NEUENGAMME PRISONERS ABUSED BY SS UNTERSCHARFUHRER

NEUENGAMME PRISONERS ABUSED BY SS UNTERSCHARFUHRER
Incredibly detailed carbon copy of a typed prisoner's report, 2pp. folio, Itzehoe, Oct. 7, 1945, from Neuengamme prisoner Rudolf Retzerau, imprisoned from April 1940 to April 1945, and employed in the shipping office of the Neuengamme Metalworks Co., which was located on the outskirts of the camp and largely worked by camp prisoners. In part: 'We belonged to the working group of SS Unterscharfuhrer Speck...the favorite of SS Obersturmfuhrer Pauly, the camp commandant...[he took] great satisfaction if he had brutally beatan as many prisoners as possible...when one of these...dared to peep through a window, to see how late it was...he was brutally floored with a short leather whip...or dragged into the so-called 'commander's room', and beaten on the backside until he collapsed unconscious...repeated if someone had ventured to steal a raw turnip...suffered from ravening hunger...[Speck] could be found daily in our office, because there he had the opportunity of sending off to his wife...parcels of boxes and goods...to be packed by a prisoner...consisted of fruit [and] all kinds of children's toys and items of furniture, which the prisoners were made to construct...he could do as he pleased...even all the civilians were frightened of him, since they themselves might become prisoners in the concentration camp...' Much more content, including information about Retzerau's beating from an SS officer. Very good, with full translation. This letter was likely utilized at the 1946 war crimes trial of eleven Neuengamme defendants, as Retzerau concludes the letter: 'I am always...prepared to make a solemn declaration about what these men had to endure.'