Langbein Hermann. People in Auschwitz
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Those inmates who have an opportunity in Buna to fill their mess bowl
with grease or lubricating oil (or something else, for any blackish or fatty
substance is deemed suitable) go from block to block after they return in
the evening until they find a block elder who is out of this article or who
wants to stock up on it. For the rest, almost every block has its own sup-
plier, who is paid a daily rate for delivering the grease whenever stocks are
low.
Another example from the main camp will illustrate how even the most
conscientious block elders were forced to ‘‘organize.’’ Inmates there were
quartered in brick houses, and the block leaders alwayschecked to see if every-
thing was clean and the walls in the rooms and corridors were not scratched.
If scratches were found, punitive drills, withholding of food, and the like were
ordered.
In the camp everything had to be done quickly. In the morning a prisoner
had to try to be the first in the washroom in order to find a space. Inmates had
to line up quickly for the roll call because stragglers were threatened with a
beating.When food was distributed, it was advantageous to find a place at the
head of the line, since this offered a better chance of getting a second help-
ing.Up to a thousand inmates lived in a block.The hallways were narrow, and
because of the constant pushing and crowding, a consequence of the never-
ending hurrying and scurrying, the walls became scratched and dirty in short
order. A good block elder had to see to it that his block was repainted before
any punishments were meted out. However, he never received paint officially;
it was easy for him to ‘‘organize’’ it, for there were plenty of labor details that
were given it. But a block elder needed some form of payment, and only one
was available to him: the rations that were delivered to the block.
De Wind described how a block that had been newly assigned to the infir-
mary was painted: ‘‘The paint for the beds and doors was paid for with bread
and margarine, and the patients received that much less.’’ This sort of thing
was certainly not done stealthily. ss roll call leader Oswald Kaduk gave the fol-
lowing example to the Frankfurt court. ‘‘If a block elder stopped by the block
leader’s room to request permission to leave the camp and said, ‘I’d like to go
to the painters to ‘organize’ paint for my block,’ I let him go.’’
A block elder who wanted to spare his charges bullying and punishment
also had to bribe the block leader. If the latter was taken care of by the former,
he was willing to listen. Under these circumstances a block elder was sorely
tempted to put some of the food rations aside not only for purposes that
served everyone but also for himself and his protégés.
134 n the prisoners
The former German block elder Emil de Martini reports with unsparing
frankness that starting fromthe block elderdown to theblock barber so much
of the food rations was diverted that these men had enough. ‘‘There also were
block elders who cut their block leaders in on the looting, and at each dis-
tribution of portions they slipped them four or five packages of margarine at
the expense of the inmates.’’ Emil Bednarek, the block elderof the penal com-
pany,was reproachedwithdividinga loaf of bread into five orevensix portions
rather than four. De Martini explained how this could be managed: ‘‘Anyone
who dared to lodge a complaint against a capo or a block elder inevitably went
up the chimney.’’
n The same block elder who heedlesslycurtailed therations was honestly out-
raged and acted harshly if a bread thief was caught in his block. The morality
of the camp decreed that already distributed bread could no longer be ‘‘or-
ganized,’’ and any infringer was persecuted as a transgressor against cama-
raderie.
Rudolf Vrba has described the conditions in Block 18,where thefts of bread
were common: ‘‘We lived among wolves, in a pack of famished, merciless
wolves.’’ He tells what happened when inmates took the law into their own
hands:
It was night. Suddenly a cry of despair and a scream rang out: ‘‘My bread
...mybread!’’ We heard the shuffling of half a dozen feet, a dull thud,
a jumble of soft imprecations, and an outcry that was stifled and became
a moan. Then, silence. In the narrow passage between the bunks I saw a
blurry figure lying face down. An elderly inmate in the bunk below mine
bent forward and observed everything with silent curiosity. ‘‘What’s going
on?’’ I asked him.
‘‘Some dirty pig stole a Muselmann’s bread. The poor devil was too weak
to get up and take it back.’’
‘‘And what happened then? Did the others beat him up?’’
‘‘They beat him to death, of course. There is no point in just beating
such a bastard.’’ This was the law in Block 18: if a man stole your food, he
was killed. If you were not strong enough to execute the judgment yourself,
there were executioners. It was a brutal justice, but it was just, for robbing
a man of his food was murder.
Yet even the harshest justice could not completely contain theft. Olga Len-
gyel indicates that some inmates achieved perfection in stealing: ‘‘Mothers
from respectable families who would never have been capable of appropri-
ating anything at all steal here without the slightest scruple.’’ Once a spoon
was stolen from her by the wife of one of thewealthiest Hungarian industrial-
Canada n 135
ists. Lengyel concludes that ‘‘only a person possessed of extraordinary moral
strength was able to keep his instincts in check in Birkenau.’’ Macha Ravine
observed women who once occupied a worthy place in society grimly fighting
for tatters of dresses.The Pole Józef Stemler reports about a public prosecutor
who stole bread from a peasant, and I remember clergymen who also became
bread thieves.
Thefollowing observation by Eugen Kogon appliesnot only to Buchenwald:
‘‘Therewere plenty of directors and high government officials who as inmates
of a kl, even when they didn’t really need to do so, pounced on buckets filled
with potato peels in order to obtain scraps of food, or who became bread
thieves.’’
It was not just the general demoralization and the naked struggle for exis-
tence that brought human beings to that point. ‘‘Can a person understand
what it means to have a cold without a handkerchief or diarrhea without a
piece of paper?’’ This question by Erich Altmann may indicate the compulsion
that gripped those who misappropriated the possessions of their comrades.
n In Auschwitz the corruption, the system of ‘‘organizing’’ that dominated
all camps, assumed unimaginable dimensions, for in the extermination camp
there was Canada. Among the possessions of the deported Jews that were
taken from them at the ramp there were (frequently concealed) valuables of
all kinds. Before the luggage was sorted and registered, anyone was free to
appropriate whatever he liked; this applied to both inmates and the ss.Allhe
had to do was to gain access to Canada and find a way of taking the appro-
priated objects away. In this endeavor members of the ss and inmates had to
cooperate because an inmate who was ‘‘organizing’’ had to bribe an ss man
not to check him and an ss man who wanted to appropriate something in
Canada needed the aid of prisoners, since he could not rummage through the
mountains of goods and choose something without being noticed. Otto Graf,
who worked for a time in the financial section of the garrison administration,
gave a Viennese court an impressive description of conditions. His job was to
sort and count the money that had been taken from new arrivals at the camp.
‘‘Trunkfuls of money came in, and someone had to step on the bills, forcing
them down, before the trunk could be closed.’’ One can imagine how easy it
was for people to help themselves before the trunks were full.
To be sure, opportunities were quite variable. A guard in a watchtower had
to settle for scraps, while an ss man whose function gave him access to the
camp found ways of getting to Canada. A member of the labor detail that had
contact with Canada was able to help himself if he was smart enough to take
care of all those who were privy to the practice. Inmates who worked on de-
136 n the prisoners
tails like ss Kitchen or Slaughterhouse were able to get hold of barter objects
that helped them obtain goods from Canada.Those who worked in the gravel
pit or on road construction were excluded from ‘‘organizing.’’ Inmates whose
work gave them freedom of movement were able to reach Canada on secret
paths, but every avenue there was blocked for the anonymous inmates who
were never able to escape the control of their superiors. While such inmates
desperately rummaged through the garbage in search of something edible,
vips in privileged positions spurned the camp cuisine.
The social gradation that I encountered in Dachau and Neuengamme and
that lifted a functionary far above the gray mass of nameless inmates shrinks
into insignificance if one compares it with the difference between a vip in
Auschwitz and a Muselmann.
Höß has given the following description of conditions in Auschwitz:
The Jews’ valuables created enormous and insurmountable difficulties for
the camp. They were demoralizing for the ss men, who were not always
strong enough to resist the temptation of the readily accessible valuables.
Even the death penalty and severe prison sentences were not sufficient de-
terrents. For the inmates the Jewish valuables opened up undreamt-of op-
portunities, and most attempts to escape are probably connected with this.
With the easily obtained money as well as watches, rings, and the like,
anything could be procured from ss men and civilian workers. Alcohol,
smokes, food, false papers, weapons, and ammunition were everyday mat-
ters. In Birkenau male inmates gained access to thewomen’scamp at night,
and they even bought off some guards. Naturally, this had a bad effect on
the general discipline in the camp. Those in possession of valuables were
able to buy better workplaces, the sympathy of capos and block elders, and
even long stays in the infirmary with the best of care. Despite the strictest
supervision it was impossible to rectify this situation. The Jewish gold was
a disaster for the camp.
The only thing missing in this graphic description is the fact that the general
corruption could not be kept in check because even the commandant helped
himself with both hands.
Ota Kraus and Erich Kulka have described from an inmate’s perspective
Canada’s impact in Birkenau,where it was strongest because the barracks that
housed Canada directly adjoined that complex of camps.
Many precious things were hidden in the clothes and shoes left behind by
the destroyed Jewish transports.The Canada inmates who sorted those ob-
jects brought secretly and daringly very valuable things into the camp. In
Canada n 137
return for these they received food, clothes, shoes, alcohol, and cigarettes
that were smuggled into the camp by civilian employees and ss men. An
inmate who was doing some ‘‘organizing’’ was instantly recognizable, for
he was better dressed and better nourished. This, to be sure, was exploited
by the ss men and the inmate leadership. They persecuted such ‘‘organiz-
ers,’’ checked up on them, and blackmailed them. Thus a veritable system
of bribery developed that was based on the law of the jungle. In their work
details capos hadwhole groups of inmateswhohad to‘‘organize’’ forthem.
If one of them was caught ‘‘organizing,’’ however, his capo never stood up
for him, but, on the contrary, denied having had any connection with him.
With a serious demeanor ss men went from block to block and pre-
tended to conduct searches, but the only purpose of these visits was the
blackmailing of the block elders, who had to provide them with anything
they wished. If a block elder wanted to fulfill these wishes, he had to pres-
sure those inmates who were able to procure the things for the ss men.
In return he gave them a favorable position in the block, increased their
food rations, and treated them better. If an inmate was in danger of being
reported, he was able to save himself by means of his connections. The
ss had informants among the inmates, who for a bribe arranged that no
report was made. This corruption extended to the office of the camp com-
mandant, where a report could be stopped if enough gold and cash were
involved.
Albert Menasche, a member of the detail that had to collect and load the
luggage of the deportees at the ramp, reports about veritable pacts made be-
tween guards and inmates. Gold, jewelry, and similar valuables found by the
inmates at the ramp were to be turned over to the guards; in return the guards
permitted the prisoners to keep food and clothing.
Stefan Baretzki testified in court as follows: ‘‘As a block leader, I had to go
to the ramp periodically when a transport arrived. All I had to do was to take
the inmates of the Canada detail there, and then I could have left. But I did not
leave because there was something to ‘organize’ there. After all, I was hungry,
as were the inmates.’’
Rudolf Gibian, a member of the Canada detail, told the same court that the
guards did not care only about food. One day he learned that his mother had
arrived on a transport. After he had found her and briefly spoken with her, he
selected from the possessions that his detail had to load those of this mother
in order to take them to the camp, which was separated from the ramp by
an electrified fence. ‘‘This is how I did it,’’ said Gibian. ‘‘I put a clock on the
ground, showed it to the guard, and asked him to help me.The ss guard took
the clock and left, whereupon I threw the package over the fence.’’
138 n the prisoners
n The higher the rank of an ss man and the more influential the function of
an inmate, the greater the bribe. Once Jerzy Pozimski, of the Labor Service in
the main camp, gave his superior, ss Sergeant Wilhelm Emmerich, a whole
shoe box full of watches. He was able to procure so many because everyone
wanted to be in the good graces of the Labor Service. It goes without saying
that after receiving such gifts Emmerich was obliged to accommodate Pozim-
ski when he had special wishes. Pozimski, whose job was to provide the ss
men in his office with food, told me the following story. His highest ranking
boss, ss Captain Heinrich Schwarz, had been invited to the wedding of an ss
man on his staff. He sent for Pozimski and ordered him to prepare a gift bas-
ket with bottles containing various alcoholic drinks. The basket was there on
time, and Schwarz did not ask Pozimski how he had been able to procure it.
Pozimski summed up his activities by saying, ‘‘I ‘organized’ for everybody.’’
A story told me by Alexander Princz illustrates how closely the general cor-
ruption bound inmates and guards together. As a coachman Princz visited all
camps and had excellent opportunities to transport ‘‘organized’’ goods on his
horse-drawn carriage. One day ssTechnical Sergeant Moll, who was in charge
of the crematoriums, summoned him to the women’s camp. Moll, who knew
Princz, ordered him to take a sack to be given him by Anna Franz, the chief
of the ss kitchen, to his house, Number 184. Moll met Princz in the block
leader’s room and told the guard who had escorted him to take care of the
horses. After giving him the order Moll pointed at the guard and added: ‘‘That
bastard needn’t know about it.’’ Without Princz’s help Moll could not have
got the sack out of the camp, and henceforth Princz did not have to fear Moll,
who made the whole camp tremble.
Krystyna Zywulska knew a German Jew—she remembers only his first
name, Rolf—who was able to bribe ss men to let him wear the insignia of a
German instead of the discriminatory Star of David.
To be sure, inmates had to be wary even of those for whom they ‘‘orga-
nized,’’ for on more than one occasion an ss man did an inmate in because
he was an accomplice to the thefts.
Canada was the source of all riches. Kitty Hart, who was assigned to the
Canada detail as a young girl after she had had hard times on other labor
squads, has provided a graphic description. Once she had become acclimated
to her new detail, she was able to ‘‘put on fresh underwear and new clothes
and shoes every day. We slept in nightshirts of pure silk and even smuggled
bedsheets, the most striking luxury in Auschwitz, into our block. When our
underwear and dresses got dirty, we simply threw them on the big pile from
which we had picked them out. After a few weeks I was myself again. My skin
turned white and my abscesses healed, soon leaving only scars. My bones no
longer poked out at my knees and everywhere.’’
Canada n 139
Simon Laks and René Coudy, who were able to visit Canada as members
of the Birkenau orchestra, have given this report: ‘‘The girls who work there
have everything—perfume, cologne—and they look as if their hairdos were
the work of the top hairdresser of Paris. Apart from freedom, they have every-
thing a woman can dream of.They also know love; the proximity of men, both
inmates and ss men, makes this inevitable....Tenmetersfromtheirbar-
racks, on the other side of the barbed wire, rise the rectangular chimneys of
the crematoriums that burn constantly, burn the owners of all the goods that
these admirable creatures sort in these barracks.’’
Kitty Hart has described life on this detail:
It was a splendid summer. The sun was hot, and we, who had been as-
signed the night shift, found it hard to sleep during the day. We usually got
up in the early afternoon, and if the weather was fair we lay on the grass
in front of our barracks, sunbathing and splashing water over ourselves to
cool down. Often we danced and sang, and we even formed a little band.
We began to laugh and joke again. I spent many hours reading books that
those destined for gassing had taken along on their transport to Poland.
Our situation was surely one of the most insane in the whole world. All
around us were the screams of the dying, destruction, the smoking chim-
neys that darkened and polluted the air with the soot and the stench of
charred corpses. I suppose what we primarily cared about in those days was
not to lose our minds, and that is why we laughed and sang even so close
to the flaming inferno.
Kitty Hart sums up her experiences in these words: ‘‘It is astonishing what
body and soul can endure if they have to. One can get accustomed to almost
anything.’’ Anyone who could not get accustomed did not survive Auschwitz.
Because young persons could adapt more easily than older ones, details like
Canada were staffed primarily with girls.
n Bernard Klieger has unsparingly formulated the conclusions that he, a vip,
drew from this special situation: ‘‘In Auschwitz I lived better than many of
my comrades, and I did not feel that this was immoral. In a kz no one has
the right to observe otherwise valid moral rules.’’ Many of those who were
interned in Auschwitz for an extended period had to pay the same price.
Seweryna Szmaglewska has reported where this could lead: ‘‘Once again a
big transport arrived. Pillars of smoke indicated that the crematoriums were
in operation. In the evening the Clothing Depot Commando came marching
back to the women’s camp.’’ Szmaglewska overheard the following conversa-
tion: ‘‘Well, Licy, who arrived today?’’ ‘‘A wealthy transport. Oh, this under-
wear,theseshoes...andthoseeats!AllIcansayis:Canada!’’
140 n the prisoners
Szmaglewska knew Licy, a Jew from one of the first Slovak transports: ‘‘You
poor child, you’ve already spent three years of your youth in the camp.You can
sing soft, longing songs from the Tatra Mountains. You can be so good, so
comradely and obliging. Sometimes you are very sad. Your hot-bloodedness,
your too long suppressed vitality, and your youthful élan have manifested
themselves at the most inappropriate time. Your unbridled lust for life is
making you blind.’’ Szmaglewska observed that Licy did not constitute an ex-
ception: ‘‘The motto ‘Enjoy the moment!’ carries away many. A Jew covered
with dirt mindlessly beats on an empty barrel with a hammer and rhythmi-
cally singsamelody from[Schubert’s]Rosamunde:‘Organize’ while there’sstill
time, ‘organize,’ for tomorrow you’ll be sent away from here.’’
On the basis of her experiences, Szmaglewska writes: ‘‘The whitewash of
principles and the veil of good manners that under normal circumstances per-
mit a little person, a nobody, to cope with many situations without realizing,
or without others realizing, what a cipher he is drop off like flaking scales.’’
This attentive observer gives an incisive description of the demoralization that
emanated from Canada: ‘‘Once someone has reached for things that are still
warm and felt joy in doing so, the bliss of ownership begins to affect him like
hashish. In the everyday tumult of events, no change may be noticed in him
at first. The developing greed is not even as annoying as a grain of sand in
one’s eyes, but it still grows and grows and grows, filling one’s thoughts and
drawing people under its spell. Perhaps this is also a form of oblivion, like the
alcoholism of the ss men.’’
ss Corporal Pery Broad writes: ‘‘The proverb ‘One man’s doom is another
man’s boon’ was probably never applied as aptly as in this extermination
camp.’’
Canada skewed all values to the point of grotesqueness. For example,
Manca Svalbova reports that in the women’s camp it was possible to trade a
diamond ring for water, which was scarce there, or buy quinine tablets with
a bottle of champagne or elegant stockings. Krystyna Zywulska remembers a
prisoner who swapped a diamond that he had discovered sewn into an article
of clothing from Canada foran apple,which he gave to a sick friend. Seweryna
Szmaglewska’s statement that ‘‘it is easier to obtain a Swiss watch with a
golden strap than to have a moment’s peace and quiet’’ illustrates the inver-
sion of all values. In Auschwitz watches were more than timepieces. Laks and
Coudy report that a wristwatch was the badge of someone who knew how to
‘‘organize’’ in the camp, a kind of passport with a visa for survival.
n Canada not only helped vipsleadalifethatmanyss men envied, but, as
Höß correctly observed, the resistance movement also used this source for its
purposes.
Canada n 141
Medicines from Canada had a special significance for the camp. Tadeusz
Szymanski has indicated the methods used to bring these in. His compatriot
Tadeusz Myszkowski was the orderly of ss Master Sergeant Bernhard Walter,
the head of the Identification Service, and enjoyed his full confidence. Walter
provided him with a pass that gave him access to his apartment, which was
outside the big cordon, where Myszkowski made breakfast for him, shined
his shoes, and performed other personal services. When Walter was finally
ready to go to his office in the camp, Myszkowski followed him and carried his
briefcase. At the camp gate Myszkowski properly reported his return while his
boss took the briefcase. Myszkowski now put medicines in it. The briefcase
was never inspected because at the critical moment, while passing through
the gate, it was in the hands of the ss man. When they arrived at the camp,
Myszkowskihad to empty the briefcase, which means that he could safely take
out the smuggled medicines.
Robert Lévy has confirmed that medicines smuggled by the Sonderkom-
mando into the Birkenau infirmaries were ‘‘of immeasurable benefit’’ there.
In October 1942, when a satellite camp was built right next to the Buna
Works of IG Farben, the new construction included an infirmary. Within a
short time it had an operating room, a laboratory, X-ray machines, and even
apparatuses for electroshock treatments. Everything was ‘‘organized’’ by pris-
oners from the IG plant in which they were doing forced labor. It goes without
saying that all ssmen knew where theequipmentcame from. In fact,when the
infirmary was inspected, they bragged about the good facilities, and no one
asked about the provenance of the valuable instruments. Even an old steam
engine was (illegally) rolled from the IG plant into the camp and was used to
heat and disinfect the infirmary. With its help the camp became ‘‘recognized
as epidemic-free,’’ as Felix Rausch proudly put it. If, however, an anonymous
inmate was caught in the IG plant stealing a piece of wire to tie his shoes or
a bag of cement, which he planned to put under his shirt as protection from
the cold, he was punished as a saboteur. Such ‘‘crimes’’ sometimes drew death
sentences.
Canada was as much a part of Auschwitz as that armyof theliving dead, the
Muselmänner.Both extremesexisted in a grotesque juxtaposition in the shadow
of the crematoriums.
142 n the prisoners
the vips
nnn
When one speaks of vips in Auschwitz, one thinks of German career crimi-
nals, especially those brought to Auschwitz to help build the camp who
proudly bore the inmate numbers 1 to 30, just as one thinks of inmates who
had to wear the Star of David when one speaks of Muselmänner. There were,
of course, vips who were neither criminals nor Germans, just as there were
‘‘Aryan’’ Muselmänner, but the vip type was formed by Greens. From the begin-
ning the camp administration granted them privileges in order to turn them
into their tools. Bernhard Bonitz reported frankly that ‘‘the conditions in 1940
were rosy compared to Sachsenhausen.’’ Bonitz was one of the first thirty who
had been brought in from Sachsenhausen.
Two Poles who experienced thecamp in its early period have providedchar-
acterizations of it. Józef Mikusz said that in those days every inmate func-
tionary gave beatings, and Jerzy Pozimski wrote: ‘‘People beat and kill one
another even under normal conditions, let alone under those created by the
ss in Auschwitz.’’
This is what Wetzlerand Vrba wrote in their report shortly after theirescape
from Auschwitz: ‘‘To them, beating an inmate to death is no crime. Some-
one simply records that inmate number such and such has died. The mode of
death is quite immaterial.’’
Based on his ample experience as an inmate of German penal institutions
from 1923 to 1928, as a guard in concentration camps between 1934 and 1945,
and after the end of the war as a prisoner in Nuremberg and Poland, Höß
answered his own question as to why capos and senior inmates so often mis-
treated their subordinates:
Because they wanted to curry favor with like-minded guards and to show
how efficient they were. Because this could bring them benefits and make
their lives as inmates more pleasant—but always at the expense of theirfel-
low prisoners. However, the opportunity to behave and act in this way was
given them by the guards, who either watched the goings-on with indiffer-
ence and were too lazy to stop them or who approved and even encouraged
this conduct because of a low-down, mean disposition,who derived satanic
pleasure from inciting one inmate against another....Eventypeswho
had always been helpful and good-natured in ordinary life on the outside
were capable of mercilessly tyrannizing their fellow prisoners in the harsh