Exodus - Leon Uris [16]
... Bergen-Belsen ... Bergen-Belsen ... Bergen-Belsen ... NUREMBERG ... NUREMBERG! NUREMBERG! NUREMBERG!
“Take the stand and give your name.”
“Bruce Sutherland, Brigadier General, Commander of ...”
“Describe, in your own words ...”
“My troops entered Bergen-Belsen at twenty minutes past five in the evening of April 15.”
“Describe in your own words ...”
“Camp Number One was an enclosure of four hundred yards wide by a mile long. That area held eighty thousand people. Mostly Hungarian and Polish Jews.”
“Describe in your own words ...”
“The ration for Camp Number One was ten thousand loaves of bread a week.”
“Identify ...”
“Yes, those are testicle crushers and thumbscrews used in torture ...”
“Describe ...”
“Our census showed thirty thousand dead in Camp Number One, including nearly fifteen thousand corpses just littered around. There were twenty-eight thousand women and twelve thousand men still alive.”
“DESCRIBE ...!”
“We made desperate efforts but the survivors were so emasculated and diseased that thirteen thousand more died within a few days after our arrival.”
“DESCRIBE ...!”
“Conditions were so wretched when we entered the camp that the living were eating the flesh of the corpses.”
The moment Bruce Sutherland had completed his testimony at the Nuremberg war crimes trials he received an urgent message to return to London at once. The message came from an old and dear friend in the War Office, General Sir Clarence Tevor-Browne. Sutherland sensed it was something out of the ordinary.
He flew to London the next day and reported at once to that huge, ungainly monstrosity of a building on the corner of Whitehall and Great Scotland Yard which housed the British War Office.
“Bruce, Bruce, Bruce! Come in, come in, man! Good to see you. I followed your testimony at the Nuremberg trials. Nasty bit of business.”
“I am glad it is over,” Sutherland said.
“Sorry to hear about you and Neddie. If there is anything at all I can do ...”
Sutherland shook his head.
At last Tevor-Browne led up to the reason for asking him to come to London. “Bruce,” he said, “I called you here because a rather delicate assignment has come up. I must give a recommendation and I want to put your name up. I wanted to talk it over with you first.”
“Go on, Sir Clarence.”
“Bruce, these Jews escaping from Europe have posed quite a problem. They are simply flooding Palestine. Frankly, the Arabs are getting quite upset about the numbers getting into the mandate. We here have decided to set up detention camps on Cyprus to contain these people—at least as a temporary measure until Whitehall decides what we are going to do with the Palestine mandate.”
“I see,” Sutherland said softly.
Tevor-Browne continued. “This entire thing is touchy and must be handled with great tact. Now, no one wants to ride herd on a bunch of downtrodden refugees, and the fact is ... well, they have a great deal of sympathy on their side in high quarters—especially in France and America. Things must be kept very quiet on Cyprus. We want nothing to happen to create unfavorable opinion.”
Sutherland walked to the window and looked out to the Thames River and watched the big double-deck buses drive over the Waterloo Bridge. “I think the whole idea is wretched,” he said.
“It is not for you and me to decide, Bruce. Whitehall gives the orders. We merely carry them out.”
Sutherland continued looking out of the window. “I saw those people at Bergen-Belsen. Must be the same ones who are trying to get into Palestine now.” He returned to his chair. “We have broken one promise after another to those people in Palestine for thirty years.”
“See here, Bruce,” Tevor-Browne said, “you and I see eye to eye on this, but we are in a minority. We both served together in the Middle