LUNEBERG: The “Death Diet” at the Belsen Camp was described at the third day’s trial today [Sept 19] of Joseph Kramer, the Commandant of the Camp, and his 44 camp guards, cables Reuter’s special correspondent.

Brigadier Lewllyn Glyn Hughes, who spent six hours in the witness box yesterday as the first witness for the prosecution, said that the value of the diet the internees were receiving when the British entered the Camp was less than 800 calories a day.

Prosecutor Col. T.M. Backhouse: “Would that be sufficient to maintain life over a period of time?” Hughes: “No.”

The Prosecutor: “Would it be inevitable that a person fed on that diet over a period would eventually die?” Hughes: “Yes.”

The Prosecutor asked Brigadier Hughes what was the attitude of prisoners towards the S.S. (Brigadier Hughes had been asked yesterday whether internees when they were free beat up the S.S.). Brigadier Hughes: “If anyone asked S.S. men any question in front of them, they were obviously frightened to answer.”

The Prosecutor then read the affidavit by Colonel James Johnson of the British Royal Army Medical Corps in which camp conditions were described as “atrocious, horrible and inhuman”.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2020