ΧΑΪΔΑΡΙ ΧΑΪΔΑΡΙ - ΣΥΝΑΝΤΗΣΗ ΜΕ ΤΗΝ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ | Page 264

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March to Chaidari. Xylography of the 1950s.
meal in the afternoon. The prisoners were allowed out
only once at half past four for a five-minute wash and
sleeping time was at five. Windows were kept open at
all times, regardless of the weather and prisoners had to
stand constantly. The penalty for any rule violation was
whipping till bleeding and passing away.
The sleeping hours were tormented by cold, as prisoners
had to lie down on concrete or wooden boards with only
one blanket. Hence, they woke up tired. Bugs and the
ferocity of the guards completed their torment. Prisoners
were in constant agony and seclusion was catastrophic
to their psychology. The journalist A. Saousopoulos,
then a prisoner, mentions that Block 15 was more of a
psychological torture than a physical one. The constant
isolation, the inability to exchange a word with another
person and the ignorance of the outside world exhausted
the nervous system and brought people to the edge of
madness.
The prisoners of Block 15 were allowed out only during
walking time and isolated prisoners came out every
two to three and even five days. The walk lasted about
twenty minutes. They formed a circle and kept a distance
of 1 m from each other, so that they were not able to
speak to each other. They paced fast under the eyes
of the guards. Walks were gradually reduced and were
finally forbidden. An interrogator visited Block 15 every
Tuesday after the midday meal.
Commander Karl Fischer
In the end of February 1944, major Paul Radomski was
replaced by Karl Fischer, who continued the fierce
S.S. policy in a different way than his predecessor. He
replaced Radomski’s cruelty with internal spying, so that
he was able to control the camp more effectively. Free
Greece (25.10.1946) reported on the commanding tactics
of Karl Fischer. Fischer was an S.S. too, part of the same
school. He was tall, blonde and well structured. There
was nothing violent about him. He was always calm,
well-mannered and self-disciplined. A better look showed
a methodical person, with thoughts hidden deeply inside.
Fischer was well informed. Radomski had worked with
his whip well. He had trained the prisoners and left a
mass well organized that could not be broken in any
way. For this reason Fischer thought of a different way
to break it. And there was no other way than treason.
He made it a system and cultivated it as much as he
could. The right persons, with humble personality and
light conscience, either artfully placed into the camp or
prisoners themselves, unknown to everybody, slipped out
by the crack of dawn and left notes at the commander’s
door. The aim was to collect as much as possible
information on the traffic in the camp and also about
specific persons.
Fischer’s command saw the greatest mass executions