The Theory and Practice of Hell (42 page)

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Grawitz, Reich Physician SS, stated (August 29, 1942): “ One case was evaluated as positive and four as positive with reser vations, as opposed to thirty-five failures, including ten deaths. The tests at Dachau are being continued.” , Results continued to be negative. Most of the clerics died of blood poisoning induced by severe suppuration.

At the Ravensbriick concentration camp and at Hohenlychen there were experiments in muscle regeneration and bone transplants. Women inmates had a section of muscle excised from the thigh from time to time, to establish whether and how regeneration might take place in the cast. Other women had healthy legs or arms or shoulder blades removed. These parts were wrapped up by the SS physician in volved and taken by car to Professor Gebhardt at Hohenlychen where Drs. Stumpfegger and Schulze trans plated them to patients at the clinic. The concentration-camp “ donors” were killed by injection.

Chapter Fifteen

REPRISALS AGAINST THE JEWS

I must again emphasize that it is impossible to present here anything like an exhaustive picture of the Jewish mass tragedy. A fully documented story would far transcend the scope of this book. The reader will have to rest content with a mere inkling of the character and extent of the fate that engulfed the Jews in the concentration camps proper, as well as in the eastern ghettos.

There are three major periods in the tragic story: action against individuals until the fall of 1938; organized liquidation campaigns beginning about that time; and after 1942 the systematic extermination of the Jews, especially in the east.

The Jews in Germany were
not
arrested as a matter of

general policy in the early years of the Nazi regime. Merely a portion of them were picked up and sent to the concentration camps, on criteria determined by the Gestapo. The number was probably below twenty thousand. Their treatment was fairly uniform throughout the camps and, as we have already seen, dreadful enough.

On June 15, 1938, five hundred Jews arrived at Buchen-

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wald, chiefly from Berlin and Breslau. They were subjected to the usual admission ordeal and then assigned to the so-called sheepshed, a blockhouse that contained neither tables, benches nor bunks. The earth floor was skimpily covered with tanbark. There was no water, despite the warm season, and as much as one mark was paid to convicts for a single sip. Mess was out in the open regardless of the weather. There was one loaf of bread a day for every five Jews, and a pint of soup for each man. The Barracks Orderlies were convicts, and they withheld most of the food, subsequently selling it. Reveille was at three o’clock in the morning, with roll call beginning two hours later and frequently lasting until seven o ’clock. It is hard to believe, but because of the wretched footgear of the prisoners, the march through the quagmire to the roll-call area took as much as an hour, though it was only about two-thirds of a mile. All the men had sore feet, and there was no dispensary treatment. At five o’clock in the afternoon the Jews returned from work. After evening roll call, night work began for all those engaged in the construction of masonry barracks. This lasted until eleven o’clock at night. Physical abuse was a daily matter of course.

A large proportion of the newcomers quickly died of exhaustion. Others grew desperate and committed suicide. Within two months there were 150 dead, while most of the rest were unfit for work. The other camp inmates were strictly forbidden to give any aid to the Jews, indeed, even to talk to them. The Second Officer-in-charge, Hackmann, was par ticularly virulent in his incitement: “ Any man who takes even a single thing from a Jew will choke on it!” This did not keep him from accepting eight thousand marks for the “ purchase of books” two days later, and a similar amount two weeks later, for “ charity” —actually for himself and his fellow of ficers. The surviving Jews were not transferred from the sheepshed to a wooden barracks for another two months, after a Jewish inmate who had been released and had emigrated described the situation over the British radio.

In August 1938, some 2,200 Jews arrived at Buchenwald from Dachau; they were mainly Austrians.

In November 1938, the assassination in Paris of the Ger man Embassy Secretary Vom Rath at the hands of Grynsz-

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pan, a Jew, led to a wave of arrests of Jews throughout Ger many. In Buchenwald alone 9,815 Jews were admitted.

These arrests were made without regard for age. Ten-year-old boys could be seen side by side with septuagenarians and octogenarians. En route from the Wiemar railroad station all stragglers were shot down, while the survivors were forced to drag the bloody bodies into camp. A great jam ensued at the gatehouse, when each batch of one thousand men arrived. The SS refused to open the big gate, except for a narrow gap through which but one man could pass at a time. Inside stood the Block Leaders, wielding iron rods, whips and truncheons, and virtually every Jew who got into the camp sustained in juries.

The events that took place at the time are not easily described in a few words. Let me merely mention that sixty-eight Jews went mad that very first night. They were clubbed to death like mad dogs by Sommer, four men at a time. The Jews were assigned in batches of two thousand to the notorious Barracks la to 5a (later torn down), primitive shelters intended for four or at most five hundred men. The sanitary conditions in these buildings grew unimaginable. Hundred-mark bills were used as toilet paper—the Jews had brought along a great deal of money, in some instances tens of thousands of marks. SS noncoms pushed the heads of some of their charges into the overflowing latrine buckets until they suffocated.

The arrivals had come in such large numbers that the SS had initially been unable to take down personnel records. The Roll Call Officer therefore announced over the public-address system: “ If any more of the Jews string themselves up, will they kindly put a slip of paper with their name in their pocket, so that we know who it is.”

A Jew from Breslau named Silbermann had to stand by idly as SS Sergeant Hoppe brutally tortured his brother to death. Silbermann went mad at the sight, and late at night he precipitated a panic with his frantic cries that the barracks was on fire. Hundreds threw themselves out of the upper windows and whole bunks collapsed. The SS men shot into the crowd and prisoner henchmen wielded their clubs freely, but it took much effort and time to restore order. Officer-in-Charge

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Rodl chose to interpret the incident as a Jewish mutiny. He had seven hostages taken from the building and handcuffed together. Three Block Leaders then let loose trained dogs on the unfortunates, who were torn to pieces.

The SS exploited the Vom Rath reprisal campaign shamelessly for purposes of blackmail. One day the public-address system announced: “ All millionaires to the gatehouse!” They were required to sign for large financial contributions, up to several hundred thousand marks. All the Jews were suddenly permitted to write home for money, ostensibly to pay for the trip home for their poorer comrades. Those who owned cars or motor-cycles were likewise called up. They had to transfer their vehicles to the SS.

The Nazis in Weimar got in on the deal. Their champion was SS Sergeant Michael. He brought into camp every kind of shopworn merchandise—old books and notebooks, thumb tacks and hairpins, which were sold to the Jews at fancy prices, with a few cigarettes or some food as bait. Michael and his cronies carried bills out of camp by the bushel basket.

Two Jewish physicians, Drs. Margulies and Vero, who later got to America, performed prodigies in tending these Vom Rath Jews. But in less than three weeks there were several hundred dead among them.

Suddenly, for reasons that never became clear, most of the Jews were set free on orders from the Reich authorities. They were actually taken to the border or to ships that took them into exile. One asks in vain whether the Nazi leaders were not afraid of the inevitable factual publicity that resulted abroad. Possibly they sought new pretexts to proceed against the Jews that remained behind.

The discharge announcement was always the same: “ At tention, Barracks la to 5a! The following Jews report to the gatehouse at once with all their things. . . . ” It sounded at every hour of the day and night and naturally became famous throughout the camp. Only those Jews who had travel money were released. A special “ Travel Fund” was created for this purpose. It was kept in a blue valise and every day had to be taken to Officer-in-Charge Rodl and Roll Call Officer Strippel. This loudspeaker call likewise became famous: “ Herzog with the diamond chest to the gatehouse!” (Gustav