Crimes and Mercies. James Bacque

      Captain Berwick said on reading Buchal’s report of 18,100 corpses in a draft of this chapter, ‘That might be true.’ The 18,100 figure is in general confirmed by reports from five prisoners who survived Bretzenheim. Several report deaths of over fifty per day for a long period in the camp alone, apart from the hospital.²¹ One reported 120–180 bodies per day coming out of the camp, apart from the hospital.²²

      The death total of 18,100, taken with the known period of ten weeks and the known average population of the six camps, 217,000, means that the death rate was 43 per cent per year. This is much higher than the figure 35.6 per cent apparent from Table X in the Medical History of the European Theater of Operations, which was used to help determine the overall death rates in Other Losses in 1989. A high number of corpses on many days was also observed by several American guards at the camp.²³