu Clairmount GRANTED TO OUR MANY RELATIVES, 5840 WOODWARD AVE. TRINITY 1.4500 S 000***0000-004>0 004:10004X)