The Theory and Practice of Hell (54 page)

Chapter Eighteen

SPECIAL PLACES OF EXECUTION AND DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD

I am not exaggerating when I say that a separate book would have to be written on the concentration-camp prisons, called “ Bunker.” It would be a blood-curdling collection of documents. Each bunker in each individual camp had its own gruesome story, and it would be impossible for me to tell them all here, even if I knew all the details. They ranged from the “ dog cells” at Dachau where the prisoners could only lie huddled on one side and had to bark for their food when it was passed to them; to unlighted solitary cells where German intellectuals were kept until they went almost blind; to the stand-up cells at Sachsenhausen, barely large enough to hold a man in upright position—it was impossible for him to wipe off the spittle if he was spat upon; and to every other imaginable form of torment.

It happened occasionally, though very exceptionally, that a prisoner was permanently kept in the bunker without being mistreated. Such an exception was Pastor Niemoller at Sachsenhausen. He spent his more than seven years in the con centration camps in solitary confinement, and saw virtually nothing of the rest of the camp. When it was necessary for

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him to visit the dental clinic, he had to climb into a wheelbarrow across which a tarpaulin was spread. The dental clinic was cleared and he was wheeled there and back in the same fashion. Niemoller, it is true, was visited by his wife. But the fact that he was for years kept in solitary confinement is significant enough.

Officially the bunker was called “ The Cell Block.” It was generally located in one wing of the gatehouse and consisted of a series of small concrete cells with raised bunks of stone and high window embrasures.

It was against this background that the prison wardens for years plied their dreadful trade. In Buchenwald it was Master Sergeant Sommer, a man who can be described only as a beast in human form—every camp knew his kind. Arrested in the course of the trial of Koch and Dr. Hoven, he admitted some 150 murders within a single half year. He tortured and killed during grillings, sometimes with the knowledge of the Political Department, as a form of “ punishment,” or simply “ for fun.” There are few methods that he failed to use. In the end the SS feared him no less than did the prisoners, for he was in a position to “ rub out” anyone who got into his clutches.

Grillings in the bunker took place in the following manner: on admission the prisoner had to strip to the skin and his clothing was carefully searched. He was then taken to an unlighted cell and shackled to the radiator so that he was unable to move. At night the trusty Fischermann, a former Storm Trooper, made his rounds in felt-soled slippers. If he found the prisoner asleep, he would set upon him with a rubber truncheon. The prisoner’s screams would bring Sommer, who would wield his whip until the victim was un conscious.

In the middle of the night Leclaire, an official of the Political Department, would arrive. The prisoner was revived with cold water. Leclaire would first of all beat him about the head, to refresh his memory: “ You know, don’t you, that you’ll never leave this place alive? If you lie, we’ll give you something to laugh about all right!” If the prisoner still refused to talk or did not tell enough, Commandant Koch would be requested to issue a written authorization that has

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become notorious: “ The prisoner is to be examined until he confesses.”

On the basis of this authorization Sommer would, for example, force the stripped prisoner to immerse his testicles in ice-cold and boiling water in turn, painting them with iodine when the skin came off in strips. Naturally this caused the most agonizing pain. Or Sommer would tie the prisoner’s hands on his back and string him up by them from a set of rings mounted in a barred door in the central corridor of the cell block. The prisoner would hang suspended, his feet a foot or two off the floor. Sommer and Leclaire together would, in addition, place a rope around his neck and throttle him from time to time. Sometimes they would suspend themselves from the prisoner’s legs. Few prisoners stood this treatment for more than twenty minutes without losing consciousness. They were then let down and revived with cold water, and the procedure was repeated. These tortures sometimes extracted confessions no man would have made under ordinary cir cumstances. Yet there were prisoners who never uttered a word. Food and water would be withdrawn and the examination repeated every day. There might be as many as three suspensions and starvation might be extended to as much as ten days. If the prisoner still failed to talk on the tenth day, there came the ultimate ordeal—suspension head down. If there were still no results, Sommer might release the prisoner or, if the Political Department regarded it as a “ dif ficult case,” he might offer the man a cup of tea that put him to sleep, whereupon Sommer would administer a fatal in jection.

The next morning the public-address system would an nounce: “ Corpse-carriers to the gatehouse!” The Camp Medical Officer would certify: “ Death by circulatory failure.” If the prisoner refused to drink the tea, Sommer would peer in through the peephole to see whether the man had fallen asleep yet. The next day poisoned food was brought to the cell. If this too failed, Sommer would affect a curious gesture—but only if the prisoner had not squealed on another! He would apply for the prisoner’s discharge, which was always authorized—that is, in those few cases in which a prisoner actually survived the tortures that have been

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described. When the prisoner was discharged from the bunker, Sommer would even present him with tobacco!

Fritz Mannchen of Dresden, Kurt Leeser of Aachen, the bunker orderlies Richard Gritz of Antonienhiitte near Kattowitz, Alfred Miller of Leonberg near Stuttgart, and Roman Hadelmeyer of Vienna all had long experience in the bunker and have recorded a wealth of factual information, all of which tallies.

The “ simplest” death Sommer would pick for a prisoner was to hang him with his own hands from the window frame or radiator. Many prisoners, however, were simply beaten to death by Sommer with an iron bar. One case has become known, in which he applied an iron clamp to his victim’s temples, screwing it shut until the skull was crushed.

To look out of a cell window meant certain death to any prisoner. If he was caught, Sommer would beat him to death or give him a fatal injection. The same punishment threatened anyone caught reading even the smallest fragment of newspaper issued as toilet paper. He was forbidden to pace the cell. The prisoner had to stand at attention from five o ’clock in the morning to ten o ’clock at night, staring at the door. The peephole in the door held a magnifying lens through which the slightest movement could be observed. Any violation was punished with twenty-five lashes. Food, when issued at all, consisted of half rations. In the wintertime, prisoners were commonly drenched with water, the clothing being allowed to dry on the body while the prisoner slept on the concrete floor.

One of the cells held seven Jews. One day Sommer appeared with a tin pail with which he beat two of the prisoners to death. He then ripped a piece of iron from the radiator and used it to kill the others. Of at least one hundred Jews who passed through the bunker between 1940 and 1941, not one left alive.

It was also customary to feed the prisoners cathartics in their food, until they fell sick with bloody stools. Of course there were no antidotes. There were two toilets in the bunker, one for the prisoners, the other for the SS. Whenever a prisoner received his twenty-five lashes, he had to bend over and immerse his head into the excrement-filled toilet bowl.

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When the punishment had been administered, he was not per mitted to wipe the excrement from his face.

On one occasion Sommer shackled seven young Polish

prisoners to their cots. Their diet was reduced to salt water and pickles, until they perished. Bunker orderly Gritz describes how their fearful screams, and finally moans, pierced his eardrums. A Czech Communist in Cell 11 was kept without food by Sommer for seven days. He was fond of in flicting death by starvation. He was in the habit of issuing the food himself, and would withhold it wholly or in part from his victims until they had slowly starved to death.

Some of the tortures inflicted by Sommer were nightmares of sadism. He liked to strangle prisoners with his bare hands. His greatest sport was to herd all his prisoners into the corridor, about four feet wide, where he had them do kneebends and hop about until they dropped from exhaustion. He would then trample them with his heels, until the blood spurted from ears and nose and at least a few were left dead. On one occasion he crowded fifteen prisoners into a single cell, giving them only a children’s chamber pot which they were not permitted to empty for some ten days. The floor of the cell was ankle-deep in excrement. Subsequently Sommer murdered all fifteen men.

His own quarters were decorated with an illuminated skull. At night he would sometimes summon a victim from one of the cells and leisurely do away with him in the room. He would then place the body under his bed and fall asleep peacefully, his work well done.

And why were prisoners committed to the bunker? For any offense at all, big or little. It was largely a matter of caprice, like everything else in camp. A Jew might be admitted because he had smoked during working hours; another for alleged loafing, a third in order to be questioned by the Political Department or camp headquarters. If a prisoner looked up from his work as the wife of the Commandant, Ilse Koch, passed by, she might jot down his serial number. The hapless wretch was committed to the bunker, for having “ stared shamelessly” at the Commandant’s wife. He could almost count himself lucky if he got off with a fatal injection. The use of injections was, of course, properly the prerogative of