Langbein Hermann. People in Auschwitz

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people in auschwitz

Hermann Langbein. Photograph © Alisa Douer; reprinted with permission.

hermann langbein

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People in Auschwitz

translated by harry zohn

foreword by henry friedlander

The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill & London

Published in association with the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Originally published in German as Menschen in Auschwitz,

Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The assertions, arguments, and conclusions contained herein are those of the author

or other contributors. They do not necessarily reﬂect the opinions of the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The University of North Carolina Press gratefully acknowledges the

support of the Federal Ministry for Education, Science, and Culture, Vienna, Austria;

the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation; and the L. J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation

inthepublicationofthisbook.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Set in Quadraat types by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability

of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on

Library Resources.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Langbein, Hermann, 1912–

[Menschen in Auschwitz. English]

People in Auschwitz / Hermann Langbein ; translated by Harry Zohn ;

foreword by Henry Friedlander.

p. cm.

‘‘Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.’’

Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 0-8078-2816-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Auschwitz (Concentration camp) 2. World War, 1939–1945—Prisoners and prisons,

German. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945) I. Title.

d805.5.a96l3613 2004

940.53'1853858—dc22 2003020485

0807060504 54321

I have felt obligated to write this book

for the sake of the countless people who

carried on a struggle against inhumanity

even in Auschwitz and lost their lives—

especially in memory of

Ernstl Burger and Zbyszek Raynoch.

contents

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Foreword by Henry Friedlander,ix

introduction

Author’s Rationale, 3

The Camp and Its Jargon, 11

The History of the Extermination

Camp, 18

Numbers, 51

the prisoners

Under the Power of the Camp, 63

The Muselmann,89

The Inmate and Death, 106

Music and Games, 125

Canada, 133

The vips, 143

Jewish vips, 169

Creating Accomplices, 178

The Sonderkommando, 191

The Inmate Inﬁrmary, 203

Those Born in Auschwitz, 233

Resistance, 240

the jailers

The Guards, 273

People, Not Devils, 294

The Commandant, 302

ss Leaders, 316

Physicians in the ss, 333

Dr. Wirths, 365

Subordinates of the ss Leaders, 386

Sexuality, 402

Reactions of Human Nature, 414

Frank and Pestek, 438

Civilians in Auschwitz, 449

afterward

Inmates after Liberation, 471

ss Members after the War, 502

Conclusion and Warning, 518

Bibliography, 523

Index, 537

foreword

Henry Friedlander

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The name Auschwitz has come to symbolize the criminality of Nazi Germany.

It not only was Germany’s largest concentration camp but also housed its

largest killing center. In the end, combining assembly-line mass murder and

the exploitation of slave labor, Auschwitz was the premier Nazi installation

of the Holocaust.

But Auschwitz did not launch the wholesale extermination of people

deemed undesirable by the regime. In September 1939, at the beginning of

World War II, before Auschwitz even existed as a place of incarceration and

murder, the German concentration camp system was already ﬁrmly estab-

lished.The individual camps of that system—Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buch-

enwald, Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, and Ravensbrück—hadbecomeinfamous.

After the conquest of Poland, the Germans needed a new concentration

camp to hold the large number of Poles who had been arrested as potential

opponents to German rule.The search for the best site focused on Auschwitz,

whose Polish name was Oswiecim. Its location at the juncture of the Vistula

and Sola rivers made possible a large measure of isolation from the outside

world. In addition, it provided essential railroad connections, being situated

at the crossroads of Silesia, the General Government of Poland, the incor-

porated Wartheland, and the former states of Czechoslovakia and Austria. In

early May 1940, Auschwitz was oﬃcially designated a German concentration

camp, and ss Captain Rudolf Höß, who had served on the ss staﬀ at Dachau

and Sachsenhausen, was appointed commandant. About 1,200 Poles whose

dwellings were on or near the proposed camp site were relocated, and soon

thirty prisoners, all ordinary German criminals, arrived from Sachsenhausen,

receiving Auschwitz prisoner numbers 1 through 30. In June, the ﬁrst Polish

politicalprisoners, includingPolishJews,werereceivedat Auschwitz and were

given prisoner numbers 31 through 758.

During 1940 and early 1941, the Auschwitz camp held mostly Polish pris-

oners; the remainder were German. This camp would eventually become the

center of a system of camps,while its inmate population would be augmented

with prisoners from all countries occupied by Germany. Known as the ‘‘main

camp,’’ it would house the administration of the Auschwitz complex.

In January 1941, oﬃcials of IG Farben, the large German chemical con-

cern, visited the Kattowitz region as the possible site for the production of