M. DUBOST: In Paris?
DUPONT: Yes, in Paris. A very highly cultured and brilliantly intelligent man. In January 1945 I learned that he had just arrived from Monovitz. I found him in Block 58, a block which in normal circumstances would hold 300 men, and into which 1,200 had been crowded—Hungarians, Poles, Russians, Czechs, with a large proportion of Jews in an extraordinary state of misery. I did not recognize Léon Kindberg because there was nothing to distinguish him from the usual type to be found in these blocks. There was no longer any sign of intellect in him and it was hard to find anything of the man that I had formerly known. We managed to get him out of that block but his health was unfortunately too much impaired and he died shortly after his liberation.
M. DUBOST: Can you tell the Tribunal, as far as you know, the “crimes” committed by this man?
DUPONT: After the armistice Léon Kindberg settled in Toulouse to practice the treatment of pulmonary consumption. I know from an absolutely reliable source that he had taken no part whatsoever in activities directed against the German occupation authorities in France. They found out that he was a Jew and as such he was arrested and deported. He drifted into Buchenwald by way of Auschwitz and Monovitz.
M. DUBOST: What crime had General Duval committed that he should be imprisoned along with pimps, moral degenerates, and murderers? What had General Vernaud done?
DUPONT: I know nothing about the activities of General Duval and General Vernaud during the occupation. All I can say is that they were certainly not asocial.
M. DUBOST: What about Count de Lipkowski and M. De Tessan?
DUPONT: Nor has the Count de Lipkowski or M. De Tessan committed any of the faults usually attributed to asocial elements or common-law criminals.
M. DUBOST: You may proceed.
DUPONT: The means used to achieve the final degradation of the internees as a whole was the torture of them by their fellow prisoners. Let me give a particularly brutal instance. In Kommando A. S. 6, which was situated at Mansleben-am-See, 70 kilometers from Buchenwald, there were prisoners of every nationality, including a large portion of Frenchmen. I had two friends there: Antoine d’Aimery, a son of General d’Aimery, and Thibaut, who was studying to become a missionary.