Well, one friend of mine, a Norwegian called Hvidding, who had a job in the hospital—so-called hospital—in the camp, told me the day after the Gypsies were taken and brought to Struthof, “I tell you something. They have, so far as I understand, tried some sort of gas on them.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Well, come along with me.”
And then, through the window of the hospital, I could see four of the Gypsies lying in beds. They did not look well, and it was not easy to look through the glass, but they had some mucus, I suppose, around their mouths. And he told me that they had—Hvidding told me—that the Gypsies could not tell much because they were so ill, but so far as he understood, it was gas which they had used upon them. There had been 12 of them, and 4 were living; the other 8, so far as he understood, died down there at Struthof. Then he told further on, “You see that man who sometimes walks through the camp together with some others?”
“Well, I have seen him,” I said.
“That is Professor Hirtz from the German University in Strasbourg.”
I am quite sure Hvidding said that this man is Hirt or Hirtz. He is coming here now nearly daily with a so-called commission to see those who are coming back again from Struthof, to see the result. That is all I know about that so far.
M. DUBOST: How many Norwegians died at Gross-Rosen?
CAPPELEN: In Gross-Rosen, it is not possible for me to say here exactly; but I know about 40 persons who had been there, and I also know about ten who came back again. Well, Gross-Rosen was a bad camp. But nearly the worst of it all was the evacuation of Gross-Rosen. I suppose it must have been in the middle of February of that year. The Russians came nearer and nearer to Breslau.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean 1945?