Commandant of Auschwitz Page 8

  They have no deliberate wish to do the prisoners harm. But because of their indifference and narrow-mindedness and their desire for an easy life, they do cause a lot of harm and inflict much physical and mental anguish upon the prisoners quite unintentionally.

  It is primarily they, however, who enable some prisoners to obtain a domination over their fellows that is so often evil.

  The third category consists of men who are kindly by nature, good-hearted, compassionate, and able to sympathize with a fellow human’s troubles.

  Within this category the individual guards vary considerably.

  First there are those who stick firmly and conscientiously to the regulations and will overlook no departure from them on the part of the prisoners, but who, out of kindness of heart and good nature, construe the regulations in favor of the prisoners and endeavor, so far as this is possible, to alleviate their situation, or at any rate not to make it unnecessarily hard.

  There are others who are simply good-hearted, and whose naïveté borders on the miraculous. They will try to gratify a prisoner’s every wish, and out of sheer good nature and boundless sympathy will attempt to help him in every way. They are unable to believe that evil men exist among prisoners, too.

  Generally speaking, strictness, combined with good will and understanding, gives a prisoner a certain reassurance, for he is perpetually on the lookout for human comprehension, and the worse his position the greater his need of it. A kind glance, a friendly nod, or a pleasant word will often work wonders, especially on sensitive minds. To find that some consideration, however slight, is being given to his situation and position produces an unexpected effect upon a prisoner. Even the most desperate man, who has already given up all hope, will find new courage if he sees or feels the slightest sign of human fellow feeling.

  Every prisoner tries to improve his lot and to make his conditions of life more tolerable. He will exploit kindness and human understanding. Unscrupulous prisoners will go the limit and will try, by evoking sympathy, to get the better of their guards.

  Since the prisoner is, generally speaking, mentally superior to the junior guards and supervisory staff, he is quick to find the weak spot in those who are kind or merely stupid.

  And this is the disadvantage of showing too much kindness and good will toward the prisoners. A single gesture of human understanding toward a strong-minded prisoner will often inaugurate a series of lapses from discipline on the part of the guard that can only end in the most severe punishment. Such lapses may begin with the harmless smuggling out of a letter, but may lead to actual assistance in escaping.

  Examples will show the different effects in the same circumstances, produced by the three characteristic types of guard mentioned above.

  To take the remand prison first. The prisoner asks the guard to increase the steam heat in his cell because he has a bad cold and is freezing. A malicious-minded guard will immediately turn the heat off altogether and watch with amusement while the prisoner runs round and round his cell or tries to keep warm by doing endless gymnastic exercises. In the evening another guard comes on duty. He is one of the indifferent type. Once again the prisoner asks for more heat. The guard turns it on full, and forgets all about it for the rest of the night. Within an hour the cell is so overheated that the prisoner has to leave the window open all night, with the result that his cold becomes far worse.

  Now take the penitentiary. There is a stipulated time for bathing. A sadistic guard marches the prisoners to the baths. He throws the window in the dressing room wide open, in midwinter, because the place is full of steam. With much shouting to hurry them on, he drives the prisoners under the showers and turns the hot water on full so that no man can stay underneath it for more than a second. Then he turns on the cold water, and makes them stand under it for a long time, shivering. With a mocking grin he then watches the prisoners, who are now so cold that they can hardly dress themselves.

  On another occasion they are taken to the baths by a guard of the indifferent type. It is also winter. The prisoners undress and the guard sits down and reads a newspaper. After a long time he manages to tear himself away from his paper and switches on the water. He turns the hot on full and returns to his paper. No one can go under the shower, which is almost boiling. He pays no attention to the prisoners’ shouts. Only when he has finished his reading does he stand up, and then immediately turns the water off altogether. The prisoners dress themselves again without having washed at all. He looks at his watch, sees that the time is right, and feels he has done his duty.

  Then the concentration camp. The scene is the gravel pit. A good-natured guard takes care to see that the trucks are not overloaded, that extra men are there to push them up the slope, that the tracks are firmly laid, and that the points are oiled. Without any shouting the day goes by and the stipulated amount of gravel is duly shifted.

  The malicious guard has the trucks overloaded, allows no extra hands to help push them up the slope, and insists on their being pushed the whole way at the double. He even does without the prisoner whose job it is to look after the tracks and see that the points are oiled. The result of all this is that the trucks are constantly derailed, the Capos[27] are given reason for bullying, and a large proportion of the prisoners are incapable of work by midday because of their cut and bruised feet.

  All day long the air is filled with deafening shouts of command from all sides. By evening it is found that barely half of the stipulated work has been accomplished.

  The indifferent guard does not worry in the least about his work party. He lets the Capos do the work, which they carry out as the fancy takes them. Their favorites among the prisoners have a lazy day and the rest have to work all the harder. The sentries see nothing. The guard himself is continually absent.

  I have taken these three examples from innumerable incidents that I myself have seen. I could fill several books with them. They are intended only to emphasize the extent to which a prisoner’s life is dependent on the behavior and attitude of mind of the individual guards and supervisors. In spite of all the rules and regulations, and however good the intentions behind them, the fact remains that it is not the physical hardships which make the prisoner’s life so unbearable, but the indelible mental suffering caused by the tyranny and wickedness and meanness of indifferent or malicious individuals among the guards and supervisors. The prisoner can cope with stern but impartial severity, however harsh it may be, but tyranny and manifestly unjust treatment affect his soul like a blow with a club. He is powerless against it, and can only suffer in silence.

  To put it crudely, guards and prisoners constitute two hostile and opposing worlds. The prisoner is usually on the defensive: first because of the fact that he is a prisoner, and secondly because of the behavior of the guards. If he wants to fit into the scheme of things, then he has to look after number one. Since he cannot fight back with the same weapons, he must find other means of self-protection. According to his nature he either allows his enemy to vent his spite against an armor of indifference, and continues to carry on more or less as before; or he becomes cunning, furtive, and deceitful, and hoodwinks his opponent in order to obtain alleviations and privileges; or he goes over to the enemy and becomes a trusty, a Capo, a block senior, and so on, and manages thus to make his own life bearable at the expense of his fellow prisoners; or he stakes everything on one throw and breaks out; or he abandons hope, goes to pieces, and ends up by committing suicide.

  All this sounds harsh and may seem improbable, and yet it is true. I feel that I am a fair judge of these matters, owing to the life I have lived, and to my own experiences and observation.

  Work plays a very large part in a prisoner’s life. It can serve to make his existence more bearable, but it can also lead to his destruction.

  To every healthy prisoner, in normal circumstances, work is a necessity, and satisfies an inner need. This does not apply to notorious idlers and loafers and other types of asocial spongers; they can vegetate quit
e happily without work, and without thereby doing any harm to their souls.

  Work helps a prisoner to get over the emptiness of imprisonment. It pushes the wretchedness of the daily round in prison into the background if it occupies his mind sufficiently, and if he does it willingly, by which I mean with an inner readiness, he will derive satisfaction from it.

  If he can go further, and find an occupation connected with his own profession, or work that corresponds to his abilities and which appeals to him, he has managed to achieve for himself a psychological basis that will not easily be shaken, however inimical his surroundings.

  It is true that work in the prisons and concentration camps is compulsory. But generally speaking every prisoner employed on the right kind of work does it willingly. The inner satisfaction that it gives him affects his whole state of mind. On the other hand, dissatisfaction with his work can make his life a burden.

  How much pain and discomfort, and frustration too, could have been avoided if the work inspectors and the foremen had had regard for these facts, and had kept their eyes open when they went through the workshops and places of employment!

  All my life I have thoroughly enjoyed working. I have done plenty of hard, physical work, under the severest conditions, in the coal mines, in oil refineries, and in brickyards. I have felled timber, cut railroad ties, and stacked peat. I have, with my own hands, done every principal sort of agricultural work. Not only have I done such work myself, but wherever

  I have worked I have carefully observed the behavior, habits, and conditions of life of the men working with me.

  I can justly maintain that I know what work means, and that I am fully qualified to judge another man’s working efficiency.

  I myself derive no real satisfaction from my labors unless I have completed a good job of work thoroughly.

  I have never asked my subordinates to undertake any task in excess of what I could have done myself. Even in prison in Leipzig where I had plenty to occupy my mind, such as the investigation and the trial itself, not to mention the many letters and newspapers and visitors I received, I missed my work. Finally I asked for work, and I was given the job of pasting paper bags. Although this was an extremely monotonous job, it nevertheless occupied the greater part of the day and gave me a regular occupation. I voluntarily assigned to myself a definite task to be performed daily, and that was the essential.

  During my subsequent imprisonment, where choice was possible, I chose work that required a certain amount of attention and was not purely mechanical.

  Such employment spared me hours of useless and enervating self-pity. In the evening I had the satisfactory feeling that not only had I put another day behind me, but also that I had done a useful job of work.

  The worst punishment for me would have been if my work had been taken away.

  In my present imprisonment I feel the lack of any physical work very much, and I am so thankful that I can do this writing, which I find completely absorbing and satisfying.

  I have discussed this question of work with many of my fellow prisoners in the penitentiary and also with many of those detained in the concentration camps, especially at Dachau. All of them were convinced that in the long run life behind bars or behind wire would be unbearable without work, and that to be without work would be the worst imaginable punishment.

  Work in prison is not merely an efficient corrective, in the best sense of the word, in that it encourages the prisoners to discipline themselves and thus makes them better able to withstand the demoralizing effect of their confinement. It is also a means of training for those prisoners who are fundamentally unstable and who need to learn the meaning of endurance and perseverance. The beneficent influence of work can draw many prisoners away from a life of crime.

  The above statements, however, only apply where the conditions are normal.

  Only thus can the slogan “Work Brings Freedom” be understood.[28]

  It was Eicke’s firm intention that no matter what category, those prisoners whose steady and zealous work marked them out from the others should in due course be released, regardless of what the Gestapo and the Criminal Police Office might think to the contrary. Indeed, this occasionally happened, until the war put an end to all such good intentions.

  I have written exhaustively on the subject of work, because I have myself had such ample opportunity of appreciating its psychological value, and because I wished to show the beneficial effect it always has on a prisoner’s mind, as I know from firsthand experience.

  I shall write later about what was afterward done in this matter of work and the planned use of camp labor.

  In Dachau, as block leader, I now came into direct contact with the individual prisoners, and not only with those of my own block.

  As block leaders we had at that time to censor the prisoners’ outgoing mail. Any man who has spent a considerable time reading a prisoner’s letters, and who possesses adequate knowledge of human nature, will obtain a clear picture from them of the prisoner’s psyche. Each prisoner tries in his letters to his wife and mother to describe his needs and his troubles and, depending on his disposition, will be more or less outspoken. In the long run no prisoner can disguise his true thoughts. He can, in the final analysis, deceive neither himself nor the practiced eye of the experienced observer. And it is the same with the letters he writes.

  Eicke had drummed the notion of “dangerous enemies of the state” so firmly and persuasively into the heads of his SS men, and had been preaching this for so many years, that any man who knew no better believed in it. I also believed. I now sought to study these “dangerous enemies of the state,” and to find out why they appeared so dangerous.

  What did I find? A small number of dyed-in-the-wool Communists and Social Democrats, who, if they had been given their freedom, would have stirred up unrest among the people and would have stopped at nothing to make their illegal work effective. They quite openly admitted this.

  But the great mass of them, although they had indeed been Communists or Social Democrat officials, who had also struggled and fought for their ideals, and who had in some cases done considerable harm to the nationalist concepts of the NSDAP, appeared at closer glance and after daily contact harmless and peaceable men who, having seen their world destroyed, wished only to find some quiet job and to be able to go home to their families. I am certain that during the period 1935-1936 three-quarters of the political prisoners in Dachau could have been released without any resultant harm whatsoever to the Third Reich.

  There remained, nevertheless, that quarter who were fanatically convinced that their world would rise again. These people had to be kept shut up and it was they who were the “dangerous enemies of the state.” They were, however, easily recognizable, even though they did not openly express their views but on the contrary tried skillfully to disguise them.

  Far more dangerous to the state and the people as a whole were the professional criminals, asocials with more than twenty or thirty convictions behind them.

  It was Eicke’s intention that his SS men, by means of continuous instruction and suitable orders concerning the dangerous criminality of the inmates, should be made basically ill-disposed toward the prisoners. They were to “treat them rough,” and to root out once and for all any sympathy they might feel for them. By such means, he succeeded in engendering in simple-natured men a hatred and antipathy for the prisoners which an outsider will find hard to imagine. This influence spread through all the concentration camps and affected all the SS men and the SS leaders who served in them, and indeed it continued for many years after Eicke had relinquished his post as Inspector.[29]

  All the torture and ill-treatment inflicted upon the prisoners in the concentration camps can be explained by this “hate indoctrination.”

  This basic attitude toward the prisoners was exacerbated by the influence of the senior commandants such as Loritz and Koch, who did not regard the prisoners as men, but as “Russians” or “Kanakas.”

&
nbsp; The prisoners were of course not unaware of this artificial hatred that had been whipped up against them.

  The more fanatical and stubborn among them were only reinforced thereby in their attitudes of mind. The men of good will, on the other hand, were hurt and repelled.

  It was easy to tell when a new Eicke instruction had been issued to the concentration camp guards. Morale sank at once. Every action of the SS men was watched with fearful alarm. Rumors of new measures came thick and fast. A general feeling of uneasiness filled the camp. It was not that the prisoners feared that some new form of ill-treatment would be meted out to them. Rather it was that the hostile attitude of the greater proportion of the guards and supervisory personnel toward the prisoners became more strongly felt.

  I must emphasize again that prisoners, and especially those in concentration camps, are oppressed and tormented and brought to the verge of despair, far, far more by the psychological than by the physical effects and impressions of the life.

  To most prisoners it is not a matter of indifference whether their guards are hostile, or neutral, or sympathetic. Even though the guard never comes near the prisoner, his hostile attitude and his scowling, hate-filled glance are alone sufficient to frighten, depress, and torment him.

  Time and again in Dachau I used to hear prisoners say:

  “Why do the SS hate us so? After all, we are men like them.”

  This alone makes clear the general relationship between the SS men and the prisoners.

  I do not believe that Eicke personally hated and despised the “dangerous enemies of the state,” as he constantly described them to the men. I am rather of the opinion that his perpetual “cult of severity” had the sole purpose of keeping the SS men at all times on their toes. But thought of the results of this policy, of the far-reaching effects of this deliberate “baiting,” never entered his mind.

  It was in this atmosphere fostered by Eicke that I was trained, and that I bad to carry out my concentration camp duties as block leader, as Rapportführer, and as stores administrator. And here I must make a statement: I always carried out my duties carefully and conscientiously to everyone’s satisfaction. I never indulged the prisoners, and I was firm and often severe. But I had been a prisoner myself for too long not to perceive their needs. It was not without an inner feeling of concern that I observed the “goings-on” in the camp.