DUPONT: No, until 20 April 1945.
M. DUBOST: Will you make your statement on the regime in the
concentration camp where you were interned and the aim of those who
prescribed this regime?
DUPONT: When I arrived at Buchenwald I soon became aware of the
difficult living conditions. The regime imposed upon the prisoners was
not based on any principle of justice. The principle which formed the
basis of this regime was the principle of the purge. I will explain.
We—I am speaking of the French—were grouped together at Buchenwald
almost all of us, without having been tried by any Tribunal. In 1942,
1943, 1944, and 1945, it was quite unusual to pass any formal judgment
on the prisoners. Many of us were interrogated and then deported; others
were cleared by the interrogation and deported all the same. Others
again were not interrogated at all. I shall give you three examples.
On 11 November 1943 elements estimated at several hundred persons were
arrested at Grenoble during a demonstration commemorating the Armistice.
They were brought to Buchenwald, where the greater part died. The same
thing happened in the village of Verchenie (Drôme) in October 1943. I
saw them at Buchenwald too. It happened again in April 1944 at St.
Claude, and I saw these people brought in in August 1944.
In this way, various elements were assembled at Buchenwald subject to
martial law. But there were also all kinds of people, including some who
were obviously innocent, who had either been cleared by interrogation or
not even interrogated at all. Finally, there were some political
prisoners. They had been deported because they were members of parties
which were to be suppressed.
That does not mean that the interrogations were not to be taken
seriously. The interrogations which I underwent and which I saw others
undergo were particularly inhuman. I shall enumerate a few of the
methods:
Every imaginable kind of beating, immersion in bathtubs, squeezing of
testicles, hanging, crushing of the head in iron bands, and the
torturing of entire families in each other’s sight. I have, in
particular, seen a wife tortured before her husband; and children were
tortured before their mothers. For the sake of precision, I will quote
one name: Francis Goret of the Rue de Bourgogne in Paris was tortured
before his mother. Once in the camp, conditions were the same for
everyone.
M. DUBOST: You spoke of racial purging as a social policy. What was the
criterion?
DUPONT: At Buchenwald various elements described as “political,”
“national”—mainly Jews and Gypsies—and “asocial”—especially
criminals—were herded together under the same regime. There were
criminals of every nation: Germans, Czechs, Frenchmen, et cetera, all
living together under the same regime. A purge does not necessarily
imply extermination, but this purge was achieved by means of the
extermination already mentioned. It began for us in certain cases; the
decision was taken quite suddenly. I shall give one example. In 1944 a
convoy of several hundred Gypsy children arrived at Buchenwald, by what
administrative mystery we never knew. They were assembled during the
winter of 1944 and were to be sent on to Auschwitz to be gassed. One of
the most tragic memories of my deportation is the way in which these
children, knowing perfectly well what was in store for them, were driven
into the vans, screaming and crying. They went on to Auschwitz the same
day.
In other cases the extermination was carried out by progressive stages.
It had already begun when the convoy arrived. For instance, in the
French convoy which left Compiègne on 24 January 1944 and arrived on 26
January, I saw one van containing 100 persons, of which 12 were dead and
8 insane. During the period of my deportation I saw numerous transports
come in. The same thing happened every time; only the numbers varied. In
this way the elimination of a certain proportion had already been
achieved when the convoy arrived. Then they were put in quarantine and
exposed to cold for several hours, while roll call was taken. The weaker
died. Then came extermination through work. Some of them were picked out
and sent to Kommandos such as Dora, S III, and Laura. I noticed that
after those departures, which took place every month, when the
contingent was brought up to strength again, truck-loads of dead were
brought back to Buchenwald. I even attended the post-mortems on them,
and I can tell you the results. The lesions were those of a very
advanced stage of cachexy. Those who had stood up to conditions for one,
two, or three months very often exhibited the lesions characteristic of
acute tuberculosis, mostly of the granular type. In Buchenwald itself
prisoners had to work; and there, as everywhere else, the only hope of
survival lay in work. Extermination in Buchenwald was carried out in
accordance with a principle of selection laid down by the medical
officer in charge, Dr. Shiedlauski. These selections . . .
M. DUBOST: Excuse me for interrupting. What is the nationality of this
medical officer in charge?
DUPONT: He was a German SS doctor.