[_To the witness._] Could you tell the Tribunal in what condition the
men’s camp was found at the time of the liberation and how many
survivors remained?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: When the Germans went away they left 2,000 sick
women and a certain number of volunteers, myself included, to take care
of them. They left us without water and without light. Fortunately the
Russians arrived on the following day. We therefore were able to go to
the men’s camp and there we found a perfectly indescribable sight. They
had been for 5 days without water. There were 800 serious cases, and
three doctors and seven nurses, who were unable to separate the dead
from the sick. Thanks to the Red Army, we were able to take these sick
persons over into clean blocks and to give them food and care; but
unfortunately I can give the figures only for the French. There were 400
of them when we came to the camp and only 150 were able to return to
France; for the others it was too late, in spite of all our care.
M. DUBOST: Were you present at any of the executions and do you know how
they were carried out in the camp?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: I was not present at the executions. I only
know that the last one took place on 22 April, 8 days before the arrival
of the Red army. The prisoners were sent, as I said, to the
Kommandantur; then their clothes were returned and their cards were
removed from the files.
M. DUBOST: Was the situation in this camp of an exceptional nature or do
you consider it was part of a system?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: It is difficult to convey an exact idea of the
concentration camps to anybody, unless one has been in the camp oneself,
since one can only quote examples of horror; but it is quite impossible
to convey any impression of that deadly monotony. If asked what was the
worst of all, it is impossible to answer, since everything was
atrocious. It is atrocious to die of hunger, to die of thirst, to be
ill, to see all one’s companions dying around one and being unable to
help them. It is atrocious to think of one’s children, of one’s country
which one will never see again, and there were times when we asked
whether our life was not a living nightmare, so unreal did this life
appear in all its horror.
For months, for years we had one wish only: The wish that some of us
would escape alive, in order to tell the world what the Nazi convict
prisons were like everywhere, at Auschwitz as at Ravensbrück. And the
comrades from the other camps told the same tale; there was the
systematic and implacable urge to use human beings as slaves and to kill
them when they could work no more.