All 1,200 Dutch Jews who were sent by the Nazis to the salt and sulphur mines near the Mauthausen concentration camp in upper Austria have died, it was reported by official Dutch sources here. Other Dutch Jews were killed by the Nazis in the course of poison gas experiments at the Mauthausen camp in which the Jews were used as guinea pigs, the Dutch government confirmed.
(A JTA dispatch from Zurich on March 24 reported that thousands of Jews had died at the Mauthausen camp as the result of being subjected to poison gas experiments by the Nazis.)
The Jews, who were rounded up in Amsterdam last year as a result of the anti-Nazi riots which occurred there and sent to the Mauthausen camp in cattle trucks, were sent to work in the mines without the protection of modern appliances designed to overcome the noxious effects of the sulphur fumes, the Dutch government disclosed. When reports of this tragedy first began to leak out, the Dutch officials protested to the International Red Cross which asked the Nazis for permission to visit the mines. The Germans, however, refused the Red Cross’ request, stating bluntly that: “This is our affair.”
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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.
