Two Americans Relate Gruesome Details of Torture in Berlin Prison

Two American Jews, Alexander Adler of 3920 Eighteenth Avenue, Brooklyn, and Maurice Sonders, of 556 East Fourth Street, Brooklyn, who have just come from Germany, where they arrived last week on the Europa, have related terrifying experiences to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency representative.

Sonders tells that he went to the Kurfuerstendamm to visit a friend at a boarding house. Not finding his friend at home, he asked a maid to take a message, whereupon the maid, noticing Sonders holding an English paper, raised an alarm, vilifying the foreign press as blackmailers of Germany. When Sonders called the following day to see his friend, he was met by a plainclothes detective who asked to see his passport, which Sonders refused to show, demanding the detective’s authorization and credentials. The plainclothes man then called in the police who arrested both Sonders and his friend Adler, who had been waiting for him downstairs.

Both Sonders and Adler relate that they were both roughly searched at the police station and their papers, watches and valuables taken from them. From here they were taken to the police presidium and thrown into a cellar, where they found about seventy others, half naked, some covered with blood, with crushed ribs and with injuries to legs and heads. They describe the prisoners as being in a terrible condition, lying on the floor, and in agony from their injuries. Among the prisoners was also a Catholic who was married to a Jewess. He claimed to have been arrested because he had declared that his wife was as good as any German woman. He was thereupon carried off by Nazis, had his skull broken, and was also otherwise maltreated.

The Catholic prisoner, they relate, begged them to reveal to the world what was happening, as soon as they were released.

They also tell of another prisoner, a young Jew from Kalisz, whose home was broken into by Nazis who forced him and his father to beat each other. The young Jew described how, when they refused to comply, they were beaten up by the Nazis until the blood flowed and were then forced to lick their own blood. They were subsequently arrested and thrown into the cellar at the police presidium.

The Americans further describe how individual prisoners are taken out of the cellar at night and subjected to excruciating cruelty.

Both Americans, who were released on the following day, declare that they immediately called on the United States Consul in Berlin in order to make an affidavit describing their experiences and treatment. They assert that the Consul declined to accept their affidavit, although his assistant appeared willing to do so. They declare that the attitude of the Consul was unfriendly.

Both Adler and Sonders assert that the outside world is unaware of the real extent of the atrocities still proceeding in Germany.