by Vic Shayne
The few individuals who were standing moved very slowly and appeared dazed. As we got further in we saw the hundreds upon hundreds of prisoners seated side by side against the building walls. Most were naked and looked like skeletons with tightly drawn skin. They seemed lifeless and it turned out many were. . . . We all felt helpless and stunned by the magnitude of this tragedy. An effort was made to get water to those who could swallow. From the onset it was obvious that the priorities were getting nourishment to the living and removing the dead.
. . . Getting rid of the dead was urgent and seemed never ending. Separating the living from the dead was a challenge because of the sheer number. It turned out the huge fly population was a help. In going down the line of seated inmates, those who blinked from the flies about their eyes were judged not yet dead and were bypassed.
Partly to expose the local population to the horrors of the camp, horse drawn carts were commandeered with local peasants doing the loading. The emaciated bodies were so light that two old men could sling them onto the small wooden carts. . . . By the second and third days there was a steady stream of carts coming and going. To the best of my knowledge using locals to transport the dead was a local decision. However, early on General Eisenhower ordered it as a general rule. This order was based on the persistent denial by the Germans and Austrians of what went on in the camps. A local gravel pit was the disposal site with burial by bulldozer when one became available. To illustrate the magnitude of the problem, even at the second week, I recall the daily removal of three hundred bodies. I have no figures for the earlier days but it was surely much higher. Our unit chaplain was at the burial site daily doing what he could to administer to the dead. I remember his estimate of the total bodies brought to the pit to be fifteen thousand. . . .
Closer Look at the Camp: Not long after our arrival we got a better view of the compound layout. Around the entire camp was an elevated walkway over an impenetrable barb wire fence. We were told that the twelve-year-old son of the camp commandant considered it sport to take pot shots at the prisoners from this vantage point.
Incinerator Ovens: Gruesome by any standard was the building housing the two incinerator ovens. Bones were still visible inside and nearby. Still present when we arrived were bodies neatly piled five high and twenty long waiting for disposal. Close by was a windowless concrete room apparently for gassing. We were told they were facilities for death by hypothermia: naked starving prisoners were huddled together in a confined space and sprayed with cold water until dead. This method was out of favor as too slow. . . . A feature of this camp, and I am sure others, was that it was highly organized for slave labor while at the same time useful for extermination. Most, if not all, the inmates were required to work in what we came to know as the tunnel factory. . . . The inmates worked twelve hour shifts, seven days a week. Rations were one kilogram of black bread and one kilo of ersatz coffee per five men per day. . . . The German mindset needed a rationale to murder. Sickness or weakness provided that rationale. For the Germans, this system worked because of the supply of slave labor was vast and food was expensive. Their big concern was getting rid of the dead while leaving no trace.
Thoughts Coming Home: I left Germany with an uncomfortable feeling. Any country so highly developed and by most standards civilized, could foster for many years a system of slavery, mass extermination and unimaginable brutality could go this way again. Not a pleasant thought. After all, Nazism was a widely accepted national movement interrupted only by crushing military defeat.
Another eyewitness testimony of note comes from U.S. Army Colonel Edmund M. (his last name remains anonymous to protect his privacy), then a first lieutenant with the 65th Infantry Division that entered Mauthausen concentration camp in the spring of 1945. The colonel had fought through most of Germany into Austria when his unit, with the 11th Armored Division, stopped to wait for Soviet troops coming east from Vienna. Tanks of the 11th Armored Division were probing for German forces:
Two or three tanks then stumbled upon Mauthausen concentration camp. . . . There was no prior knowledge. . . . I think it was pure chance that our American tanks found these. . . . Almost immediately more and more tanks of the 11th Armored Division . . . were the first to liberate the camp. [Colonel M. arrived shortly after the tanks.]
The thing that, I think, impressed all of us immediately was the horrible physical condition of most of the inmates . . . most of them in very, very bad shape. Some of them actually looked almost like living skeletons. . . . I would estimate their average weight might have been probably eighty-five, ninety pounds. . . . I walked then into one of the barracks, and the first thing, that almost literally startled me, was the terrific stench of the barracks. It was just unbelievable—the odor of excretions, et cetera, that were in there, that the inmates could not help over a period of time. It was just so much so that I first just wanted to grab my breath and maybe walk out immediately without going any further. But I took a deep breath, and went indeed further, and looked around, and . . . those that were in the, in the bunks in there were in very, very pitiful shape. The bunks were in a sense unbelievable. The bunks were roughly about, I’d say about six feet long, probably about three and a half or four feet wide. And they were triple-tiered, sort of like young children would be having, except one would be sleeping in them. Here we had three to four inmates sleeping in each of these bunks just squeezed together, literally like almost sardines.
Colonel M. was able to communicate with the prisoners through soldiers in his unit who spoke German and Yiddish. He was shown the quarry where many of the prisoners were slave laborers. He describes a two-hundred-foot drop from a precipice at the bottom of which were jagged stones strewn with broken and decomposing bodies:
One hundred eighty-six steps of death that led from the bottom of this quarry up to the top of this precipice.
. . . This particular work detail . . . was one of the worst tortures. . . . Inmates would carry these heavy stones up the one hundred and eighty-six steps of death. . . . Weighing only eighty, eighty-five, ninety pounds, [inmates] were carrying stones weighing perhaps thirty-five, forty, forty-five pounds, up these steps all day long. . . . If they fell or stumbled . . . or dropped the rocks, very often they were beaten to death right on these one hundred eighty-six steps . . . [or] pushed from the precipice down to the jagged rocks below, to their deaths. . . . Happened very often . . . went on constantly. The atrocity of the one hundred eight-six steps of death, which left such a vivid memory in my mind, that I have never, never forgotten these many years.
For the colonel and his men, and all the others who set foot in the concentration camp, the vision of Mauthausen would forever change their lives and the way they thought about the world. What they saw brought grown men—battle-toughened soldiers—to their knees. They entered a world of walking skeletons, piles of dead bodies, the stench of death, disease, starvation and human waste, and broken souls. Beyond this they found the remnants of the workings of a death camp—gas chambers, torture chambers, instruments of atrocities (Source: Yale University Library, 1996: http://www.library.yale.edu/tes-timonies/excerpts/edmundm.html).
Here is another account from the liberating soldiers’ point of view from William J. Powers, son of a KZ Gusen [Mauthausen] liberator. He wrote:
I was going through some of my father’s photos from WWII and found one labeled as St. Georgen, Aust. Since my dad spoke Russian, Polish, English, and German, he was taken from Patton’s Army in Germany and sent to help liberate the camps. I assume that he was there to help the victims of the cave camp there. It was an experience that so changed him that many people failed to recognize him when he returned to the USA, he looked the same but his personality changed. He was an infantry Captain known for caring for his troops, comradeship, and courage. After a week freeing the concentration camps he was a changed man. He lost all interest in the military and any form of violence. It took years before he regained any sense of humor. Even though he was a natural leader, he
was unable to step forward except in situations where he sensed an injustice. Well, his problems were small compared to the denizens of the camps, but I wanted to tell you what little I knew, and that Capt. William Poplawski was there to try to help—and add to the record of the disaster . . . ”(Source: nizkor.org/hweb/camps/gusen/feedback).
The United States Holocaust Museum describes the arrival of the 11th Armored Division at Mauthausen concentration camp:
On May 5, 1945, the 11th arrived in Gusen, which had originally been a subcamp of Mauthausen. The division’s arrival prevented the SS guards from murdering thousands of concentration camp prisoners by dynamiting the underground tunnels and factories where the inmates had been forced to work. The next day, the 11th Armored Division entered the Mauthausen concentration camp. In the unit’s “sanitary report” of May 25, 1945, the division’s Medical Inspector stated that “the situation in the camp on the arrival of the U.S. Forces was one of indescribable filth and human degradation.” The report stated that nineteen thousand prisoners were crammed into bunks meant to accommodate around five thousand persons and that the two- and three-level bunks held ten to twenty prisoners each. The prisoners had been fed a mixture of sugar beets and potato peelings that “looked like worms in mud.” Thousands of prisoners were naked or clothed in rags. Some eight thousand survivors in the camp, the report continued, were in need of immediate medical care and more than half of the camp’s inmates “were little more than skeletons.” Soon after arrival, the 11th Armored Division began implementing measures to treat the ill prisoners and improve conditions within the camp.
Among the memorabilia U.S. Army Captain Elmore Fabrick brought home as part of the liberating forces of Mauthausen, was a carbon copy of a written statement from a Belgian medical officer named G. W. Hoorickt, who wrote:
This camp, in the first period of its existence (1938), was intended for German criminals and political prisoners. Polish political prisoners arrived here in 1940. Over 200,000 prisoners passed through Mauthausen during the period of its existence. In view of the fact that the number of prisoners amounted lately to 50,000, the number of the dead is equal to about 200,000. This high mortality is explained by the circumstance that Mauthausen was a camp of the III category, that is today a camp where the most cruel methods were applied for the aim to harass and exterminate prisoners, represented in the last years, mostly by working intelligentsia of suppressed nations. According to his murderous purpose, a special staff was selected.
Standartenfuhrer Francis Zyreiss [sic], known as one of the most bloodthirsty German hangmen, was appointed commander of the camp. It is needless to say that each member of the staff, from officer to private, was especially trained in the application of the cruelest methods. It must be emphasized that the right to survive was granted only to those prisoners who were fit for work, others, exhausted from work and starvation, were considered ballast and deserved extermination.
During my stay in concentration camps since 9-4-1940 this principle, as regards treatment of the sick, was vastly applied. It should be added that certain groups of prisoners were destroyed immediately after their arrival at camp. About 500 Poles from Warsaw were shot in Sept. and Oct. 1940. In the period since April 1940 to April 1941 about 8,000 members of the Polish intelligentsia were killed in Gusen (a branch camp of Mauthausen), in the autumn and winter 1941 and in the spring 1942 over 3,000 Dutch Jews were killed, mostly in the quarry hurled from the rocks or drowned by plunging in a stream. On the day of 2-10-1941 a group of 2,500 prisoners of war arrived to the camp; in the following months new groups arrived including a high number of Soviet army officers. The total number of Soviet prisoners amounted to 5,000 in Mauthausen and in Gusen to 5,000. It was stated in June 1942 that out of the above named number of 5,000 in Gusen only 67 survived. The majority perished of famine, flogging on prisoners, or mass slaughter, employed in the quarry. Others were poisoned with cyanide of potassium, sulphurate of magnesia or benzine injections. This exterminating action was carried out by the SS staff with collaboration of German criminal prisoners, belonging to the barrack personnel. In this way i.e., weak or half frozen naked prisoners were deposed on the floor in heaps in bathrooms and kept for the night under a cold shower. The miserable victims who tried to escape were knocked down and killed with cudgels. The average mortality in the prisoners’ barracks amounted to 150 daily. In 1942 a gas chamber was installed. A number of 20 sick prisoners (barrack 20) was selected to be poisoned with gas for experimental purposes. Forty-two superior officers and political soviet commissars were gassed in the spring 1942. In the same year about 400 soviet officers and commissars (among them were a considerable number of Jews) were gassed. They were transported to be executed immediately after their arrival to Mauthausen railway station. In October 1942 over 300 Czech prisoners were gassed, this number including families (167 women and children). In December 1942 and Jan. 1943 about 8,000 were transported from prisons to the camp. They were brought to trial and condemned for offences of military character, as listening in, reading of English pamphlets, spreading clandestine news, patriotic songs, membership in secret anti German organizations, etc. This number included 80% Poles. About 1,500 sick and feeble prisoners were grouped in barracks 19. A part of them died of hunger under indescribably unhygienic conditions, the majority were gassed in a motor van specially equipped for this purpose. This car transported 2 or 3 times daily 50 prisoners to the camp of Gusen (6 km) and the victims were gassed on the way. The car was always by the camp commander ZYREISS [sic] in person. On the day 26-1-1943 a group of 47 English, American, and Dutch persons arrived with labels attached to their chests and backs bearing the inscription “SPY.” All these prisoners were murdered in a most cruel way in the quarry on the 6th and 7th of Sept. (List of persons enclosed.) In the period of time from 27-4-45 til 3-5-45 a group of 1,607 healthy but undernourished prisoners were gassed in Mauthausen camp. The camp authorities demanded a group of 2,000 feeble prisoners to be moved to special barracks for the purpose of administering improved nourishment. A group of 1,800 men was delivered. On gaining information that these prisoners were destined to be gassed, I refused further delivery, and as a result of my interview with the lager fuhrer Bachmayer, all prisoners pertaining to west European nations, escaped death. On 27-4-45 I received an order from the camp physician Obersturmfuhrer Rychter to select a number of 1,500 grave hospital cases and to administer poison in the form of pills. He attempted thrice to induce me to commit the act in spite of my firm refusal. During the first years of the camp’s existence the prisoners toiled and suffered till exhaustion refused them to bear the burden of work. When unfit for work they were killed by the SS or by barrack personnel recruited from German criminals condemned to penal servitude. After daily work when evening came, the feeble sick were picked out and killed in the barracks or in the square where the roll was called. Various methods were applied; in this report only the most commonly used will be described: 1. By smashing the brains with cudgel. 2. By knocking down the victim and threading on his thorax and abdomen. 3. By plunging the victims head in a cask of water. 4. By pouring water into the victims’ pharynx by means of a rubber pipe. 5. The prisoners were knocked down, an iron pipe was introduced into his pharynx and [pressure] was applied on his thorax (threading and stamping). 6. Some victims were torn to pieces by dogs. Others were drowned in latrines.
All the prisoners were cruelly beaten during work hours, and, frequently, at night. A primitive sanitary aid was established at the end of 1940; never the less it was strictly forbidden to employ medical men prisoners. In this period, members of the sanitary staff recruited from the criminal elements in the aim contrary to bring patients relief. It is needless to say that the feeble patients were killed. Doctors were admitted to treat prisoners of war in 1940 Oct. and other prisoners in Sept. 1942. The physician’s activity was highly restricted by camp regulations, lack of medical articles, etc. This activity may be considered a constant struggle for the life of every patient—st
ruggle against camp authorities’ doctors. The Standortarzt as well as other physicians representing the German authorities, took no interest in the sick; they played on the contrary, the part of instruments in the camp commanders hand, used for the gradual destruction of prisoners. Standortarzt, Sturmbannfuhrer Krebsbach (known as “Sprintzbach”) known for his utmost cruelty, introduced several murderous methods, as the gas chamber, poisonous injections etc. Bauptsturmfuhrer ENTERS and Sturmbannfuhrer WILTERS followed his example. Obersturnfuhrer LUCAS proved to be the only doctor, in the proper sense, who refused to sign death certificates of murdered victims, and was always willing to aid such and bring them relief. His humanitarian nature did not permit a long stay at Mauthausen, and after 2 months duty was removed to the other camp.
Every year in autumn (clearing or sweeping) action was carried out. It was based on the principle that all grave hospital cases (in Mauthausen and its branch camps) work invalids, undernourished individuals and prisoners above the age of 50, were to be selected to the so called “Convalescence” or “Recovery Camp” (Genesungslager) for further treatment. All the victims were gassed on the way. This action was going on systematically since 1940 in this year 300 men were picked out in Gusen and 900 in Mauthausen camp. This number approximately equal to the number of victims transported in the following years, 1944, 2973 sick prisoners were removed from Mauthausen hospital to the Recovery camp. The sick were always selected by German physicians.