Sick and infirm citizens of the occupied countries were taken indiscriminately with the rest. Those who managed to survive the trip into Germany, but who arrived too sick to work, were returned like cattle, together with those who fell ill at work, because they were of no further use to the Germans. The return trip took place under the same conditions as the initial journey, and without any kind of medical supervision. Death came to many, and their corpses were unceremoniously dumped out of the cars with no provision for burial. Thus, the report continues:
“* * * Very depressing for the morale of the skilled workers and the population is the effect of those persons shipped back from Germany for having become disabled or not having been fit for labor commitment from the very beginning. Several times already transports of skilled workers on their way to Germany have crossed returning transports of such disabled persons and have stood on the tracks alongside of each other for a longer period of time. Those returning transports are insufficiently cared for. Nothing but sick, injured of weak people, mostly 50-60 to a car, are usually escorted by 3-4 men. There is neither sufficient care or food. The returnees made frequently unfavourable—but surely exaggerated—statements relative to their treatment in Germany and on the way. As a result of all this and of what the people could see with their own eyes, a psychosis of fear was evoked among the specialist workers resp. the whole transport to Germany. Several transport leaders of the 62d and the 63d in particular reported thereto in detail. In one case the leader of the transport of skilled workers observed with own eyes how a person who died of hunger was unloaded from a returning transport on the side track. (1st Lt. Hofman of the 63rd transport Station Darniza). Another time it was reported that 3 dead had to be deposited by the side of the tracks on the way and had to be left behind unburied by the escort. It is also regrettable that these disabled persons arrive here without any identification. According to the reports of the transport commanders one gets the impression that these persons unable to work are assembled, penned into the wagons and are sent off provided only by a few men escort, and without special care for food and medical or other attendance. The Labor Office at the place of arrival as well as the transport commanders confirm this impression.” (054-PS)
Mothers in childbirth shared cars with those infected with tuberculosis or venereal diseases. Babies when born were hurled out of windows. Dying persons lay on the bare floors of freight cars without even the small comfort of straw. These conditions are revealed in an interdepartmental report prepared by Dr. Gutkelch in Rosenberg’s Ministry, dated 30 September 1942, from which the following quotation is taken:
“How necessary this interference was is shown by the fact that this train with returning laborers had stopped at the same place where a train with newly recruited Eastern laborers had stopped. Because of the corpses in the train-load of returning laborers, a catastrophe might have been precipitated had it not been for the mediation of Mrs. Miller. In this train women gave birth to babies who were thrown out of the windows during the journey, people having tuberculosis and venereal diseases rode in the same car, dying people lay in freight cars without straw, and one of the dead was thrown on the railway embankment. The same must have occurred in other returning transports.” (084-PS)
Some aspects of Nazi transport were described by Sauckel himself in a decree which he issued on 20 July 1942, (2241-PS). The original decree is published in section B1a, page 48e of a book entitled “Die Beschaeftigung von auslaendischen Arbeitskraeften in Deutschland.” The decree reads, in part, as follows:
“According to reports of transportation commanders (Transportleiters) presented to me, the special trains provided by the German railway have frequently been in a really deficient condition. Numerous windowpanes have been missing in the coaches. Old French coaches without lavatories have been partly employed so that the workers had to fit up an emptied compartment as a lavatory. In other cases, the coaches were not heated in winter so that the lavatories quickly became unusable because the water system was frozen and the flushing apparatus was therefore without water.” (2241-PS)
Many of the foregoing documents, it will be noted, consist of complaints by functionaries of the Rosenberg ministry or by others concerning the conditions under which foreign workers were recruited and compelled to live. These documents establish not only the facts therein recited, but also show that the Nazi conspirators had knowledge of such conditions. Notwithstanding their knowledge of these conditions, however, the Nazi conspirators continued to countenance and assist in the enslavement of a vast number of citizens of occupied countries.
Once within Germany, slave laborers were subjected to treatment of an unusually brutal and degrading nature. The character of Nazi treatment was in part made plain by the conspirator’s own statements. Sauckel declared on one occasion:
“All the men must be fed, sheltered and treated in such a way as to exploit them to the highest possible extent at the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure.” (016-PS)
Force and brutality as instruments of production found a ready adherent in Speer who, in the presence of Sauckel, said at a meeting of the Central Planning Board: