"I was arrested on July 22nd 19431 and taken to the headquarters of the Gestapo in Lyons. After an identity questioning I was taken to the basement where there were already about forty people. Speaking was forbidden. A man with a bleeding head lay on the ground in the corner. A dog was guarding him. If the man moved, the dog would bite. This dog was the terror of the old inmates. It was used as part of the interrogations. At 8pm, an SS officer handcuffed us and we were loaded two at a time into a van that took us to Fort Montluc.
A warden led me to a wooden hut where there were already about one hundred people, including twenty women. They were separated from us with a curtain made out of blankets. Everyone slept on the floor on straw mattresses. Depending to the number of inmates, which varied with the departures and arrivals, we slept from between one to five people per two mattresses. It was very hot in this hut. At night, flees bit us. There were so many that it often seemed to be raining them. Although we were weakened by hunger and the fact that it was forbidden to sleep during the day, we still faced the night with apprehension. There were several doctors with us, but there was no medicine. A fellow prisoner suffered an attack of appendicitis. The Fort commander visited and promised to evacuate the patient, but no one came. Fortunately, the attack of appendicitis passed.
At the beginning of September a Jewish family with a little girl aged three arrived. A general who was carrying out an inspection ordered for the girl to be removed from the prison immediately. Despite this order, the child stayed for another four weeks and finally left with her parents for Drancy.
Every morning a dozen inmates would be called for interrogation. They usually returned in a pitiful state. All day long everyone would talk endlessly about feasts, cookery and good places to eat, all whilst suffering from hunger.
In the morning there was coffee. At midday there was celery stick soup with a few grains of barley, and in the evening here was 300g of bread with 20g of butter or a spoonful of marmalade.
Our dirty laundry was stained with the blood of the bugs. There was no soap. After 90 days the first package of laundry arrived with a piece of soap.
On October 28th 1943 I was part of a convoy for Compiegne. With us was professor A. Heilbronner, who hadn’t been able to shave for 60 days and who had been in the cell where there were the most bugs. He was covered in abscesses resulting from infected bug bites. When I had the opportunity to weigh myself I found that I had gone down from 78 kg to 64 kg in 98 days.
Compiegne - Mauthausen
I stayed at Compiegne from October 29th 1943 to March 1944. We weren’t unhappy thanks to the packages that our relatives were able to get to us, and above all to the fact that we could correspond with our parents by post two times a month. We also didn’t suffer from the unhygienic conditions as in Montluc. On March 22nd 44, I was part of a convoy going to Mauthausen, close to Linz. We were loaded onto the wagons in groups of one hundred. The wagons were almost completely sealed. The temperature rose rapidly and after 30 minutes the lack of oxygen started to be felt. At nightfall, we tried to open our carriage and we managed to open a door. Unfortunately, the same had been done in other carriages. As some men had jumped from a carriage, the train had stopped for an inspection. The S.S. officers made men from four of the carriages undress in order to load them by 200 per carriage. They executed six men as an example and shot through the walls of several other carriages. As there were no intact carriages left, they couldn’t transfer us to another carriage. They blocked the doors with barbed wire. At the German border we were made to undress and we were left in only our underpants. After 48 hours of travelling we arrived at Regensburg where we were given our first supplies of a half litre of coffee, but this was only for 400 out of 1,500 of us. There was 20 cm of snow on the ground. It was raining. Still in our underpants, we had to walk 200 metres squeezed between two lines of SS officers to reach the refreshment stand, with the grips of their revolvers rubbing into our sides. We were forced to run and we all spilled more than half of this precious liquid. We weren’t hungry but horribly thirsty. We were all lying on the ground one on top of the other. There were many among us who were in a state of hysteria. When we arrived, three of our fellows who had become out of their minds were shot by the S.S. The journey had taken 70 hours.
Our carriages were left for a whole night at Mauthausen station and we were finally unloaded at 6 o’clock in the morning. It was still night. Our clothes were in a large container in the snow. Everyone could take a few rags whilst going past the container but it had to be quick as the S.S. would rapidly strike out. After letting us wait in the wind until evening, still without providing us with food or drink, we were taken to the showers and once our watches and rings had been stolen we were shaved from head to toe.
We were so thirsty that after having eaten snow all day long, we could only think of showering and drinking hot water. We were stripped of everything, left with only our trouser belts and given a shirt and a fresh pair of underpants before being taken to the quarantine blocks.
Mauthausen is at an altitude of 800 metres. A frozen wind blows all year long. We were crammed in at 500 people per block and spent a terrible three weeks there. We slept like sardines on straw mattresses on the floor, one person with their head at the top, and another with their head at the bottom. We were so crammed in that if we got up in the night the gap was immediately taken and as a result we would have to spend the night standing or on the concrete of the shower room.
The day was no less terrible than our nights. To preserve cleanliness the chief of the block made us spend our days outside in the North wind. We were in shirt and underpants until our affectation. We squeezed up against one another to warm ourselves up like sheep in a flock when it’s freezing.
After three weeks of this treatment 175 people out of our convoy were ill and 55 were dead.
Finally we were clothed on April 15th. I was part of a group of 90 Frenchmen, all metalworkers, who were transferred on the same day to the camp of Linz. Upon our arrival at Mauthausen I registered as a metalworker (borer) and also as Aryan due to my knowledge of German; that was to save my life.
Our new camp felt like paradise. There were ten hours of work a day. We had Sunday off, there was one bed per man, sufficient food and we were well treated. We worked at the Stahlbau GMBH of the Goering group. Unfortunately, our camp became too small. The H.Goering group asked for 6,000 men. The commanding officer of Mauthausen, Zieveis, delegated two assassins to Linz to create a new camp. These were S.S. Kofler and Winckler, former commando chiefs of the disciplinary company at Mauthausen. At the beginning of July, our commando was transferred to the new camp that had been named Linz III. S.S. Obersturmfuhrer Schoeperle was Lagerfuhrer, Kofler was Rapporbfuhrer and Winckler was Arbeitsdienstfuhrer. He delegated the interior management of the camp almost entirely to Germans imprisoned under common law and to Polish deportees who were often worse still in their cowardice and subservience to the S.S. The camp was a former camp of Italian soldiers and was very dirty. It had simply been surrounded by 380-volt electric barbed wire. The sanitary installations were clearly deficient. Generally there was a 12-seat open air WC and as the pits were always full the camp was always full of excrement.
There was very rapidly an invasion of lice as a result of the clean laundry we were given at the end of July in exchange for what we were wearing. It was the first and the last time that our laundry was changed over 10 months. We had sufficient food over the first three months but after then it was clearly inadequate, to the extent that numerous deportees died of starvation.
Discipline was harsh. Our block chief later became the camp doyen and was a Polish political deportee who had been a career officer. He was obsequious with the S.S. and incomparably brutal with his fellow detainees, particularly with the French.
This was the daily routine: wakeup call 4.15 – Soup 4.45 – Role call 5.15 – Departure from the camp 5.45 – Work from 6 to 12 and from 12.30 to 6pm. Soup at 7pm. Lice inspection and then, generally, bed at 8.30pm. We slept two to a bed due to the lack of space, and it was impossible to get good rest having worked and been standing for fifteen hours a day.
On July 25th was the first air raid of 800 aircrafts. Our shelter was 20 metres away from the Stahlbau. There was a ditch covered with a metal sheet 80mm thick. 12 bombs of 500kg over a radius of 20 metres landed around our ditch. There were only 18 deaths. There were 138 at Linz I and 42 at Linz III. Until the end of November 6,000 men were assigned to clearing up work. The S.S. supervised the work and bludgeoned us frequently.
In October the bombings and air raid warnings began again. As soon as there was a warning, we were gathered together. Our commando now consisted of 300 men and we were forced to wait until everyone was present before going back to the camp. Often the D.C.A would be shooting while we were still in the factory. In total there were 27 raids, as well as almost daily false alarms. The races to the camp that sometimes took place twice or even three times a day were extraordinarily physically exhausting given our exhaustion from work, under-nourishment and the injuries we all had to our feet and legs. These injuries from the clogs we wore did not heal, and almost all of us had oedema in our legs, which were only bandaged once a week.
At the infirmary the Polish doctor generally only looked out for his compatriots. At the end of December a Serbian doctor arrived who wasn’t afraid to take flack even from the S.S. The number of people in the infirmary rose from 200 to 950 in 4 weeks despite the protest of the Lagerfuhrer.
Through his courage, this doctor saved the lives of a number of us thanks to the rest patients were able to get at the infirmary, despite the shortage of medicines and bandages. Patients suffering from flegmons were kept in one room and bandaging only took place once a week. The stink was so great that I was unable to go into this room.
In January, as the cold grew, so did the number of deaths. Some commandos had to travel 6km to get to their place of work, meaning 12 km a day, regardless of whether it was snowing or raining and often to work in the open air without ever having the chance to dry off. Frequently they worked without clogs with their clothes in rags and their underwear rotting on their bodies, and we were often afflicted with lice. After the bombings we would sometimes be without water for 6 weeks, meaning we could not wash. The water for the kitchen was taken from the canal that passed close by. The pullovers that our block chiefs obtained for us were trafficked in exchange for schnapps from civilians. The nazi foremen in the construction sites became ever more demanding. After the destruction of many of the vans with cranes on the back, sheet-metal of over a tonne, railway tracks, etc, were transported on men’s backs. There were many accidents. At the beginning of February three young Russians aged 17 and 18 escaped. They were captured eight days later. During roll-call they were taken in front of us to the gallows accompanied by the camp orchestra which played “Alle voyelein sing schon da”. They died with great courage.
At Mauthausen the rope once broke twice but the condemned man was executed anyway.
From July to the end of November the daily death toll was five. After the great freeze the average raised to twelve. The H. Goering factories provided a lorry that drove the corpses to the crematorium once a week.
At the end of February there were still 4,200 men out of the 6,000 at Linz III. The others were taken by dysentery, general weakness from hunger, tuberculosis, oedemas and phlegmons.
At the end of February our meagre rations were reduced further still. In the morning there was half a litre of soup and 50kg of flour for 2000 litres of water. At midday there were 300 grams of bran bread, a slice of horse sausage, and in the evening three quarters of a litre of soup. It was prepared with 50g of vegetables and 12g of margarine of which more than half was stolen for 3,000 litres of water. In March and April the average daily death toll rose to 15 a day. In the face of the Russian advance in March, the Lagerfuhrer took fright. As he was unable to leave on his own, he ordered plans for an evacuation on foot in the direction of Ebensee in Tyrol, 90 km from Linz.
Ebensee
The SDG (Sanibätadienstgehilfe) made a visit of the patients in the infirmary. Whoever was able to stand was pronounced cured. Those patients unable to stand had their shirts removed. Their matriculation number was written in ink on their chest. The SDG issued the doctors with a can of petrol and ordered them to issue it to the patients via an intravenous drip. The doctors refused. The S.S. hesitated. Finally they relented. The Russians advanced. In the town there was the following inscription on the walls of the town: “Es wird gemordet im S.S. Lager III”. 30 patients died from the emotion. All the patients who had been evicted returned to their places in the infirmary. During the battle for Vienne the young S.S. were taken out of the two companies who were guarding us, and were replaced by the old men from the air force and the camp criminals.
A doctor made a visit of the Germans in the camp. 52 German prisoners under common law and 8 political prisoners were selected to join the S.S. squads. 3 of the political prisoners refused and their refusal was accepted. 70 Polish deportees volunteered to join. They were refused.
In April when the Russians were 90km away, the Gauleiter refused to authorise the evacuation for strategic reasons. The Lagerführer was completely panicked. He gave the order for all the invalids to be given 15 minutes under a cold shower in order for them to die a natural death and to get them buried. Due to a lack of coke the crematorium was shut down. In this way all living witnesses of the bad treatment would disappear.
The operation began at 9am. The invalids were living skeletons and were loaded onto handcarts to be taken to the showers. At 10.15am there was an air raid warning… and a bombing. The water pipes were cut. The invalids would not be showered.
April 15th: In the commandos, output was almost at zero. The S.S., Meisterscivil, everyone had understood that it was the end of the nightmare. On May 2nd at 10am we were suddenly offered the opportunity to return to the camp. The Commandofuhrer told us that in all probability the Americans had arrived. On May 3rd, I was part of a commando that was going to bury 38 of our comrades who had died at the infirmary. We put them all in a 500 kg bomb crater. We stayed at the camp until May 4th. At 6am we received the order to prepare to evacuate the camp. We refused to leave, fearing subterfuge on the part of our guardians. Sensing their weakening, we felt strong. We only started to leave the camp after a delegation of Russians, Yugoslavs, and Frenchmen had met with the Rapportfuhrer and received absolute guarantees. We were made to cross the Danube and at 2pm we learned from civilians that the town was in American hands. We returned to the camp, still accompanied by our guards. Fortunately they were scared, but we were convinced that nothing could happen to them. They imagined themselves being mobilised by the Americans to wage war… on the Russians.
At one kilometre from the camp we were met by a dozen of our Russian and Yugoslav comrades who had stayed at the kitchen and who had come to meet us. They were armed with sub-machine guns that they had taken from the S.S. arsenal. They had kept the keys of the arsenal for three months in preparation for D-day.
The S.S. threw down their arms and surrendered with the first warning. 70 of them, the worst ones, were killed on the spot. A total of 450 others were later handed over to the Americans on their arrival.
The camp management, Lagerfuhrer etc.. were equally handed over for judgement. The Americans summarily executed them along with 60 out of the 450 S.S.
At the camp it was time for accounts to be settled. The capitulators and the block chiefs paid for their crimes with their lives."
Marcigny, July 20th 1945
Survivors of Montluc card
Wyler family collection
1Marcel appears on the Montlucregister as being incarcerated in July, 20th 1943 and deported to Mauthausen on March,22nd 1944. In. Montluc, Antichambre de l'inconnu, 1942-1944; ed. BGA Pemezel
Max Marcel Wyler
Born on July 15th 1914 in Olten in the canton of Argovie in Switzerland. Son of Rachel Geissmann and Julius Wyler. He arrived in France with his mother in June 1917. In January 1929 he entered service at Schwob and Cie at the Moulin de Modenheim in Alsace.
He found refuge with his mother in Marcigny in the Saone et Loire department, Marcel make himself known to the prefect as a Jew, as soon as the first measures was taken for the census of foreign Jeww in July 1941. According to the Marcigny mayor, Marcel would have been registered on the August 1942 census; he also appears on a list registering all Jews from the town, whom had the "Jew" mentions on their identity card. Marcel is also known from the Vichy services as a volunteer for repatriation (in switzerland) on March 1943. He was implicated in the resistance network created by former Jewish Scouts from Mulhouse, and imprisoned in Lyons from April 8th 1943 to May 15th 1943 for gold trafficking. The gold that he was probably collecting in Switzerland was probably used to finance the resistance network in Lyons that he belonged to (Marco Polo, MRPGPD). As he came from a modest background it is unlikely that the gold came from his personal fortune.
He monitored the resources the S.N.C.F placed at the disposition of the Germans and took part in the production of false documents. In July 1943 Marcel was arrested by the Gestapo at Place des Terreaux in Lyons during a roundup targeting members of the resistance. He was interrogated at length by the Gestapo in the basement of the former Santé Militaire School, and stated that he lived at 15, rue Saint Hélène in Lyons whereas he shared an apartment at number 13 of the same street, which allowed his friend Sami Kahn to flee. The Gestapo found nothing during their search. He was imprisoned in Montluc prison and deported to Mauthausen via Compiegne. Marcel survived the hell of the camps, and at Mauthausen he was assigned to a Commando of metal-workers, writing on this subject: “Thanks to Pichon, (Andre Ullman) I escaped the quarry and I found myself in the company of Emile Valle, who was to become secretary of the association of former interns of Mauthausen. Thanks to Valle and a hundred metal-workers some very good sabotage was accomplished in our Kommando.” He was freed on May 4th 1945 and repatriated to France on May 20th, returning to Marcigny where he immediately composed his testimony. He took up his employment again after the war when his employer returned from the United States. In June 1949, Max Marcel Wyler married Irene Dukase. The couple lived in Mulhouse where they brought up their three children. Irene died in March 1987. Max Marcel Wyler, weakened by illness, passed away in 1992.
