CAPPELEN: I was a lawyer, but now I am a business man.
M. DUBOST: Will you tell what you know of the atrocities of the Gestapo
in Norway?
CAPPELEN: My Lord, I was arrested on 29 November 1941 and taken to the
Gestapo prison in Oslo, Moellergata 19. After 10 days I was interrogated
by two Norwegian NS, or Nazi police agents. They started in at once to
beat me with bludgeons. How long this interrogation lasted I cannot
remember, but it led to nothing. So after some days I was brought to 32
Victoria Terrace. That was the headquarters of the Gestapo in Norway. It
was about 8 o’clock at night. I was brought into a fairly big room and
they asked me to undress. I had to undress until I was absolutely naked.
I was a little bit swollen after the first treatment I had by the
Norwegian police agents, but it was not too bad.
There were present about six or eight Gestapo agents and their leader
was Femer; Kriminalrat was his title. He was very angry and they started
to bombard me with questions which I could not answer. So Femer ran at
me and tore all the hair off my head, hair and blood were all over the
floor around me. And so, all of a sudden, they all started to run at me
and beat me with rubber bludgeons and iron cable-ends. That hurt me very
badly and I fainted. But I was brought back to life again by their
pouring ice water over me. I vomited, naturally, because I was feeling
very sick. But that only made them angry; and they said, “Clean up, you
dirty dog!” And I had to make an attempt to clean up with my bare hands.
In this way they carried on for a long, long time, but the interrogation
led to nothing because they bombarded me with questions and asked me of
persons whom I did not know or scarcely knew.
I suppose it must have been in the morning I was brought back again to
the prison. I was placed in my cell and felt very sick and weak. All
during the day I asked the guard if I could not have a doctor; that was
the 19th. After some days—I suppose it must have been the day before
Christmas Eve 1941—I was again, in the night, brought to the Victoria
Terrace. The same happened as last time, only this time it was very easy
for me to undress because I had only a coat on me. I was swollen up from
the last beating. Just like the last time, six, seven, or eight Gestapo
agents were present.
THE PRESIDENT: German Gestapo, do you mean?
CAPPELEN: Yes, German Gestapo, all of them. And then there was Femer
present at that time, too. He had a rank in the SS and was criminal
commissar. Then they started to beat me again, but it was useless to
beat a man like me who was so swollen up and looking so bad. Then they
started in another way, they started to screw and break my arms and
legs. And my right arm was dislocated. I felt that awful pain, and
fainted again. Then the same happened as last time; they poured water on
me and I came back again to life.
Now all the Germans there were absolutely mad. They roared like animals
and bombarded me with questions again, but I was so tired I could not
answer.
Then they placed a sort of home-made—it looked to me like a sort of
home-made—wooden thing, with a screw arrangement, on my left leg; and
they started to screw so that all the flesh loosened from the bones. I
felt an awful pain and fainted away again. But I came back to
consciousness again; and I have still big marks here on my leg from the
screw arrangement, now, four years afterwards.
So that led to nothing and then they placed something on my neck—I
still have marks here [_indicating_]—and loosened the flesh here. But
then I had a collapse and all of a sudden I felt that I was sort of
paralyzed in the right side. It has otherwise been proved that I had a
cerebral hemorrhage. And I got that double vision; I saw two of each
Gestapo agent, and all was going round and round for me. That double
vision I have had 4 years, and when I am tired it comes back again. But
I am better now, so I can move again on the right side; but the right
side is a little bit affected from that.
Well, I cannot remember much more from that night, but the other
prisoners who had to clean up the corridors in the prison had seen them
bringing me back again in the morning. That must have been about 6
o’clock in the morning. They thought I was dead because I had no irons
on my hands. If it had been for 1 day or 2 days, I can’t tell, but one
day I moved again and was a little bit clear; and then the guard at once
was in my cell where I was lying on a cot in my own vomiting and blood,
and afterwards there came a doctor.
He had, I suppose, quite a high rank; which rank I can’t exactly say. He
told me that I most probably would die, especially if I wasn’t—I asked
him, “Couldn’t you bring me to a hospital, because . . .” He said, “No.
Fools are not to be brought to any hospital, before you do just what we
say you shall do. Like all Norwegians, you are a fool.”
Well, they put my arm into joint again. That was very bad, but two
soldiers held me and they drew it in, and I fainted away again. So the
time passed and I rested a bit. I couldn’t walk, because it all seemed
to be going around for me. So I was lying on the cot. And so one day—it
must have been in the end of February or in the middle of February
1942—they came again. It must have been about ten o’clock in the night,
because the light in my cell had been out for quite a long time. They
asked me to stand up, and I made an attempt, and fell down again because
of the paralysis. Then they kicked me; but I said, “Is not it better to
put me to death, because I can’t move?”
Well, they dragged me out of the cell, and I was again brought up to
Victoria Terrace; that is the headquarters where they made their
interrogations. This time the interrogation was led by one SS man called
Stehr. I could not stand so, naked as I was, I was lying on the floor.
This Stehr had some assistants, four or five Gestapo agents; and they
started to tramp on me and to kick me. So all of a sudden they brought
me to my feet again and brought me to a table where Stehr was sitting.
He took my left hand like this [_indicating_] and put some pins under my
nails and started to break them up. Well, it hurt me badly; and all
things began going around and around for me—the double vision—but the
pain was so intense that I drew my hand back. I should not have done
that, because that made them absolutely furious. I fainted away,
collapsed, and I do not know for how long a time; but I came back to
life again by the smelling of burned flesh or burned meat. And then one
of the Gestapo agents was standing with a little sort of lamp burning me
under my feet. It did not hurt me too much, because I was so feeble that
I did not care; and I was so paralyzed my tongue could not work, so I
could not speak, only groaned a bit, crying, naturally, always.
Well, I don’t remember much more of that time, but this was to me one of
the worst things I went through with respect to interrogations. I was
brought back again to the prison and time passed and I attempted to eat
a little bit. I spewed most of it up again, I threw it up again, most of
it. But little by little I recovered. I was still paralyzed in the side,
so I couldn’t stand up.
But I was also taken into interrogations again, and then I was
confronted with other Norwegians, people I knew and people I did not
know; and the most of them were badly treated. They were swollen up, and
I remember especially two of my friends, two very good persons. I had
been confronted with them, and they were looking very bad from torture,
and when I came back again after my imprisonment I learned that they
both were dead; they had died from the treatment.
Another incident which I aim to tell—I hope My Lord will permit me to
do it—concerned a person called Sverre Emil Halvorsen. He was one
day—that must have been in the autumn or in August or October 1943—a
little bit swollen up and very unhappy; and he said they had treated him
so bad, but he and some of his friends had been in some sort of a court
where they had been told that they were to be shot the next day. They
placed a sort of sentence upon them, just to set an example.
Well, Halvorsen had, naturally, a headache and felt very ill, and I
asked the guard to bring—the head guard, that was a person named Herr
Götz. He came and asked what the devil I wanted. I said, “My comrade is
very ill, could not he have some aspirins?” “Oh no,” he said, “it is a
waste to give him aspirin, because he is to be shot in the morning.”
Next morning he was brought out of the cell, and after the war they
found him up at Trondheim together with other Norwegians in a grave
there with a bullet through his neck.
Well, the Moellergate 19, in Oslo, the prison where I was for about 25
months, was a house of horror. I heard every night—nearly every
night—people screaming and groaning. One day, it must have been in
December 1943, about the 8th of December, they came into my cell and
told me to dress. It was in the night. I put on my ragged clothes, what
I had. Now I had recovered, practically. I was naturally lame on the one
side, could not walk so well, but I could walk; and I went down in the
corridor and there they placed me as usual against the wall, and I
waited that they would bring me away and shoot me. But they did not
shoot me; they brought me to Germany together with lots of other
Norwegians. I learned afterwards about some few of my friends—and by
friends, I mean Norwegians. We were so-called “Nacht und Nebel”
prisoners, “Night and Mist” prisoners. We were brought to a camp called
Natzweiler, in Alsace. It was a very bad camp, I must say.
We had to work to take stones out of the mountains. But I shall not bore
you about my tales from Natzweiler, My Lord, I will only say that people
of all other nations—French, Russians, Dutch, and Belgians—were there
and we are about five hundred Norwegians who have been there. Between 60
and 70 percent died there or in other camps of concentration. Also, two
Danes were there.
Well, we saw many cruel things there, so cruel that they need—they are
well known. The camp had to be evacuated in September 1944. We were then
brought to Dachau near Munich, but we did not stay long there; at least,
I didn’t stay long there. I was sent to a Kommando called Aurich in East
Friesland, where we were about—that was an under-Kommando of
Neuengamme, near Hamburg. We were about fifteen hundred prisoners. We
had to dig tank traps. Well, we had to walk every day about 3 or 4
hours, and go by train for 1 hour to the Panzer Gräben where we worked.
The work was so strong and so hard and the way they treated us so bad,
that most of them died there. I suppose about half of the prisoners died
of dysentery or of ill-treatment in the five or six weeks we were there.
It was too much even for the SS, who had to take care of the camp, so
they gave it up, I suppose; and I was sent from Neuengamme, near
Hamburg, to a camp called Gross-Rosen, in Silesia; it is near Breslau.
That was a very bad camp, too. We were about 40 Norwegians there; and of
those 40 Norwegians we were about 10 left after 4 to 5 weeks.
THE PRESIDENT: You will be some little time longer, so I think we better
adjourn now for 10 minutes.
[_A recess was taken._]
M. DUBOST: M. Cappelen, will you continue to speak to us of your passage
through those camps, particularly of what you know of the camp of
Natzweiler and the role at Natzweiler of Dr. Hirt, Hirch, or Hirtz of
the German medical faculty of Strasbourg?
CAPPELEN: Well, in Natzweiler, yes, there were also carried on
experiments. Just beside the camp there was a farm they called Struthof.
That was practically a part of the camp; and some of the prisoners had
to work there to clean up the rooms; and—well not so often, but
sometimes—they were taken out. For instance, one day, I remember, all
the Gypsies were taken out, and then they were brought down to Struthof.
They were very afraid of being brought down there.
Well, one friend of mine, a Norwegian called Hvidding, who had a job in
the hospital—so-called hospital—in the camp, told me the day after the
Gypsies were taken and brought to Struthof, “I tell you something. They
have, so far as I understand, tried some sort of gas on them.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Well, come along with me.”
And then, through the window of the hospital, I could see four of the
Gypsies lying in beds. They did not look well, and it was not easy to
look through the glass, but they had some mucus, I suppose, around their
mouths. And he told me that they had—Hvidding told me—that the Gypsies
could not tell much because they were so ill, but so far as he
understood, it was gas which they had used upon them. There had been 12
of them, and 4 were living; the other 8, so far as he understood, died
down there at Struthof. Then he told further on, “You see that man who
sometimes walks through the camp together with some others?”
“Well, I have seen him,” I said.
“That is Professor Hirtz from the German University in Strasbourg.”
I am quite sure Hvidding said that this man is Hirt or Hirtz. He is
coming here now nearly daily with a so-called commission to see those
who are coming back again from Struthof, to see the result. That is all
I know about that so far.