Davin News Server

Holocaust survivors reveal unusual Nazi cruelty
Updated 12:54 AM PT February 15, 2001
By Anastasio Philemon, World News Service, Los Angeles (WNS-LA)

Revelations continue to emerge of Hitlerite brutality against Jewish
concentration camp prisoners. Reports surfacing in recent former
prisoner associations' statements reveal a hitherto unreported fact
that during their World War 2 incarceration at Auschwitz, Ravensbruck,
and Chelmno, prisoners were routinely denied the use of toilet paper.
Further cruelty by the Nazi SS guards was demonstrated when prisoners
were forced to use sand paper in place of regular issue toilet tissue.

“Those SS beasts forced me to use it,” described Anna Rosenstein, a
former Auschwitz survivor. “They even had Capos (selected Jewish
prisoners acting as collaborative overseers for the SS over other
prisoners) checking to make sure we used the sand paper, doing spot
checks when they suspected we weren’t following regulations. Some of
us were beaten, whipped, or spanked when the sand paper was found to
be unused. It was terrible!”

Another prisoner described a public humiliation he was forced to
endure by a particularly sadistic SS guard. “During the morning
roll-call, the SS sergeant made me step forward and loudly announce to
my fellow prisoners that I sometimes didn’t use the sand paper
properly,” said Saul Lewitzky, now a resident of Newport Beach,
California. “I had to hold up that day’s issue of sand paper and shout
out that I would use it faithfully and properly. I hated them for
that. Even to this day I can’t see sand paper without feeling ill,
humiliated, degraded, or break out into a fearful sweat.”

One former Capo who pleaded to not be identified admitted the claims
were true. “I had to oversee the use of the sand paper, I had no
choice!” he lamented. “If I didn’t do as the SS told me, then they
would have forced me to use the sand paper too instead of the toilet
tissue which I was privileged to use. But, when the SS wasn’t
watching, I sometimes slipped regular toilet tissue to my fellow
prisoners in the latrines. I probably saved many Jewish lives that
way!”

Many prisoners developed serious rashes to their private parts as a
result of the forced use of the sand paper, but when seeking medical
treatment they were often laughed at by SS medical orderlies. “I could
hardly even sit down, and the daily trip to the latrine was sheer
torture,” remembered Leon Aritzky, who now lives in Eilat, Israel. “My
rash sometimes bled but when asking for medicine, the orderlies always
burst into laughter and cracked jokes. They sometimes even dangled
clean toilet paper in front of us — which they were allowed to use,
but not us — to further humiliate and torture us.”

Thousands of prisoners are reported to have died from the use of the
sand paper.

Researchers in Germany have produced wartime photographs of piles of
industrial sand paper, often shown loaded onto boxcars before shipment
to concentration camps. Other photographs show empty boxcars prior to
the loading of the sand paper.

Documentation recently viewed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center affirms
that the sand paper manufacturer of Sweden which filled Nazi German
orders — and which is a subsidiary of the American Company
International Industrial Paper Suppliers — knew what the paper was
being used for but continued to supply it anyway. A SWC spokesman
announced that it, in conjunction with the World Jewish Congress and
the International Federation of Jewish Deputies, would be launching
lawsuits against both the subsidiary and its parent corporation for
complicity in the Holocaust. Early reports project a seeking of
damages in the region of US$18 Billion.

An IIPS representative made a terse comment about the revelations: “We
are deeply shocked and saddened to learn of this lamentable wartime
activity by our company,” stated Thomas Harkins. “A recent company
board meeting has already authorized meetings with Jewish
representatives and Holocaust survivor associations to work out
appropriate compensations. We cannot express our guilt and regrets
sufficiently. We feel morally indebted to Jewish people for bringing
these facts to our attention, and we pray that this will never happen
again.”

2001 World News Service.

ADL statement on Charmin/Holocaust book
Crime/Corruption News Keywords: ADL Charmin HOLOCAUST Source: ADL
Press Release published: 2/15/01
Posted on 02/15/2001 10:29:20 PST by Non-New Yorker

NEW YORK, Feb. 15 /U.S. Newswire/ — The Anti-Defamation League (ADL)
today said that the revelation in a new book that the American
corporate giant Procter & Gamble was instrumental in supplying Charmin
toilet paper and other personal care products to the Third Reich,
thereby facilitating the implementation of Hitler’s extermination of
European Jewry, “validates unequivocally that there were many who knew
about and were complicit in the Final Solution, but chose to remain
silent and put profits above responsibility and morality.”

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following
statement:

It’s time to squeeze the Charmin.

Just when we thought we knew all there was to know about the
Holocaust, David Steinman, in Moon and Stars and Holocaust, provides
us with shocking documentation that the American corporate giant was
instrumental in facilitating the institutional infrastructure that
undergirded Hitler’s plan to wipe Europe free of Jewry. In recent
years the roles of various European and American corporations in
aiding and supplying the Nazis have been exposed. Now we have evidence
that P&G, producer of Charmin (TM) toilet tissue and icon of American
business, was complicit in the Final Solution, putting the profits it
derived from sales of toilet paper, toothpaste and other toiletries
above responsibility and morality.

We have been told that “nobody knew.” Nobody knew the extent of
Hitler’s plans for the Jews; nobody knew that the Third Reich could
carry out the Final Solution; nobody knew that Final Solution was
being implemented. Now we know that not only did many know, but that
some, like P&G, made it possible for the Final Solution to proceed
apace.

It is horrifying that while the millions of Jews imprisoned in camps
were worked to death and denied even the most basic human dignity of
showering, their wardens were enjoying the softest tissues and most
luxuriant facial scrubs American technology could provide. Let there
be no mistake: P&G “clean” money is dirty money.

“Everyone appreciates the comfortably clean feeling of Charmin,” runs
the P&G advertising slogan. But everyone at P&G should feel
uncomfortably dirty about the horrifying abrogation of human rights
that forms this sordid chapter in its corporate history. Making money
by abetting the most monstrous regime in human history may have seemed
good business at the time, but it is bad business today, and we intend
to take every step to see that current leadership at P&G both
renounces the actions of past leadership and moves forward in
partnership with the Jewish community in a morally appropriate
direction. Return to the ranks of responsible corporate citizens
requires nothing less.

While today’s P&G clearly is not responsible for the actions of
earlier directors and their hands-on relationship with the Nazis
through German subsidiary PGD, today’s P&G does owe the world a full
accounting and restitution in order to remove the blot now tarnishing
its corporate name. America’s icon of business owes it to itself, its
employees, investors, customers, and, most importantly, to the memory
of the six million Jews and millions of victims of the Nazis to come
clean about its dirty role in the Holocaust. We are certain that P&G
will take whatever actions are fiscally and morally necessary to
counter the public outrage generated by these surprising new
revelations. The ADL will continue the fight for accountability as the
Holocaust continues to reveal itself, providing an expanded historical
account and important lessons for today and the future.