The Theory and Practice of Hell (27 page)

Chapter Nine DISCIPLINE

Concentration-camp labor, as has been plainly shown, was in no sense the fulfillment of the normal human urge for ac tivity. It had no educational—to say nothing of recrea tional—value. It was subordinate to the main purpose of the concentration camp—punishment. But punishment was by no means limited to labor.

Himmler had ordered large signs posted everywhere in the concentration camps. They read: “ There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are: obedience, hard work, honesty, sobriety, cleanliness, devotion, order, discipline and patriotism.” The milestones on the prisoners’ road—which led to the crematory—were: whipping post, prison cell, rope, gun, club, hunger, cold and torture of every kind.

There were certain acts, of course, against which the SS, from its viewpoint, had to proceed drastically—such as political propaganda, listening to foreign broadcasts, unauthorized contact with the outside world, efforts to kindle disaffection in its own ranks, sabotage, anti-Fascist meetings, political activity of any kind in camp, the smuggling in and out of letters, and actual escape attempts. The punishment of

these offenses was savage to an unimaginable degree. In the spring of 1938 a Gypsy tried to escape. Commandant Koch had him placed in a wooden box, one side covered by chicken wire. The box was only large enough to permit the prisoner to crouch. Koch then had large nails driven through the boards, piercing the victim’s flesh at the slightest movement. The Gypsy was exhibited to the whole camp in this cage. He was kept in the roll-call area for two days and three nights, without food. His dreadful screams had long since lost any semblance of humanity. On the morning of the third day he was finally relieved of his sufferings by an injection of poison. Usually recaptured prisoners had a sign placed round their neck reading: “ I am back!” Then, already beaten to a pulp, they had to stand for hours on a stone mound or under the gallows, in heat or rain, until they received twenty-five or fifty lashes, were thrown in the dungeon for further torture, or

were hanged before the assembled camp.

The most terrible penalties were reserved for “ sabotage.” Actual sabotage the SS men were usually far too stupid to discover. But their interpretation of this offense may be judged from the following example: Portland cement was shipped in big paper bags, which were stacked at the con struction sites. Anyone caught with even the smallest scrap of this paper—worn under the thin prison garb to ward off the cold or used to protect clothing while carrying stones—was in stantly reported, if he was not treated to a beating on the spot. Apart from these more or less reasonable pretexts for discipline, the SS seized on the most trifling offenses as occa sions for punishment: keeping hands in pockets in cold weather; turning up the coat collar in rain or wind; missing buttons; the tiniest tear or speck of dirt on the clothing; unshined shoes, though the mud be ankle-deep—for years there was a special after-hours inspection for this purpose; shoes that were too well shined—indicating that the wearer was shirking work; failure to salute, including so-called “ sloppy posture” ; en tering barracks during working hours, even though but to use the toilet; latrine absences that were considered too long—at times it was altogether prohibited to step out before ten o’clock on labor details (remember the thin morning coffee!); straightening up even once while working in a stooped position; eating during work; smoking in barracks or during

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working hours; picking up cigarette butts—which cost many an “ asocial” his life; clandestine food foraging and cooking; and every form of unauthorized procurement. The nightmare of the “ roll call” has already been discussed. The slightest deviation in dressing ranks and files, or arranging the prisoners in the order of size, or any swaying, coughing, sneezing—any of these might provoke a savage outburst from the SS. No enumeration of such offenses used by the SS as pretexts for punishment can be even approximately complete. Denunciations for “ loafing” —liberally interpreted—were common, not only on the part of malicious sergeants and foremen, but by civilian employees in the armament works as well. Serial numbers were often confused, and in place of a prisoner who could scarcely be considered guilty, one who was altogether innocent might be punished. There was no possible defense—that would have meant questioning the veracity of an SS man. On one occasion a newcomer was assigned the serial number of a prisoner who had just been released and who had been reported for some offense. The new man promptly drew twenty-five lashes.

Besides the abuses incident to supposedly faulty bed-making, other barracks regulations furnished the SS with an inexhaustible source of pretexts for punishments of every kind. Some Block Leaders would mount the tables and pass their fingers over the ceiling beams in search of dust, or in spect the inside of the stoves for trash, until the Barracks Or derlies proceeded to wire them shut in the summertime.

If there were no real thefts in camp to be punished, the SS would invent them. Theft was usually motivated by hunger, and brought swift retribution from the prisoners themselves. A bread thief, for example, was lost the moment he was caught. The camp simply could not tolerate him, even if he had acted from hunger. No one had any more than the barest necessities, and theft only made the situation worse. Many a theft, however, was motivated not by hunger, but by a desire to get bread to trade for tobacco.

Prisoners who mistreated their fellows or even tortured them to death were, characteristically enough, never punished by the SS. Prisoner justice had to catch up with them. This was often very difficult and took much time, since the SS had its eyes on these creatures and protected them. Many

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prisoners who were unfamiliar with the inner workings of the camp, were baffled that such killers were “ allowed” on the loose.

Even experienced concentrationaries sometimes marvel that it was at all possible to survive this jungle of penalties. There were occasions when there seemed to be no way out. In Buchenwald, for example, the SS officers were finally for bidden to procure firewood for their homes from the camp. In contravention of this prohibition, the Prisoner Foreman con cerned had supplied a basket of logs to the wife of a Camp Medical Officer—a man on whose whims hundreds of prisoners were directly dependent, to say nothing of the rest of the camp. Unfortunately there was a feud between the doc tor’s wife and Frau Koch, the wife of the Commandant. Frau Koch reported the matter to her husband, who had twenty-five lashes administered to the foreman. The next day Frau Koch herself sent for a sack of firewood. The foreman refused the request, citing his express orders and the punishment he had just suffered. Koch at once had him whipped again, for refusing to obey an “ order by the commandant’s wife.”

The lash as an instrument of punishment was covered by a general directive from the SS Main Economic and Ad ministrative Office. This punishment was administered on a special wooden rack, to which the delinquent was strapped on his stomach, head down and legs drawn forward, exposing the buttocks. This
Bock
was a familiar device in all camps. From five to twenty-five lashes were dealt out, with cane or horse whip, to be repeated up to four times at intervals of two weeks. On April 4, 1942, Himmler personally ordained an “ intensified” version of this punishment, to be administered to both male and female prisoners, on the naked buttocks.

Theoretically camp headquarters had to apply for con firmation from Berlin when corporal punishment was to be adminstered, and the camp physician had to certify that the prisoner was in good health. Down to the end, however, the procedure widely practiced in many camps was that the prisoner went to the whipping rack immediately, while on receipt of confirmation from Berlin the punishment was repeated, this time “ officially.” Submission to Berlin de pended on the “ gravity” of the offense in the first place. In

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"minor” offenses, headquarters simply went ahead and im posed the punishment on its own.

SS sergeants were detailed to administer the whippings, unless they volunteered with a show of enthusiasm. If one of them showed any trace of sympathy or lack of vigor, an “ ex pert” would take over. “ Expertness” consisted chiefly in unerring kidney blows. The camp physician had to witness the estrapade. Only a very few cases have become known in which they intervened on behalf of the prisoners. On the other hand, it did happen that they painted the torn buttocks with iodine! After receiving the whipping, the delinquent usually had to execute from 50 to 150 knee bends—to “ strengthen the muscles.”

At times prisoners were forced to adminster the whippings to their fellows. There were those who lacked the courage to face the consequences of a refusal, and others who did not seem to mind lending themselves to the occasion. Political prisoners usually refused outright or administered the whip pings in such a way as to displease the SS. They were then either subjected to the same punishment themselves, or “ soft ened up” in other ways.

Whippings usually took place before the assembled prisoners in the roll-call area. The rack was carried in by four prisoners, lifted up high like a throne. It was placed on a big stone mound up which the delinquents had to clamber one by one. Names, offenses, and extent of punishment were an nounced over the public-address system in the coarsest way. Hundreds who underwent this ordeal never uttered a sound. Others made the area echo with their screams and moans. When the screaming began to irk the officers, they would order the band to strike up a march. On one occasion at Buchenwald, SS Major Rodl actually stationed an opera singer by the rack and had him accompany the performance with operatic arias.

Often, of course, the SS officers administered whippings merely as a form of private pastime. When they suddenly assaulted prisoners in this fashion it was impossible to take the precautions that were otherwise often employed—extra-