The Theory and Practice of Hell (28 page)

, heavy underwear, or some protective layer next to the body. Anyone caught trying such an expedient was beaten on the

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naked buttocks. To the credit of the prisoners working in the hospital it must be said that they did everything within their power to heal and restore the victims who were often left in a very bad state.

Dreaded even worse than whipping was the punishment that involved being trussed up against a tree. Like all other penalties, it was imposed in entirely arbitrary fashion. It was executed in the following way: the hands were tightly tied on the back and then the body was hoisted up by them and suspended some six feet high from a tree or post, the feet hanging free and the entire weight resting on the twisted shoulder joints. The result was extremely painful shoulder dislocations. The victims screamed and moaned frightfully. Often mey received beatings on face, feet or sexual organs to boot. The helpless sufferers cried for water, for their wives and children, for a bullet to end their torment. Those who lost consciousness were revived by being drenched with cold water. This punishment lasted from half an hour to four hours. Those who survived it almost invariably sustained per manent injuries. x

Fatigue drill, imposed on entire details or barracks at a time, was another form of punishment that exacted a heavy toll. It often lasted for hours, on the uneven roll-call area, studded with holes and gullies—a vicious combination of sadistic Prussian drill with customary concentration-camp brutality. The prisoners came to call it “ Geography,” for it afforded them ample occasion to study the terrain at close hand. Not only individual barracks or groups of barracks, but the entire camp had to engage in such drill on countless oc casions, for the most trifling reasons. Block Leaders who reported their charges to headquarters were often told: “ Go ahead and impose your own discipline” —a blank check for sadism. Up! Down! Double time! Duck walk! Roll!—alone, by twos, all together, up the area and down. All this to a barrage of abuse from the sergeants, who were particularly fond of walking over the prone men with their heavy boots. They loved to pick on the weak. Prisoners who could not stand the pace, who staggered or fell, were in imminent danger of death. There were months when scarcely a day went by that some noncom did not harry an entire detail—they were too slow, the stones they carried were too smbll, they

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carried too little lumber. Fatigue drill would be ordered on the spot.

Standing in the roll-call areas was one of the worst forms of

punishment, as has already been mentioned—and the SS seasoned the monotony with “ diversions” of many kinds. The punishment might be imposed on the entire camp as in the rare case of a successful escape, or on individual barracks or details. For years the penal company had to endure it every Sunday afternoon.

The penalty of being forced to stand was frequently com bined by the SS with fatigue labor—always after working hours, of course. On Sunday afternoons, twenty minutes after mess time, there was a regular call: “ Prisoners on fatigue labor to the gatehouse!” These prisoners were first put through a spell of standing and then had to carry stones, sand, soil, or manure until nightfall—always in double time. The supervising SS men were furious at having their Sundays spoiled and abused the prisoners with club and whip to the point where it was impossible for them to walk three steps in normal fashion, let alone to take a break. It was the noncoms who sometimes had to rest, from the sheer effort of beating.

The death penalty in the concentration camps took many forms. When it was not officially imposed—by the firing squad, the garrote, the gallows, or the poison syringe—the SS always camouflaged it as “ shot while attempting to escape.” The post-mortem reports showed that it was apparently the weak who hatched all the escape plots, not the strong and vigorous.

In the spring of 1941, Buchenwald witnessed the unique in cident of a prisoner daring to protest against such SS

methods. Sergeant Abraham of the garage detail had thrown a certain Hamber into a water hole. Hamber had been a well-known Vienna film producer. He was a Jew—reason enough for Abraham to trample him viciously underfoot until he died miserably. Hamber’s surviving brother went to the First Of ficer-in-Charge and reported the murder. The entire detail was thereupon summoned to the gatehouse, “ to tell the truth.” No one dared say that he had seen anything. Names were taken down and the men sent back to their barracks.

“ I know,” said the brother of the murdered man, “ that I shall die for having made this report. But perhaps these

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criminals will restrain themselves a little in future, if they run the risk of being reported. In that case I shall not have died in vain.”

Toward nine o ’clock that night Hamber was again called to the gatehouse. To the surprise of everyone, he returned within half an hour. He had been questioned by Commandant Koch, the adjutant, the Officers-in-Charge, the Camp Medical Of ficer, the Roll Call Officer. Koch had told him: “ We want you to tell the full truth. I give you my word of honor that nothing will happen to you.” Hamber repeated his story. Half an hour before midnight he was again called and this time he did not return. Four days later he was taken dead from the camp prison.

The testimony of the other witnesses, to the effect that they had not seen anything, availed them nothing in saving their lives. Hamber’s deed, courageous as it was, swept them all to their death. Within three days, five of them were called to the gatehouse. Within a week none was left alive. A few days later it was the turn of the next five. Within three weeks the Jewish portion of the detail—twenty-nine in all—had been ex terminated by way of “ punishment.” Curiously enough a single man was left alive, Lowitus, a shoemaker in his forties, who had the good fortune to receive his discharge papers before his name was called. He was a citizen of a Balkan state and had been in possession of complete emigration papers when he was arrested. Such inconsistencies happened to the SS on several occasions. They are explained only by the fact that the various sections were poorly co-ordinated and over all control of the machinery was deficient.

Apart from the directive covering corporal punishment, there were no standards applying to the extent of the punish ment the SS could impose. Even when the whole camp was penalized—indeed, especially in such cases—it was a matter of whim and arbitrary judgment. Ration withdrawal, for example, whether for certain sections of the camp or the camp as a whole, could last twenty-four hours, or it could continue for three or four days.

Chapter Ten fO O D

Statistics are always capable of more than one interpretation. They can merely offer clues to the realities of the situation. This applies with full force to such figures as are available on the subject of the food situation in the German concentration camps. They must be evaluated critically. Three thousand calories a day does not mean the same thing to a manual worker as to an intellectual, to a woman as to a man, to a growing youngster as to an old man. There are differences too between indoor work and work in the open, between work in good and in poor weather. These differences become more marked when the daily caloric intake is reducecd to eighteen hundred. Men suffering from chronic malnutrition are not restored to full health by a diet that might suffice under nor mal conditions.

Another difference must be taken into account—the dif ference between the figures recorded on paper and the food actually issued. Concentration camps never got in full even the small ration allotment authorized for them. The SS skimmed off the cream. Prisoners detailed to the supply rooms and messes had a well-organized system of pilferage.

Barracks Orderlies retained plenty for themselves and their immediate friends. The run-of-the-mill concentration-camp inmate got only what was left.

Nor it is a matter of indifference how a given quantity of food is prepared and served. “ Slop,” unseasoned and unap petizing, does not have the same nutritive value as the same food, when palatably cooked, for digestive reaction is not the same.

To these factors must be added the general wretchedness that pervaded the camps, especially the everlasting nervous strain, and the difficulty in supplementing the diet by any out side means. Only when all these factors are considered does the table applying to Class II camps given below offer any valid data.

Up to the start of the war a blanket allowance was made for the purchase of food for the concentration camps. From July 15, 1937, to February 28, 1938, fifty-five pfennigs per head per day was authorized. This was the equivalent of less than seven dollars a month! Even with large-scale purchasing, the quality of the resulting diet can be readily imagined. Even the SS administrative authorities found the allowance too low. From April 1 to 16 it was tentatively increased by ten pfennigs. This proved too much for the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office and on April 17, 1938, the amount was reduced to sixty pfennigs, where it remained until the war broke out.