32
THE DETROIT JEWIS H NEWS -- Fr iday, May 5, 1961 —
Emotions Raw at Tales of Horror
(Continued from Page 1)
how 1,300 Jews were rounded
up at Sanok, Galicia, and herded
into 10 railroad cars marked
"eight horses, 40 men." He said
there were 103 persons in the
car into which he had been or-
dered. After three days and
two nights at a camp at Zaslow
without food and drink and
without sanitary facilities; he
said, the train .started again, on
its way to Belsen.
wound up suffocated with emo- 1 courtyard, and forced them to tacted typhus or pneumonia. He
played whenever Jews were
Lion.
lie on the ground, face down. was in a high fever, he said,
taken out to be shot. He added:
Bielski described his experi-
During the night, German when he was ordered to shovel "We had to sing on the way to
ences in the death camp of soldiers beat one Jew then an- sand on two Jews - already work."
Plashow. There, he said, the other. When dawn came, and placed into a grave alive, and
He disclosed that on one
"standard" punishment for not the Jews were permitted to to place a dead Jew atop the
occasion members of his bri-
walking fast enough or pos- sit up, several hundred were living. "My fever was so high,"
gade saw members of their
sessing an "illegal" piece of dead, their skulls crushed. The he testified, "that I prayed to
own families among the vic-
bread was shooting. He de- living were told to sit still, be allowed to draw my own
tims adding that "one man
scribed how Jews were sent among the dead. Without wa- blood to quench my thirst."
about 40 had to throw his two
into work battalions outside ter or food, the Jews sat there But at that moment, he
teenage daughters who were
the camp with relatively small until night fall, when the beat- stated, the SS officer in corn-
still warm into the fire."
details of guards. The reason, ings and killings were resumed. mand of the operation turned
He testified that among one
All, he said, realized they he said, was that if someone Wells described various other his back. Young Wells dropped
were on the way to a death escaped, all the remaining mem- actions against the Lwow Jews the corpse he was dragging, ran group of corpses there were 38
camp. Some of the Jews broke bers of the work battalion which, he said, were carried toward a Jewish work battalion prominent Polish scientists and
windows and leaped off the would be shot. It was this "col- out by the SS command but nearby, and hid - among the politicals whom the witness
moving train, only to be shot lective responsibility" that kept With the assistance of the workers. He feared only that, named. He said they had been
down by members of the Nazi Jews from trying to escape, he Ukrainian militia. Finally, if he was reported to have es- dressed in tuxedos and carried
Elite Guard who had mounted said.
Wells, with other Jews, was caped; other Jews would be identification indicating they had
machine guns on the roofs of
Bielski testified that the taken to a concentration camp shot. But then he found out been taken directly from some
the cars.
"minimum punishment" for at Yanowka. There, the Jews later that he had been reported social function.
The members of the brigade,
Gurfein, who was then 21, trying to bring "illegal" food were issued about a quart of dead.
The Polish born New Jersey he testified, refrained from es-
said he had been "half-pushed, into the • camp was 50 whip- water a day for drinking and
engineer told how SS guards cape attempts fearing reprisals
half urged" by his mother to lashes "if the camp commander washing.
An SS commander named forced him to search for two against the other Yanowka Camp
try to escape. He jumped, was in a good mood."
Spectators throughout the Gebauer, said Wells, examined days through nearly 200 corpses inmates but when the camp was
was shot at, but the shots
finally liquidated in November,
courtroom cried when Bielski each prisoner to see whether for his own body.
missed him. He said he \ never
described how a 15-year-old he had washed thoroughly.
saw his mother again. After
He was put to work on a 1943, they decided to make a
boy was hanged once in front Those whom Gebauer con- brigade and given the task of break for freedom.
he had leaped from the train,
of 20,000 camp inmates. The sidered "unclean" were im- destroying all evidence of the
A Polish press photographer
he made his way to Przemyzl,
boy had been "caught" hum- mersed in water tanks over- Nazi murders at the Yanowka who worked as a photographer
but found that there was not
ming a Russian tune. Bielski night, in freezing weather. By camp in June, 1943.
in the Statistics Department of
a Jew left in the town. Pos-
told how the hangman's rope morning, in each case, those
ing as a Gentile, he made his
"We spent two days look- the Lodz Ghetto administration
broke before the boy was immersed had been frozen to ing for the missing body from 1940-44, Henryk Ross, was
way across Hungary, into
Turkey, and finally reached
dead, how SS men beat the death.
which of course was mine the key witness- Wednesday on
Palestine.
boy, forced his head into
Later, Wells told the court,
since I was listed as dead," he the events in that ghetto.
the
noose
again,
and
finally
another
SS
officer,
named
told
the court.
Besides taking official photo-
Noah Zabludowitz, 42, an elec-
Wilhaus, joined the corn- , Eichmann stared at the tall graphs, Ross also clandestinely
tric worker now living in Israel, succeeded in hanging the
child.
mand. Then Wilhaus and slender scientist as he told time photographed Nazi atrocities,
took the stand after Gurfein.
"How did it happen?" asked Gebauer engaged in target and again of his incredible hiding the pictures, some of
He told how the Nazis at Chech-
anov, Poland, near the German Hausner, "that 20,000 prisoners, practice, using the noses and escapes from the efficient mur- which are now in the possession
border, once forced several Jews watching this scene, did not fingertips of Jews as their der machinery devised by the of the prosecution.
Ross described a frightful
publicly to exchange wives in try to overcome the several targets. Some of the wound- Nazis. Wells, consulting notes,
hundred guards, even though ed, he said, were shot to documented every incident in scene when the Germans
front of their children.
death; others were strangled his tale of horror.
"evacuated" the Ghetto hospi-
He related how he was ar- they were armed?"
Choking, his words barely to death by Gebauer.
He told at one time, that as tal. He said they threw chil-
rested and the Nazis tried to
dren from second floor win-
force him to reveal the names audible by that, time, Bielski Wells finally led up to his the only survivor of a family
of Jews listening to foreign replied: "Nobody can attempt own escape from Yanowka. It of 76 Polish Jews, he decided dows directly into trucks be-
broadcasts. He was beaten, sub- fully to describe, much less happened because he was one he did not want to live any low. "Some of the children
jected to tortures, but refused explain here in this courtroom, of 180 prisoners who had con- more and attempted suicide in cried," he said, "but others,
the camp. Another camp in- knowing their fate, were so
to admit he knew anything what went on in Plashow.
mate, a doctor who was also terrified they were unable
about Jews listening to the Machineguns were trained
his uncle, saved his life telling even to cry."
forbidden broadcasts. He testi- straight at the prisoners who,
him it was forbidden to commit
fled that of 6,000 Jews in his by that time, had already spent
Another witness was Dr. Jos-
suicide
"since one of us must eph Buzhminski, a Polish Jew
town, all but 80 had been sent three years in the Nazi hell.
b
We hoped that the war was
remain to bear the name of the who esca ped from the Nazis and
to Auschwitz.
family."
near its end. But even if we
whose life was saved by a non-
Another Israeli, Zvi Pachter, could have overpowered the
Through the torture - ridden Jewish Polish woman who hid
(Direct
JTA
Teletype
Wire
formerly of Hrubeshoy, Poland, guards, could we escape?"
to The Jewish News)
journey through Poland, Wells him and 12 other Jews. She is
near Lublin, related how one
_
testified
he sustained his will to now Mrs. Buzhminski, living
BONN—Police
officials
dis
Bielski
gave
the
court
the
Saturday morning in 1939, all
Jews had been rounded up by exact names of some of the closed that the words "Justice live so that he might soMetime with her husband in Tel Aviv.
The Polish doctor testified to
the Gestapo. Money and victims and some of the SS for Eichmann" were painted on somewhere tell the world what
officers
officers who committed the the walls of the West German the Nazis had done. That long watching the killing of eight
watches, and all other posses
Foreign
Office
Building
on
th e awaited opportunity was now non-Jewish Poles who hid a six-
He told of SS
-sions
were but 20 zlotys per person .
g
of A
15 and that the his.
. men "celebrating " Yom Kip- night
year-old Jewish girl. He said he
confiscated.
search for the perpetrator had
The June, 1943, assignment saw the Poles beaten to death
pur
in
1943
by
rounding
up
They were ordered to march
been a complete failure.
developed when the Nazis began by SS guards when their action
on the road to Chelm. They were 50 bearded, Orthodox Jews
Meanwhile, . a new rash of to have doubts they would win was discovered.
and
shooting
them.
The
wit-
told not to talk or to turn around,
swastika-daubings and other World War II and set out to
After he was found, he testi-
or they would be shot. One girl ness told the court: "The anti-Semitic manifestations has erase every trace of the millions
fled, he was taken with the
ran along the, line of marching author of the High Holy Day broken out in West Germany, of killings
hi
their
c
a
mps.
others to be shot. Facing the
Jews crying, "Latch, tately' (dad- prayer, who had written the in connection with the current
"We used to uncover the SS guns, he and the others tried
dy, daddy). Pachter heard some litany 'who will die by water trial of Adolf Eichmann.
graves of the Nazi killings,
shots, and the girl's cries stopped. and who by fire,' could not
From Dusseldorf it was re- take the bodies out and burn to stand in a way to be hit in
have imagined so many forms
the heart because those who
Pachter said he saw one
ported that Nazi slogans and them after picking out the
of tortuous death invented
were not killed instantly were
bearded Jew - summoned by theby
swastikas
were
smeared
on
walls
bones," Wells testified. "We buried alive with the dead.
the Nazis."
and on automobiles in the Dus-
Gestapo from the ranks, and -
grind the bones and dis- L At the very last minute,
He told of the camp corn- seldorf suburb of Wermelkir- would
saw the man's son jump in front
perse the ashes in the area.
a high ranking SS officer ar-
mand
playing
Yiddish
lullabies
then.
At
Hamburg,
27
large
of his father, yelling "take
We also had to handle new
rived, looked at the waiting
k
as they cardboard
d
swastikas were found
me." Both were shot. He testi- over the loudspeakers
victims, burn them and collect
victims and said, "these fat
fled that he heard guards corn- loaded 200 children aboard I on the lawn in front , of the the effects. The brigade was
Jews are good raw material
paring notes on how many each railroad cars destined for the , new synagogue there.
divided into group s, one
for soap." Thereupon they were
Restaurants and other public
of them had shot, one guard i death camp at Auschwitz. He
charged with burning, one with
herded into freight cars, pre-
claiming 89 murders, another I told of an SS camp doctor "se- buildings in various parts of
counting the bodies, one in
sumably for transport to the
lecting"
20,000
inmates
in
a
Germany
have
been
daubed
boasting of 102.
charge of ashes, and one in _ Atisch'witz death camp. Buzh-
few hours, saying these people with slogans proclaiming-"Free-
On the third day of the would. be assigned to "light dom for Eichmann" and "Heil charge of cleaning up."
minski jumped from the train
march,_ testified Pachter, he work." That, he said, happened Eichmann." Swastikas have also
He reported that as many as and was hidden by the Polish
saw an officer toss a piece • in 1944, when the camp was been found painted on the walls 2,000 bodies were piled up fot woMan whom he later mar-
of bread to a 15-year-old boy. being evacuated. The selectees of a Christian church at Em- burning with the brigades work- ried.
When the child stooped to were sent to the Auschwitz merich.
ing eight to ten horn's a day. He
He also testified that he was
pick up the bread, the officer gas chambers. He further men-
A first lieutenant of the East - said the brigade members were briefly a prisoner at the Prz-
shot him. Pachter finally tioned that SS officers used German people's police, who well fed but that they had to eat emysl Ghetto where he saw a
escaped when the marchers Jews as target practice.
fled to asylum in West Berlin, "while seated on the rotting bod- most dramatic episode. He said
reached the Russian b-d er.
declared that anti-Semitic ies. The gold -collected amounted he saw a Gestapo officer flog-
Hausner
put
on,
as
his
next
He joined the Russian under-
to between four and five pounds ging a 15-year-old boy. He
witness, an American, Dr. Leon smearings occur now through
ground, and spent the rest
out East Germany and that in a day. The yield from the living counted 80 blows and the boy
of the war as a partisan with Wells. of Fort Lee, N.J., a New most cases the vandals are never victims was higher." • -
was still alive. Usually 50 blows
York • suburb. Wells, whose
the Russians. During Pach-
found. The police officer, whose
He testified that after one killed the victims. The Gestapo
name
used
to
be
Winziger,
is
ter's testimony another nian
a mechanical engineer. The only name was withheld, said that execution by machine guns, "we officer then ordered the boy to
police. in •Eberswalde. an East found persons who had only been run and he did and so he was
started shouting in the visi-
..• .
family of r_ per- German city near Berlin, in- wounded but we had to throw spared.
tors' gallery. He was taken
sons in Lwow, - Poland (Lem- vestigated 34 smearing inci- them on the fire. We learned they
out quietly.
The prosecutor asked the Nvit-
berg).
dents recently and found the were alive when they screamed." ness, "Do you know who that
Perhaps the most moving of
Testifying in precise Eng- vandals in only four of the He said the brigade members boy was?"
all the testimony heard came • lisp, Wells told how, immedi- cases.
worked with cargo hooks and
Buzhminski replied, "Yes, he
from a dignified Tel Aviv ately after Lwow had been
He said such smearings of grinding machines provided by is sitting next to you," and
magistrate, Dr. Moshe Bielski. occupied by the Germans in
A thoroughly trained jurist, 1939, Ukrainian militia swastikas and anti-Semitic slo- the SS and that "we had to pick pointed to Police Inspector
Bielski gave his testimony in rounded up 5,000 Jews and gars appear frequently on the up every bone and hair to leave Holdmann who is an assistant
walls of state-owned enter-labsolutely no trace." to the prosecution for police
a voice that started out as turned them over to the SS
coldly calm, but he soon lost command. The latter assem- prises. buildings of state-trade ! Wells testified that as in most j bureau Zero Six which pre-
his courtly demeanor and bled the Jews in a large organizations and even district ! camps the Nazis forced the Jews pared the case against Eich-
administration buildings. 1 to organize an orchestra which I mann.
Fail to Catch Pro-
EichmannSloo -an
P amter
'
in Bonn