In Siegburg, a Rhenish town of some 20,000 inhabitants, so far as I know nothing was plundered. The synagogue, where the rabbi had delivered another sermon on Wednesday evening, was set on fire and burned out completely inside and photographed in this state. On Thursday the 10th November 1938 I was arrested at about 10 o’clock in the morning by a Kriminalbeamte and then transported by the Gestapo to the work camp at Brauweiler with 40 people aged from 17 to 68. I want to point out that we had all been expecting something unusual, because in the newspaper on Wednesday it had said that the SS were to be sworn in at midnight.
After four days of fair treatment, we were then taken on foot on Tuesday morning at half past 3 to Groß-Königsdorf from where the elderly people were sent home on Saturday. Arrested with me was my father, who stayed in prison for only two days however.
We then came – we had in the meantime increased to about 1,500 men – to Dachau and were met there by about 100 SS men with steel helmets and bayonets. Myriad spotlights dazzled us and made us so dizzy that many fainted. We were reloaded onto a wagon which was about two metres above the ground and into which we had to clamber without help. That was naturally particularly difficult for the elderly, especially for an 87-year-old amongst us and for whom there was not the slightest consideration. In the wagon we were then escorted by Upper Bavarian SS men, who insulted and mistreated us so dreadfully that we said the customary mourning prayers led by the rabbi.
We then arrived at the camp and were squeezed so tightly into a room with 200 people that [the] unconscious were not even able to fall to the floor. We heard continuous shouting from the neighbouring rooms. We then had to step outside and were taken away at the double for examination, with the strict order, "Do not turn your eyes away from the neck of the man in front of you." We then had to stand in the hall right against the wall – some of us, who did not answer questions in the way the SS men wanted, were also mistreated here. We then went into another room with straw sacks – next to me lay my 57-year-old father-in-law, a Jewish teacher. I then remained in the camp for 12 days in total, the first registration lasted so long that we had to stand for a full eight hours without anything to eat, during which it was forbidden for us to look anywhere but straight ahead. We were then shorn and put under showers, first hot and then ice-cold. Whilst showering questions were directed at us and at the moment when the person concerned opened his mouth, the hose with the ice-cold water was directed into his mouth.
After we had been standing naked for a long time, we received garments, some of which bore the Mogen Dovid and some with numbers painted on them in colour – it gave the men a particular pleasure to give the overweight amongst us too tight garments. The daily routine always stayed always the same. At quarter to 5 we had to get up, then at 8, at 12 and 5 o’clock was Appell, in the meantime exercising and marching at the double practised, particularly squats. We had a locker and a knife for every four people. We slept two hundred people to the room, most had chills and fever because of the continual change of cold and heat. For all 200 people only eight lavatories were available. The surveillance consisted of SS men no older than 22, only the Lagerkommandant was about 30 years old. If somebody moved at the order “Stand still”, the SS man standing near him would unbuckle his waist-belt and lay into him.
I frequently saw lorries with dead and know too that a rabbi assisted at a funeral (A).
At half past 6 we had to go to bed, could however only sleep with difficulty because the air was intolerable, and in addition the spotlight was playing the entire night. We often heard shooting at night, perhaps this was connected to the warning constantly repeated at Appell, "At night do not go outside the door" – everyone who appeared outside the building was shot.
The treatment became harsher from day to day – on the Appellplatz orders were transmitted by loudspeaker.
Without exception we had swollen feet from marching in the clayey softened soil.
I was then eventually released due to a preliminary visa for China, with me about 150 who all wanted to emigrate or whose businesses had been arisiert. On the day of release we still had to stand for hours until the formalities were completed. In particular the medical examination was very detailed as everyone whose bodies were marked with bruises or injuries had to remain behind.
Reporter: businessman Ernst Wallerstein (34 years), from Siegburg, at present Amsterdam
(A) Rabbi Köhler from Schweinfurt