BALACHOWSKY: The Dora Camp is situated 5 kilometers north of the town of
Nordhausen, in southern Germany. This camp was considered by the Germans
as a secret detachment, a Geheimkommando, which prisoners who were kept
there could never leave.
This secret detachment had as its task the manufacture of V-1’s and
V-2’s—the “Vergeltungswaffen” (reprisal weapons)—the aerial torpedoes
which the Germans launched on England. That is why Dora was a secret
detachment. The camp was divided into two parts: one outer part
contained one-third of the total number of persons in the camp, and the
remaining two-thirds were concentrated in the underground factory. Dora,
consequently, was an underground factory for the manufacture of V-1’s
and V-2’s. I arrived at Dora on 10 February 1944, coming from
Buchenwald.
M. DUBOST: Please speak more slowly. You arrived at Dora from Buchenwald
on . . .?
BALACHOWSKY: On 10 February 1944, that is at a time when life in the
Dora Camp was particularly hard.
On 10 February we were loaded, 76 men, onto a large German lorry. We
were forced to crouch down, four SS guards occupying the seats at the
front of the lorry. As we could not all crouch down, being too many,
whenever a man raised his head he got a blow with a rifle butt, so that
in the course of our 4-hour journey several of us were injured.
After our arrival at Dora, we spent a whole day and night without food,
in the cold, in the snow, waiting for all the formalities of
registration in the camp—completing forms, with names and surnames, and
so on.
In comparison with Buchenwald, we found a considerable change at Dora,
as the general management of the Dora Camp was entrusted to a special
category of prisoners who were criminals. These criminals were our block
leaders, served our soup, and looked after us. In contrast to the
political prisoners who wore a red triangular badge, these criminals
were distinguished by a green triangular badge on which was a black S.
We called them the “S” men (Sicherheitsverband). They were people
convicted of crimes by German courts long before the war, but who,
instead of being sent home after having served their terms, were kept
for life in concentration camps to supervise the other prisoners.
Needless to say prisoners of that kind, these criminals with the green
triangles, were asocial elements. Sometimes they had been 5, 10, even 20
years in prison, and afterwards, 5 or 10 years in concentration camps.
These asocial outcasts no longer had any hope of ever getting out of the
concentration camps. These criminals, however, thanks to the support and
co-operation they were offered by the SS management of the camp, now had
the chance of a career. This career consisted in stealing from and
robbing the other prisoners, and obtaining from them the maximum output
demanded by the SS. They beat us from morning till night. We got up at 4
o’clock in the morning and had to be ready within 5 minutes in the
underground dormitories where we were crammed, without ventilation in
foul air, in blocks about as large as this room, into which 3,000 to
3,500 internees were crowded. There were five tiers of bunks with
rotting straw mattresses. Fresh ones were never issued. We were given 5
minutes in which to get up, for we went to bed completely dressed. We
were hardly able to get any sleep, for there was a continuous coming and
going, and all sorts of thefts took place among the prisoners.
Furthermore, it was impossible to sleep because we were covered with
lice; the whole Dora Camp swarmed with vermin. It was virtually
impossible to get rid of the lice. In 5 minutes we had to be in line in
the tunnel and march to a given place.
THE PRESIDENT: [_To the witness_] Just a minute, please. M. Dubost, you
said you were going to call this witness upon experiments. He is now
giving us all the details of camp life which we have already heard on
several occasions.