Martin Shlanger - March 4, 1983
SS Guards
Do you remember any of the SS guards? Do any of them stand out?
Yes I do.
Do you know their names?
Don't remember names. Not at all.
What stands out about them?
Well, there was one SS guard that had a habit of just hitting prisoners for no reason at all. We were coming back from the construction project and he was standing at the gate, and he had a stick in his hand, and bang one, two, three, just hitting people, for no reason at all.
Was he on the march?
No. Many of the young SS men were replaced by the old home guard by January 1945.
Was this Wehrmacht?
Yes, older, older than 50 years old.
Yeah, and uh...that the first time I heard a German soldier call another prisoner, "mein liebe Mensch," which means, "my dear fellow". Never before.
Why don't we stop for a moment now.
Okay.
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