Langbein Hermann. People in Auschwitz

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leged status in Auschwitz—not because thessgranted it to them,but because

in the early period Auschwitz had mostly Polish prisoners, which meant that

they ﬁlled key positions in the prisoners’ administration for which Germans

were not suited because of their small number or their lack of intelligence.

The Poles used every opportunity to help their compatriots obtain better posi-

tions. This privileged status was expressed linguistically as well, for Polish or

Polonized terms frequently became part of the camp jargon. Thus many pris-

oners referred to a block elder as Blokowy (feminine form: Blokowa) and called

a dormitory elder Stubowy.

German criminals were sent to the camps because of their prior convic-

tions, German political prisoners because of their real or at least presumed

opposition to the regime, and ‘‘Aryans’’ from other nationalities because of

their usually even vaguer enmity toward the Third Reich; but the Jews from

almost all countries under German domination were deported solely because

of their Jewish descent. For that reason there were even greater diﬀerences

among these Jews than among other groups of inmates.The Gypsies were the

only other group that suﬀered the same ‘‘total’’ fate under the Nazis.

n The inmates were diﬀerentiated not only by their insignia. Every prisoner

also had to wear a number sewn to his clothing. Unlike the practice of many

other camps, Auschwitz did not reassign the number of an inmate who died

or was transferred, which means that each number indicates when its bearer

came to Auschwitz. In all camps a sort of aristocracy of low numbers came

into being. People in Auschwitz regarded the ‘‘millionaires,’’ as those with

a six-digit number were called, with a certain disdain. That camp, however,

was diﬀerent in one respect: When I was transferred to Auschwitz after ﬁf-

teen months in Dachau, I was still regarded as a ‘‘novice’’ in the latter camp

because of my number. In Auschwitz, on the other hand, I was counted as an

‘‘old-timer’’ after just a few months. This indicates that in an extermination

camp the ﬂuctuation was that much greater.

Women received numbers of a diﬀerent series in Auschwitz, beginning

with number 1, and when a Gypsy (Zigeuner) camp was established, its inmates

also had special series of numbers,one formenand anotherforwomen,with a

‘‘Z’’ preceding thenumber. On May 13, 1944, the camp administration ordered

that Jewish newcomers be given numbers of a new series, one preceded by an

‘‘A.’’ At a later date an additional series with a ‘‘B’’ was started.

n In the camps the inmates knew one another by their ﬁrst names. Polish

names were always used in their short form—for instance, Staszek for Stanis-

law, Tadek for Tadeusz, Józek for Jósef, and Mietek for Mieczyslaw. I use such

14 n Introduction

formsin thepresentstudy, and with someGerman names as well. Since Rudolf

Friemel was generally known as Rudi, I call him that here.

As the camps grew—and Auschwitz became the biggest after it had been

expanded into an extermination camp—their administrative machinery be-

came more and more complex. Numericallyand intellectually, the guards were

incapable of running this machinery without friction. Among the prisoners

there were many who had the ability to perform even complicated administra-

tive tasks, and it was from their ranks that the oﬃces and otheradministrative

centers were staﬀed. The camp leadership regarded the daily roll call as most

important. Despite all new arrivals and transfers, admissions to and releases

from the inﬁrmary, deaths, work orders outside the camp area, and the like,

the roll call had to balance. The inmates who had to write reports or perform

similar functions were interested in complicating the administrative machin-

ery even further to demonstrate their indispensability. In this endeavor they

were aided by the ss’s marked tendency toward overbureaucratization.

Every individual in the machinerycould be capriciously replaced at any time

if he displeased his superior.However, the camp leadership was dependent on

the entire machinery of the inmates’ self-government, for its removal would

have led to the breakdown of the entire camp. Despite all of the ss’s eﬀorts,

the prisoners who were part of that organization managed to stick together,

and thus they constituted a certain force.

Inmate functionaries and those who held key positions in the administra-

tion and important work details were regarded as part of the camp elite. The

living conditions of these vips were quite diﬀerent from those of the hoi pol-

loi, and more so in Auschwitz than in the ordinary camps.

These masses were constantly harassed by a system of barbaric punish-

ments and absurd orders that were practically impossible to carry out. The

camp leadership liked to impose collective punishments that were designed

to set one group of prisoners against another. Extension of roll call, punitive

calisthenics, or withholding of food were intended to make the mass of the

prisoners angry at the inmate who had incurred the displeasure of the leader-

ship. At an early hour the inmates were forced to engage in an exhausting race

to wash, make their beds, go to the latrine, and get coﬀee. Bruno Bettelheim,

who became familiar with such races in other camps, has described them as

follows: ‘‘By sunrise a struggle of all against all with all its tensions, humilia-

tions, and depressions had already taken place. An inmate was forced to en-

gage in it in the morning even before a guard had entered the camp. The ss,

which was as yet invisible, had compacted the prisoners into a mass of human

beings who were unable to abreact their anger and despaired because of their

impotence.’’

The Camp and Its Jargon n 15

This wearying struggle was continued in the evening after the ss had left

the camp. ‘‘Our evening in the barracks after ﬁnishing a long workday should

not be regarded as a rest. It must be thought of as another ordeal,’’ writes

Pelagia Lewinska, who became acquainted with the women’s camp at Birke-

nau. That a vip was largely able to avoid this stressful daily struggle was not

the least of the beneﬁts of his status.

The oﬃcial abbreviation for Konzentrationslager was kl, and this form ap-

pears in documents and written statements by ss men, but in everyday speech

the abbreviation kz prevailed, both among the prisoners and their guards.

Every kz had an inmate inﬁrmary, and in Auschwitz it was called the Häft-

lingskrankenbau (hkb). The prisoners entrusted with its operation wore an

armband with the inscription ‘‘Lagerältester hkb.’’

n In every camp a commander was in charge of the guards. The camp itself

was operated by one or more ss protective custody camp leaders (Schutzhaft-

lagerführer). Below them in authority were the ss roll call leaders, who in turn

were superior to the ss block leaders (Blockführer). The latter were ss men,

usually of a low rank, who were in charge of one or more blocks. They should

not be confused with the block elders, who were prisoners. The labor details

(Arbeitskommandos, called Kommandos) were headed by an ss commando leader

(Kommandoführer).

The chief ss physician, who was in charge of everything connected with

health services and some things unconnected with health, had the title ss

garrison physician in Auschwitz. He was the superior of the other ss physi-

cians, and they in turn were assisted by medics of various ranks (Sanitätsdienst-

grade,orsdg). The inﬁrmaries were not supervised by the ss camp leaders,

the ss roll call leaders, or the ss block leaders, but by the ss physicians and

the sdg. This was to be of special signiﬁcance in Auschwitz.

Every camp had a Political Department, which in addition to performing

administrative tasks functioned as a camp Gestapo. The head of this division

in Auschwitz reported to the Gestapo in nearby Katowice, while all others

reported to the ss Economic and Administrative Central Oﬃce (Wirtschaft-

verwaltungshauptamt, or wvha) in Oranienburg near Berlin.

The ss called its oﬃcers ‘‘Führer’’ (leaders). The highest rank held by an

ss oﬃcer in Auschwitz was that of ss lieutenant colonel (Obersturmbannführer).

The commandants Höß and Liebehenschel as well as Joachim Caesar and

Ernst Möckel, who headed the agricultural and administrative institutions,

held that rank.

n In all camps corruption assumed grotesque dimensions. ss men had in-

mates work forthemin campworkshops.Thehighertheirrankand the greater

16 n Introduction

their inﬂuence, the more extensive were their orders. Raw materials that were

in short supply and thus were to be reserved for the arms industry were freely

used for such orders. An inmate who wanted to stay alive also had to ‘‘orga-

nize,’’ to use the common expression for appropriating goods from stock-

rooms, larders, or kitchens, because the oﬃcially distributed rations were

inadequate. A distinction was made between stealing and ‘‘organizing.’’ If

someone helped himself to the property of a fellow inmate, he was treated as

a thief and severely punished by his comrades. ‘‘Organizing,’’ however, was

regarded as honorable and commendable. Anyone who was able to do this

without attracting attention and being caught was generally respected.

In Auschwitz the opportunities for such ‘‘organizing’’ were far greater than

in regular concentration camps, for the Jews transported to the extermination

camp were told they were being resettled and ordered to take along anything

that might be of use in building a new existence in the East. On their arrival in

Auschwitz, everything was taken fromthem, and their belongings were sorted

by a prisoner labor detail and checked for hidden valuables. Everything was

there—not only food and medicine, alcohol and clothing, but also jewelry,

diamonds, gold, and money in many currencies, especially dollars.The Polish

inmates called the barracks in which this property was inspected, sorted, and

stored ‘‘Canada’’—to them presumably a symbol of legendary riches. This ex-

pression gained currency and was used even by the ss. The detail that had to

work there and thus had the best chances to ‘‘organize’’ became known as the

Canada Commando.

As happened in all concentration camps, prisoners were sent to Auschwitz

by various oﬃces of the Gestapo and the detective forces (Kriminalpolizei, or

Kripo). After the camp had been designated an extermination camp for Jews,

and later for Gypsies as well, the Reich Security Main Oﬃce (Reichssicher-

heitshauptamt, or rsha) directed transports of people earmarked for killing

there; thesewere commonly referred to as rshatransports.Unlike other pris-

oners, those sent to Auschwitz under these auspices were not brought directly

to the camp but made to leave the train at the Rampe (ramp), as the railroad

sidingwas called, and usually subjected toa ‘‘selection.’’ This meant that those

who appeared to be unﬁt for work were immediately sent to a gas chamber,

while those ﬁt for work were added to the inmate population. In this way the

camp had a steady inﬂux of fresh laborers, and therefore the ss carried on

periodic selections among the inmates in order to kill in the gas chambers

those who were no longer able to work and to have their tasks performed by

new arrivals. Along with ‘‘Canada,’’ ‘‘ramp’’ and ‘‘selection’’ became standard

terms in Auschwitz.

The Camp and Its Jargon n 17

the history of the

extermination camp

nnn

‘‘The ss state appeared in the metallic glow of its totality as a state in which

an idea was realized,’’ wrote Jean Améry, who had been thrust into that state,

the world of the concentration camps run by the ss.

Hannah Arendt, who was able to analyze this state from a distance, wrote:

‘‘The concentration and extermination camps serve the machinery of total

power as experimental laboratories that investigate whether the fundamen-

tal claim of totalitarian systems—that it is possible to exert total domination

over human beings—is correct.’’

Elsewhere Arendt writes: ‘‘Terror is the nature of total dominance. In coun-

tries with a totalitariangovernment, terrorhas as little to dowith theexistence

of opponents of the regime as the laws in constitutionally governed countries

are dependenton those who break them.’’ Hannah Arendt points to a problem

that students of the system of the Nazi concentration camps have to confront:

Just as the stability of a totalitarian regime depends on isolating from the

outside world the ﬁctive world of [totalitarian] ‘‘movement,’’ so the ex-

periment of total domination in the concentration camps hinges on its

being safely insulated from the world of all others, the world of the living,

even within a country with a totalitarian ruler.This insulation is connected

with the singular unreality and implausibility that are inherent in all re-

ports from the camps and constitute one of the main impediments to a real

understanding of the forms of total domination that stand and fall with

the existence of the concentration and extermination camps, for, however

improbable this may sound, these camps are the actual central institution

of the totalitarian power and organization machine.

If one wants to study the power that a totalitarian regime can achieve over

people as well as the inﬂuence that this untrammeled violence had on various

individuals, it seems most expedient to investigate those central institutions.

Our study is limited to Auschwitz, which was a concentration camp before it

was turned into an extermination camp. In this respect it diﬀered from Tre-

blinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Chelmno, which served as extermination camps

exclusively. In those camps only a small number of prisoners were kept alive

for as long as they were needed to operate the machinery of extermination.

Their fate is comparable to that of the Sonderkommandos in Auschwitz. Only

Majdanek was, like Auschwitz, both a concentration and an extermination

camp. However, it existed for a shorter period of time and was considerably

smaller than Auschwitz.Very few inmates of that campsurvived;most of them

wound up in Auschwitz, which became the biggest extermination camp and

at the same time the concentration camp with the largest number of inmates.

About 60,000 prisoners who had been in Auschwitz were liberated in 1945.

Many of them have rendered testimony, and numerous documents have been

preserved. The information derived from these sources can apply to all Nazi

extermination camps.

Those who had to live in those places were subjected to hitherto unknown

and even unimaginable conditions. Opposing any comparison of Auschwitz

with Dachau, Jean Améry writes: ‘‘Dachau was one of the ﬁrst Nazi concen-

tration camps and thus had, if you will, a certain tradition. Auschwitz was not

established until 1940 and was subject to daily improvisations to thevery end.

In Dachau the political element predominated among the prisoners, while

in Auschwitz the overwhelming majority of the prisoners consisted of com-

pletely apolitical Jews and politically rather unstable Poles. In Dachau the in-

ternal administration was largely in the hands of political prisoners, while

German career criminals set the tone in Auschwitz.’’ In Monowitz, where

Améry was interned, the camp elder wore a green triangle until the very end.

I was transferred to Auschwitz from Dachau. When, at the Auschwitz trial

in Frankfurt, I was asked about the diﬀerence between the two camps, I called

Dachau a kind of idyll by comparison with the other camp. In response to the

same question with reference to Buchenwald, his ﬁrst place of internment,

the Czech Arnos Tauber used the same term. Ernst Toch, who was transferred

to Auschwitz from Sachsenhausen, said that he had thought he had a chance

in his previous camp but lost that belief in Auschwitz. Heinz Brandt who

was in the same camps as Toch, wrote: ‘‘Sachsenhausen was hell, but a hell

that could be comprehended. Auschwitz is a jungle of murder, looting and

slavery.’’

In Dachau, the ﬁrst Nazi concentration camp, the ss developed a system

that was adopted by all other camps. After the outbreak of the war, the char-

acter of the camps was changed radically by the steadily increasing number of

non-German prisoners and the substantial growth of the camps. This made

the German inmates a privileged minority.

Auschwitz is situated between Cracow and Kattowitz, an area that became

part of Upper Silesia after the German occupation of Poland. The early his-

tory of the camp hardly diﬀered from that of the other concentration camps

established during thewar. An ss Central Oﬃce report dated January 25, 1940,

indicates that a plan to build a camp near Auschwitz was conceived early that

The History of the Extermination Camp n 19

year. In early May Rudolf Höß, the ss camp leader in Sachsenhausen, was ap-

pointed commandant of Auschwitz. He brought along not only the ss roll call

leader Gerhard Palitzsch but also thirty German inmates who were to ﬁll the

most important jobs within the prisoner hierarchy. Almost all of these were

criminals who already had performed such functions to the satisfaction of the

ss. On June 14, 1940, the ﬁrst 728 Poles arrived in Auschwitz, and the his-

tory of the camp begins with that fact. Further transports of Polish prisoners

followed in short order.

On only one occasion [during the early period], on August 29, 1940, did

prisoners of another nationality arrive in Auschwitz—again Germans from

Sachsenhausenwhowere intended to meet the need forcapos and block elders

in the expanded camp. June 6, 1941, marked the ﬁrst arrival of a uniﬁed group

that did not contain any Poles; it was from neighboring Czechoslovakia.

In every newly established camp, the early period of development was par-

ticularly diﬃcult for the inmates. Those Poles who managed to survive it had

gained camp experience and tended to develop a feeling of superiority toward

thosewho arrived afterthe camphad been fullybuilt.Thethree-digit and four-

digit numbers on their prison garb were a kind of badge that proved they had

survived thehardest period, a documentation frequently respected even by the

ss. In this way the Poles achieved a privileged position.

Inthesummerof 1941,thecommandant of Auschwitz wasorderedbyHein-

rich Himmler in a private conversation to expand his camp and get it ready for

the ‘‘ﬁnal solution of the Jewish question.’’ This expression was a Nazi euphe-

mism for the murder of the Jewish people. Höß did not remember the exact

date of that conﬁdential conversation, nor does it appear in any document.

In October 1941 construction was started on a camp complex of hitherto

unknown dimensions about three kilometers northwest of the camp, later

known as the main camp (Stammlager). Approximately 250 barracks were to

house 200,000 prisoners. This new camp was called Birkenau, the German

version of Brzezinka, the name of the Polish town that was destroyed to make

way for the new construction. Russian prisoners of war who had been sent

to Auschwitz in the fall and winter worked on it, and almost all of them per-

ished. Of more than 1,300 men only 200 survived; according to a Russian who

testiﬁed at the Frankfurt trial, the survivors were regarded as something like

‘‘objects in a museum’’ and given better treatment. The Birkenau complex of

camps began to house prisoners in March 1942, but not all plans forexpansion

could be carried out by the time of evacuation.

‘‘When one speaks about a camp, it is not suﬃcient to give the name of the

camp. Even if one looks at the same period, the inmates of the same camp

lived on diﬀerent planets depending on the kind of work they had to do.’’ This

20 n Introduction

statement by Benedikt Kautsky applies to Auschwitz even more than to other

camps, and it is especially true of the diﬀerence between the main camp, with

its relatively orderly conditions, and the camp jungle of Birkenau.

n In the process of executing Himmler’s order, the ss began to search for

some method of killing many people simultaneously and without great ex-

pense, and in September 1941 it had recourse to poison gas for the ﬁrst time.

The ﬁrst victims were Russian prisoners of war and men from the inﬁrmary

who were unﬁt for work. The poison gas Zyklon B, which was stocked in

Auschwitz for the extermination of vermin, found favor in the eyes of the

camp leadership, for it oﬀered the ss a chance to kill numerous people rapidly

and with only a small number of guards and executioners. Herbert Jäger has

pointed out another beneﬁt that this form of killing brought the ss: ‘‘The in-

hibiting eﬀects of the mass shootings (practiced by the Einsatzgruppen [ss

operational groups] in the East up to that time), which once caused even

Himmler to blanch, probably were the reason for the later murders in gas vans

and gas chambers.’’

In this context Otto Ohlendorf, the leader of such an Einsatzgruppe, told

his judges about the ‘‘humanization’’ of the mass murder. To be sure, this

humanization did not refer to the victims but to the perpetrators, who were

to be spared the emotional burden of nonstop shootings.

Andrzej Wirth has pointed out another signiﬁcant consequenceof this type

of killing: ‘‘The relationship between a murderer and his victims has become

anonymous.The murder itself results from a large numberof partial decisions

made by a large number of people who have neither an emotional nor an intel-

lectual connection to the object of the murder.’’ With this statement and his

question ‘‘What is the cause and where does the eﬀect begin?’’ Wirth touches

on a problem that is encountered by anyone studying the reactions of people

who participated in the mass murders in Auschwitz.

In the early period Polish Jews were already sent to Auschwitz along with

Polish ‘‘Aryans,’’ and they were automatically assigned to the penal company.

Willi Brachmann, who came to Auschwitz as a capo with the second Sachsen-

hausen transport, testiﬁed that in those days all Jews had towork in the gravel

pit. According to Brachmann, the ss camp leader ordered Roman, the capo

of the detail, to ﬁnish oﬀ the Jews assigned to him: ‘‘I don’t want to see any

Jews!’’

Two farmhouses that had survived the razing of the village Brzezinka were

turned into gas chambers, and in January 1942 the ﬁrst wholly Jewish trans-

ports (fromnearby UpperSilesia)weremurderedthere.As in allextermination

camps, the ss in Auschwitz forced the inmates to relieve them of all the labor

The History of the Extermination Camp n 21

connected with the removal and incineration of the corpses. Those who were

assigned such tasks formed the so-called Sonderkommandos.

From March 26, 1942, onward, the rsha directed all Jewish transports to

Auschwitz; the initial ones came from Slovakia and France. At ﬁrst all the Jews

became inmates of the camp, but since the ﬁrst transport included Slovakian

women, it was necessary to establish a women’s camp. Some blocks in the

main camp were detached for that purpose, but on August 16 the women’s

camp was shifted to Birkenau, which was totally unprepared for this. As Höß

put it, ‘‘The women’s camp always had theworst conditions in every respect.’’

In the beginning all the deportees who arrived on rsha transports were

added to the camp population, but later these transports were subject to a

selection. Documentsindicate that the ﬁrst such selection tookplaceonJuly 4,

1942.

The deportation trains rolled day and night. Soon the makeshift gas cham-

bers were insuﬃcient, and four big crematoriums, each with a built-in gas

chamber, were erected in Birkenau. Electric elevators took the corpses to the

ovens. The modern buildings of extraordinary dimensions—in the two larger

crematoriums it was possible to squeeze 2,000 people into each gas cham-

ber—were the pride of the main construction oﬃce of the Waﬀen-ss and

police.

These dates mark the period in which Auschwitz was expanded into an ex-

termination camp. I shall not devote much attention to the preceding period,

which may be called a sort of prehistory. The following ﬁgures will illustrate

the speed with which the camp grew after the beginning of the rsha trans-

ports. Between June 1940 and late March 1942, approximately 27,000 inmate

numberswere given out, and during the followingyear, by March 1943,around

135,000 people received such numbers in Auschwitz.

The daily mass killings soon became routine. The selection of new arrivals,

who usually did not suspect anything, at the ramp was done as quickly as pos-

sible, and the deception was kept up to thevery end. ss roll call leader Oswald

Kaduk testiﬁed in Frankfurt that the ss had been ordered not to administer

beatings at the ramp so as to avoid panic among the victims. Rudolf Vrba, an

inmatewho had to work at the ramp foran extended period of time,conﬁrmed

that these orders were usually obeyed.

The constant threat of being selected as unﬁt for work, the stench of burnt

human ﬂesh that enveloped the camp complex, and the knowledge of daily

mass murders placed anyone who was permitted to stay alive in Auschwitz

in an unprecedented situation and confronted him with unparalleled prob-

lems. These were most crassly perceptible in Birkenau, where the extermi-

nation facilities had been installed. Seweryna Szmaglewska writes: ‘‘Anyone

who falls into a leaden sleep after the daily drudgery is bound to be shaken

22 n Introduction

awake by the screams at the ramp. Their realism burrows into the depth of

consciousness, irritates and arouses.’’

Those ordered to guard the victims and operate the machinery of murder

were also confrontedwith problemsentirelydiﬀerentfromthose faced by, say,

guards in Buchenwald or Dachau. Life in an extermination camp put every-

one in an extreme situation, though it was extreme for those living outside

the barbed wire in an entirely diﬀerent sense from the victims.

The presiding judge at the big Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, a man pledged

to sober objectivity and striving for detachment, at the time of sentencing

summarized his impression of the trial in these words: ‘‘Behind the entrance

gate of the Auschwitz camp was the beginning of a hell that cannot be imag-

ined by normal human brains and expressed in words.’’

The physician Désiré Haﬀner, an inmate of Auschwitz to whom we owe

an incisive and reasonably objective study of Birkenau, has given this concise

summary of what happened in the extermination camp: ‘‘The mass murder

in Auschwitz is characterized by its long duration and the considerable num-

ber of its victims. The number of the children and babies killed there is in the

hundreds of thousands.’’

What diﬀerentiates the mass murder in Auschwitz from other mass mur-

ders in history is that it was carried out without an element of excitement

or passion. This mass murder was logical, dispassionately planned, carefully

studied, and coolly implemented. Its planning was the result of close coopera-

tion among politicians, chemists, physicians, psychiatrists, engineers, sol-

diers, and others. Its implementation required thedisciplined and methodical

support of a large-scale organization with branches in all European coun-

tries. This organization also encompassed the utilization of the property of

those murdered, including their corpses. Gold was removed from their teeth,

women’s hair was used for special textiles, and even their ‘‘ashes were used

as fertilizer or scattered over the Vistula River,’’ as stated by Johann Gorges,

an ss sergeant who worked in the crematoriums. Zoﬁa Knapczyk recalls that

the ﬁelds of the Babitz farm were fertilized with them. The ashes were also

used to level the bottom of the ﬁsh ponds in a village called Harmense and to

build a dam between it and another village, Plawy. Human ashes also served

as insulating material under ﬂoors. Inmates who had to do this work found

mixed in with the ashes eyeglass frames, bits of jaws with teeth in them, and

similar things.

n Birkenau was diﬀerent from the main camp, and there were great diﬀer-

ences between the conditions in 1942 and those in 1944. For this reason, we

need to provide,ﬁrst, a rough outline of thehistoryof the extermination camp

before we present the human problems found there.

The History of the Extermination Camp n 23