Five Days That Shocked the World: Eyewitness Accounts from Europe at the End of World War II by Nicholas Best Page A
Authors: Nicholas Best
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In another shelter, Margarete Promeist, too, was raped, despite telling her assailant that she was far too old for him. Margarete was supposed to be in charge of the shelter, but there was nothing she could do against the Russians: “For two days and two nights, wave after wave of Russians came into my shelter raping and looting. Women were killed if they refused. Some were shot and killed anyway. In one room alone I found the bodies of six or seven women, all lying in the position in which they were raped, their heads battered in.” 10
Actress Magda Wieland hid herself in a cupboard, only to be hauled out by an Asiatic soldier, who then suffered premature ejaculation at the sight of a beautiful blonde. His companion raped her instead. Downstairs, Magda’s Jewish friend Ellen Götz was dragged out and raped, too, despite the protests of the Germans who were sheltering her. Ellen had hidden in the cellar after escaping from the prison in Lehrterstrasse, but her Jewishness did not save her from the Russians. They raped Jewish women and Communists as well, party members who had concealed their membership from the Nazis for twelve long years and had initially welcomed the Soviets with open arms.
Children were raped, too, young girls of eleven or twelve with torn ligaments, bleeding to death from punctured bowels after what the Russians had done to them. Few females were too young or too old for the Russians’ attention. Their officers sometimes tried to stop them, but more often than not they just laughed instead or attempted to join in. Women soldiers laughed, too, amused at the sight of their comrades openly violating German women on the street. Individual Russian soldiers were occasionally kind and gentle, but as an army, they showed no mercy as they fell on Berlin. Their country had suffered too much in the past four years for them to show any mercy. And the people of Germany hadn’t suffered enough.
7
BELSEN
IN BELSEN, the British had just finished burying the bodies. There had been ten thousand bodies when they liberated the camp on April 15, the vast majority dead from typhus or starvation. The guards had refused to dispose of them for fear of infection, and the remaining prisoners had lacked the strength, so the bodies had been abandoned instead, dumped in great piles around the camp and left to rot.
The British had been shocked beyond belief at the sight of so many corpses. The first soldiers to reach the wire had retched at once, overcome by the smell of death before they even entered the camp. The living had seemed almost as terrible as the dead, skeletal figures fighting over scraps of food or lying uncaring in their own excrement. The British were hardened troops who thought they had seen it all in the fight across Europe. But Belsen had made them cry like babies.
The worst of it was that Belsen was not even an extermination camp. It had no purpose-built gas chambers or execution sheds. It was simply a holding camp that had gone wrong, overflowing with prisoners from elsewhere who had been moved to Belsen to escape the Russians advancing from the east. The Germans had never fed the prisoners well, but they had found it difficult to feed them at all when the food supply was disrupted by the British advance. The Germans had left the prisoners to starve instead, while remaining perfectly well nourished themselves.
Richard Dimbleby had been the first to reveal Belsen to the outside world. Reporting for the BBC, he had spoken of living skeletons and cannibalism, corpses with their livers and kidneys cut out, men and women clubbed senseless by the SS and then thrown alive into the crematorium. His report had been measured and calm, but it had been received with frank incredulity by the BBC. They had refused to broadcast it until the story had been verified by independent sources. Dimbleby had telephoned London in a blind rage, swearing that he would never make another broadcast as long as he
In another shelter, Margarete Promeist, too, was raped, despite telling her assailant that she was far too old for him. Margarete was supposed to be in charge of the shelter, but there was nothing she could do against the Russians: “For two days and two nights, wave after wave of Russians came into my shelter raping and looting. Women were killed if they refused. Some were shot and killed anyway. In one room alone I found the bodies of six or seven women, all lying in the position in which they were raped, their heads battered in.” 10
Actress Magda Wieland hid herself in a cupboard, only to be hauled out by an Asiatic soldier, who then suffered premature ejaculation at the sight of a beautiful blonde. His companion raped her instead. Downstairs, Magda’s Jewish friend Ellen Götz was dragged out and raped, too, despite the protests of the Germans who were sheltering her. Ellen had hidden in the cellar after escaping from the prison in Lehrterstrasse, but her Jewishness did not save her from the Russians. They raped Jewish women and Communists as well, party members who had concealed their membership from the Nazis for twelve long years and had initially welcomed the Soviets with open arms.
Children were raped, too, young girls of eleven or twelve with torn ligaments, bleeding to death from punctured bowels after what the Russians had done to them. Few females were too young or too old for the Russians’ attention. Their officers sometimes tried to stop them, but more often than not they just laughed instead or attempted to join in. Women soldiers laughed, too, amused at the sight of their comrades openly violating German women on the street. Individual Russian soldiers were occasionally kind and gentle, but as an army, they showed no mercy as they fell on Berlin. Their country had suffered too much in the past four years for them to show any mercy. And the people of Germany hadn’t suffered enough.
7
BELSEN
IN BELSEN, the British had just finished burying the bodies. There had been ten thousand bodies when they liberated the camp on April 15, the vast majority dead from typhus or starvation. The guards had refused to dispose of them for fear of infection, and the remaining prisoners had lacked the strength, so the bodies had been abandoned instead, dumped in great piles around the camp and left to rot.
The British had been shocked beyond belief at the sight of so many corpses. The first soldiers to reach the wire had retched at once, overcome by the smell of death before they even entered the camp. The living had seemed almost as terrible as the dead, skeletal figures fighting over scraps of food or lying uncaring in their own excrement. The British were hardened troops who thought they had seen it all in the fight across Europe. But Belsen had made them cry like babies.
The worst of it was that Belsen was not even an extermination camp. It had no purpose-built gas chambers or execution sheds. It was simply a holding camp that had gone wrong, overflowing with prisoners from elsewhere who had been moved to Belsen to escape the Russians advancing from the east. The Germans had never fed the prisoners well, but they had found it difficult to feed them at all when the food supply was disrupted by the British advance. The Germans had left the prisoners to starve instead, while remaining perfectly well nourished themselves.
Richard Dimbleby had been the first to reveal Belsen to the outside world. Reporting for the BBC, he had spoken of living skeletons and cannibalism, corpses with their livers and kidneys cut out, men and women clubbed senseless by the SS and then thrown alive into the crematorium. His report had been measured and calm, but it had been received with frank incredulity by the BBC. They had refused to broadcast it until the story had been verified by independent sources. Dimbleby had telephoned London in a blind rage, swearing that he would never make another broadcast as long as he
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