Contemporary Witness Statement Werner Dietzel

Information Dietzel, Werner, Lendenstreichstraße 22, 07318 Saalfeld, 03671/641037 He refers to the district yearbook Landkreis Saalfeld-Rudolstadt 2000, pp. 151 — 155 and the community history book Phone call 03.11.07 According to his knowledge, mainly French people were employed in agriculture, possibly one or a few Polish women. To his knowledge, none of the French died; the dead in the cemetery were all inmates of the REIMAHG camp. At least 17 of them are buried there (photo), possibly 1 to 3 more whose crosses are not in the photo. They are all people who died in the Kaulsdorf camp and were buried by their comrades. These probably also erected the simple wooden crosses and each held a simple religious ceremony, a funeral service — without outside clergy. The Poles wore a yellow badge (diamond) with the letter P, the Ukrainians a white-blue one with the inscription OST. He is now 74 and was 11 to 12 years old at the time Phone call on 07.11.07 Outside of work, they could move relatively freely. They often went to the village to beg or otherwise get food — they offered to chop wood and similar tasks in return, but in his experience, people rarely accepted this because they did not want to be seen with workers (contacts were forbidden). However, people often gave the workers something — for example, they would leave a piece of bread outside. The workers also had some money but rarely bought anything; some were interested in events that took place. In general, they had little fear of the Germans or going into the village, especially the Ukrainians who were quite self-confident. According to his memory and knowledge, the people were not regularly beaten, but a few times someone was taken away by the village policeman — unclear why and for what purpose. The workers marched in groups under OT supervision, whereby the ordinary OT people had no weapons, the higher ranks had pistols; there was no strong guard. There were clearly more men than women, and the men were quartered in barracks. In the school, there were initially men and women, then only women. He does not remember the exact number, probably 30 plus (Polish women), probably no women died. There were young men and women and old men among the forced laborers, but all were relatively of working age — no children remembered. Their workday ended (in winter) presumably around 4/5 p.m., starting early before 7 a.m. (he also emphasizes that the Germans often worked similarly long), Sunday was apparently free. The workers usually wore wooden shoes (he states these were also used in industry, no special forced labor clothing), presumably distributed uniformly (the shoes were all the same — dark leather with thick wooden soles). As for their other clothing, they were very differently dressed — some quite poorly, others comparatively well, a few had padded jackets or coarse coats with leather outside and fur inside in winter, but often with tears; most had quite normal clothing. He suspects that the Ukrainians might have been volunteers, possibly also some of the Poles. The entries in the community book were essentially made between 1975/80.