At noon the next day, after another hungry, thirsty, anxious, and sleepless night, the train arrived at Weimar station, where it was shunted onto a branch line that ran northwest into low, heavily forested hills. It was around 1400 when the train shuddered to a stop and the locomotive shut down in an isolated train yard. One hundred sixty-nine airmen had been loaded into the boxcars in Paris, and at journey’s end the train held 82 Americans (USAAF), 49 British (RAF), 26 Canadians (RCAF), 9 Australians (RAAF), and two New Zealanders (RNZAF). Only one airman (Joel Stevenson, RCAF) had escaped en route.
Prisoners by the ventilation ports were still trying to make sense of their surroundings when Fred heard Spierenburg, who was listening at the door, tell them they had arrived at Buchenwald Concentration Camp (Konzentration Lager Buchenwald, or KLB).55
49 For unknown reasons, roughly 500 prisoners, including some captured airmen, were left at Fresnes Prison. They expected to be executed, but they were ultimately abandoned when the last of the SS guards fled Paris ahead of the Allies.
50 There were 546 women loaded onto the train, and 370 of them would survive the war. The male prisoners fared much worse, with a survival rate below 30%.
51 Fred Martini, Paul Wilson, Sam Pennell, Ray Perry, Harry Bastable, Leon Grenon, Bill Gibson, Dave High, Tommy Hodgson, James Prudhum, Joseph Sonshine, Ian Robb, Robert Mills, Les Whellum, Splinter Adolph Spierenburg, Ralph Taylor, Roy Allen, James Harvie, Merle Larson, Daniel McLaughlin, Joe Moser, Michael Petrich, Charles Roberson, Joel Stevenson, Fred Vinecome, and James Zeiser.
52 Flight Officer Philip D. Hemmens, bombardier on a Lancaster bomber, 49 Squadron RAF.
53 Additions were Lamason, Watmough, Patrick Scullion, James A. Smith, Les Head, Earl Watson, and Charles Hoffman.
54 The first airman to use the escape hatch was Flight Officer Joel M. Stevenson, a Canadian airman whose Lancaster bomber was downed on 5 July 1944, and who was captured on 14 July in company with five other airmen. Stevenson was to be followed by Dave High, Roy Allen, and others, but High was the only airman other than Stevenson to make it out of the boxcar.
55 See Appendix 3 for a list of the airmen delivered to Buchenwald.
CHAPTER 8
Arrival in Buchenwald
THE AIRMEN WERE IN THE boxcars at the tail end of the train, but because it had backed into the station, they were among the first to be offloaded. While awaiting his fate, Fred could hear factory noises (the diesel sounds associated with heavy equipment), shouted orders, cries, thuds, and occasional shots. The breeze through the ports brought them smells of dust, oil, and a cloying smoke reminiscent of badly burned barbecue beef. Although a change from the humid, fetid atmosphere of the boxcar was welcomed, the overall impression brought by the “fresh” breeze was ominous.
When the boxcar door slid open, and the exhausted and apprehensive airmen left the boxcar, uniformed SS guards armed with short batons shouted “Raus!” and “Mach schnell!” Other guards were barely restraining huge German shepherds that were snarling and snapping as they attempted to reach the prisoners. Behind them stood still more guards armed with rifles or machine pistols. These guards wore different uniforms from the guards on the train. There was a skull and crossbones at the right collar rather than the lightning bolts Fred had seen on other SS troops.
The airmen started moving slowly, their ankles and feet swollen and their joints stiff after five days packed together. As Fred moved to the doorway and clambered to the ground, he was disoriented by the noise, the dogs, the shouted commands. Blows from the clubs or rifle butts of the SS guards steered him past the tail of the train, which had stopped at the end of a short off-shoot of the main railway line. Across other tracks, he could see a tall, conspicuously electrified fence, strung between tall wooden guard towers. On the other side of the fence was some sort of commercial building or factory. There were SS guards aplenty, but they were far outnumbered by figures in what looked like vertically striped pajamas, many of them doing heavy construction work. It certainly didn’t seem like a POW camp.
Under the continual pressure of the guards, the men were pressed into a moving column roughly the width of ten men. Although the column tended to bunch up at times as men at the outer edges of the column tried to escape the clubs of the guards or the teeth of the dogs, the guards kept them moving forward. The procession soon turned right, away from the isolated factory complex, and proceeded between a row of two-storey buildings on Fred’s left and a much larger complex whose dimensions he could not estimate. What was clear was that the facility was designed to be secure. The boundary consisted of a double fence 13’ high. The inner fence was heavy barbed wire with icons indicating it was electrified, and the outer fence was a dense meshwork of barbed wire. Between the two were coils of heavy barbed wire, forming chest-high spirals that by themselves would be almost impenetrable. There were multiple guard towers 50’ tall at 650’ intervals along the fencing, and secondary guardposts as well, all of them manned and equipped with machine guns.
The prisoners were herded even more closely together as they approached an opening in the fencing. Fred thought it seemed uncomfortably similar to the way cattle entered an abattoir. The guards were using clubs and fists to keep the men moving and to ensure there were no stragglers. The dogs now formed a line on either side at the entry, and the panicking prisoners pushed and shoved to get to the center. Men on the edges were nipped or bitten, to the delight and amusement of the guards.
Fred fell to his knees, trapped in a melee, and with a lunge, one of the dogs tore a small chunk from the top of his left ear. He thought he was lucky only to lose the top edge of that ear, rather than the whole thing. Fred recoiled from the snarling animal, got back to his feet, and moved on with blood trickling down his neck. Ahead he saw a Canadian airman, Ralph McLenaghan, who was using a walking stick to support an ankle broken on landing. As he approached the gateway, he was beaten to the ground and his stick taken away. There would obviously be neither mercy nor aid forthcoming.
As he entered the compound, the first building Fred saw was on his left. It was a low brick building with an outsized smokestack, partially screened by a brick wall. The smokestack was belching a thick black smoke, and a heavy ash fell on the prisoners. It was accompanied by the cloying burned-meat smell that they had first noticed in the boxcar. One of the SS guards pointed to the building and called out in passable English that the chimney was the only way any of them were going to leave Buchenwald. A moment of confusion preceded the chilling realization that it was a crematorium. That explained both the greasy ash and the awful smell.56
As Fred moved forward, the new arrivals were watched in silence by a number of resident prisoners who looked like caricatures of human beings. They were gaunt and haggard, with empty eyes and blank faces. Some called out to the airmen, but they were too far away to be heard and understood over the barking of the dogs and the bellowing of the guards. Making the environment even noisier, classical music of some kind was playing from distant speakers. That music would be with them continuously during every daylight hour, the same few selections played over and over and over.57
From the entry point, the dazed and intimidated airmen walked along a barbed wire fence-line that isolated one corner of the concentration camp. From the equipment, sounds, and activity, it looked to be another factory staffed by prisoners, although it was tiny by comparison with the one by the train yard.
Their destination soon became apparent. It was a small set of buildings directly opposite the center of the enclosed factory complex. There were approximately 200 French prisoners ahead of them and an unknown number in the line behind them. Every 20-30 minutes, a batch of around 40 prisoners was taken from the head of the line and escorted into a low brick building. What happened to them after that was a mystery.
Although it was 1630, the sun was still high and the day still uncomfortably warm. With their prisoners inside the main camp, the guards relaxed enough to allow the men to squat or sit on the bare grou
nd as they waited. Fred sat by the curb wishing he had something to eat, or at least a cigarette. Some of the Canadian airmen who had spoken with the French prisoners reported that Buchenwald was well known to the FFI as a slave labor camp. Its reputation was dire — those who were shipped there were never seen again. Fred could hardly believe it. Everything about the place seemed so foreign, so unreal to him. But then he remembered how callously the SS had executed the French boy and the pregnant woman at the train station.
At the far end of a low building, Fred could see an enormous oak tree towering over the adjacent structures. It was the only tree in sight, and he wistfully thought about how cool it would be under the branches. It all seemed like a strange dream.58
By 1800, the air was cooler, and Fred was approaching the head of the line. A number of SS officers were in attendance, standing by the entry to a brick building to the right of the roadway. Lamason quickly identified the ranking officer, and when close enough, accompanied by Dutch Spierenberg, he pushed his way through the prison stream to speak with him. Before beginning, Lamason surprised the Germans by snapping to attention. He spoke in precise tones, pausing for translation, and Fred strained to hear him. He told the officer that he was Squadron Leader Philip Lamason of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and that the men with him were captured military personnel. He said that their presence at Buchenwald must be a mistake, as under the Geneva Conventions, they should be at a POW camp and treated with the appropriate courtesies. He then demanded to be taken to see the camp commandant.
The man he was addressing listened politely as Dutch translated. He then replied that he was SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Hans Schmidt, the Deputy Commander of Buchenwald and the legal officer for the camp. Schmidt, who was shorter than Lamason, was in his mid-40s. He had fair hair and wore dark-framed glasses. After a pause while he made a show of consulting the paperwork from the transport, he told Lamason, through Spierenburg, that the airmen had been listed as police prisoners (common criminals) rather than military prisoners, and if a mistake had been made, it would no doubt be corrected. But until that happened, they would be held at Buchenwald. Lamason was then dismissed and ordered to rejoin the others.
The airmen soon began moving into the building to face their future, whatever it might be. When the men formed a single line, there was a lot of mixing and shuffling. Fred was separated from Sam and Paul. Sam ending up ten places ahead in the line, Paul two places behind.
When his turn came, Fred stepped up to a long table, signed the Buchenwald entry book, and was given his official number, KLB 78299. In this way, he became officially registered as a prisoner at Buchenwald. A prisoner-clerk with a black armband handed him a pencil and a file card to fill in. The card, in German, had spaces for all kinds of personal information, and even without speaking German, Fred could tell what Mutter and Vater meant.
Fred left the card blank, but across the bottom, he wrote S/Sgt Frederic Martini USAAF 32163997. He handed the card to the clerk who, when he saw it was incomplete, tried to give it back. When Fred refused to accept it, the clerk shook his head with resignation — Fred was not the first airman to be unwilling to provide information — and wrote “weitere Angaben verweigert” (further information refused) on the file card. He then motioned Fred to move along, hoping for better luck with the next man in line. Several of the airmen were so exhausted and dispirited that they went ahead and filled out the cards.
The card Fred filled out was not the only file kept in his name, as there were others intended to record infractions, assignments to work details, and so forth. The most important card in his file — in every airman’s Buchenwald file — was one they never saw. It was bright orange, and it bore his name, prisoner number, State/Country of origin, and Dikal in large block letters. Dikal was an acronym for Darf in kein anderes Lager (may not be sent to another camp). At Himmler’s direction, the airmen were not to be transferred. As the guard had intimated, their intended fate was departure via the smokestack of the crematorium.
At the next station, Fred was handed a hanger, and by gestures told to put his clothes on the hangar and to put his shoes and the contents of his pockets on the desk. Fred pulled out a handful of French francs from his pants. The clerk carefully counted the bills and coins, entered the amount on a clipboard, and then placed the confiscated funds in a manila envelope. His shoes were put in a box, and his clothing was thoroughly searched before being tagged and stored. He was then handed a metal disc with a stamped number as a receipt.
Naked, Fred and the other airmen entered a large room where Polish prisoners in the now familiar striped pajamas awaited with electric sheers in their hands. When it was his turn, Fred sat on a stool while all of his body hair other than his eyebrows was removed. The prisoner did his job with mechanical motions, paying no attention to Fred’s cries as he cut into his scalp. The mute barber remained totally focused on his task, his expression intense, unflinching. He seemed less man than machine.
After the fleecing, Fred was directed to a second station where prisoners with pads on poles dunked the pads in a foul-smelling liquid and proceeded to wipe it over every exposed millimeter of Fred’s body. The vapors were pungent and it produced shockingly severe pain when applied to Fred’s private parts, the cleft between his buttocks, and the ragged edge of his ear. It felt like a thousand bee stings.
The men were then hustled down a corridor to a second building with a large shower room. When water came out of the pipes, there was a general sigh of relief. Even with a mere scrap of soap, it felt good to wash off at least some of the accumulated filth and the residue of whatever disinfectant he’d been doused with. Fred hadn’t had a change of clothing or a bath in more than two weeks. He had a few moments to dry himself, sharing threadbare scraps of towels with the men around him, before he was hustled out of the showers. Upon emerging, there was a brief and cursory medical inspection. Several of the airmen were so obviously ill that they were declared temporarily unfit for work.
Fred was next sent to a counter where he received a vertically striped shirt and a pair of matching striped pants, each marked KL in black block letters. The stripes might once have been blue on a white background, but everything was now a faded, grimy, gray color. Fred was also given a striped Dixie-cup hat. His shirt and pants were both too big for him, and the hat was too small. Some of the airmen got a striped overshirt as well, but Fred wasn’t so lucky. Nobody was given either shoes or what passed in the camp for blankets.
Once everyone had been clothed and dressed, each man was photographed holding a card with his name and prisoner number. The airmen were then led outside where a group of thirty SS guards were waiting. Once everyone was accounted for, the guards herded the airmen into lines five abreast and led them into the camp. Progress was hesitant, as their bare feet were tender. The ground was dark and stony, without grass or even weeds, and everything was coated with a dusting of grime and a heavy layer of black ash. Only the clubs of the guards provided the motivation that kept the line moving.
Fred could now see that the camp consisted of row after row of one or two storey green wooden buildings that looked to be shoddily constructed barracks.59 Prisoners were everywhere, most of them just as listless and skeletal as the ones they had seen on arrival. As the guards approached, all of the prisoners in the area took off their caps and stood at attention. Although there were SS guards at the perimeter of Buchenwald patrolling the fence-line and manning the towers and gun stations, their guards seemed to be the only SS personnel moving among the prisoners at the moment.
Fred was stunned by the condition of the prisoners they passed. They were incredibly scrawny. Some were blind, others lame, and many had open wounds and skin sores. It was impossible to guess their ages — 16 or 60? Their glazed eyes had shrunken into their skulls. Some stood in small groups, and others lay slumped by the roadside or against the barracks, and it was hard to tell if they were dead or alive. As the airmen passed by, some of the moving skeletons called to th
em in French, asking for information about who they were and where they were from. They seemed surprised and excited when they learned the new arrivals were Allied airmen, and hobbled off to spread the news. As the group turned to the right, Fred counted nine rows of barracks buildings — the camp seemed to go on and on.
The dirt roadway they were on led to a gate in a secondary enclosure bounded by a double set of barbed wire fencing, similar but lower than the fences around the camp as a whole. As they approached, on their right was a large stone building, Block 50, surrounded by its own double fence. Someone in the group — Fred wasn’t sure who — said that the sign indicated that this was an SS medical research facility. Nobody wanted to think about what that might mean.
The SS guards led the airmen through a double gate in the secondary enclosure, which was guarded by prisoners with black armbands on their right sleeves. The airmen were now in a smaller prison compound that was, in essence, a camp within a camp. Spierenburg, who had been conversing with one of the prisoner-guards, passed the word that they had arrived at the Little Camp, or Kleines Lager. Little Camp was used to hold new arrivals who might have contagious illnesses, special prisoners, and those about to be shipped to other destinations.60 It was not clear which group the airmen were in.
The true size of Little Camp was not apparent, because it contained multiple buildings of varying size, and the area was subdivided by interior fencing. This fencing impeded free movement, limiting passage to a few gateways that could be monitored and controlled. As the airmen entered Little Camp, they were heading north. The building immediately to their left was Block 56, and the section closest to the gate was used for the quarters and “office” of the trusty, or Kapo,61 designated as the camp leader (Lager ältester). The stench in this portion of the compound was terrible. The worst odors seemed to be coming from the building parallel to Block 56, which was identified as Block 61.
Betrayed: Secrecy, Lies, and Consequences Page 13