twenty prisoners from Urbis/Mauthausen, two dead and nineteen ill, transferred to Sachsenhausen.”. . . .

The next morning our block, number 354, was ordered to work for the Organization Todt. We now numbered about two hundred men; we heard no more about our... comrades who had had to report sick. We marched to the train station and from there took a train to the freight depot, where we had to load and unload trains with various materials: coal, wood, and so on. We were not allowed to take a break except during that brief half-hour around noon when we received our meager ration of soup as well as a slice of bread and were allowed to sit on the floor or on the grass.

One had to be very, very careful not to appear to the guards to stand around or to be doing nothing. In such a case, you would be written up without fail and in the evening at roll-call would be chosen for punishment detail or for another form of punishment. The evening roll call count lasted hours because of the enormous number of prisoners. Only when all the numbers added up and those who were to be punished were led away did we receive our "dinner," a bowl of soup and only infrequently a slice of bread with or without margarine.

To witness the mass punishments of prisoners brought tears to our eyes. Every evening twenty-five to fifty prisoners received twenty-five lashes with a leather whip on their bare buttocks while they were strapped to the so-called Bock [whipping block]. I have already mentioned the gruesome "treehanging" [in which a prisoner was suspended by his wrists, which had been tied behind his back]. An especially feared torture involved remaining for hours in the knee-bend position. Many prisoners did not survive these procedures. ...

The prisoners, interned for various reasons, came to Sachsenhausen from all parts of Germany and Europe. The management of Sachsenhausen was maintained internally by prisoners, generally longtime inmates who had withstood the terrible living conditions and possessed the spiritual and physical strength to survive the Nazi terror. Most of the kapos and block elders and other prisoners in kitchen work and camp administration had very low numbers [indicating their early incarceration in Sachsenhausen] and were known to the prisoners as well as the SS guards and administration. The SS knew that they could not manage a camp of this size without the help of block elders and kapos and without the expertise of the prisoners who worked in the kitchen, warehouses, and repair shops. An old prisoner was seldom punished or attacked by the SS. From an SS standpoint, such prisoners had already paid their "debts" and could live out their lives here in the camp.

One morning as we were ready to march out of the barracks, we heard the following message from the loudspeaker: "Block 354, do not go to work. Remain in the barracks!" That was our block, and we all looked at each other. Then we heard the block elder say, "You filthy Jews, stand

at attention until I receive further information!" So we waited even though we had not yet received a cup of that lousy coffee. After an hour the block elder came back with two kapos and two administrators. We learned that a group of SS officers and civilians wanted to inspect us. We did not know why we, the Jews, should have such an honor. If they wanted to do us in, they need not go to so much trouble.

An hour later this commission arrived with an SS doctor. The doctor sized us up and said only one word to the kapo who accompanied him: "Arbeitsfähig” [able to work]. Some ten people had to stay behind. After we had given the camp clerk our names and numbers, we were divided into two groups. The civilians grouped us by profession: blacksmith, plumber, electrician, mechanic, carpenter, and so forth. After the assignments were given, one of the civilians told us that we would be transported to a factory in Bremen.

Thereupon, we were immediately brought to the showers and received striped prison garb of a somewhat better quality and also halfway-decent shoes. We were not brought back to our barracks but had to spend the night in an empty block. We were ready for the transport, but there was no train-so the kapos told us.

That night there was no air-raid siren. And our block elder was not there either. The morning came quickly; we saw the work details march out and already felt like outsiders. At approximately ten o'clock, we each received a quarter-loaf of bread and a piece of liverwurst. We regarded these things with the greatest astonishment, but the arrival of the heavily armed SS guard brought us back to ourselves. We were counted twice, and then finally the loudspeaker sounded: "190 prisoners ready for the transport to Bremen." The first gate opened and then the second. We could not look back, but we knew we had survived Sachsenhausen. We had, to our sorrow, lost thirty men, but we had survived that terrible camp, so full of destruction and murder.

Massacres, Reprisals, Terrorism

Oradour-sur-Glane, France

On 10 June 1944 the SS Regiment "Der Führer" of the Division "Das Reich" entered the village of Oradour-sur-Glane (Haute-Vienne) in France. The Germans encircled the village, driving everyone in and around Oradour into the main market square. There the men were separated from the women and taken in groups to several barns in the village. Once the men were inside, the Germans machine-gunned them and, when there were no longer signs of life, set fire to the buildings. Only five men managed to escape. At the same time the women and children were forced into the church, where they

were also fired upon by the Germans. Then the church was set on fire, burning many alive. Only one women escaped from the church. The Germans also looted and burned virtually all the houses and other buildings in Oradour. Approximately seven hundred people were massacred.

The following outline of the massacre at Oradour, dated 13 October 1944, and testimony from a survivor of Oradour, Mme Marguerite Rouffanche, the woman who escaped from the church, are from Washington, D.C., United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives, RG-06–005–06M, US Case Files, evidence of German War Crimes in France. The Rouffarche testimony was translated by Anne Molineu.

About 2 P.M. on Saturday, June 10th 1944, a motorised unit of the Regiment "Der Führer" of the Division "Das Reich", entered the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in the Department of the Haute Vienne. Dismounting from their trucks and armored cars, they spread out, encircled the village, and systematically drove in from the fields, from their houses, and from the schools, everyone they could find, men, women and children, without regard to age or condition. All were gathered in the village square.

Once in the village square, two groups were formed, one consisting of the men, and the other of the women and children. After a short and futile discussion between the SS officers and the Mayor regarding hostages, the women and children were driven in a body to the church at the far end of the village where they were held under guard. The Germans then redivided the men in the market place into about four groups of forty-five each and drove each group into separate buildings scattered through the village. In the doorway of each of these buildings the SS soldiers blocked the exit with machine guns pointing at the men crowded inside. About 4 P.M. at what appears to have been prearranged signal, the guards opened fire upon these men. First they shot at their legs and, when the men had fallen, they shot into their fallen bodies until all signs of life had ceased. Afterwards the SS placed hay and wood on the bodies and set fire to them. One villager who was among the first to fall and who was protected by the dead and dying on top of him, was able to crawl out from underneath and, concealed by the smoke, to make an opening in a rear wall though which he managed to successfully escape. His statement is shown herewith.

The slaughter of the women and children, starting about the same time, was accomplished in a slightly different manner. First the SS carried into the church a large box which they placed near the center. They then withdrew and a moment later the box blew up, giving forth a suffocating gas. Shortly afterwards the SS opened the rear door of the church and such of the terrified women and children who had survived the gas and who ran out, were machine gunned as they emerged. At the same time other SS men opened the main

church door and fired on all who could be reached from this angle. Some of the women and children hid in the Sacristy, so the SS built a fire under its floor and machine gunned them through the windows and through the Sacristy doorway.

After there was no further sign of life in the church, the SS then made a pile of chairs and benches and set them on fire, probably with the aid of a chemical. They then proceeded to set fire to all the remaining houses in the village, only sparing one which, situated somewhat apart from the rest, they used as their headquarters. By 10 P.M. the village was a mass of flames. After leaving guards at all exits, the SS got back into their trucks and armored cars and motored to the neighboring village of Nieul where they passed the night.

Early next morning, Sunday, June 11th, a part of this detachment returned to Oradour to burn their headquarters and such other buildings which had escaped. Attached hereto is the statement of a witness who relates his conversation that morning with the German officer in charge. Later in the morning the SS detachment, including the sentries, got back into their cars and this time they left the ruined village for good. The photo shown of the burnt corpses of the men was taken that Sunday afternoon.

The following day, Monday, June 12th, all roads leaving from the large neighboring town of Limoges were blocked by order of the local commander of the Wehrmacht, General Gleininger, to prevent friends and relatives, frantic with worry, from going to Oradour. Also a detachment of troops, believed to have been part of a Politzai regiment, were sent out there to dispose of the corpses. What they did with many of the bodies of the men which they removed from the houses is not yet known.

The unburnt portions of the women and children which they took from the church, were thrown into a shallow pit dug near by. This pit was reopened three days later (June 15th) by the French Public Health officials. Photos of bodies removed therefrom are attached hereto. The bodies which could be identified were buried separately in the cemetery but the great majority of remnants could not be identified and were buried in a common grave. The only inscription which the German authorities would permit was simply, June 10th, 1944", the date of their death.

On Wednesday, the 14th, the Bishop of Limoges wrote General Gleininger a letter of protest and on Friday the 16th he courageously denounced the massacre from his pulpit. That same day he received a message of regret from the German general for the act implying that he had had no hand in the matter. The subsequent methods used by the Gestapo to silence the Bishop are set forth in his statement attached hereto.

As to the identity of the SS unit who operated at Oradour, this seems to be pretty well established. See attached statement regarding information given by a German prisoner.

Lastly, the question naturally arises as to why Oradoursur-Glane was selected by the SS for this act of terror. There is no direct evidence available on this point. A suggestion has been made that it was Oradour-sur-Vayres and not Oradour-sur-Glane that the SS wanted to destroy but this is most unlikely. (See Col. Rousselier's letter.) Besides, Oradour sur Vayres is a larger village and lay close to the Battalion's line of march as they came up from the south. That the SS did not know it was there is improbable. Moreover, the Gestapo, with which the SS worked closely, had been long established at Limoges and was thoroughly familiar with the surrounding villages.

A more plausible theory is that Oradour-sur-Glane was small and easy to handle, was prosperous and worthwhile looting, was located off the main highway, and was easy to reach from Limoges, where the Battalion was spending Friday night, June 9th. If an impression was to be made on the countryside it would therefore serve as well as any other place.

The total number of dead and missing is about 695 as of this date. Only a small percentage of the bodies could be definitely identified. A certified list of the dead and missing is in the PWD files; only a sample page of the list is attached to this report.

E.O. MUNN

PWD, SHAEF

October 13th, 1944

Statement of 4 October 1944 by Mme Marguerite Rouffanche, born 19 December 1897 in Charteix, commune of Limoges, section of Landouge (Haute Vienne).

On 10 June 1944 I was at the Gaudy home with all my family when I saw the arrival of five trucks full of German troops. Some were wearing multicolored uniforms. As soon as they were in the village, they came searching for us. When they came to our house, they told us, “Come out, everyone to the marketplace". We arrived at the marketplace, women and men all together. This happened around 2:30 P.M. Soon after, we saw the arrival of the school children, accompanied by the headmaster. Then women and children were separated and taken to the church. Before leaving the marketplace, I was able to embrace my husband and son. As soon as we were in the church, the doors were closed. Occasionally a German came to inspect the interior of the church. We stayed like that and waited for about one hour. Then two Germans came inside the church carrying a sort of box, approximately 50 cm × 50 cm × 50 cm. It appeared to have a tangled white cord on it. One of the Germans lifted the cover. The two Germans then departed through the back door of the church. Moments after they left, the box exploded, and a black smoke immediately came out, smoke that suffocated us. All the women and children fell with great cries. Very soon after that, the Ger

mans opened the small door by which they had exited and began to make people leave. I was unaware of the fate that awaited those who left; however, I swear that I heard gunshots. As for us, we took refuge in the direction of the vestry with my two daughters and my grandson and a group of other people. A few instants later the Germans penetrated the entrance of the vestry and fired at us. The Germans also shot at us from outside the windows. My daughter was killed at that moment. The Germans continued to fire until they no longer saw us moving. Then they placed, near the door, benches, chairs, a bale of straw, and a bundle of firewood; the fire the Germans had started under us quickly spread to these items. The flames began to lick at me-I even had a part of my hair burned. I crossed the flames and ran behind the high altar. By a stroke of luck, I found a stepladder there. I used it to throw myself outside the church through a small window. I fell on a pile of brambles. At the same time a person who was in the church with me tried to escape by the same route. She was holding a seven-month-old baby. Throwing me her baby from the top of the window, she cried, "Mother Rouffanche, catch my child." At that precise instant, the Germans, who were close by, fired, killing Mme Joyeux, mother of the baby, at the moment when she was coming out the window. The baby must have been killed or hurt very seriously in the fall, for I was unable to catch it. To my surprise, as I was running in the gardens of the presbytery, several rounds of gunfire struck me: in the shoulder shattering my shoulder blade, again in the thigh and at the same time burning my two legs. The area that was struck the most was my right side. I was unaware that bullets had hit me, but I had the impression of being burned. No longer able to move after being shot, I fell in a bed of peas, where I played dead. The remaining Germans did not come to inspect me at the place where I had fallen. I stayed there without moving until Sunday, 11 June, at around 5:00 P.M. During the time I was hidden, I sucked on the leaves of the peas to satisfy my thirst.

Around 5:00 P.M. hearing the sound of wooden shoes, I called out for help five times, to indicate that I was in the peas. These people were from the surrounding villages that I knew. They used a wheelbarrow to transport me to the castle of Laplaud, home of Madame de Saint-Venant. I was immediately cared for and put to bed. The next morning I was transported to the general hospital in Limoges, where I was treated again. I must add that while I was hidden in the peas, I heard gunfire up to the end of the day. The Germans who had committed the crime of Oradour were, in my judgment, twenty to thirty years old at the most.

During the time the Germans occupied Limoges, they prohibited me from seeing visitors except for visits with my father and my mother. The Germans never came to see me themselves. I lost seven members of my family in the massacre of Oradour.

Marzabotto Italy

On 29 September 1944 units of the Sixteenth SS Panzer Grenadier Division massacred 1,830 Italian civilians on the Marzabotto Plateau near Bologna in northern Italy. The atrocity was perpetrated under the guise of a military operation to secure lines of communication with the front as the Allies advanced on Bologna; German troops in the area had been repeatedly attacked by Italian partisans. The partisans had retreated into the mountains to avoid involving the civilian population, but to no avail. SS troops advanced across the plateau, killing everyone they encountered in several villages. The following excerpts are from the testimony of several survivors of the massacre.

Reprinted from Christian Ortner, Marzabotto (Vienna: Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichen Widerstandes, 1986),

15-18.

"On September 29, just about nine in the morning, the SS came. We fled to the church, because we thought we would be safe there, because we were just women and children and the men were in the woods.

"The priest said his beads. Many prayed, many cried. We had closed the church door. The Nazis came and began to scream and then began to pound on the church door. When we heard the thuds, my aunt, my thirteen year old cousin, Giorgio Munarini, who was holding on to my hand, and I fled into the vestry where we hid behind some columns from where we witnessed what happened next.

"The SS formed columns on either side of the church door. They drove everyone out, beating everybody while smiling the whole time. The priest spoke German and tried to reason with two of them, but one could see by the expression on his face that his entreaties made no impression. They only laughed showing off their machine guns, and while the priest continued to plead, they killed him with a machine-gun burst as he stood before the altar. They also killed an old lame woman who could not move and had remained in the church."

The girl was able to flee from the vestry to the nearby woods. From there Elena continued to observe the German soldiers:

"From our hiding place in the woods we could see how they drove everyone out of the church to a cemetery next to the church. After about a quarter of an hour, everyone had been lined up against the chapel. They opened fire and threw hand-grenades. They shot downwards to make sure they would hit the children. After the massacre they left.

"At about four P.M. I visited the cemetery to look for my relatives, but I couldn't find them. They were buried under the corpses. From a corner of the chapel I heard a cousin of mine calling; her legs had been crushed. She died two days later."

Many villagers lost relatives in the cemetery massacre. One man, Adelmo Benini, who had been hiding in the woods for two days, returned on the third day to look for his wife:

"Just inside the cemetery's entrance I found one of my wife's shoes. I threw myself on the bodies, trying frantically to find my wife as I pushed the stiff bodies aside. Finally I found her feet resting on a tombstone and her head wobbling in the wind. She had a large hole in her forehead. She still held our two girls in her arms: Maria whose abdomen had been crushed with intestines showing and Giovanna, headless. It had been severed by machine-gun fire. I searched and found it resting on the cemetery wall, where the cemetery caretaker's pet pig had rolled it... I took my daughter's head and placed it on my daughter's body, between the shoulders.

"From outside the cemetery, my father-in-law called to me that the Nazis were returning. We went back to the woods.

"In Caprara we saw three girls tied to a chestnut tree. Their corpses were strapped tightly against the tree trunk. Their skirts had been raised, and each one had a tree branch driven up into them between their thighs.

Between Caprara and Villa Ignano we found the bodies of two pregnant women with ripped open bellies. One of the women with a bayoneted uterus was resting cheek-to-cheek with her foetus. On the other one, one could see the feet of the foetus dangling out of its mother's open belly...'

The inhabitants of the small village Cerpiano also suffered the chivalry of the SS brigands. There the SS drove forty-nine persons, mostly women, children and aged, together into an oratory. Positioned outside the building, the Germans threw hand-grenades into it, killing thirty immediately. One of the survivors was a young kindergarten teacher, Antoinetta Benni:

"We hoped they wouldn't do anything to us in the oratory. But after a while the door opened and some Nazis with frightening faces appeared. They had hand-grenades and looked at us as if they were looking for targets. 'Hey, everybody!' I screamed. 'Make yourselves ready! They're going to kill us!' They began throwing hand-grenades at us through the door and windows. We screamed, cried, pleaded. Mothers pressed their children against themselves. Children hugged their mothers tightly, hiding their faces and searching for protection. I lost consciousness.

"When I came to, I heard broken voices asking: 'Still alive? Are you dead?'

"I was surrounded by despairing sobbing women and crying children. Thirty persons must have been already dead. Practically everyone else had been wounded by grenade fragments. During the whole day and the following night the Nazis kept watch outside. They had made holes in the door where they peeped through and laughed. Once in awhile a guard would come in and deliver the coup de grace to someone. One heard noises outside. It was the

drunken Nazis, playing the accordion and singing as loudly as their drunken voices could carry.

"During the night a woman regained consciousness and began to groan, beseeching someone to lift her husband's body off her. A guard appeared. Next I heard a shot. The woman's moaning was no longer audible, just the threatening laughter of the guard. From that moment on not a voice was to be heard from that dreadful pile of corpses. In the meantime one of the guards let a hungry, grunting pig into the oratory. It started nosing around the bodies and ate human flesh."

The next morning survivors begged the soldiers to let them go. Instead they were all killed. Only the kindergarten teacher and two small children survived the butchery, because they played dead. This witness fled to a house where she was later visited by the SS:

"I thought they were coming to get me. Instead, they came to announce that they were going to bury those in the oratory soon, which as they put it, 'had been killed by the partisans.' Among those SS that day was the one-armed Major Reder, I can remember him well."

Mario Zebri's family also encountered the one-armed Reder:

"They ordered my family to put on their Sunday best. 'You're going a long trip,' they were told. So my forty-two year old wife Florinda, the children Mathilde, Bruna and Bruno, nineteen, seventeen and eleven years old, my seven

year old niece Vittoria, my seventy-nine year old adoptive father Gaetano Rosa, his forty-two year old daughter Clelia went all dressed up to the threshing floor. They were upset because they had to leave their house and land but they were sure they would be left with their lives. The only one who remained in the house was my good adoptive mother Enrica Quercia, who was a bedridden cripple.

"Bruna was pregnant. She wanted at any price to know where her fiancé was. They wanted her to admit that he was a bandit. She refused, at which point, one lunged at her, bayoneted her in the back, cutting her and tearing out the intestines of the little creature she was expecting.

Then the slaughter started. Each person received a whole machine-gun magazine.The empty shells were placed neatly at the feet of each one of my loved ones. In the meantime my house had been burned down with my old mother in it.”

Greece

During their three-year occupation of Greece, the Germans looted and burned more than a thousand towns and villages. One of the most gruesome examples of German atrocities occurred in the village of Kalavryta, where seven hundred men and boys were shot and killed, and the village subsequently burned to the ground. The New York Post printed a story about German atrocities in Greece on 7 October 1944 (reset here).