“He was subjected to torture, not as a legal penalty or in legitimate defense; but for the sole purpose of forcing him to speak under stress of violence and pain.
“As for myself, representing the French medical body here, my conscience and a strict conception of my duty compel me to inform you of what I have observed in the exercise of my profession. I appeal to your conscience as a doctor and ask you whether by virtue of our mission of protecting the physical health of our fellow-beings, which is the mission of every doctor, it is not our duty to intervene.”
He must have had a reply from the German doctor, for Dr. Gomet writes him a second letter, and here is the text:
“Dear Doctor and Colleague,
“You were good enough to note the facts which I put before you in my letter of 11 September 1943 regarding the torture apparatus utilized by the German Security Service during the interrogation of a French official for whom I had subsequently to prescribe treatment. You asked me, as was quite natural, if you could visit the person in question yourself. I replied at our recent meeting that the person concerned did not know of the step which I had taken; and I did not know whether he would authorize me to give his name. I wish to emphasize, in fact, that I myself am solely responsible for this initiative. The person through whom I learned, by virtue of my profession, the facts which I have just related to you, had nothing to do with this report. The question is strictly professional. My conscience as a doctor has forced me to bring this matter to your attention. I advance only what I know from absolutely certain observation, and I guarantee the truth of my statement on my honor as a man, a physician, and a Frenchman.
“My patient was interrogated twice by the German Security Service about the end of August 1943. I had to examine him on 8 September 1943, that is to say, about 10 days after he left prison, where he had in vain asked for medical attention. He had a palpebral ecchymosis on the left side and abrasions in the region of his right temple, which he said were made with a sort of circle which they had placed upon his head and which they struck with small clubs. He had ecchymosis on the backs of his hands, these having been placed, according to what he told me, in a squeezing apparatus. On the front of his legs there were still scars with scabs and small surface wounds—the result, he told me, of blows administered with flexible rods studded with short spikes.