The first moments of the Auschwitz camp

Transcript of the podcast

“You have arrived not at a sanatorium but at a German concentration camp in which the only way out is through the chimney. If someone doesn’t like this, he may at once go to the wires. If there are any Jews in this transport, they have no right to live longer than two weeks. If there are any priests, they may live for a month, the rest only three months”. This is how the speech given by Auschwitz camp manager Karl Fritzch was recalled by Jan Karcz in his memoirs. Teresa Wontor-Cichy of the Museum Research Center talks about the first moments at Auschwitz, when deportees came into contact with the world of death, terror and dehumanization, as well as factors that could help surviving the camp.

How did the survivors describe their first encounter with the reality of the camp?

The prisoners deported to Auschwitz camp start their stories usually with something that happened before, what led them to be sent to the concentration camp, and that was the arrest if we consider the first prisoners deported to Auschwitz. They were staying in prison, interrogation, which was harsh, brutal, humiliating. In terms of the Jewish prisoners, that was staying in detention camps. For some of them, it was longer period, a few days, maybe over a week. For some of them it was shorter staying, depending on how the transport was announced and organized. Then if we consider Sinti and Roma, who were also deported to the camp with their whole families, before deportation they were gathered in a formal detention camp. And again, the treatment wasn’t very harsh, but the fact of being separated behind the wires was hard for them, was difficult. They didn’t really understood in what situation they are. They were not much explained. Again, a different situation led Soviet prisoners of war to the camp. They were captured during combat, and they were first in camps for prisoners of war, many of them in extremely harsh conditions and being treated very badly by the German supervisors of this camp. Especially those who were coming through very difficult, harsh, brutal, abusing situations, they were saying that it was kind of introduction for what they were going to face in the camp. Of course, talking about this, they having the perspective of their whole story of camp life, but they were stressing the fact that at that very point, they were in a really hard and difficult mental state.

What was the first experience of a person entering the concentration camp?

Taking into consideration the timeline of the different groups deported to Auschwitz, we find in the testimonies, in the memoires information about the speech. The prisoners of the first transport, the Polish prisoners said about the words directed to them usually by some SS officer. The first who started the speech was the camp leader Karl Fritzsch, and he used to say: “You came here to the concentration camp, not to a spa, and you are to work here. If you don’t like it, you can go on a wire.” And then he mentioned three groups: “If there are some Jews among you, you may stay here two weeks. Priests – three weeks. The rest – two months.” More or less those periods but these three groups were mentioned. And as they are honestly saying, at the beginning they couldn’t really figure out much of what those words meant – what it means to go on the wire. Why just these three specific groups? But then the next procedure they had to go through like the disinfection in icy or boiling hot, being pushed, being beaten, being abused constantly for any slight action which was not correct according to the German SS soldiers or the functionary prisoners. So that was their first view of the camp, that they are not a person having name, a surname, they are numbers, numbers they got during this registration procedure. The Jewish prisoners deported to Auschwitz they remember something they were really surprised with, and didn’t know the value at the beginning – that was the selection. The moment that they were separated from their relatives, men on one side of the unloading platform, women on the opposite side of the platform. In some testimonies, we find information that especially those who were fluent in German, they started to ask the soldiers on the platform about what was going on, just questions relating to the situation, and they remember the soldiers answering the questions in a proper way. In some testimonies, we find information about people being forced separated, about screaming, about shots, well, not directed toward people but to keep some order on the platform, dogs barking. So again, brutal, a generally brutal atmosphere and then the moment about life and death. Well, they call it in their testimonies, but in this very situation, it was to go to the right or go to the left. To go to the camp, to have some chance to survive or go to the group which was directed to the gas chamber.

The situation of Jewish deportees is indeed different from non-Jews who do not go to the selection, and the moment that is particularly painful here is the moment when they enter the camp after the selection, and they realized what actually had happened, what had happened with their children, parents, relatives.

Many of them, actually almost all of them, said that that was the first question they had after the admission, after the registration, after being given the number. Where are the other people? They were taken somewhere, and sometimes they were asking the other inmates in the barracks especially, one of the survivors said that he was told in a very harsh even way by the other prisoner: “Look at the smoke out of the chimney, here are your relatives, here are your parents, here are your closest, here are your children.” And they are saying that this moment was devastating for them. They didn’t know, of course, what the smoke was, what the chimney was. The next information, the gas chamber, the crematorium, the selection, mass killing. This information which was thrown at them in the very first contact they were told in a very, very hard way. But then they say that looking generally at their camp life, that was the best way to be told this information. In a harsh and very direct way, just to be told the story from the beginning to the end, not to wonder, not to dream of maybe they were not [killed], maybe they are somewhere. This is what many of them were stressing that was extremely painful, extremely hard, but from their perspective, over 70 years perspective of the camp life, that was the best way.

There are also non-Jewish prisoners in the camp when the function was changing, and when extermination began they also started witnessing process of selection, and they had to figure out what the Germans are doing, and how the camp is changing.

That was at the beginning of 1942. Of course, the prisoners were not explained what are the new constructions, who are the new transports, even the prisoners who were in the registration, in administration, they simply had to follow instructions, and they were very surprised to have to deal with first new prisoners, different prisoners, people who were not going through prisons, through investigation, and first of all, people from all over occupied Europe. Suddenly they were receiving the Slovak Jews, later on French Jews, then Dutch and all the other nationalities, so the atmosphere in the camp, the questions in the camp, changed because the prisoners had changed.

One of the important parts of this first experience, when we talk about people learning or trying to figure out the strategy of survival, is the encounter with the camp’s system, not only barbed wires, not only architecture and buildings but the hierarchy of the camp. On the one hand, the SS men, on the other hand, the functionary prisoners. They needed to learn what it means, who is capable of what and who is responsible for what in a very short time.

The people who were having a really great impact on the survival strategy, SS and functionary prisoners. They were actually all trained on different stages how to make the camp work as an organism, as the institution in unbelievable terror. Of course, not on paper, if we take the documentation from Dachau, the documentation relating to how the SS guards were to be prepared for the service in the concentration camp, is actually nothing wrong, very proper, very correct, but there was something else which was constantly added to each point which was the brutality, which was not punished, which was accepted, even the SS guards were even supported to be brutal. In some opinions of SS guards which survived, we may read the descriptions that they were too weak, they were too mild, they were not behaving as they were towards the prisoners. The other group, which in fact, was having very close contact with the prisoners, were the functionary prisoners. They were also prisoners, but they were chosen, the first functionaries were German criminals, people of different criminal past. Some of them were really dangerous people and some of them they committed some minor crimes, and this is why they ended up in concentration camps but again being selected, being sent from Sachsenhausen to Auschwitz, that was their job to build the structure, to build the system to introduce the brutality, the terror and the fear, constant fear and an unknown future for the prisoners. They never knew what to expect the next day, and that was their job to do. Not only the German prisoners, later on, as the camp was growing more and more prisoners were sent to the camp, they were looking the SS guards, they were looking among the prisoners those who were showing sadistic behaviour and they were given this post.

Can we see a difference when we look at the testimonies, especially about this first impression on entering the world of the camp? The differences between the testimonies of men and women?

In the testimonies we are having, which are available from men and women, there are many differences in terms of entering the camp, and also the strategy of surviving the camp. I would like to mention one which is not so often marked. It’s the relation to family, especially the family that stayed at home, stayed outside the camp, as they were saying. In the testimonies or literature by a men, very often this is not some information they introduce in the first pages or the first sentences of their stories. Usually, it’s just what happened to them, like the sequence of events, and then when they are asked if we talk about the testimonies, they are saying about how much thinking about the family, connection with the family by the letters, camp letters were important for them, how often they were missing them. For example, seeing the families on the unloading platform, the Jewish families. Again, the association with their own children, relatives were coming in an immediate way. In terms of women, this information is coming faster, especially the mothers who left their children at home or those who had some closer relatives left and they were very close to them.

One of the differences I noticed when I was listening to stories of men and women when we talked about the beginning was also the process of registration, especially inside the Sauna buildings where they were shaved and stripped and washed. Men do not really spend so much time talking about this process, for women the humiliation of nudity, of some remarks given by either the functionary soldiers or the SS, the fact that they had to be naked among their families or strangers was very powerful, and here we also see this difference.

The registration, the disinfection for women was very hard, and what’s interesting actually, for all the groups which were registered here in Auschwitz or in Birkenau, the Polish women were talking about the shock that they are to be naked, they are to be shaved by strangers, by men. And all parts of the body were shaved, so again a very intimate and very humiliating moment. Then very shortly, the Jewish prisoners, the Jewish women who were brought here, many of them were from the orthodox families, where again the traditions of body, of undressing were very, very clear and suddenly young women were to undress in front of non-Jewish strange men was extremely hard for them, painful, shocking. For several hours or even days they were barely coping with this shocking situation, and the same reaction was for the Roma people. Again, they were more in to their own group, they were kept separately in the family camp, but they have to go through this procedure, so having the other… Well, they were Roma people, they were not relatives, they were from different families so, for them, nudity and being naked was also very, very difficult and humiliating moment.

Prisoners had to struggle in the camp day by day, and of course, when we talk about the daily life in the camp, we have horrible conditions of life, starvation, violence, fear and slave labour, but also what is important when we talk about the survival chances or survival strategies on the one hand, we have a day which is very structured from morning till the evening. On the other hand, the absolute unpredictability of what is going to happen, what the Germans, what the functionaries are going to do. It made the thinking of how to survive much more difficult.

Actually, each moment of their camp life could bring on some situation which would lead to death basically. The morning routine, the using of the sanitary facilities, if something happened, again the punishment was immediate beating, the wounds appeared, wounds which were not healed, dirty, infection and that was the straight way to death. Then food, officially they were to be given three times per day, some portions of food, but that was not enough for people working so hard from morning till night, and again because of some events, they were refused soup or a portion of bread, so again their physical condition was just going lower and lower. Work in the camp was absolutely the element of extermination, and it has got to very integral part of having the strategy to survive or not having any strategies at all. What was bringing the strategies? Qualifications, their job, something what they had learned before deportation to the camp. The camp needed mechanics, electricians, builders, also strong, healthy men for all the building work, carrying the material, and doing all kinds of very difficult building work. But for those who had a specific skill, mechanics; car mechanics, as they having here, so take care of them, to do all the service, that was the job of the prisoner, job under the roof, job had with better portions, job with more access to sanitation. So, qualifications had a very, very important role. Then the place they were accommodated, the buildings, if they were in Auschwitz I (so the red brick), a little bit better structured with functionary prisoners who were better people, as the survivors are saying some of them were better humans. So, having these people around them again brought a much better chances of survival. In Birkenau, the conditions also affected the strategies to survive. The epidemics which were spreading were extremely difficult to avoid, because that was just the disease which was spreading from prisoner to prisoner. So, that was a combination of many, many circumstances.

There are different reactions of people to this reality, but can we see that there was a moment when people simply became numb, that they stopped reacting. And how could they build this connection with life, to avoid that kind of numbness that again could lead very quickly to deterioration and death.

The survivors are saying that if they did not recover, let’s say it, from the first shock, they started to react in a very indifferent way to anything that was around. Sometimes they thought, well, that’s the strategy to isolate, completely isolate from this reality, but very often it led to not eating in the camp, they say the food was horrible, it was, horrible in terms of taste or quality or the ingredients with minimum calories, but they had to eat something. If they stopped eating, they started to be just completely absent from the surrounding world, and they say they needed very often a person around to shake them a little bit. There is the story which is remembered and repeated very often of two prisoners in the washroom in Birkenau, and one of the prisoner was washing himself, there was finally water in the taps, so he was having just the proper morning sanitation, and the other prisoner was watching him in awe and asking: “Why are you doing this? They don’t want us to be clean, to be washed, to use these facilities, they treat us as slave labour and no interest in our condition.” And his reply was that they all know it because they’ve been in the camp long enough to realize what is the relation, but this is something important for him to retain his dignity, to keep his morning routine, the way, the system, to gather his thoughts, to gather and all his mental abilities for the next part of the day, for the next job, for the next day, for the next week, to keep fighting, to survive the camp, and that was his strategy, just these tiny elements. So, they say that they needed someone from outside to be helped, basically that’s what they have to fight.

What could be those little things that could help people fight for their dignity? On one hand, we know that in the camps, some people could receive letters, for example, from their family, and that could be a very important element that give you strength to keep fighting. On the other hand, we can see many interactions among the prisoners in the camp who were trying to keep some of the aspects of the life from before the camp, and it could also help them to maintain their humanity and their dignity.

Letters were very, very important for the prisoners. They were to write letters and receive letters from their family. Of course, everything in the camp form, so with the information: “I’m healthy and in good shape”, and some general information, nothing detailed about the camp, about their condition, and the same was for the family, very general letter. But they were saying such information like a sentence that someone had a birthday in the family, that something happened in the house or the town, that they are healthy, the family members are healthy – was such a support for them, and again in return, they started to use like a code to inform the family about the camp life, they had to be careful because the letters were censored, so they could be stopped very quickly. Then parcels, in the autumn of 1942 the prisoners were allowed to receive parcels from home.

Not all of them, of course.

Yes, the same was with the letters, only the Polish prisoners or the political prisoners from countries which were under German occupation they could receive letters. The Jewish prisoners were not to receive any correspondence or parcels.

Also the Soviet soldiers, also the Sinti and Roma prisoners, there was just this contact that was not available for all the prisoners. But in terms of parcels, they were quite a challenge for the relatives. We need to remember that Poland was under German occupation, German control, so the shortages of all products for all the society, food rations. So, to make parcels with the food which can last for a little bit longer was so difficult. One of the survivors remember parcels from his parents. He was their only child living in Warsaw, a teenage member of the resistance movement. So, the parents were sending him parcels, and his father was making the box himself trying to make the parcel will not be smashed, not ruined. So there was a special system of paper and wooden elements which was to keep the parcel as a whole. Then the products for example: they were trying to send him something he could spread on the bread, some kind of fat with some pieces of meat. So, it was put in a little glass tube, again protected, seeing this great care of the relatives was so supportive, was so important and kept them running, kept them fighting for the next day in the camp.

What about the life of prisoners and their interactions?

The survivors say that usually, in the camp they were mixed, people with different languages, different religions, different origins and what happened was that they started to learn the languages of one another. Of course, not everywhere, not all the prisoners needed to or wanted to learn some foreign languages. But I remember a survivor from Slovakia, a Jewish survivor, and when we met, she started to talk to me in Polish, really nice Polish in terms of grammar, pronunciation. So I asked her: “How did you learn the language?” And she said: “My teachers of Polish were the prisoners from Warsaw,” so this is how they learned. They were learning also French and Hungarian. Then the other element, which was the interaction of the prisoner, was something what they were coming to the camp with, like education and literature, something that is really surprising when we analyse camp life. The prisoners sitting in the evening in the barracks and together saying poems. Poems they remember from school. Even more, those who were talented in poetry, they were making new poetry and teaching the others, so again, some of them remember to the end of their life these poems they were saying in the camp together. Of course, poems were related to their lives, sad, but again for them that was the unity, that was the support. In the camp hospital for example, where sometimes there were some people connected with education like professors at universities, professors of literature or history. So some of the survivors remember in the evening being introduced to short lectures about history, about literature, and for them it was to get the mind, to get them thinking out of this reality, a moment of relief, a moment of being in a different way of thinking. This support was very, very important and remembered by the survivors.

We’ve already touched upon it a little bit. You mentioned the work experience of some prisoners that could give them better chances of survival because of what they brought with them from the time before the camp. Are there any other individual features, maybe spiritual, maybe physical, that could help people to struggle and to survive in the camp?

Some survivors say that actually the work, the place they were sent for, was just the first step to survive the camp. If that was a good unit, you might have a chance to survive, if you at the beginning you were thrown into some cruel situation little chances to get out of it. And some of them learned that in the very first moment they tried to find a place, to fight for a place, for example, carpentry – work under a roof as they say, so indoors and with some material equipment: tables, chairs, wardrobes, some furniture which was essential for the camp existence, so they needed carpenters. And one of the prisoners, he was a journalist, he was a person who could write, but, in his life, his relative had a little carpentry experience, so he at least knew how to handle the tools needed, so when they called for new carpenters, he, of course, raised his hand that he was a carpenter. He was taken for a kind of test, an exam, and it was clear that his skills were very limited, but somehow because of a good functionary prisoner, he was accepted for this commando, and he did his best, he was learning very quickly how to help, how to be helpful to the carpenters, the real carpenters, to stay in this unit because that was his way to survive. The survivors are saying the longer they managed to stay longer in the camp because they learned the new skills quickly, the new elements, even the slightest idea of some work could save them. In terms of women, the situation was much more complicated because many of them as the social, the cultural view of women at the beginning of 20 th century, as we talk about the society at the beginning of 20th century was for women to take care of the family, to be tied with the housework, so not many of them had a real job, a real profession. So, this is why the employment for them was limited, so as long as they learned how to deal with the office work, with keeping some documentation in terms of the registration, that was again a chance for them to survive.

Another element which also get very important role for survivors was their religion, and again the tradition they had due to religion as they were saying a prayer, something what they did most of their lives. They started the day with a few words, few sentences of prayer or in a moment of some difficulties again, they directed their thoughts and their emotions to some religion which brought them relief. They could not save them from the difficult situation, but their emotions were calmed, and then also some links were established because of religion. The prisoners were looking for the chance to pray together, and actually, all religions, the Christians, the Jewish prisoners, again they were gathering together to have a moment of prayer together. They were looking for company, for some people around them, and again, in a tiny but a very emotional way, it supported the prisoners. Another thing also remembered by the prisoner was again a thing which related to their past was, for example, physical activity like sport. Many sports people, some of them even champions, Olympic champions, were sent to the camp. And to try to do physical exercises daily, not to lose their condition, their strength helped them. Maybe not in a way that they could be a champions again, but it was something like a rhythm, a routine, something that keeping them out of the camp reality and their way of survival.

Many of these prisoners were sent to the camp because of their political views of their activity in organizations. So naturally in the camp they could find some people with the same views and talking, being around them. This is how the resistance movement in the camp was also organized in a very active way. Helping the other, sending messages outside, build some links among them, that was another very important part of the camp reality and the surviving the camp reality.

I think we need to remember that in the reality of the concentration camp, prisoners in fact, did not have much control over their survival. We need to remember that this was the world that was supervised by the SS and by the functionaries, and this unpredictability that we mentioned was very important, so a lot of the survival depended on luck.

I remember once talking to a survivor, and because we knew each other for quite a time this question was easier for me to ask, the question in her opinion, why she managed to survive. I say this because that was very difficult to ask many of the survivors, so this kind of closer relation helped, and she was saying: “I wasn’t the strongest.” She was a teenager when she was taken to a camp and physically, she was rather a small person. “I wasn’t the wisest either not much education, but I managed to survive, I was basically lucky”. This is what she considered her survival, “I was basically lucky”, having around her women of a more physical or intellectual chances to be found somewhere, to be sent for some work, and they were gone, they were disappearing shortly because of diseases, because something happened in the unit they worked, and the whole unit was punished what led them to death. And also the evacuation, which was marching for kilometres, was so difficult for the prisoners. So seeing that many people around her who were gone so quickly that was her opinion, not only her, many other prisoners were saying the same. Some of them are saying that it was actually a combination of luck and the circumstances, the people you’ve got around you. As the survivors are saying, “I wasn’t the wisest”, so she could not realize the situation, could not judge the situation in a proper way, but there was someone next to her, friendly who could help, was pushing her into this particular unit or this part of the barrack to stay, and it helped. That was the chance for her, for him.

This is, I think, something we need to realize when we talk about the individual person and their time in the camp, there are so many factors that we need to take into consideration when we look at the person’s struggle in this world that basically, having them all together means that they had luck in this sense.

They had luck in this sense, but each luck was having kind of story, which brought them, which led them to the fact that they managed to survive.