10. Oktober 1946
10 Oct 46. First snow. Goods trains with cattle and vehicles roll past again.
Oct. 46. Again only sick people were released. The prisoners of war are exploited to the point of physical ruin and then released home as human wrecks.
As of Oct. 46, the previous supplementary rations for special services are discontinued. The rate of rations per head is increased from 200 to 400 roubles. The Soviet Union is unable to feed itself. The reason lies not only in the unpredictable climate and post-war difficulties, but also in the incompetence and clumsiness of a state planning bureaucracy, as well as corruption in wide circles of officials. Whether in agriculture or industry: 30% of all goods are spoiled or rejects, 30% are shifted.
Even if, for example, potatoes or meat have been delivered in full and nothing has been moved, the potatoes are wet and full of sand, i.e. they have been stored improperly, or there has been weight fraud with water and sand. The meat stinks in the food. The doctor has ordered it to be thrown away. So the starvation continues.
That is the worst of our lot here: The prisoners of war of the Western powers know that one day they will come home. The prisoners of war of the Soviet Union do not know if they will ever return home. The sword of Damocles of death by disease, starvation, freezing or shooting hangs over them constantly.
Oct. 46. Two transports to the west passed through Smolensk. Probably sick prisoners of war. From the 1st transport 1 dead person was unloaded, from the 2nd transport 4 dead persons were unloaded. They are not registered.
Two men escaped. One had escaped before. He had left a note on a concrete mixer: “Comrades, don't be too angry with me!” Because if someone escaped, the whole camp was usually punished (Geneva!). Those who escaped were usually recaptured. Many were shot in the process, and no one will ever know what happened. But it also happened that, in order to scare us, they only lied to us that the escaped person had been shot. In reality, the person in question had simply been taken to another camp.
Once again, an escapee from our camp was caught and brought back to the camp. The whole camp staff had to line up and the escapee was brought before them. He had been beaten terribly and was now supposed to explain to us the hopelessness of trying to escape. He began: “I'm supposed to tell you that escape is futile!” He was tough!
According to the Geneva Convention, which the Russians also signed[1], a prisoner's attempt to escape may only be punished by disciplinary means, e.g. arrest, but never by corporal punishment. In general, the Russians in the camp were very restrained with corporal punishment or worse. This was done - with the knowledge and tacit approval of the Russians - by their own “German” comrades from the camp nobility, the red rabble of the camp leadership, the Antifa and the WK team. They had a whole series of privileges: tailor-made clothing, good and plentiful food, free access to the city after work, and much more. If someone escaped, these comrades were deprived of all their privileges. As a result, they would boil with rage and, when the escaped person was taken back, they would beat him up horribly. They had special people for this here in camp 401/9, among them a former amateur boxer. The place of such executions was the windowless former projection room of the cinema hall. Shortly before our arrival here, Captain X had been crippled in this room.
So in this way the Russian always kept a clean slate, had not violated the Geneva Convention, and the escapers were still cruelly punished. The camp inmates mostly kept silent, because they were more powerless against this terror than the Germans were during Hitler's time. Hitler’s terror against the Jews was no worse than the brutality of these “German” communists against their German compatriots.
The transmission of news between the individual prison camps in the Soviet Union was astonishingly extensive. We even know about events and conditions in Siberian camps. The channels through which such messages flow are manifold. For example, a camp in the Urals needs specialists who are only available in a Moscow camp. So they are transferred and their comrades in the Urals find out how things are in the Moscow camps. Or a refugee from a camp in Caucasia is caught in Ukraine, taken to the nearest camp there, where he tells the Ukrainian people about the conditions in Caucasian camps. Or from a home transport coming from Siberia. Such and similar events are numerous.
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- ↑ so not correct, cf. Sowjetunion und Genfer Konvention