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Our arrest was carried out by police or Gestapo officers, and actually did not involve any personal harassment. We were brought to the local police prisons. One day after our arrest we were informed that we were being held in provisional Schutzhaft. Further details could not be provided. The lists of those to be arrested must have been compiled at least nine months earlier because they included people who were already dead or who had emigrated. Even I was arrested under a profession which I have not practised for almost nine months.

After spending one or two nights in prison we were collected by a motor bus and brought to Dachau under police and SA guard, they behaved quite properly during the journey. This picture applied to the groups from places in southern Germany with the exception of the Palatinate and the city of Ulm on the Danube, where the people were dreadfully battered by SA and SS before their arrival. In part they were so badly beaten that this was their salvation, as they had to be transferred to hospital and thus temporarily spared before the concentration camp. People whose wives and mothers had sent packages to the prisons were unfortunate upon arriving at the camp. The SS had posted themselves by the camp entrance, i.e. just by the buses. These young SS men were handed the packages by the escort. The SS were armed with birch rods. Each name was now called. Individuals could only fetch their packages in return for a heavy lashing. So the lucky ones were those who arrived at the camp without any ballast.

We had to stand from the time of our arrival, at c. 4 o’clock in the afternoon, until around 10 o’clock at night. After that we were taken to the so-called Schubraum, in which we, that is, c. 3,000 people, spent the night like cattle, lying on top of one another, in two large rooms. The next day we stood from morning until the afternoon in the walkways of the camp, without receiving any food of course, then came to the registration room, in which our personal information, possible previous convictions, previous membership of political parties etc. were recorded. Then we came to the washroom, were stripped completely naked, and our effects were set aside in a sack.

An ugly scene played out in front of the doctor. Individuals had to approach the doctor, line by line, to provide information about previous illnesses and the like. The clerk, who sat to one side of the doctor, a young SS man, was equipped with a birch rod and a pointed object, with which he either pressed into or struck the sides of the naked bodies. The wounds that resulted from this were such that they were still clearly visible after two and a half weeks. The worst of it was the mental anguish caused by knowing that in five or ten minutes’ time you would be tortured in exactly the same way as your predecessor. However, the young SS man made the smallest nuances in carrying out this cruelty. E.g. people with slim, sporty bodies received the lightest strokes, whereas heavier people were mistreated more badly.

Otherwise, the day of arrival was only disrupted by slaps round the face, kicks, and lashings. We were informed by older prisoners that these occurred on arrival to enforce discipline in the camp. As soon as one was in uniform the worst was over.

People who had travelled in the famous Wiener Sonderzug arrived with us. Several hundred Viennese men had been met by SS men at a pre-appointed time in Nuremberg. They had received no sustenance for four days in all, and travelled for 14 hours in the special train. During the night, they were forced to stare into the electric lights of the carriages without looking away or moving themselves in any way. Because of the pain that this caused for the eyes, nobody was able to do this for very long. However, as soon as anyone looked away or moved, they received terrible beatings from the SS guard. On top of that, they were forced to hit one another. The SS helped out if this was not done powerfully enough. These people arrived in Dachau with four dead, and in fact those who were beaten to death included the youngest person on the journey as well as three older men who had a very Jewish appearance.

Two more on the journey died during and shortly after arrival in Dachau. A number of people no longer had a human face, rather the face was a mass of raw flesh. In some faces one or both eyes could no longer be seen. Almost every single Viennese man had blue marks on the face. These people were so hungry that we gave them some of the black bread we had saved from the prison. Unfortunately this was spotted from afar by an SS-Sturmführer , who certainly did not know which group of prisoners was involved, nor the troubles these people had behind them, and so he sentenced the Vienna group to Strafexerzieren for the whole afternoon, and which consisted mainly of countless knee-bends. One can imagine how many of them were completely done in, considering everything that they had experienced previously.

In the evenings we came to our barracks, and at this time the 15-16 blocks provided accommodation for 800–830 Jews each. There were therefore between 12-13,000 Jewish prisoners in Dachau. Alongside this, there were c. 4–5,000 Aryan prisoners there. It is calculated that Buchenwald, near Weimar, and Oranienburg had a much larger number of prisoners than Dachau. We estimate that the number of imprisoned Jews in all of Germany is at least 80,000.

Our prisoner uniforms had been made many months previously, primarily by the tailor’s shop of the camp itself. The uniform consisted of a thin shirt and a thin, blue and white striped pair of trousers and a jacket of the same material, although the other prisoners had proper warm clothes. Our fellow sufferers informed us, however, that it had not been directly intended that we were to freeze in such a way, but rather our arrival had already been expected in spring or summer. I had the misfortune of being one of the roughly 8,000 prisoners for whom there were enough prisoner uniforms. The 4,000 Jews who arrived last were able to keep their civilian clothes, because the camp administration had seemingly not bargained on such a large influx. These companions in misfortune were naturally seen by us as being very lucky. They did not, at least, freeze to the same extent as we did, especially on the two days when the temperature dropped below zero, and on those days we stood in the teeming rain.

With the exception of Sundays, when we were awoken at 6 o’clock, we were awoken at 5 o’clock. We spent the night on Pritschen that had been lined with straw. However, the straw was so thin and became smaller day by day so that by the end of my imprisonment we were already lying down on bare wood. We lay so closely together that every single movement disturbed the neighbour.

Existing prisoners were made directly responsible for our supervision, and the majority of these had a red badge, i.e. they were former political opponents. One was able to make interesting observations of these people. Inwardly they were on our side, on the other hand it had been made clear to them that would bring forward their own release if they really “pestered” us. Because of this our treatment changed day by day, even hour by hour. So at one moment these supervisors were very nice to us, then again on account of a trifle we had to do 100 knee bends or crawl on fingertips or hop the knee bends, and there were more such pleasantries. We ourselves had, naturally, a yellow Mogen Dovid for a badge attached to the prisoner uniforms which were the same colours as the Jewish national colours. The other groups of prisoners, recognisable because of their varied coloured badges, comprised, alongside the politische Häftlinge, Gewohnheitsverbrecher, Arbeitsscheue and so-called Remigranten, i.e. people who had returned from abroad and were to be taught the ways of the new State in the camps. Amongst the political prisoners were the best of society, e.g. former representatives of the Social Democrats, as well as Austrian ministers; even the former mayor of Vienna, [Richard] Schmitz, who sometimes had to push a heavy road roller with other prisoners. At that time the political prisoners were building new SS barracks.

We did not have to work ourselves, only stand and Exerzieren. Thanks to the thin clothes and harsh weather, standing was the most dangerous thing of all. This took place three times a day (only twice on Saturdays and Sundays) on the so-called Appellplatz. One had to line up here from about 6-8 in the morning, afternoons from 1-3, evenings again from 6-8, in files according to individual blocks. The worst was when the count did not tally. It once happened that one man too many had been counted, and so instead of two hours we had to stand for five. One time we had to listen to various trivial messages via the loudspeaker, which similarly lasted for around five hours. And one Saturday afternoon we were made to stand for six hours for some inane reason.

Every day new countermanding orders arrived, which cancelled out the others. In this way it was decreed one day that the sick and the elderly people were allowed to remain in the barracks, which one was usually only allowed to enter overnight and occasionally whilst eating. Yet on another day this instruction was repealed again, and the elderly and the sick had to march too. Amongst us were numerous people aged 65, 70 and 75.

After uniforms had been issued people were rarely touched by the SS, and then only when someone was not standing in line correctly, or otherwise acted in an undisciplined manner as the SS saw it. Otherwise we provided the selection of the ruined and dying from amongst us, i.e. nobody was beaten to death directly, but rather the weakest bodies were the first victims of this camp regime, then the next weakest etc. It is clear that the majority of deaths occurred amongst the eldest people. We counted c. 50-55 deaths in the first two and a half weeks. On one day, roughly two weeks after arrival, according to the doctor the highest death rate on a single day was eleven. Several prisoners had nervous breakdowns and left the barracks during the night. We had been informed early on that this fell under martial law, and in fact these people were “auf der Flucht erschossen”, i.e. killed by the SS night patrol. Several individuals, whose names were announced, supposedly entered into an exchange of words with the SS as a result of their broken nerves, and self-evidently were shot. The vast majority of deaths resulted from stomach obstruction, pneumonia, heart attack, fever and other illnesses.

Reporting to the doctor took place at 4 o’clock, and examinations happened at 10 o’clock the following morning; and when there was a large crowd at 10 o’clock the day after. So long as people were not being spoken to by the doctor in the Revier, which only took place in the most acute cases, they had to present themselves at Appell just like all the rest. Because of this we were joined on the Appellplatz by the dying, evenings and mornings, and it happened that people fell down dead during roll call.

Releases occurred according to the following considerations:

  1. People aged over 60, though not all of them, only some.
  2. People who had finalised their emigration and who would be allowed to leave Germany within a short deadline.
  3. People who had been recorded as essential for performing business sales.
  4. (this was, however, only in the final days before my own release) People of special merit and the wounded of the World War.

Upon release, emigrants were made aware of the fact that they and their families would be in a concentration camp for life if they were ever seen on German soil again. The emigration of Bavarian prisoners was ‘eased’ by the fact that the appropriate notary came to Dachau with a Party lawyer, and all of those who possessed property, businesses and suchlike had to give full authority to the lawyer to sell these at the best possible rate, so that any effort needed for the elimination of their property was removed from them.

Upon my release a number of my comrades came to me, threw themselves on to the floor, and pledged their eternal gratitude if I were able to arrange for their being transferred to a foreign prison. If my comrades still in Dachau were offered a walled-in territory, deep in the primeval forests by decree, then they would pray day and night for him who had brought them this fortune.

If a Jew living in Germany or abroad was ever to fire another shot or to give the regime there any other sort of leverage, then it is certain that hardly any of the Jews who are still resident in Germany would get away with their lives.

The report originates according to a letter of the 19th December 1938 from the local office S. J. G. Schweizer Israelitischer Gemeindebund in Zurich, Löwenstraße 1. It was recorded by the office of the Lokalsekretariat S. J. G. Zurich, because the member of the refugee aid committee who wanted to complete the report personally is currently ill.

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