Auction 85 Part 1
Historical Militaria and Autographs - Day 1
By Alexander Historical Auctions LLC
Contact auction house
Oct 28, 2020
98 Bohemia Ave., St. 2, Chesapeake City, MD 21915, United States
Terms of sale
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Nearly 1,600 lots of historical militaria from all conflicts; historical autographs and ephemera from all fields of collecting.
The auction has ended
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LOT 567:
NEUENGAMME GUARDS PUNISH JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
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Sold for: $100
Start price:
$
100
Estimated price :
$200 - $300
Buyer's Premium: 30%
More details
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NEUENGAMME GUARDS PUNISH JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
Contemporary retained copy of a prisoner's statement in German, 1p. 4to., Hamburg, Sept. 8, 1945, regarding the brutality of the Neuengamme commanders and their abuse of imprisoned Jehovah's Witnesses. In part: 'Commandant Herr Pauli...treated the occupants like dirt...Obersturmfuhrer Tumann...terror of Neuengamme, no day went by without his handing out to prisoners the punches of a boxer...[when] cruelties perpetrated on the prisoners in the Neuengamme camp were made generally known...Berlin was jolted onto the alert by the activity of Jehovah's Witnesses...we duly had to stand for 36 hours at the camp gate without food or water...Several Jehovah's Witnesses were beaten by Herr T. with his ox-hide whip...' One Jehovah's Witness was punished by '50 strokes of a stick', merely for writing in a letter: 'This too will soon come to an end'. Another Jehovah's Witness was punished with 50 strokes of a stick, then sent to arduous physical labor, 'because he had on him a page from the Bible'. Very good, with full translation. Of course, Jehovah's Witnesses were severely persecuted under the Nazis. This statement was undoubtedly prepared by British interrogators building their case for the 1946 war crimes trial of eleven Neuengamme defendants.
