Langbein Hermann. People in Auschwitz

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the charges against him was that he had told the ss that he suspected an in-

mate who had concealed himself in the camp of having attempted to escape.

As could have been foreseen, the prisoner was shot. In the fall of 1960 about

a dozen former inmates of Dachau with extensive camp experience testiﬁed

before a Munich court that, ‘‘in view of the ruthless reprisals that the entire

camp had toendure becauseof a missinginmate and considering thegreatun-

collegialityof an attempted escape,’’ the action of the camp elder was justiﬁed.

In the declaratory part of its judgment, the court summarized this testimony

as quoted above, but the indictment had still reﬂected the well-founded view

that the concealed inmate’s lifewould probably have been saved and he would

have got away with a lesser punishment if Kapp had, for example, reported

that he had fallen asleep.

The ss granted German prisoners the aforementioned privileged position

because its experience with long-time German inmates had frequently been

similar to the Kapp episodeand also becausethis was in linewiththeir master-

race theory.Werner Krumme,who was deported to Auschwitz from Breslau as

a political prisoner and was given a leading position in the Labor Assignment

Oﬃce in his ﬁrst month, concisely summed up the privileged position of the

Germans by saying that ‘‘the few Germans in the camp were needed.’’

Ella Lingens reports that any female German prisoner who was not too old

and in reasonably good physical condition was able to become a forewoman

in the camp after the ﬁrst week. The Germans were to be corrupted by extra

food, better lodging, and care in case of illness. Lingens emphasizes that ‘‘we

were supposed to feel ourselves to be members of the master race (Herrenvolk)

even in the concentration camp.’’

According to Höß’s report, prisoners from the German Reich ‘‘almost al-

ways received the better positions, and thus all their physical needs were met.

Anything theycould not obtain in the regular way they ‘organized.’’’ Höß also

describes the source that made such procurement possible. ‘‘After the cam-

paigns against the Jews got going, there was practically nothing that could

not be procured. And the upper-level functionaries had the requisite freedom

of movement, too.’’

When the inmates of Auschwitz had their numbers tattooed on their left

forearms, the Germans were exempted from this practice. No tattoos were

ordered for them in any other camp either. Evidently, the ss thought that Ger-

mans, and only they, might be released some day.

Poles were deﬁnitely not favored by the camp administration. The privi-

leged position they occupied in Auschwitz was due to their ethnic solidarity,

which transcendedeven serious political conﬂicts, and theircamp experience.

This was not always so; the early period was the worst for them. However, ac-

cording to Tadeusz Paczula, as early as 1941 ‘‘the ss gave all its attention to

74 n the prisoners

the Russian prisoners of war; several wagon loads of corpses left the camp

every day.’’ This eased and frequently even saved the life of others, and these

others were mainly Poles. Wladyslaw Fejkiel writes that ‘‘1941 and 1942 were

theworst years for thePoles. Later the Jews came,and this gave the Poles more

peace.’’

The camp leadership deliberately played Germans oﬀ against Poles, and

this was another reason why it was so hard for good relations to develop be-

tween the ethnic groups that set the tone for the camp. Even those Germans

who had been sent to the camp as political opponents often found it hard to

relate to Poles. Fejkiel has addressed this problem: ‘‘They made the same mis-

take that the Poles frequently made: they generalized.They believed that every

Pole had to be a fascist, willy-nilly, or infected by fascism. Similarly, the Poles

often regarded even friendly German communists as enemies and simply took

it for granted that they must not become friends or collaborate with them.’’

Many Poles learned German inAuschwitz toavoid being ruined. In the early

period only prisoners who understood that language reasonably well were as-

signed to a good work detail. At a later date Polish was accepted as the sec-

ond language of the camp.Thomas Geve, who was transported from Berlin to

Auschwitz as a mere child, reports that in his block all announcements were

made in Polish and then translated into Russian. Anyone who was not famil-

iar with these announcements and committed a violation had to expect severe

punishment. Not understanding the languagewas no excuse, and so Geve was

forced to learn Polish.

n Among the Poles anti-Semitism, which ss men fostered with every means

at their disposal, continued a tradition. Their anti-Semitic tendencies were

promoted by their fear that their hard-won privileged position would be jeop-

ardized if the general discrimination against the Jews, which had initially

prevented the latter from being assigned to desirable labor details, abated.

This explains the frequent wholesale condemnation of the Poles in the camp

as anti-Semites. Thus Benedikt Kautsky speaks of a ‘‘robust anti-Semitism

among criminals and social misﬁts’’ and characterizes Polish criminals and

fascists as ‘‘mercilessly anti-Semitic.’’ Henry Bulawko portrays the majorityof

the Polish inmates as ‘‘born anti-Semites’’ whose patriotism and hatred of the

Germans could not diminish their aversion to Jews. Dr. Aron Bejlin cannot

forget the Polish physicians in Birkenau who assured him that they would stay

in Auschwitz for another ten years if Hitler eventually succeeded in making

Europe Jew-free ( judenrein). Krystyna Zywulska remembers being told by an

inmate that while the methods were horrible, they did solve the Jewish prob-

lem in Poland. ‘‘This may sound paradoxical,’’ concluded the Polish woman,

‘‘but we owe this to Hitler.’’ Fejkiel correctly observed that generalizations are

Under the Power of the Camp n 75

wrong. Anyone who had a chance to become better acquainted with Poles,

which was not easy, found that many of them fought against anti-Semitism

vigorously and courageously, though without letting it jeopardize their tight-

knit solidarity.

In the hkb, which oﬀered the greatest opportunities to help one’s fellow

inmates, the eﬀects of anti-Semitism among the prisoners were most clearly

apparent. Vilo Jurkovic recalls that at ﬁrst the Polish prisoner hierarchy in the

hkb was ‘‘against everyone’’ and only pro-Polish. ‘‘Anti-Semitism was a good

lightning rod,’’ he writes, and therefore it often was ‘‘the primary practical

expression of this negative attitude.’’ Like Jurkovic, Igor Bistric was deported

to Auschwitz from Slovakia in the spring of 1942, and he met Jurkovic while

serving as a clerk in the hkb. Years later Bistric described his situation as

one of the ﬁrst Jews on the staﬀ of the hkb. ‘‘In the inﬁrmary, members of

the Polish intelligentsia were serving as nurses and clerks. They gave us to

understand that we were not welcome because they thought we were after

their jobs.’’ Bistric has not forgotten his superior, a Pole named Szary who

gave him more than one beating, but he emphasized that several Poles in the

hkb always behaved in comradely fashion. He speciﬁcally named Dr. Adam

Zacharski, Tadeusz Paczula, and Jurek Czubak, men whom I also learned to

respect.

Ella Lingens reports about a Polish nurse who said that she was against the

Jews and the only reason she did not discriminate against them was that she

did not want to support the ss men in their extermination of the Jews.

Tadeusz Holuj has described the following scene in the hkb of the main

camp that took place after the ss had once again selected sick inmates to be

puttodeath.

‘‘Don’tworry, they’realljust Jews,’’said the small,stockydormitoryelderas

he cut some margarine in tiny pieces. ‘‘They don’t need anything anyway,’’

he proclaimed frankly. ‘‘Why feed the patients who are bound for the gas

chambers? It’s better if we eat this ourselves.’’ ‘‘Oh, Herr Stubenältester, let

these people have a few bites to eat,’’ reasoned the block barber Kamioner,

a Polish-French Jew, a bit later as he was shaving the dormitory elder and

rubbing his facewith colognethathehad obtained somewhere.‘‘Kamioner,

you jackass,’’ laughed the dormitory elder. ‘‘In a little while you’re going to

see Abraham again, too.’’

Kamioner became pensive and fell silent. It was a bad day for him, for he

had lost two relatives and eleven acquaintances whom he was supposed to

shave before they were carted oﬀ. He had not been up to that. ‘‘I still have

too soft a heart,’’ he said as he bribed a few patients with minor illnesses

to perform this duty for him.

76 n the prisoners

Holuj has described a conversation between Felek, the block clerk, and

Kamioner:

‘‘You Jews nailed Christ to the cross and that’s why you’re under a curse,

my boy, until the end of time. This is your atonement,’’ said Felek calmly

and seriously. Kamioner was indignant. ‘‘I’m a simple Jewand you’re a law-

yer. You graduated from a university and say such ugly things. They’re not

true...’’Hewanted to speak more sharply, but he got scared and did not

want to incur any danger, and so he only sighed and started to tell a French

anecdote with a smile. Kamioner, who was born in Poland and raised in

France, was a philosopher.With his clear, penetrating mind he grasped the

full repulsiveness of a situation in which some of the inmates justiﬁed the

mass destruction of the Jews and even rejoiced that ‘‘Hitler was taking care

of this unpleasant matter’’—on their behalf, of course. He tried to explain

to his ‘‘Aryan’’ customer in his own fashion: ‘‘Well, all right, they’ll exter-

minate us little Jews, but they won’t get their hands on the big ones. They

are in England and America, and one day they will demand information

about us.’’

In March 1943 the Political Department claimed to have uncovered a Polish

conspiracy among the personnel of the inﬁrmary in the main camp and at-

tempted to impress the ss garrison physician with that information. The fol-

lowing conversation between Dr. Wirths and me ensued:

‘‘There are a great many Poles on the inﬁrmary staﬀ, Langbein.’’

‘‘Yes sir.’’

‘‘It’s a clique—one person sticks up for another. Do you agree that the

Poles have a secret organization in the inﬁrmary?’’

‘‘Certainly not, Herr Doktor. It’s only natural for one man to help an-

other. I help every decent Viennese whenever I can.’’

Wirths looks at me and smiles. By now I know how I have to speak with

him. He appreciates comradeship.

‘‘In any case, there are too many Poles on the inﬁrmary staﬀ. This will

have to be changed.’’

‘‘May I make a suggestion, Herr Doktor?’’ He nods. ‘‘It goes without

saying that any nurse helps his compatriots more than others. But not all

nationalities are represented on the nursing staﬀ. Couldn’t, for example,

Frenchmen and Czechs be used as nurses?’’

‘‘Fine. Bring me their numbers, and I shall request them.’’

I can see that he likes my proposal, and so I dare to go further:

‘‘Can’t Jews be added to the staﬀ as well? After all, the sick Jewish in-

mates are supposed to get well, too, because they are also needed in the full

Under the Power of the Camp n 77

mobilization of workers. There are a considerable number of Jewish physi-

cians in the camp.Would it be possible to employ them on a trial basis and

then add the capable ones to the staﬀ?’’

I said this very fast, because his face had indicated that he did not like

this idea so much.

At this point he interrupted me. ‘‘But then the sickroom would have to

be organized in such a way that the Jewish inmate physicians do not treat

any Aryans—because that is impossible.’’ He emphasized the last words.

‘‘Yes sir, Herr Doktor, that would be easy to arrange.’’

He reﬂects and then springs into action. ‘‘Take this down: To the head of

the Labor Assignment Oﬃce, with a copy to the commandant’s oﬃce. I re-

quest the identiﬁcation of all Jewish inmates who are physicians by profes-

sion and their transfer to the hkb.’’ After a pause: ‘‘Here is an addendum:

This is by way of implementing the order of the wvha—lookupthenum-

ber of this order, you know which one I mean—that the inmates’ capacity

for work be exploited to the greatest possible degree.’’

Soon thereafter thePolish monopolyintheinﬁrmary was brokenas Czechs,

Frenchmen,andmembersof othernationalitieswereemployed as nurses.Due

to the machinations of ss medics and anti-Semitic superiors in the hkb,on

more than one occasion Jewish physicians who had been placed on the inﬁr-

mary staﬀ on the basis of that order were not allowed to practice medicine

but had to do dirty work, yet this change basically opened up an avenue that

eventually led even Jewish physicians to inﬂuential positions.

Dr. Golse, who was deported from France to Auschwitz on an rshatrans-

port on July 20, 1943, reports an ‘‘extraordinary stroke of luck’’ that caused

him to be assigned to the hkb as a physician after two days in quarantine,

while the other men on this transport who had passed the selection were as-

signed to work in a mine without consideration of their profession. It soon

became the rule, however, that physicians and pharmacists were pulled out of

the mass of people at the ramp.

n It stands to reason that the Jews did not constitute a homogeneous group,

for they came from a great variety of environments; had diﬀerent professions,

philosophies, and languages; and did not have the same religious ties. Bene-

dikt Kautsky writes: ‘‘Conditions were complicated by the fact that in wartime

Jews of many nationalities met in the camps and instead of displaying soli-

darity feltenmity towardone another. In linewith the camp’s tendencytoward

generalization, the ‘Poles’ now stood opposed to the ‘Germans,’ the ‘Dutch’

to the ‘French,’ and the ‘Greeks’ to the ‘Hungarians.’ It was by no means un-

78 n the prisoners

usual for one Jew to use arguments against another Jew that were not very

diﬀerent from those of the anti-Semites.’’

Elie A. Cohen states that anti-Semitism, which can be observed among

Jews in normal life, really became perceptible in Auschwitz. Cohen, who was

from Holland, was struck by the antagonism of Dutch Jews toward Jews from

Poland.

The camp administration favored German Jews primarily because of their

linguistic ability. Jews who knew neither German nor a Slavic language, for

example most of those from Greece and Italy, had the hardest time. In Block 7

of the Birkenau hkb, to which prisoners marked for death were transferred,

André Lettich observed the eﬀect that this diﬀerentiation had even there. Jews

from Germany, who had to wait for the gas chambers in the block together

with their fellow suﬀerers from other countries, demanded privileged treat-

ment from the nursing staﬀ and threatened to complain to the ss if they did

not receive it.

MaxMannheimer,who camefrom Czechoslovakia,writes:‘‘The DutchJews

are dying like ﬂies. The Jews from Poland, many of them craftsmen or work-

men, are the hardiest.They are in better physical shape, too, not as pampered

as thosefromHolland or Czechoslovakia.’’ Like the Jews from Poland, the Slo-

vakian Jews were used to the climate and by virtue of their previous life were

in better shape than, for example, the Jews from Greece, who had a hard time

coping with winter in the camp.

Like French ‘‘Aryans,’’ Jews from France had to deal with additional dif-

ﬁculties, for the Nazi propaganda about the degenerate French was eﬀective

with many prisoners as well. GeorgesWellers points to another reason for the

general dislike of them: Poles were not able to forget France’s passivity dur-

ing Hitler’s attack on their country.The rapid defeat of France in the spring of

1940 dealt thecoup de grâce to the reputation of the French.Thus Julien Unger

was greeted by a Slovak with the following words: ‘‘I owe it to you Frenchmen

that I now have a number with 30,000 on my arm. You talked a lot, but when

it was time for action, you were screwing girls. The war against you was won

before it started.’’

Grete Salus from Slovakia, whose mother tongue is German, remembers

the uncomradely behavior of many Czech Jewish women toward their fellow

suﬀerers from Hungary. The camp administration favored German-speaking

Czech women.

With full awareness that generalizations should not be made lightly, I

would like to say a few words about the reputation of various ‘‘Aryan’’ na-

tional groups. Czechs, who for linguistic reasons had an easier time of it than,

say, Frenchmen, enjoyed a good reputation. Russians were regarded as mis-

Under the Power of the Camp n 79

trustful and wild.The reputation of Yugoslavs was extraordinary; this applied

particularly to women, for there were not many men of this nationality in the

camp. This may have been due to the great sympathy for a people that was

ﬁghting so courageously and also to the fact that many Yugoslavs were sent to

the camp because they were suspected of having collaborated with partisans.

The bonding of a combat communitycould be perceived among them, though

the political conﬂicts between groups engaged in defensive action were also

noticeable in the camp. Frenchwomen set the tone in the underground orga-

nization of the women’s camp.

n ‘‘To him who has, more will be given; and from him who has not, all will be

taken. The heaviest and dirtiest labor was assigned to the weakest prisoners,

and by way of compensation they were also given the least peace and the least

gratiﬁcation. The lightest and socially most prestigious work was done by the

stronger inmates, and on top of that they usually received bonuses and op-

portunities for obtaining additional rations.’’

This camp law, as formulated by Benedikt Kautsky, favored the younger

over the older. Young prisoners found it easier to adapt physically to camp

conditions, and they were also more likely to adopt the master morality that

requires an underling to snap to attention before his superior and to react to

everyorder with a loud and clear ‘‘Jawohl !’’ This moralityalso presupposes that

an inmate is ready to trample mercilessly on underlings in the execution of

orders. As a result of their general demoralization, older prisoners frequently

let themselvesgo completely,whileyoungerones were more likely to adopt the

ss morality of contempt for all weakness. A young sporting type who adapted

in this fashion was in the administration’s good graces. David Rousset ob-

served that it became the right of the young to insult the old, to beat them and

displace them. All respect for old age was gone. When Oszkár Betlen admon-

ished a young fellow in Monowitz not to be so rough on elderly inmates, he

received this reply: ‘‘We’re supposed to respect these people? They don’t have

enough class not to wipe their runny noses on their neighbors’ jackets!’’

Suzanne Birnbaum reports about Polish and Slovak girls who were proud

of being, by virtue of their jobs, the superiors of much older French, Dutch,

or Hungarian ‘‘ladies,’’ whom they could push around. Elie Wiesel has given

us a thumbnail sketch of a young tyrant: ‘‘Edek, the capo, was our master and

our king.This red-cheeked young Pole with themovements of an animal loved

surprising his slaves and making them howl with fear. A mere youth, he en-

joyed having such power over grown-ups.’’ Vilo Jurkovic, who was interned in

Auschwitz for two-and-a-half years, believed that the power given to a young

man at age twenty or less almost always went to his head: ‘‘They subsisted on

the glory of being a superior,’’ he concludes.

80 n the prisoners

The youngera person was when he was thrust into an extermination camp,

the more defenselesshewas against such inﬂuences. ElieWiesel reports about

a child named Jankel,whowas known as thelittle prince: ‘‘Well nourished and

wearingwarm clothes,thelittle princewalkedaround thebarracks and evoked

envy, fear, or pity.’’ He enjoyed the favor of the all-powerful block elder; ‘‘he

had ruled a nation of old men, he had forced his law upon them, his whims,

his will. His power was an illustration of the grotesqueness of the situation.

Thousands of men trembled before a child who was only amusing himself.’’

Feinstein observed a father and his son at the distribution of bread in Bir-

kenau.The father,whowas completely run-down, shook all over; his son, who

was around eighteen, had a bit more strength. The young man greedily de-

voured his ration, but his father pressed his against his chest. No sooner had

the son wolfed his bread down than he looked around quickly, snatched away

his father’s portion, and stuﬀed it in his mouth. ‘‘He was all chewing jaws.

The old man emitted a scream with his last strength. The block elder came

and took both men away. They never came back.’’ Feinstein assumes that the

ss man who observed this scene was bound to regard it as conﬁrmation of

the Nazi theory about subhumans and probably could not even conceive of

the idea that a concentration camp could transform human beings as it had

transformed that son.

n Georges Wellers became familiar with the block in Monowitz that housed

young men between ﬁfteen and eighteen. He reports that this block had the

greatest numberof thefts and was devoid of any feeling of solidarity. In Ausch-

witz, where ‘‘old’’ was an altogether negative concept, people were consid-

ered old much earlier than in normal life.Wladyslaw Fejkiel has attempted to

deﬁne the concepts of ‘‘young’’ and ‘‘old’’ under the conditions that existed

in Auschwitz. ‘‘It is known that the vitality of young people is always greater

than that of older ones. I regard as young those who have not passed the age

of thirty-ﬁve. In our situation people between eighteen and thirty had the

greatest endurance. I observed that inmates below or above that age always

displayed symptoms of starvation earlier. It appears that in our part of the

world persons underage eighteen have not reachedtheir full physical develop-

ment yet.’’ Eduard de Wind, a professional colleague of Fejkiel, has described

a forty-ﬁve-year-old prisoner as ‘‘very old by camp standards.’’

There are a small number of documents that indicate the age structure of

the prisoners. For example, we have a book that lists the names and ages of

inmates who were sent to the bunker. Of 2,137 inmates in this book, 48.8 per-

cent were under thirty years of age, 3.3 percent over ﬁfty, and seven of the

latter were over sixty. A German Jew who was already seventy-ﬁve was sent

to the bunker and shot there. He had not arrived in Auschwitz on an rsha

Under the Power of the Camp n 81

transport; otherwise, he would undoubtedly have become an instant victim of

the selection at the ramp.

Nine hundred and thirty-two personnel sheets of the Blechhammer sub-

camp have been preserved. This camp was not integrated into the Auschwitz

complex until April 1, 1944, when the chances of survival had risen even for

elderlyprisoners, and for this reason one must be cautiousabout drawing con-

clusions for other camps and other time periods. The youngest prisoner was

fourteen, the oldest ﬁfty-eight. Those between twenty and twenty-ﬁve con-

stituted the most strongly represented age group; people of that age had the

greatest chance of survival. Over 64 percent were younger than thirty-ﬁve and

only 10 percent older than forty-ﬁve.

Another age statistic permits more valid conclusions than the two men-

tioned above, which cover randomly assembled groups of persons. Within

the framework of the big Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, 244 survivors of the

camp testiﬁed. As a rule, the witnesses called were people with ample camp

experience whose positions had enabled them to see more than average in-

mates did. At the time of their internment, more than 68 percent were under

thirty-ﬁve (young by Fejkiel’s standards) and 45.5 percent even younger than

thirty. Among the Germans and Austrians, the age structure diﬀered mark-

edly. Of the seventy-eight witnesses who were over thirty-ﬁve when they were

deportedto Auschwitz, twenty-ﬁvewere members of thesenationalities,while

only sixteen German and Austrian witnesses were under thirty-ﬁve when they

ﬁrst experienced Auschwitz. Their age reduced their chances of survival far

less than it did those of the average inmate. Many Poles with years of camp

experience were among the youngest witnesses in Frankfurt; thanks to their

intelligence and knowledge of languages, numerous Polish university and

secondary-school students fromthe ﬁrst transportshad been able tocopewith

the camp better than the others.

In its preferential treatment of young inmates, the camp administration

sometimes went so far as to exempt them from the program of extermination

that called for the killing of all persons unﬁt for work. Attempts were made

to establish courses in masonry for prisoners who were too young to work in

order to alleviate the shortage of trained masons. Prisoners have claimed to

have taken the initiative in the establishment of such schools. However, that

such young fellows were admitted to the camp rather than being immediately

taken to the gas chamber was surely something that even the most privileged

prisoners could not achieve. Adolf Weiß remembers that the ﬁrst masonry

school was established in Birkenau in June 1942 and that he was twenty when

he attended it together with 1,000 Jews, mostly from Slovakia and France,

who ranged in age from ﬁfteen to twenty-ﬁve. A Polish Jew called Mudek was

82 n the prisoners

the capo, and the foremen were ‘‘Aryans.’’ Thorough instruction was given in

two barracks.

Weiß also remembers the end of the school. One day a capo needed a hun-

dred men to unload potatoes, and he was assigned that number of trainees,

includingWeiß . When they came marching back from their work, they found

the two barracks half empty. A group of high ss oﬃcers on an inspection tour

had been shown themasonry school.They were evidently not convinced of the

value of that institution, for immediately after the inspection half the pupils

were taken to a gas chamber and killed there. The others were assigned to

various work details the next day. Weiß landed in a construction squad.

The Pole Czeslaw Kempisty was ﬁfteen when he attended a masonry school

in the main camp in the winter of 1942–43. The school was administered by

a German Green capo, and regular instruction was given by a Polish profes-

sor. The makeup of the pupils was mixed, and after the completion of their

training they were assigned to construction squads working on the expansion

of the camp. Many of these young men could not cope with this heavy labor.

Kempisty had already dropped out of the school on account of illness.

Thomas Geve was fourteen when he was assigned to a masonry school in

themain campin thewinterof 1942–43.Hestatesthat his fellowtrainees were

thirteen toeighteen yearsof age. In ‘‘this sole asylum foryouths,’’as Geve calls

it, there were 400 lads from Russia, the Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Germany,

Austria, and Poland. Geve speciﬁcally mentions young Gypsies from Czecho-

slovakia and Jews from Greece and Poland. With one exception the teachers

were Jews who had been chosen for their knowledge of languages.

A masonry school was also set up in Monowitz, where 100 to 200 youths

ranging in age from nine to sixteen were trained for three months. After that,

they were assigned to the appropriate labor details, making room for other

young inmates. This school was under the supervision of chief engineers of

the IG Farben Works and was administered by Eduard Besch, a German po-

litical prisoner. According to Wassermann, Besch beat prisoners, but others

remember him favorably.

Some children were employed as camp messengers and were treated as a

kind of curiosity, while every day an enormous number of children of all ages

were killed in the gas chambers.

The ‘‘weakness’’ that some members of the ss had for children manifested

itself most distinctlyduringthe liquidation of theTheresienstadt familycamp.

At that time the block leader Stefan Baretzki, a man feared for his brutality,

was among those who begged the ss camp leader to spare the lives of the

young inmates. At a later date, when hewas questioned in court about his mo-

tivation, that primitive ethnic German replied: ‘‘Well, we had nothing to do in

Under the Power of the Camp n 83