The News-Chronicle said it had learned “from sources the Veracity of which it is impossible to doubt” that 12 Jews had been killed while “running the Gauntlet” in a Nazi concentration camp. A total of 62 Jews including two rabbis, well-to-do landlords, engineers and businessmen were forced through two long lines of Hitler elite guards, the newspaper said, and after it was over 12 of them were dead, the others were all unconscious “the eyes of some had been knocked out. Their faces flattened and shapeless.” The newspaper said editorially that the Nazi Jew-baiters, “by this measure alone,” stand convicted not merely of arson and destruction but of “disgusting butchery.”
“An eye witness account of the torture and killing of German Jews in the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen has reached the News-Chronicle,” the newspaper wrote. “On Nov. 11,1938, a Berlin police officer and twelve policemen arrived at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp with 62 hostages to be delivered up to the camp commander. The arrested were mostly well-to-do landlords, engineers, businessmen and two rabbis. At the gates of the concentration camp two guards in the black uniform of Hitler’s Death’s Head battalion stood. On entering the police officer made his hostages leave the motor coaches and prepared to march them to the offices of the camp commander for registration. But two long ranks of Black Guards lined the way, with clubs and spades in their hands.
“The police officer, who suspected the worst, approached the leader of the troops and asked for free passage. He met with the curt reply that he must deliver up the hostages on the spot. Thereupon the Jews were made to run the gauntlet of shock troops.” The News-Chronicle added that as the Jews advanced between the double rank of blackshirted guards “a hail of blows fell upon them.
“Police unable to bear their cries, turned their backs,” the newspaper continued. “As they fell the Jews were beaten further. The orgy lasted a half hour. Then other prisoners were ordered to carry them away. Twelve of the 62 were dead, their skulls smashed. The Cihers were all unconscious. The eyes of some had been knocked out, their faces flattened and shapeless. The leader of the shock troops haned a ‘receipt’ to the police officer to show he had delivered the correct number and the police returned to Berlin.”
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.
