LAMPE: Besides those I have already described, I feel I ought to mention
what happened to part of a convoy coming from Sachsenhausen which was
executed by a special method. This was on 17 February 1945.
When the Allied armies were advancing, various camps were moved back
toward Austria. Of a convoy of 2,500 internees which had left
Sachsenhausen, only about 1,700 were left when they arrived at
Mauthausen on the morning of the 17th of February. 800 had died or had
been killed in the course of the journey.
The Mauthausen Camp was at that time, if I may use this expression,
completely choked. So when the 1,700 survivors of this convoy arrived,
Kommandant Dachmeier had selected 400 from among them. He encouraged the
sick, the old, and the weak prisoners to come forward with the idea that
they might be taken to the infirmary. These 400 men, who had either come
forward of their own free will or had been arbitrarily selected, were
stripped entirely naked and left for 18 hours in weather 18 degrees
below zero, between the laundry building and the wall of the camp. The
congestion . . .