Records showing that of 24,000 Jews brought by the Nazis from all parts of Europe to the Mauthausen camp – where German scientists used inmates as guinea pigs in poison-gas experiments – only 2,500 survived when the U. S. troop liberated this town were made public here today.
The largest proportion of the Jewish survivors were deportees from Hungary who are now on route to their native country. At present there are only 349 Jewish men and 626 Jewish women left in the camp. About twenty-five per cent of them expressed a desire to go to Palestine, while others said they wanted to emigrate to the United States, or to South America. The most tragic permons among these long-term immates are those who, accustomed to the horrible camp life, are unable to face freedom and want to remain at Mauthausen.
A Jewish committee, headed by Dr. Maxmillan Hornung of Cracow, is completing a list of the surviving Jews, their closest relatives, and where they want to go. The American commandant of the camp is a Jewish captain, Michael Levy, from Houston, Texas.
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