In a recently published booklet called “Oranienburg” by Von Gerhart Seger, former member of the German Parliament, Mr. Seger records his experience in a concentration camp from which he succeeded in escaping. In this booklet, which contains a froeword by Heinrich Manna, Mr. Seger mentions a torture which, wich regard to refinement so far reported.
Last October special prison cells were built entirely out of stone in which the prisoner were forced into these cells after their first beating immediately after their arrival at the camp. Not the slightest bending of the body was possible in these stone rooms.
Mr. Seger says, “To be locked into these stone coffins, not to be able to move a single joint, to feel the body gradually growing stiffer, the knees becoming weaker and hitting against the wall, not not to know that to do with your arms, how to continue to stand, and the no less torture of the soul-the terrible boring thoughts which have only one aim-to get out of this terrible cement coffin-the growing pains, the tears of fury, the maddening pressure in the head, is unheard of, and whoever invented this coffin could not be a human being.”
Some of the prisoners were kept in these coffins on the slightest pretext for fourteen hours. One prisoner, Newman, was kept in a cell for eight days and eight nights. This diciplinary punishment was inflicted by the cmmander entirely arbitrarily.
German stamps are being reprinted. They will now be printed on a paper containing the Swastika as a watermark, according to and order of the postal authorities. This watermark will only be visible when the paper is held up ot the light.
The head of the Jewish Hospital in Berlin, Professor Dr. rosenstein, experienced a rare surprise recently. The office of the Chancellor telephoned him to say that and S. A.chief belong to Hitler’s inner circle would arrive in the hospital shortly and must be immediately operated upon. Dr. Rosenstein expressed his surprise that the Nazi should be sent to a Jewish Hospital, he was told, “That does nto matte. No discussion. Prepare your instruments.” Half an hour later the operation took place and the life of the leader was saved.
No doubt ignorant of the fact that the man whose life is the subject of Ehm Welk’s book, “The Black Sun,” just brought out by the Ullstein Publishing House in Berlin which, by the way, is no longer a Jewish concern, was a Jew, the Berlin Morgenpost refers to it as the “biography of a hero of German coloonization.” Ralph Zuern, the reviewer, points’ out that Welk’s work treats of “the tragedy of teh German soul, of the dissensions in the ranks of those who struggle for Germany, and of the future dawn of Germany’s ultimate triumph.”
Thus a ray of truth has-inadvertently-filtered through the Nazis’ campaign against “non-Aryans.” For, Emin Pasha or, ot call him by his right name, Dr. Eduard Schnitzer, of Oppeln, Silesia, in Prussia, was a Jewish physician who, in later life, rendered extreaordinary services as political worker and explores in the interior of the African continent. He also proved hmself invaluable in the service of the German Colonial Office ot whose interests he devoted himself whole-heartedly up to the very day of his assassination in Eastern Arica, in 1892.
It would be interesting to find out what punishment has been or will be meted out to the Nazi writers who dared shower praised on a “non-Aryan” who, in common with the great majority of his fellow-Jews in Germany devoted all his life and all his energy to serving faithfully his Fatherlandl.
A. R. Z.
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.
