I was arrested on 13th June 1938 at 6 o’clock in the morning in order, it was said, to be taken to a face-to-face meeting. In reality I was to be transported to a camp because I had been fined RM. 1,000.- during the inflationary period. When we arrived at the Charlottenburg prison, I discovered some 100 Jews who were sharing my fate and with me had to sign a statement at the outset that began with the words, “I, a criminal Jew”. We then went to Alexanderplatz and had to sleep there for two days, 70 men in one room with seven bunks. I must point out that I am very disabled by war, still now recognised as being 50%. However that did not delay my transport off to Buchenwald on Wednesday. My wife only learned where I was staying in a roundabout way. Through conversations in the camp I learned that the whole Aktion which then took place later in November had already been prepared in detail at that time, and that Dachau was going to be cleared out for the Jews in order to speed up their emigration. Amongst us were Jews up to the age of 75. We were met at the station by SS men, quite young men from 16 to 20 years of age, with blows from rifle butts and kicks, and then transported in lorries to the camp, where we had to report under the “gallows”. With reference to this gallows we were told that not long before a Jew had swung there for a couple of days and that the same thing would happen to us if we showed any kind of lack of discipline. We then had to stand for all of the first day and whilst doing so received cap, trousers and coat, however neither underclothing nor anything to eat. The first meal we received the following noon. We had to sleep 500 men in one barn on the wet earth – we had merely gathered some pine twigs to lie on, which were also damp however. Our barrack was situated on the Ettersberg. We had not received any linen either, so that we were very cold during the night. Our supervisor, the so-called Blockältester, was a brutish Berufsverbrecher – in general our supervisors were people with previous convictions who had already been in the camp for years. The Blockführer was an SS man. We were then allocated to an Arbeitskommando and had to work in the quarry, in particular carrying the broken rocks to the trucks on the site. Everything had to happen at the double, every normal step and any lingering elicited blows from the SS men. There was little to eat, 300 g. of bread, 1.5 litres of soup, 15 g. of margarine, 15-20 g. of jam and in the evening a little tiny piece of inedible sausage. We had to get up at 3 o’clock. At 4 o’clock was Appell which lasted for about an hour, then until 12 work in the quarry, then after a half hour break at midday work again until 4 o’clock, then Appell until quarter to 5 and then again work until 8 o‘clock. At 10 o’clock we could then go to sleep in the barracks. New barracks had been built when we arrived where it was said the Jews are coming in. There were a lot of punishments. There were general punishments like standing still for eleven hours on the Appellplatz without being allowed to move or to relieve ourselves, and punishment drills like Rollen and Kniebeugen.

In addition there were special punishments such as Anhängen an Bäume [Baumhängen] i.e. the people concerned were hung from a tree trunk with their wrists tied together, so that the arm joints dislocated and consciousness was lost after only a short time in terrible pain. Another punishment was tying people with their elbows bound together to a tree so that just the tips of their toes touched the ground. I was told reliably for sure, though did not see, that punishments were even carried out in which people were tied up so that their heads hung downwards.

There were 1,250 of us Jews and c. 6,500 Christian prisoners, so-called B. V., i.e. Berufsverbrecher. They had red stripes on their clothes, the Bibelforscher blue and the Asoziale black. There were then in addition the floggings, which were carried out by SS men almost daily during Appell in gradations of 20, 25 and 50 lashes for smoking whilst working and similar misdemeanours. The Scharführer were quite young SS men, the commandant, whose name we were told was Koch, was someone who had been convicted of murder who loved to go around in a white uniform and had a perverse brutish way of watching the punishment being carried out.

Then there were finally also the detentions, where the convicted man had to stand in a darkened cell for the whole time. A clergyman, whose moaning and shouting I heard throughout the whole time, was in such a cell for two and a half months.

If one of the camp inmates disappeared, everyone had to stand still at Appell until he had been found again. One day – that was the most dreadful case I have experienced – a man who had obviously wanted to escape was brought back half dead; his clothes were hanging in shreds from his body. The dogs which were in the camp were then let loose on him and he was so badly bitten that he writhed in pain. He then received a flogging and was laid in a crate, both sides of which had been covered with barbed wire. Slats had been nailed across the top with gaps, then the crate was put out in the sun and he was left without food, so that in the end he must have starved in the crate, which we did not see again after two days. I have seen for myself how another man who had tried to escape was beaten to death with clubs. The SS men trampled on him with boots in order to be sure of his death.

The water supply was so poor that the men drank tar water. The old men no longer responded to food and refused to take any nourishment. In this way of course there were numerous deaths. I estimate that in the two and a half months that I was in the camp 150 to 180 died, in any case corpses were carried out of the camp and the barracks daily and probably burned. There were also numerous suicides of course. The despair was particularly great during the first days after admission, the men simply ran into the neutral zone, as they knew that they would then be shot. However acts of barbarism by the SS men were also frequently causes of death; thus I know that a young man called Lewisohn was intentionally run over by a lorry. The SS men carried out their constantly voiced threat of shooting to kill for the most harmless incidents.

At the start of a rainy period staying in the barracks was unbearable as it rained in. The rain brought many illnesses in its wake, as we had to stand for hours in the clothes that we had to put on when they were still wet. There were frequent cases of pneumonia, also many died from exhaustion and heart attacks. People with heart disease had it particularly hard, e.g. a Herr Kahn from Frankfurt am Main who was very popular and 73 years old. He was carried by us to the doctor, who refused all treatment however. We then carried him back and on the way met some SS men who knocked him off the stretcher and forced him to work. He was flogged so many times that he died two days later. The corpse that we carried back looked dreadful. Deaths from natural causes also became more frequent because the people who were not used to physical work were completely worn out by the 14-hour working day and poor diet. Our Blockältester beat a wine merchant from Trier, who was completely worn out, until he died. Seriously ill men also had to appear at Appell - they were then carried in on a stretcher and laid down by a tree. Often they died during Appell. A 73-year-old Herr Schnell from Berlin, who was seriously diabetic, received such a heavy blow to the head from an SS man that he was dead two days later. In general reporting sick was forbidden, probably because medication was not administered and e.g. gauze bandages were not available at all. The only contact we had with the doctor was on our release, who then examined us to see whether the mistreatment could be detected somewhere or other on our bodies.

Donations were constantly demanded from us for our superiors and Christian fellow internees without means; on average RM. 1.- of our money was made available to us each day. Nothing was stolen from the money to my knowledge, but it was virtually extorted from us. With me, 52 men were released because we had visas. We were brought back under heavy guard in lorries and prison vehicles to Berlin, where we were transported still in handcuffs to Alexanderplatz. My release took place on 29th August.

Reporter: Louis Gumpert, brickworks owner, Berlin W 35, Friedrich Wilhelmstraße 17, 51 years old