Hide Article Text (OCR)
31if)e-i2lbs,en-‘y.7)forps,!vatf)NewspaperCorrespondents Did Not Overexaggerate GermanPrison Camps Description* I* *Nin.,—pme:larjparste;Ben McKelway Associated Editor of the Washington Evening Star,Written for The Associated PressPUBLIC OPINIONng,ds.tf)ailnyin-tf)ue)09tf):mfortne-5)3Gi,:8)nt,au-blens.(8)/ a-/a-on.;vo:54PARIS, May 5 — Members af a party of 13 newspaper and magazine editors and publishers are returning to the Un-tec States after a 12-day visit to France and- Germany at Gen. Eisenhower’s invitation, convinced that newspaper correspondents have been guilty of no exaggerated descriptions of German concentration camps, ntheir stories erred, it was onthe side of understatement.From what these newspaper-men saw on their inspection trips to Camp Bucbenwald, near Weimar, and Dachau, near Munich, it is impossible to dcscr.be conditions there in a manner that would give Americans any adequate conception of the things the editors saw. 'Members of the party talked to many officers and scldiers of lt;he veteran. 45th Division, which liberated the Dachau camp, and were told that in two years of combat service they had seen nothing approaching what they had witnessed inside this camp. Their -reaction was a burmn0 hate for the Germans, unlike anything they felt for the soldiers who opposed them m battle. One GI with the 45th pui it pretty well when he said:I always thought they were exaggerating to make us hate trie Krauts. Now I know these ’ things are true.” That sums up the conclusion cf the editors.We went through the camp at Buchenwald more than a week after its liberation and .in the interval it had been cleaned up to some extent by the Americans. We saw Dachau four days after its libera non and so frightful were the conditions of overcrowding, disease and death that the soldiers had little oportunity to do anything beyond making food and drugs available. In a camp population of about 33,000 examination of a portion of the inmates revealed 300 cases of tuberculosis. 291 cases of typhus and 115 of pneumonia, with more than 1UU deaths, each cay,The Germans had run out of coal for their incinerator at the camp and .-Snore : than lJjOO corpses were stacked there. Col. G. J. Hathaway, 15th ^ Corps surgeon, said the prison inmates had been fed about one-fourtn of the diet supposedly necessary to keep a man alive.Living a Form of Torture There There were conflicting stories about sadistic practices in the camps and there were no eyewitnesses. From what we gath-.. ered from interviews, no eyewitnesses to such things survived. - •But living under the camp conditions was in itself a form of torture, apparently designed to reduce gradually the strength and the spirit of the prisoners until they, died - a ‘'naturaldeath.” . T- , 4 fThirty-four thousand out o^ a total of 125,000 at Dachau between 1933 and 1942 had died “natural deaths” and 13,1 d9 others have gone the same way since Jan. 1, 1945.There was no attempt by .he editors to suggest a form of punishment for German war criminals, but their observations would indicate that after this war it is going to be a hard thing to find a German who will admit he was a Nazi, believed in the Nazis cr knew anything save rumor about the existence of the concentration camps.The editors interviewed many German civilians in Essen, in the Ruhr, and in the destroyed city of Munich in Bavaria. None would admit anything but great pleasure over the reports of Hitler’s death, disdain for the Nazis and complete ignorance of what went on in the concentrationcamps. ' .If Gen. Eisenhower hoped to convince the editors of the truth of the German atrocity stonesTJi® communications 13 this column expre*3 purely tne opinion ot tiii writers theia3Clvcs aad not nec-™*arlly the editorial viewa cl th‘» newspaper. Realizing that there unuaiiv ia moro than a single aide of any question and that there frequently are' bonest differences of opinion, the Monitor-Index and Democrat offers to its readers the privilege of airing the» ln-ttSi manner. All communication* ST BE SIGNED, otherwise no attention wUl be paid them. vOrnmurU-catlons must be ehor: ini couched In moderate language. Religious or personal disputes can not be given npacc; neither can subjects of purely controversial or frlvajous nature.Municipal Plant Advocate Favors the FranchiseEditor the Monitcr-Index:Cnorda:closteshisteChlb.lb.miheigobure]foistesteanchlir$1SISibearto$3P‘s:hiclnlt;giclSIrcrrPaSSgatet:s:tryCivlOtYou have before the people of the City of Moberly an election; next Tuesday on the question of whether or not to give the Moberly Power and Light Company a franchise for the _ next ten years. Your paper is carrying, advertisements from both sides pro and con. • __ .As X started a light for Mum-cipal ownership in 1929 and spent $24,000.00 out of my own pocket to have a municipal owned plant,. I think I should teB the voters how I view the si-uation.t0Iny’l929 labor was plentiful, material and equipment were plentiful and cheap; the Light Company had a francmse that did not expire until 193LKwe had built a municipal plant then we could have taken over the operation of the municipal plant, serviced the customers, and could have told the - Light Com: pany to get out. of town We die rot do that, so the-Light Company has stayed here hecaue I they wanted to. being the first I reason, and because the Service Commission would have compelled them to, oeing the second reason, and have served the customers for fourteen years and by that have established tne right of estoppel. 'The citizens cannot build a plant now any way, they could not get the material or the labor. This the city council;cor.s:ider-'ed when they submitted the franchise to the people. Our Mayor and City Council are -r.e hard-headed, common sense,hen- ■ est and fearless public men; they know every phase of tne re.a-tionship bet wen the Power Com-pany and the City; tbey realize that if we give the Light Company a ten-year franchise now, that at the end of this-franchise we can build our own piant ana we can put .the Light Company out of Moberly for the reason that their contracts will have expired and the Liglu Company will not have the benefit of the doctrine of estoppel. ruUMff-morc, under this franchise m the : next ten years the Light Company will pay the city Sa35,-000.00 in license.Everyone knows that 1 do not represent the Light # Company, but to vote against this franchise would be like the old woman who cut her nose off to spite ner face.Sincerely yours vREDICK O’BRYAN, McCormick Hospital-Sgt. George Perkins,Salisbury, Woundedlo.7)' Tech. Sgt. George H. Perkins, son of Jim Perkins, Salisbury, is among Missourians announced publicly today by the War Department as Army wounded m the European regions. His father received previous official notice. __P.vOS.5)elFOUR-ROQM HOUSE; spotlessly clean; full basement; 2 lots, 623 Franklin ave., $1650, and others. J. F. Rumans, 816IS. Motley. ' ^Zin connection with the concentration camps for civilians and political prisoners, he undoubtedly succeeded and perhaps beyond his expectations. Their chief regret is that limitations of expression prevent them lrom painting for the American people a picture of tnese camps that an ordinary peace-loving American civilian can understand. For nothing like tnese camps has ever been known .c modem western civilization and there are r.o available standards by which they can be measured in terms of human de pravity and cruelty _Moberly Monilor-Indes
Newspaper Details
Moberly Monitor Index
Moberly, Missouri, US
Sat, May 05, 1945
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
History M.
OH, USA 01 Nov 2016
Other Publications Near Moberly, Missouri
Moberly Monitor Index
Moberly Daily Monitor Index
Moberly Daily Index
Moberly Weekly Monitor
Moberly Daily Monitor
