My experiences in Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar until September 1938
I must first of all explain that this deals with facts that hundreds more have seen and experienced as well as me.
I was taken from my flat at half past 6 one morning by three Stapo officers; when asked they said it was for questioning. I was taken to the Polizeipräsidium where to my astonishment I saw c. 200 people. I had to give my personal details to an officer and sign a Schutzhaftbefehl. On the same evening I was transported to Weimar in a Sammeltransport-Sonderzug under military guard with dogs.
It was 5 o’clock in the morning. To the left and right of the platform police officers were standing with weapons at the ready. We were met by SS. There was a hail of kicks and blows from rifle butts. We had to stand in the platform tunnel facing the wall and it was announced, “You are prisoners of the concentration camp and anyone who moves will be shot.” Then we were loaded onto lorries that were standing ready, and again it was said that anyone who dared to even move their head would be shot by the armed guard standing at the back of the lorry. The journey lasted c. 30 minutes.
We could see nothing of the region we were driving through.
Here too at the entrance we were again met by SS guards with weapons under their arms. As old people could not keep up, the SS helped them along with rifle butts. We went through the camp gate, over which stood a slogan, “Recht oder Unrecht – mein Vaterland” [My country – right or wrong]. We had to strip naked, even though it was cold and wet. Then we dressed in prison uniform. Then our heads were shaved like the commonest criminal; after that we had to report for duty and do military drills, from which as early as this there were the first deaths, because many elderly men suffering from heart disease could not keep up this pace. It was like this for the first and second day, without a break and without any food.
We first received something to eat on the third day, namely half a litre of warm food and a two-kilo loaf of bread between five men. On the fourth day the prisoners were divided up for work. The Jews were used for the heaviest work. They went to the so-called quarry.
The day was divided up as follows: half past 3 wake up, then acorn coffee, at half past 4 Appell and after that march to work, i.e. in gangs. Each gang had a Vorarbeiter, who was from the Berufsverbrecher category. He had power over us, over life and death. These gentlemen drove us with a club, under the supervision of the SS guards of course, who witnessed every gang at 5 o’clock in the morning. The Herr Vorarbeiter and SS guards were responsible for the workload being maintained, which naturally was particularly difficult with the diet and unfamiliarity of the physical work. Thus every day various people were left lying dead. Shooting at so-called living targets was popular, in other words if a worker did not comply he was chased across the so-called cordon, then of course he was “auf der Flucht erschossen” ; others were battered to death with a rock or were literally beaten to death.
The camp itself was surrounded by an electrified barbed wire fence, with a tower with machine gun posts every 50 metres. By day in addition to this there was another cordon round the area of the camp.
One day the Lagerkommandant announced that the haulage gangs from the quarry, which had carried everything using four (men) with a litter on their shoulders until the beginning of June 1938, now had to carry the same and more using two. This of course was no longer carried on the shoulders but in both hands; however people now went down like flies as it was not permitted to take a break whilst working. The strength in the hands fails very quickly if c. two to three hundredweight have to be carried by two men a distance of two to three kilometres, and the result was that people did not comply and of course were considered to be Arbeitsscheue and refusers and were punished accordingly. I will come back later to the details of these punishments. In order not to fall foul of these measures, people tied their hands to the litters with rope in order not to attract attention, and preferred to let their hands be pulled out. When we had unloaded we had to return to the workplace or loading bay at the double. I myself sustained a hernia and torn lung through this inhuman work. As the food was only inadequate, strength very quickly ebbed away, and many died from exhaustion. There was no aid. People were so weary that at every Appell after work 30% of all the prisoners collapsed with exhaustion. These people were made to stand up again by means of cudgels, or they were dead.
Incidentally in the camp we had to sign to say that we are Arbeitsscheue Jews and that we have signed this voluntarily.
Now I come to a chapter, this is the so-called house punishments of the concentration camp. Anyone who has also seen and experienced these could believe that they had been transported back to the most gruesome dark ages, but it has to be accepted that back then it was not as bad.
First of all there was corporal punishment for the following misdemeanours:
- for incomplete workload,
- for talking at work,
- for drinking water at work,
- forgetting to salute a foreman or similar,
- for collapsing at Appell, not standing to attention,
- or one has not pleased a guard.
Then the number of the prisoner was written down and he was punished without interrogation. The Bock stood on the Appellplatz. The offender was pulled onto it by three SS men, one held his mouth shut, the second and third struck on the buttocks alternately from left and right using a leather club stuffed with lead pipe, c. 25-30-50 times [25 vorm Arsch] according to the severity of the punishment.
In many cases the people were dead or unconscious; if still alive, they had to pull their trousers down in order to show the commandant the holes in their flesh. Their lordships were so perverted. If a Jew died in this way, then the others were given notification that he had received a free ticket to Palestine.
A further punishment, which was also usually fatal, is “Baumhängen". Every day 50-100 prisoners could be found tied to the trees. The hands were tied backwards round the tree and the body was hung 10 cm. off the ground, legs tied together. The cries of these prisoners could be heard for kilometres, until they lost consciousness and then slowly died.
During my imprisonment one prisoner was also publicly hanged in front of 15,000 prisoners. This man had tried to escape with another man and battered an SS guard to death. One of them escaped to the Č.S.R. [Czechoslovak Republic], but the other one was apprehended at his mother’s home. In the yard, or on the Appellplatz, a gallows was erected that is still there today; the offender was executed by one of the prisoners who had been chosen for the task. The body was left hanging for 24 hours, and the whole camp, i.e. all the prisoners, had to stand on the Appellplatz for a long time in order to watch everything.
A further punishment was “An-der-Mauer-Stehen": from 5 o’clock in the morning until 9 o’clock in the evening the person being punished had to stand on one spot and look at a white wall.
The worst was when someone had been asleep during work or had made an attempt to escape.
The offender was locked in a chest one square metre in size, which had barbed wire all round inside. The chest was placed in the sun and the prisoner fed with salted herrings for three to five days until he died.
There were no beds or similar; we were informed that we (Jews) had not earned any. We merely received two rough woollen blankets and slept on the ground. In one barrack (known as block) 4-500 people were crammed in, worse than sheep.
On Sundays the Jews got nothing to eat. People who were physically stout were specially picked on. They were hounded until they were dead or committed suicide.
The hygiene facilities were appalling. There were no lavatories or running water. Pits were arranged up to 20 metres deep, poles were placed across them, and there the call of nature was answered. It so happened that there was an outbreak of dysentery, people were so weak that they died as there was no aid.
If anyone had done it in their trousers, then he was reported by the block guard and then punished in the following way. A square box was filled with water, the prisoner got in and was scrubbed down with a besom, i.e. the skin was literally pulled from his body, and by the next day the patient had died. Over 50% of prisoners died during my imprisonment, i.e. from my block, in which there were 450 men. The camp was first built during my time. Elderly men died usually all as a result of exhaustion or the previously described conditions.
I am ready at all times to describe the conditions in more detail and to swear under oath in front of a commission.
A prisoner from the Buchenwald concentration camp.
The inmates call it Totenwald.
