Thursday 9 October 2008

Affidavit

CERTIFIED TRUE COPY.

IN THE MATTER OF GERMAN WAR CRIMES AND IN THE MATTER
OF THE ILL TREATMENT OF SERGEANT EVAN LLEWELLYN EDWARDS
AT DACHAU CONCENTRATION CAMP.


AFFIDAVIT


I, 3957688. EVAN LLEWELLYN EDWARDS, Sergeant, The Welch Regiment, whose address is 12, Nora Street, Roath, Cardiff, MAKE OATH AND SAY AS FOLLOWS.

On 15th September 1943 after the capitulation of Italy, the German forces took control of P.G.52, where I was a prisoner of war. The men in the camp were put into barrack groups and a number of groups were detailed to move by rail to Germany. The first groups, all non/commissioned officers were marched down to CIAVARI station, packed into rail wagons and were soon on our way to Germany. At about 2am, on the morning of the 16th three of us decided to jump the train and I was the first to through the small window. We got off without mishap at a point a few miles north of CREMONA, my companions were F/Sergeant McNeil and Sergeant Irvine R.A.F. We walked to MANTOVA and MODANA swimming the river PO, at one point.

Then we went to BOLOGNA where we met four Italians who were friendly towards us and wished to help in the downfall of Fascism. At a tunnel outside the town we sawed down a large tree which fell across the line and blocked the whole entrance. The trip then took us to FERLI via LUGO. At LUGO German motor convoys were passing us often and seeing an old trailer we turned it over in the road. At the Germans were passing us in such large numbers that we decided to part, each of us going our separate ways.

Events went quite well with me until I reached a village near TERNI. Here the Germans were having target practice at a cross-road and at this point I had to ask the assistance of an Italian civilian. He said he knew of a “circle” in TERNI but that I must have civilian clothes, he went away and returned in an hour or so with a pair of trousers, coat and shirt. We got on a train for TERNI and after a few minutes he went to the lavatory and within a few seconds of his return an officer, sergeant and two men of the German Air Force came to me with drawn revolvers. They asked me for my identity papers (in Italian) not having any I tried to bluff my way. The officer then spoke to me in English telling me to be careful and not to try any English tricks. I was searched in front of all the people in the carriage and my A.B.64 parts 1 and 2, along with my attestation papers were found; I was handcuffed and taken to PERUGIA.

The German Command was in PERUGA CASTLE and here I was interrogated without handcuffs. Where had I come from? Who were my comrades? What had I done with my weapons? I answered nothing, so I was told to sit on a chair and my hands were tied behind the chair. They tried to get me to answer questions put to me by three or four officers at the same time. I sad nothing until they told me “We love our Fuhrer”. To this “I said When we catch him we will show him another type of love”. Then I received a few slaps from two of them. An officer then took me handcuffed through PERUGIA to some buildings where the Fascists had their headquarters. The German officer gave my A.B.64 and papers to a Blackshirt officer, who gave a receipt for them. Here I was pushed and kicked for ten or fifteen minutes and then taken to PERUGIA prison still in handcuffs. I asked the prison warder the date and he told me 10/10/43. At eleven p.m. I was taken into a corridor where I saw about two hundred other prisoners handcuffed in pairs. We were packed into trucks and taken to the station where we were fifty men to a goods wagon. I was handcuffed to a post and after ten minutes they came for me and I was taken to a building where there was a large hall. Here there were two Italian officers and as one was speaking the other wrote it down, I asked for an interpreter and a member of the Protecting Power. The officers appeared not to understand and called the guard. The guard was told to bring an English speaking German, they spoke to the German and he said I was to be an Italian prisoner. The Italian officers were studying a receipt for £10 which I had received from the officer who took the money from me when I was captured. My elbows were then pulled to the rear and a stick pushed behind my back between the folds of my elbows I was taken back to the station and put into the goods wagon again.

The train took us to BOLOGNA and in the truck I made the acquaintance of two English sailors (Stoker ROBINSON and Stoker HOLT) of H.M. Submarines. They were sunk off BASTIA on the 14th August 1943, taken to a interrogation camp in Italy and on the 9th September they were released but after two days were re-taken and were sent to PERUGIA prison. They were in poor condition. Anyhow, on the third day the truck door opened and we each received our first meal (100 grams of bread), nothing else. By this time my wrists were terribly swollen from the handcuffs. The men in the truck were kneeling down so that I could stand on their backs to relieve the strain on my arms. I do not remember much more till I was pulled out of the truck and we were marched to what appeared to be a large fortress. I asked the name of the camp and was told DACHAU.

When we got inside, with the assistance of the sentries boots, my handcuffs were filled off my wrists. On entering the camp we were lined up on the square and all particulars taken; Name: Address: Was mother married: Farther: Occupation: Did mother have children prior to marriage: Any sisters; if so did any of them have any children out of wedlock. We had to take off our clothing for searching and after this waited for all particulars to be taken, checked and typed out. This took a long time, and we were still in the nude after about five hours. One of the S.S. then came over and began calling out our names in German – he called one name three times; “Evad”. Someone pushed me saying “Du Englander”. I managed to say “here” but for the delay I’d caused, I was punched across the face. I was too weak to protest. Calling the roll took two hours.

Afterwards we were marched double time to the barber who had all types of weapons. All hair was removed from head and body then in batches we went into bath. We stood. This was awful; we were sprayed with a fluid which burned terribly, then under the shower bath. We stood in fours under these and on came the water, ice cold then scalding hot it brought the skin off our backs. Then to medium warm – then hot again and then we were turned outside again still steaming and sore. Outside to wait until the others had finished – quite a few collapsed, then we were given clothes, the civilian trousers I had were about forty around the waist with red patches all over, the coat a dirty S.S. tunic, Dutch wooden clogs and a Russian cap.

We were then allotted to different blocks and rooms; I was taken to Block 27, Room 2. The Block Altester was a brutal-looking swine. We were lined up and counted and I had my hands in my pockets, trying to keep warm. Someone pushed me and shouted something in German; I was corrected in position by some Greek prisoners, who had been brought from SOLMONA Prison Camp, Italy. Here again all particulars were taken and orders were given. I understood nothing of the language. I was told the date was 18/10/43.
In the evening a prisoner came over from another block and with a South-Country accent, introduced himself as Arthur Knapman, a tea merchant, Hampshire born, picked up by Gestapo agents in AUGUSTA, Spain. Thinking all this to be a catch I was careful in my conversation. During the following day after a cold nights rest – five men to two beds with three blankets – I was picked out by a number of prisoners who were learning English, but, I realised how careful we had to be so I warned Robinson and Holt to ignore all and refer them to me. One of the prisoners advised me to write a “brief” to the Commandant for permission to write to GENEVA.

These applications were a farce, they had to be written in German by a “Block Writer”. He gave them to the Block Altester to read, then it passed to the Block Secretary to Block Writer, to Lager Runner, to Lager Clerk to Chief Clerk to the S.S. office. Then maybe it would reach the S.S. Commandant. The first one I wrote the Block Fuhrer sent for me and I had a rotten time of it, for forty five minutes he punched me and spat at me and then I had to stand rigidly to attention. My application was for five soldiers; one Polish of the French Legion, one French from the Free French Forces, two sailors from H.M. Submarines, and myself. I made my demands quite often and each time I had a beating, and we were very weak.

The rations were rotten, one day eight men to a loaf, another twelve to a loaf, a quarter litre of potato water soup or four dirty potatoes. The complete daily ration was: Breakfast, one-eighth litre of German coffee at
5-30a.m. Then parade, for counting between the blocks. There was just enough room for ten men to stand bunched close together. The next parade was when the bread wagon came down. Two tables were carried out to the road and the bread came down, the S.S. man in charge riding his bicycle, and at the same time the Block Fuhrer did his midday check. This was a farce for the actual parade was to stand to attention to the bread as it passed. The order “Mitzen Up!” “Cape Off” would be given, and after the bread passed “Mitzen Off” “Cape On”. We could, after the dismiss, walk up and down between the blocks. Then dinner, soup, a quarter litre and a piece of bread. In the room where the food was given out, you lined up and collected a tin plate and bowl. It was a small room and a few lucky ones might find room to sit. At exercise we were bunched very close together and when the soup containers were empty there was a bunch of eager volunteers to carry them out, wiping them out with dirty hands and licking the soup from their dirty hands. At 6p.m. another check and a drop of green tea or coffee or maybe another drop of soup, all water this time; again the same procedure then an eager crowd of privileged prisoners waited by the block gates for 6p.m. when they could walk up the road a little, some searching the dustbins for scraps, meeting acquaintances coming in from working parties, eager to accept a cabbage root or anything edible.

After I had been in Dachau ten days – beaten on five occasions – I heard there were two English Officers in the “Bunker Cell”. One of the prisoners said he would tell his pal to tell the Officers that three British soldiers were there. On30th October an English speaking prisoner told me he had spoken to the officers about us and they wanted all our particulars in brief. I wrote our names on a small piece of paper and sent it through this chap to the officers. I had a reply with strict instructions to burn the message after reading. The message ran as follows; “Sergeant Edwards, I am sorry to learn of your plight. Colonel Stevens and myself have been here ten months. I was taken prisoner in France, wounded twice, was in charge of a prisoner of war camp and reported something which caused an international row, and was moved to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Here I was kept for ten months. In the past eighteen months we have had two Red Cross parcels between us. The food question is bad as you know, barely enough to keep body and soul together, but if I can manage to get a little extra I will send it to you. Be careful what you say and warn the others. Keep your chin up, everything is going our way. I will try if possible, to get your particulars to the Red Cross, but it is as you realize very difficult”. Sincerely Lieut/Colonel McGrath Wm, (1135) Royal Artillery. This is the short note I received from Col. McGrath. I also had a piece of bread, for which I was very grateful.

The same day I passed an S.S. soldier and failed to take my hat off as I passed him. I was punished for this. I had to do small frog jumps for twenty five minutes and was assisted out of the chamber by the S.S. soldier’s boot. There was a lot of talk at this time of an invalid transport leaving Dachau for (name unknown). I was advised to try to keep off this transport, as hundreds of men were never heard of afterwards. By this time I had received my political number (56375) and badge with the little red triangle. I always remembered I was British but sometimes hunger got the better of me and I would be in the scramble for anything going.

I was taken to hospital in November, but saw and heard so much of prisoners being injected with different fevers and other things that I was glad when I was discharged, then I had to work on a stone gang, the Kapo Man in charge, was a prisoner named KNOLL, a swine who used his boot or fist quite freely. He hated the English, and reported me to the S.S., saying I was lazy. For this I was taken to a building and battered. Then I was handcuffed by the left arm and slung from a hook in the ceiling, for twenty minutes this lasted and the pains were terrible. The same evening, I was tied hands behind my back and hooked to a hook in the wall. My feet on both occasions were ten inches from the ground. After release from this I had to do exercises.

I was still trying to interview the Commandant and also an English Priest taken from his church in Marseilles in December and brought to Dachau on 18th; his name was Father DURAND, born in Jersey. As all my demands failed, I was told to approach the Commandant on my own. So one Sunday, after New Year I did this. I remember saluting, and the next I knew was that I was looking up from the ground and the Commandant saying “What does this dog want?” Someone near came over and asked me what I was. I told him, and he told the Commandant my case, and I was given a Political interview.

The next morning I was taken in front of Herr KIK, political agent and criminal investigator, I went with the interpreter and he was telling me what to say. Apparently, KIK spoke English and understood. The interpreter was struck down by KIK and ordered to go back to his work. Then KIK carried on the interview in English; he asked me my nationality and I said “I am English”, he brought in two S.S. and he repeated “What are you?” When I replied “English” he again called me a liar. Then I was punched from side to side by the S.S. with an ocasional remark by KIK. It must have lasted two hours for when I came to I was staggering back to my block; as I passed the research hospital two men tripped me up and before I fell to the ground they caught me and carried me into the hospital. My face was washed and all the blood removed. Then my left eye-brow was stitched – four stitches. But nothing could be done for my mouth and lips, as my lips were swollen and teeth loose, so that I could not speak and I had to see Herr KIK the following morning, and if he asked me anything and I could not answer, it meant the torture chamber. The Czech doctor advised me to try busting my lips alone, as if he did it and the S.S. found out he would be for the torture chamber. My lips were too tender so I decided to take what ever KIK thought.

The following morning I went to see the Rat again, and as I could not answer his questions he struck me twice. Fortunately a glancing blow caught me on the side of the mouth. The blood (black) just flew all over the place, KIK even got some on his trousers, but I managed to speak and he asked me what proof I had that I was English. I had a photograph of myself in the prisoners’ property magazine with my clothes. I told KIK and he sent over an S.S. man to find if this was so. The S.S. returned with the photograph. KIK snatched it from his hand and the soldier was beaten in my presence. KIK then asked me how I had hurt my face and mouth, he caught me so unawares that for a fraction of a minute I could not think of an answer. I was saved answering, by his remarks that he would have to inform the Gestapo in Berlin and Rome for them to make enquiries regarding me.

By this time, the two sailors had been transferred to BUCHENWALT along with two hundred others. I was still applying for permission to write to the Red Cross, when a prisoner by the name of RICA-BONE From Vienna had thirty six hours special leave to visit his sick father and he told me to write a brief and he would give it to his sister to drop in the Swiss Secretary’s Office in Vienna. I wrote a brief and this man went on leave, the days passed and no RICA-BONA returned so I gave up hope.

The ten crematorium furnaces were at this time working night and day as prisoners were throwing themselves on the electric wires surrounding the camp and also the hospital was turning out a lot of corpses. “One more wouldn’t make much difference.”

Then they gave me permission to write to GENEVA and I approached KIK later to see if he had heard anything. Again I was knocked down. Then I had punishment for my prison uniform being dirty. This was solitary confinement. Then I was put to work under CAPO CURSWELL, who I called, another German rat now running loose in Munich, with lots of others. Whilst under CURSWELL, I called him a German swine; he reported me after he had struck me with a stick. The S.S. came up, and I had another stringing up; a short of fifteen minutes. Then for three days reporting to the S.S. and being spat on and pushed and told to stand to attention.

Then KIK sent for me telling me I was being sent to SALTZBERG, then to a military camp - - - maybe! I was taken to MUNICH PRISON; interrogated; punched; starved and kept in a cell that was lousy. I had on the clothes I was captured in, in Italy. Five days in Munich Prison and I was a wreck and lousy. Then I was taken to SALTZBURG, to the prison there and here I was treated fairly good, the food fair, but very little of it. After eight days in SALTZBURG, where I was told that there had been two English sailors recently released from DACHAU. I was called on the eighth day by a soldier and I was walked barefoot to the railway station. The snow was very deep, but I did not mind that and when I arrived at the station I had to stand on an iron weighing machine and my feet began to hurt. A German woman seeing me went away and returned with an old pair of shoes for me. I was very grateful to this woman.

I was then taken to PONGAU and I thought it was another Dachau as I saw only Russian, Serbian, French and Italian prisoners with plenty of “Huns”. I was then taken to another part of the camp, and the first person I met was Sergeant ROBESON of the K.R.R.s who was with me inP.G.65, in Italy. He took me to see R.S.M. HEXALL of the Green Howards and to him I reported the whole affair. When I had been de-loused and given some uniform and a Red Cross parcel, I had to go into the Bunker for a few of days. But I went up there and managed to keep my food parcel with me. The next morning, when my cell door was opened, I had eaten all my parcel, except the soap, tea and cocoa. On this day the British Medical Officer demanded that he should see me. When I was escorted up to him, he took my weight—41 kilos(92lbs.). And a nervous wreck. He ordered me to be put in hospital, and I had special food (English). This was near the end of February 1944.

On 19th April, I was sent to SPITTAL, to appear before a Medical Board for repatriation, but I was on the road to recovery, and just could not make the grade. On 25th April the Protecting Power visited Spittal and I appeared in front of their official, and told everything. Somehow the “Huns” in Spittal heard that I had been in Dachau, and I was sent for and made to make a statement; I was asked the reason I was sent there, and was told if the Gestapo proved anything on me in the future I should be returned to Dachau.

The ENGLISH IN DACHAU were Colonel STEVENS, Lieut-Colonel McGRATH, Stoker ROBINSON R.N., Stoker HOLT R.N., Mr. KNAPMAN, Father DURAND (Roman Catholic Priest) and myself. In addition there were Private SAKI of the French Legion and another soldier of the Free French Forces. Notables of other nationalities were numerous. Stoker HOLT who received a blow in the kidneys whilst in Dachau died shortly after release, in a working camp near MARKET PONGAU.STALAG18c.

More information on DACHAU and BUCHENWALD may possibly be given by Stoker A. ROBINSON, 54 Livingstone Street, Newburgh, Fife, Scotland.
At DACHAU men were gassed in hundreds, kicked to death, died from starvation. The hundreds of fir trees around the camp each marked the grave of a Russian soldier, Polish Priest or even a Russian boy between the age of eight and fifteen who had suffered the same cruelties and tortures by the S.S. and Gestapo—trained sadists who delighted in seeing a man die from starvation and enjoyed beating and torturing men.

Descriptions of the OFFICIALS AT DACHAU with whom I came in contact are as follows:-

KIK: High Gestapo Official. Wore civilian clothes; height five feet eleven; age forty five to fifty years; weight about fourteen stone; had a peculiar nervous twitching in the left cheek; clean shaven; hair fair and shaven close; small, brown beady eyes; pouting mouth and spoke educated German and English.

His woman secretary: Short, thick set; age – twenty five; bobbed dark brown hair; her husband an Obergefreiter in the S.S. in Dachau. This woman was present on each occasion when I was beaten in Kik’s office, and on one occasion when I was lying on the ground she came over and spat on me.

KNOLL: Came to Dachau, probably, in early 1939 as a prisoner, but later became a Capo. Boasted of kicking men to death; natinality – German; fought in 1914—1918 War and was a P.o.W. in England (prbably Ilse of Man, in the last war; spoke understandable English; height – five feet seven inches; weight – eleven stone; prone to carbuncles on the neck and face; clean shaven; dark eyes; grey shaved hair; age – forty three. This man was credited with having kicked the private parts off a Polish Priest. These were pointed out to me, in a bottle, in the laboratory by a Pole. (Father Tits, formerly Polish Priest in Silesia.)

CURZWELL: After our release by the Americans, I identified this man in a street in MUNICH. I made a statement to this effect to a British Medical Officer at the Airport outside Munich, from which I left for England. This statement was fowarded to the United States Military Police in Munich.

The Block Altester of Block 27: I cannot remember the name of this man, except that it began with a “G” and was a long name; he was an actor by profession; over six feet in height; weight – sixteen stone; age – about thirty four; clean shaven; blue eyes with a big round face; spoke a little English. He was indirectly the cause of over five hundred floggings of which I personally know.

MAJOR SCHMIDT; In charge of the gas chamber and an authority on gas. This man’s death was notified in the “Volischer Beobachter” where he was said to have died as a result of experiments, I have no means of knowing whether this was true or not. The gas chamber was outside the wire and any person told to that he was detailed for work outside the wire was in fact being notified of his death warrant. A Polish friend of mine from Lemburg, went to work “outside the wire” on a Monday, and by the following Wednesday his clothes had arrived in the Camp Store, which was sure proof that he was dead.





SWORN THIS DAY OF JUNE 1945
SIGNED E.L.EDWARDS SGT.
BEFORE ME
SIGNED P.G.G.MATHIES MAJOR
OFFICE OF THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL. MILITARY DEPARTMENT

1 comment:

Tina said...

Thanks for posting this. Holt is my relative. He was my Grandma's husband.