Julia Lenczewska – Kahla

whether deaths had occurred. During such visits, no one was spared from beatings and insults. Also noteworthy are the harassments that the political leaders in the river area inflicted on the foreign workers. We returned from work to the camps exhausted, tired, and hungry. The path leading to the camp ran along the foot of a mountain. Therefore, everyone sought the shorter and more convenient route to get to the camp faster and be able to rest. One could shorten the way by using a footbridge over the nearby river, which flowed directly past the camp. It was precisely under this footbridge that the political leaders hid and shot at the passing foreign workers. They shot with carbines and very deliberately. This trick was not used daily, which makes the sadism of the executioners particularly clear. After this interruption, I return to what I experienced during the evacuation. When the evacuation began, I noticed that our group was surrounded by SS men with dogs. For me and all the other people living in this camp, the evacuation was the greatest and most terrible experience. Amid the shouting of the SS, the groaning of beaten people, and barking dogs, we were divided into groups of 200-300 people and driven towards Orlamünde. This happened on April 9 at 10 p.m. Hellish scenes took place. Dogs jumped on those who fell out of line. SS men beat those who lagged behind with carbines. About 4 km behind Orlamünde, they began to shoot at those who lagged behind. Only towards morning, when the SS men, as we noticed, were no longer present and the Volkssturm led us, were we allowed to rest. During the day, we reached the village of Knau. Here I experienced terrible moments. My husband was very weak and could not continue walking. He simply fell onto the street and lost consciousness. The German who supervised us raised his carbine and wanted to shoot my husband. However, the (German) civilian population did not allow this murder to happen. In this village, we were held back and housed in a barrack of former Soviet prisoners of war. Here we were also liberated on April 13 by the American army. In the second half of April, we returned to the camp to take care of personnel matters. On the way back, we noticed many graves by the road behind Orlamünde. My husband opened one of the graves with his hands to find out who was buried there. We found that it was a man in civilian clothes and wooden clogs with a gunshot wound to the back. This man was probably a member of our evacuation transport. We could not determine the name because we found no papers on him. It can be concluded from this that many of these graves contained people from the REIMAHG camp. When I analyze life in the REIMAHG camp, I come to the conclusion that there was no organized resistance movement among the foreign workers. Mrs. Julia Lenczewska reports the following: I was brought to Germany together with my husband. I left Warsaw on October 7, 1944, and arrived in Kahla on November 6. On the way, we passed through the transit camps in Pruszkow, Landsdorf, and Erfurt. The transport was accompanied by SS functionaries. We lived on zwieback that we had brought from home. We were not even allowed to go outside to relieve ourselves, although women and men traveled together. In the transit camps, we were ordered, photographed, and deloused. Upon arrival in Kahla, I showed a certificate that I was a nurse by profession; as a result, I was assigned work in the medical station of Construction Camp IV. I lived together with my husband in a communal barrack in Camp II and had to walk 4 km to work. The barrack was not yet finished, not heated, and had a poor roof. To reach the barrack, we had to go through marshland; as a result, we constantly had wet shoes in the first days. We worked in our own clothes, not adapted to the conditions on the construction site, which constantly caused catarrh and hypothermia among the people. We worked 12 hours. We got up early, around 4–5 a.m., then ran to roll call. Our nutrition was twice daily: in the morning coffee, 250 grams of bread, and 50 grams of fat (mostly margarine), and in the evening 1 liter of soup (sugar beets, turnips, or carrots with ingredients). But we often could not eat these meals due to air raid alarms. At Christmas, we received 7 potatoes, two-thirds of which were rotten. The camp regulations were a torment. Such existence caused illnesses after just a few weeks. My work in the medical station of Camp IV: The head of the medical station was the medic Hermann Kupera. At first, he had a prisoner doctor, a Frenchman (medical student), later an Italian. I do not remember his name. The auxiliary staff consisted of 3 Polish nurses and one Estonian. The work in the medical station was organized as follows: Kupera briefly examined the registered sick, sorted them, threw out those who aroused suspicion in him that they were simulating, then registered and assisted in the examinations by the doctor. After the diagnostic auscultation, he alone distributed the medicine and prescribed relief. He also alone decided on the admission of the sick to the hospital in Jena. Kupera also visited the sick in the barracks. Medicine was available only in very limited quantities. The French doctor was very good to the forced laborers. He influenced the medics to grant work exemptions and to issue medicine. He probably went into the SS bunker; in any case, I do not know what happened to him. The Italian doctor was stricter. Kupera could rely on him and overruled his own independent decisions. In my eyes, Kupera was a ruthless person who blindly carried out the orders of his superiors. He was diligent and demanded the same from his staff. He hated the Russians because he had 4 sons on the Eastern Front. He heard nothing from them; at least he could give lethal injections to the seriously ill. The forced laborers of Camp IV were less exposed to mistreatment than in the other camps. They had slightly better nutrition, a bath that was in operation, and they also received work clothes. The sick in this camp were in better conditions compared to others. There were no lice in this camp.The mortality rate was low; more Belgians and Russians died. There were few Italians in the camp. The cause of death was mostly general vitamin deficiency. In contrast, in other camps, forced laborers died of dropsy due to hunger and diarrhea. The Italians suffered greatly from the climate. Shortly before the evacuation, I hid in the infirmary of Camp II, where I worked voluntarily. The condition of the infirmary was tragic: overcrowding, infectious diseases among the other patients, terrible lice infestation, and hunger. Medicines were lacking, and the mortality rate was very high. After the arrival of the American army, I remained in the infirmary as a registered nurse. The medical staff of the American army acted systematically: they quickly supplied the camp with disinfectants, medicines, and food. I alone administered over 100 glucose injections daily. Unfortunately, despite this help, many of the sick died after liberation. Mortality was also high outside the infirmary, especially due to changes in diet. I remember that, unfortunately, I unsuccessfully tried to save a man who ate 1 kg of bread on the first day of freedom. The dead from Camp II were buried in mass graves near the barracks, on a hill.