Frank Caplan collection

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

Frank Caplan collection 

folder 1 

Contains a typewritten statement given by former political prisoner Rudolf Hess of Bad Cannstatt (Stuttgart), Germany, to Lt. Frank Caplan (donor’s father) at Schwäbisch Hall, Germany, on May 18, 1945. The report documents former Hess’s arrest by Nazi authorities in 1943 and his imprisonment in the Dachau concentration camp, where he was subjected to medical experimentation. Hess was then transported to another concentration camp and, after an eight-day journey, arrived at Neuengamme concentration camp where he was a forced laborer. Hess was transferred to Stuttgart to be interrogated and to work, and from there to Munsignen. He then escaped and returned to Stuttgart and went to his parents home, where he was rearrested and sent back to Dachau. At Dachau he was given an intelligence test, then sent to Heidelberg where he was forcibly sterilized. Hess was transported to Mannheim and then again sent to Dachau and Stuttgart. According to the testimony, Hess was sentenced to one year and three months in prison and subsequently sent to Schwäbisch Hall, where he was liberated by American forces.