He doesn’t remember the name of the concentration camp and-
There was little if nay publicity surrounding the incident, which octurred at a time when the news story would have been most timely, and-
There seems to be difficulty in finding official evidence of it, but-
Pierre Van Passen’s imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp last March was Hell.
Mr. Van Passen, foreign correspondent for a number of American and Canadian dailies, admits that life in Nazi concentration camps corresponds with Sherman’s conpetion of war.
NINE DAYS OF HELL
“Nine days of Hell.” That’s the way Mr. Van Paassen put it in an interview.
Nine days of getting up at five o’clock, nine days of being drilled by brutal braowshirts, nine days of castor oil, beatings, and indignities of all sorts, he said. Not only that, but nine days of Nazi refusal to allow their prisoner, a British subject, to get in touch with the consulate, which was, for four of the nine days. within a few blocks of his prison.
As far as can be learned through communication with the foreign office at London, no official or other record of Van Passen’s arrest is on file. London correspondence reveals this much: “The foreign office here is unaware of the alleged detention in concentration camp of Mr. Van Passen. The British government never intervened in his behalf. The foreign office is certain that in the event of an arrest of a British subject in Germany, news would be communicated to them immediately, particularly in an exceptional case like a concentration camp arrest, because there have been few such circumstances on record.”
Mr. Van Passen said that when he returned to Germany shortly after the Reichstage fire last March, he was seized in Munich, held in the local Nazi braunhaus, or Nazi headquaters, four days, and detained in a concentration camp nine miles from Munich for five days.
BUT IT WAS NOT DACHAU
“I don’t remember the name of the concentration camp,” Mr. Van Paasen said yesterday. “It wasn’t Dachau, because Dachau is nowhere around there.”
When he was taken into custody by brownshirts, according to Van Paassen’s story, he was searched and three Russian visas were found in his possession. He related how he had loaned his British passport to Otto Heller, author of “Untergang des Judentums,” so that he might leave Germany. The passport, Van Paassen said, was returned to him only the day befor his arrest in Munich.
“I was given away by a Nazi in the United States, a painter called Heinemann who has since returned to Germany,” Van Paassen revealed. “The day before I was arrested in Germany the Toronto Globe, a rival paper to one I represend, reported that if I were found in Germany I would be arrested and given castor oil. Precisely that happened.
“When the Nazis found my three Russian visas they said I must certainly be a Russian spy. I said, ‘I also have a Bulgarian visa. Does that make me a Bulgarian spy too?”
OFF TO THE BROWN HOUSE
“They took my watch, my passport, and all my belongings and led me off to the Munich branhous. When I demanded to be allowed to communicate with the British consulate in Munich, they refused to deliver my messages. I was terrifically beaten, and they made me swallow a pint of castor oil. When i resisted they knocked out my front teeth.
“The Nazis maintained one barracks for incorrigible prisoners. Every night they were handed ropes and told to go and hand themselves. During the time I was there nine prisoners hung themselves, and a lot more died of pneumonia.
SLEPT ON BOARDS
“We were gotten up every morning and given a cup o black coffee, after which we were put through a lot of military drills in a forest near the concetration camp. We had to sleep on boards, and every man was given one blanket. The camp was formerly used by the boy scouts or girl guides; and when I was there I underestood there were three hundred and eighty prisoners there.”
The stories of Van Passen’s releas bear in them some conflict. A news release from Hadassah, the women’s Zionist organization, says in part: “On Wednesday, February 14, Hadassah will pay tribute to Pierre Van Passen a well known Journalist, author, and statesman. Although a non-Jews, he is an ardent believer in Zionism and in the upbuilding of a Jewish national homeland.
“Monsieur Van Passen,” the release continues, “was in Germany at the begining of the Hitler regime, and, becaues of his assistance to Jewish refugees, was placed in a concentration camp for nine days, to be released funally through the instrumentality of the British government. Because of his personal experiences with the Nazi government Mr. Van Passen is well qualified to give an all too realitic picture of this reign of terror.”
Mr. Van Passen in a interview Friday said that he was not released through the offices of the British government, but rather that his Nazi captors turned him loose before he could put his case before his British authorities.
“I was taken to a train, after I had been a prisoner nine days,” he said, “and put on it. At the Swiss border I was given back my passport, my watch, my grips, and all my belongings. Even my hotel bill had been paid.
“When I put my case before the British consul in Zurich, he said, ‘You are lucky to get away so easily. In England we deal with passport forgers more harshly’.”
After his release, Van Paasen said, the story of his arrest appeared in England and throughout the United States through the medium of a large news service. Enquiry at the news serivce disclosed that following a lead in the Montreal Star, which Van Paassen represented, a wide cheek-up was made throughout European capitals and no confirmation of the report could be obtained.
SAYS LONDON PROTESTED
Van Paassen asserted that the a protest through the embassy in Berlin with the German government. The German government replied, according to the jourmalist, that it had been extremely lenient with Van Paassen, and the crown prince wrote Van Passen stating that his assertions could not be corroborated by evidence.
“I offered to the back to Germany to prove it under his protection,” Van Paasen said, “but he wouldn’t allow it.”
Mr. Van Paassen reported that at present, according to his communications from Paris, Jews were being beaten up by patriotic Frenchmen. “This has been going on a long time,” he said. “I personally have witnessed some of these attacks; and I intend writing about them in th near future.”
TELLS ABOUT FRENCH
He said that patriotic organizations in France have begun declaring “France for the French,” and that they have made a practice of beating up emigres from Germany. He said that vendors of German emigre newspapers are beaten up on Paris streets when they shout the names of their papers.
Van Paassen has led an eventful life as a journalist. According to one of his reports during the Palestine riots of 1929 th Mufti generously offered him a couple of his wives as a bribe for journatistic favors. Mr. Van Paassen denied himself the privileges and pleasures of the magnanimous offer.
He also reported two attempts on his life while travelling in Palestine. Although bullets flew all about his car, not a on his head was harmed, he said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
