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“In addition to these bad conditions, there is lack of systematic occupation for and supervision of these hosts of children which affects the life of prolific families in the camps. The children, left to themselves without schooling or religious care, must run wild and grow up illiterate. Idleness in rough surroundings may and will create unwanted results in these children * * *. An indication of the awful conditions this may lead to is given by the fact that in the camps for Eastern workers—(camp for Eastern workers, ‘Waldlust’, Post Office Lauf, Pegnitz)—there are cases of 8-year old delicate and undernourished children put to forced labor and perishing from such treatment.
“The fact that these bad conditions dangerously affect the state of health and the vitality of the workers is proved by the many cases of tuberculosis found in very young people returning from the Reich to the General-Government as unfit for work. Their state of health is usually so bad that recovery is out of the question. The reason is that a state of exhaustion resulting from overwork and a starvation diet is not recognized as an ailment until the illness betrays itself by high fever and fainting spells.
“Although some hostels for unfit workers have been provided as a precautionary measure, one can only go there when recovery may no longer be expected—(Neumarkt in Bavaria). Even there the incurables waste away slowly, and nothing is done even to alleviate the state of the sick by suitable food and medicines. There are children there with tuberculosis whose cure would not be hopeless and men in their prime who if sent home in time to their families in rural districts, might still be able to recover.
“No less suffering is caused by the separation of families when wives and mothers of small children are away from their families and sent to the Reich for forced labor.* * *”
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“If, under these bad conditions, there is no moral support such as is normally based on regular family life, then at least such moral support which the religious feelings of the Polish population require should be maintained and increased. The elimination of religious services, religious practice and religious care from the life of the Polish workers, the prohibition of church attendance at a time when there is a religious service for other people and other measures show a certain contempt for the influence of religion on the feelings and opinions of the workers.” (R-103)
Particularly harsh and brutal treatment was reserved for workers imported from the conquered Eastern territories. They lived in bondage, were quartered in stables with animals, and were denied the right of worship and the pleasures of human society. A document entitled “Directives on the Treatment of Foreign Farmworkers of Polish Nationality”, issued by the Minister for Finance and Economy of Baden on 6 March 1941, describes this treatment (EC-68):
“The agencies of the Reich Food Administration (Reichsnaehrstand) State Peasant Association of Baden have received the result of the negotiations with the Higher SS and Police Officer in Stuttgart on 14 February 1941, with great satisfaction. Appropriate memoranda have already been turned over to the District Peasants’ Associations. Below, I promulgate the individual regulations, as they have been laid down during the conference and how they are now to be applied accordingly:
“1. Fundamentally, farmworkers of Polish nationality no longer have the right to complain, and thus no complaints may be accepted any more by any official agency.