There are people whose look speaks of the fear of death when they open their lips. Dread resonates in their words when they are able to free their hearts from experiences that are almost impossible to render in human language. They are prisoners released from German concentration camps. A few of them were able to return to the light of life after weeks or months, because they or their relatives managed to emigrate to some distant country. Verifiable emigration is the only key which enables the gates of the concentration camps to unlock outwards. Few are able to get hold of this key because almost every gate in the world is being bolted against emigration. Even the small South American countries today demand proof of larger or smaller payments from the emigrants. Namely the foreign currencies that are so scarce in Germany. Despite this, one or another prisoner can still be freed through acquisition of the necessary emigration papers and money.

On leave – not released!

Upon release from the concentration camp the prisoner is first handed over immediately outside the camp gates to Kriminalbeamte who receive him. None of those is allowed to enter a concentration camp. Protected from any gaze, the Totenkopfverbände of the SS reign alone. If the prisoner returns to his home town he is issued with a fixed deadline by when he must have emigrated. Up to that day he must register daily with the police. Thus as long as he continues to breathe German air he is further placed under the heaviest psychological pressure. When the day of release arrives he is told: "You are not released, you are only on leave. The arm of the Gestapo is long! You are forbidden to recount in the slightest to anyone what you have experienced or seen. You are forbidden to show your body to anyone! Otherwise you will lose your life! Our international organisation is sufficiently large and powerful to carry out your punishment anywhere in the world."

Those released prisoners find themselves under this dreadful pressure; the following picture can be compiled from their harrowing reports. Consideration for them makes it a human obligation to use these with greater prudence and blurring all traces. The information that our individual informants provided has been carefully checked and compared for accuracy and reliability. There can be no doubt about the truth. If someone asks himself whether such a situation is possible in the centre of Europe, inside a country with an ancient culture, then one must unfortunately answer that these reports and words are anyway only able to render an inadequate picture of the horrifying truth. In fact things happen day after day that even a satanic vision could not imagine. However, in order to remain faithful to the truth at least to some degree, terminology must be presented in what follows that the half-civilised person does allow past his lips, but which is the language of the concentration camps and their personnel. Le style c'est l'homme [the manner reflects the person] – applies here too, although the term "person" seems to be missing.

June 1938

Several things were published about the German concentration camps in the first two or three years after the formation of the Third Reich which aroused the world's horror. Then it gradually went silent about these. One believed they dealt with incidents, outrages from the first revolutionary phase of National Socialism. One thought that with the consolidation of National Socialist power this worst form of terror had been slowly liquidated, one accepted that with the successes of the Hitler government internally and externally and with its stabilisation, those elements would be gradually eradicated on whose account the inhumane incidents of the years 1933-35 had been made. This belief is erroneous! This is alarmingly proven by the summer of 1938. From 13th to 20th June 1938 a wave of arrests gushed spontaneously and unexpectedly over the whole Reich, bringing fear and horror in countless homes. During that week Jews and non-Jews day after day were dragged from their beds at the crack of dawn by Kriminalpolizei officers. Nobody knew why or wherefore. Everyone felt themselves to be in jeopardy. Many no longer dared to sleep in their homes, some went away. For the first three or four days of the operation the standpoints from which the arrests were undertaken were completely opaque. The picture gradually emerged that those with previous convictions could be taken into Vorbeugungshaft in accordance with a decree from the end of 1937 of the Minister of the Interior. The precondition for arrest was a sentence of a very minor level, often some sort of police punishment for violating closing time, a traffic offence or something similar. The wave of arrests hit randomly in one form or another, but anyway people who if they were to blame for something had atoned for it long ago. The "Sonderaktionsjuden" were processed with particular sharpness; however almost no one knew why his arrest happened, let alone which dreadful consequences it would have for him. One learnt next to nothing about the fate of those arrested. The anxious worry of uncertainty weighed on their families. Then it gradually seeped out that those arrested were taken first to local police officers, for whom they had to write down a curriculum vitae, and then on from there to the gloomy, red, imposing building of the Polizeipräsidium on Alexanderplatz in Berlin, the casemates, halls and "bunkers" of which were filled ever tighter with living prey. The same is true of the Polizeipräsidien of other big cities. A few – very few – of the arrested were released again very soon, be it because they could produce papers concerning their impending emigration or because of particular conspicuous physical disabilities, e.g. one-armed or one-legged war wounded; but also by no means invariably so for such disabled. Eerie activities, comings and goings dominated in those nights and days in the red building on Alexanderplatz. In the yard the rumbling of lorries overloaded with their prey did not cease. Rooms designated and equipped with "Schlafpritsche" beds for 20 to 30 prisoners were tightly jammed with a hundred or more men who awaited their fate in highest nervous tension. It was not long before they would learn of it. They were allocated to replenishment of the concentration camps.

In the week beginning Monday 13th June, transport after transport departed there. No kind of escape existed any more. In one of the transports on 17th June was a man who during imprisonment at Alexanderplatz had prayed incessantly by himself as a devout Jew. Now, at the moment of departure, he lost his strength. He fell to the ground jerkily with severe heart spasms. Fellow prisoners turned to the police overseer and showed him the man, who was completely unfit to be transported, begging him for a doctor. The overseer still possessed sufficient humanity to enquire of his superior. His decision was negative, however. Even this man had to be transported, lifted and propped up by his comrades in fate, in the transport vehicle which could barely contain the number of inmates ... This one example should serve in the place of many and illustrate the style and form of this operation.

The world has already heard something of the concentration camp in Dachau and its horrors. It is known that since the coup in Austria it serves primarily for prisoners from Vienna and Austria. But now two new names of concentration camps emerge, about which the public has heard little until now. It seeps out that the transports of those whose freedom has been stolen without a judge's decision mostly trundle in the direction of Weimar, once the city of the highest German culture, and to the vicinity of Berlin, to Oranienburg. The two names, responsible for unutterable sorrows and many, many, tears, are: Buchenwald near Weimar and Sachsenhausen near Oranienburg.

If the number of deaths resulting from the disturbances in the Sudetenland from 12th to 17th September 1938 totalled 30, then the number of fatalities during the first weeks in these two concentration camps was not less but higher! Meanwhile these have steadily increased from week to week, though not at the same tempo, and by the end of August 1938 accounted for about 150 known cases. But by no means each fatality is known anyway. The full extent of the June Verhaftungsaktion, which the Kriminalpolizei abruptly stopped through two secret orders on 19th and 20th June, is genuinely not known. In any case, according to the statement of population estimated in the camp, Sachsenhausen was filled with about 10,000 men, and this figure can also be a yardstick for Buchenwald. The number of Jews amongst the prisoners there was assessed at 1,500, around 1,000 in Sachsenhausen. In the latter the decrease through fatalities was not so rapid as in Buchenwald where the number of Jewish prisoners declined, mainly through death and partly through release, to around 1,200.

RM 3.- charge for cremation ashes

Notification of deaths to the unlucky wives or other individuals left behind by the victims probably occurred in the unique form of a police announcement, those involved were only then able to report to police stations to take receipt of the ashes of their husbands in exchange for a fee of three marks. The cause of death was given briefly as "stroke" or "auf der Flucht erschossen". What these words meant is detailed below. This unbelievable valuation of human feelings corresponds exactly to the valuation of a human life by the men in the concentration camps, the executors of the Third Reich. The concentration camp means sentence of death without prosecutor and without judge, slow, agonising, mental and physical destruction full of horrible orderliness, compared to which the implementation of the death penalty of a murderer by gallows, axe or the electric chair is humane.

"We are not humane..."

The transports trundled into the concentration camps in long processions from day to day, packed full of their unfortunate human prey. The executioners were already standing ready to receive them. The first punches, kicks and curses happened randomly and indiscriminately as soon as they jumped off the wagons. Hell had taken delivery of its victims. The spirit of this place was left in no doubt from the speech of the Lagerkommandant, which followed soon afterwards: "You are not in a prison here, nor a gaol – prisons and gaols are humane. We are not humane!" And the motto already fell from the lips of the Kommandant – named von Jananovsky according to his signature – that was to become the red thread running through the days and weeks that would now begin to pull the prisoners, the expression:

"Peng – und Scheißdreck wird weggeräumt!" [Bang – and filth is removed!]

Bang: that was the unerring shot of the SS sentry from his carbine, filth – that means a human life; a lifeless body that is "removed" – and whose alleged ashes a widow can take delivery of in exchange for a RM 3.- fee. Anyway a shot in the heart from the carbine is the mildest of deaths, sought voluntarily by some, in order to be released from the agony that they are unable to bear any more. That is then "auf der Flucht erschossen".

"Zur roten Fahnen" [to the red flag]

Amongst the prisoners it is known as going "zur roten Fahnen". The methods by which they are brought to it are as refined as they are hideous, and it often requires true strength of character to escape this temptation. Examples will follow. However, one case of this strength of character is cited here. It is that of the former doctor in Vienna Dr. Niedermeier, who was the only Austrian prisoner interned in Sachsenhausen, and the subject of exceptional tortures. His "crime" consisted of writing a pamphlet against sterilisation during the Schuschnigg government. Scarcely were these grounds for his arrest known when the SS-Führer of Sachsenhausen built a Laube [arch] as it is known in camp language, around him, i.e. standing in a ring around him, insulting him most dreadfully, threatened him with cutting off his genitals, and levelled him with kicks. Everywhere he showed himself in the camp or at work, his torturers drew each other's attention to him. During work on a shooting range for the SS he was summoned to a high mound of sand and was made to stand with his face towards the assembled SS-Führer and his back towards the slope. Under crude insults and to the amusement of his torturers, the doctor staggered from a dreadful punch to the larynx, so that he fell head over heels, backwards down the slope of the hill. Then he was summoned back up again. He hurried back to the top of the hill, half dazed, and had to stand in the same position. A new punch. Again he toppled down. Again he had to go up. And thus the same spectacle was repeated anew. In camp language this is called "fertigmachen" [preparing] the prisoner. Preparation for the "rote Fahne". These small red flags surrounded the working area of the prisoners, they bordered the so-called "neutral zone" –, which no prisoner was allowed to cross. The SS-guards stood ready to shoot him with loaded carbine "auf der Flucht". Despite the exceptional tortures to which he had be exposed day in, day out, Dr Niedermeier did not cross the line of red flags, which they wanted to force him to do. Because he had thought of his five children. How is he today? Is he still alive...?

A fellow sufferer, one architect Neubauer from Munich, a man aged about 50, was unable to muster the same steadfastness against the tortures. Eventually he chose to go to the red flags, and to receive the coup de grâce. He was subjected to the following process, amongst others, which was occasionally carried out on prisoners: the prisoner in question had to dig a deep hole close to the workshops and get into it. Other prisoners had to fill the hole until only his head was showing, like a cabbage in a field. In this indescribable situation, the SS men threatened him with their revolvers, laid into his head as though it were a target, and carried on their joke with his helplessness and fear of death until he was dug up again.

Clothing

The life, more correctly vegetating, of the detainee begins with the surrender of civilian things and his being clothed in prisoner uniform. The outfit that now forms his clothes is thrown to the prisoner without regard to whether or not it fits him. Small, slender people receive things intended for those of a larger size. Broad and fat receive those for the small and slender. People with a belly – and the majority of prisoners are in riper years, even including some over 70 – are particularly ignored. Each belly particularly evokes the instinct to torture, as does each disability and each weakness. An example: one fat man received a pair of trousers that was much too tight for him and which he was unable to button over his belly with his best efforts. Now he was shouted at: We'll show you, you Schwein, that the trousers fit you. He had to stand with the trousers in front of an SS man seated on a stool and who pushed violently on his belly with a boot whilst other SS men held him from behind.

A music director from Breslau [now Pol. Wrocław] named Rosendorf sank to the ground in misery because of kicks to the belly. The bloody traces left behind by the steel-capped boots could still be seen by other prisoners shortly before his death.

Kicks to the belly with heavy, steel-capped boots, kicks to the backside, so common that the victims were no longer able to sit down from pain, kicks to the calves, red scars which can still be seen weeks after release, kicks from the front and, above all, from behind, are the daily lot of the prisoners. Kicks, kicks, kicks. People die of "stroke" from kicks. People are literally trampled. It happened thus in Sachsenhausen, e.g. that one man lay on the ground, just a lump of flesh, whilst the SS-Blockführer roared and kicked at him to stand up, until one of his inferiors informed him, "the Jewish pig is already dead".

Like the fat people, all those with a disability who have the misfortune of being arrested, and the elderly, less mobile, are also targeted with a particular ferocity. More is demanded from the older people, who have mostly achieved something in life as traders, leading staff, academics and intellectuals in advanced years, than by the strictest army in the world from a young, eighteen-year-old recruit. To be regarded as an "intellectual" is a particular stigma. Those with glasses were especially targeted. The glasses are anyway mostly shattered by the first blows and thumps. There is no replacement for them. The short-sighted one who has now been robbed of his glasses has to suffer particularly, on account of his clumsiness. For every human suffering prompts the SS men's urge for hate all the more strongly. A man with one eye already lost his artificial eye during the first mistreatment after his arrival. All attempts to find a replacement were in vain. Can one imagine this excruciating situation? Can one imagine the excruciating situation of those people whose trusses, which they have to wear for an inguinal or scrotal hernia, were taken away with their civilian clothes and who now have to carry out the unbelievably heavy physical labour regardless of being without their truss? In Sachsenhausen there was a man – he should also be a specific illustration for the totality – with a hand mutilated during the war, somebody who had lost a part of his health and creativity in the war. Here he was given no special consideration, on the contrary! In the concentration camp "in gratitude of the fatherland" consists of an intensified martyrdom. Things went so badly for the man whose right hand had been shot to pieces that he had to report sick after a few weeks.

Doctor or monster?

To report sick is certainly the greatest risk an inmate in a concentration camp can take. If he does so, it only happens in final despair and with the fear of death in his heart. This was so even for that war-wounded man. Prisoners who wanted to report sick had to report to the camp doctor. They were not examined by him in order to determine their illness, they simply had to state their name and illness themselves. The "doctor" at Sachsenhausen stood there motionless and for each one he only made a sign with his thumb, to the left or to the right. To the right meant that the patient would receive treatment, to the left meant: heaviest work! The thumb almost always went to the left. In Sachsenhausen this meant working on the firing range, which was built by the prisoners for the SS troops; anyway the heaviest work, during which the "malingerer" who had wanted to report sick was treated especially severely, was often enough in his state of health to dispatch him to the next world. The doctor's thumb went to the left even for that war-wounded man with the hand shot to pieces. He could scarcely drag himself on the half-hour forced march to the workplace. Finally there, the veteran was forced to carry out the heaviest work of all: digging up the stumps and roots of felled trees. Goaded again and again by curses, blows and kicks he worked, semi-conscious, the long and tortuous hours of a day, which seemed almost without end. The heavy tree stumps, cleared from deep in the ground, were then loaded onto a trailer. The whole work gang made the return march to the camp, the trailer with its heavy load at the head. It had to be dragged by prisoners harnessed at the front like horses. And this at the fastest speed, always ahead of the advancing forced march. Amongst the human draught animals, who wheezed and groaned in their harnesses, was the sick man with the hand shot to pieces. He was literally dragged along, his legs did not carry him, all strength had left him. Thus did the procession enter the camp. At the end of the work day all prisoners had to stand in file in front of the barracks. They had to report at attention for Appell. The man with the maimed hand stood in his row. The last of his strength gave way from his body, he could no longer stand upright and collapsed. Harsh orders, kicks. He had to stand up. One last attempt to stand upright. In vain. He lay helpless on the ground. Senseless rage amongst the superiors. Only a faint whimper could be heard from the small heap on the ground. Wilder kicking, regardless of where they landed. Then the whimpering stopped too. A war-wounded man was literally trampled into the ground at Appell in a concentration camp.

He was not alone...

"the gratitude of the fatherland"

Particular targets of hate were the former front-line soldiers and veterans amongst the Jewish prisoners. It was even denied that Jews had fulfilled their duty with honour during Germany's most difficult time, in the world war. One persecuted them in particular out of the instinctive feeling that one had to justify the relentless antisemitism for oneself, because one refuted such men in comparison with oneself in one's wrongfulness and senselessness. One hated particularly those Jews who had been distinguished by their bravery in the face of the enemy, their Iron Cross or Verwundetenabzeichen was already ripped from the jacket upon arrival in the camp, trodden upon, they were ridiculed, cursed and mistreated. The primitive torturers in their black SS uniforms were unaware that they were simultaneously besmirching German military honour. They lacked any understanding of it. Only the smallest number of these young fellows had learnt about the war. They had only been drilled in the annihilation of an apparent enemy who could not defend itself. But often in the evenings the old front-line soldiers amongst the prisoners stated that they would rather have spent four more years in the hell of Verdun or the barrage at the Somme in the face of the enemy than four weeks in a concentration camp, where the most horrible enemy of all could strike the defenceless in the back at any moment.

The quarry at Buchenwald

In Buchenwald near Weimar the day begins with being woken at three in the morning. The barrack buildings here are still so insufficient that, according to the reports of freed prisoners, they had use sheep pens for sleeping accommodation, where they spent the nights crammed together on the ground. Fatigue from the superhuman work was so great that they were able to sleep, despite the pain caused by their mistreatment during the day. Employment happened here from 3 o'clock in the morning onwards, 13 hours daily of heavy physical work! The worst work that one could be allocated to was work in the quarry, its approach route alone lasted an hour. Quarry work, hewing, dragging, loading and transporting the stone, is the heaviest work probably anywhere. For people from intellectual professions it is intolerable, quickly leads to loss of strength and in the long term to certain death. From this one can easily explain the particularly numerous fatalities at Buchenwald. Apparently the forced labour of the Jews building the pyramids in Egypt is taken as the model here. What went on there in the quarry at Weimar can only be suggested in the following reliably reported incident: a middle-aged prisoner, not strong, had just attempted to heave up a lump of stone with enormous effort. The SS-Führer who was supervising called him and the man dragged himself and the stone over to the guard. He shouted: "You Judensau, are you trying to slack off work? Lifting such a small stone? Give it here and take a larger one" – The man gave the stone to the SS-Führer, who took it in both hands, and walked back to the quarry to use every bit of strength to lift a larger stone. As he bent down the SS-Führer walked up behind him and struck him in the neck with the lump of stone in his hands with such force that the prisoner collapsed forwards silently.

Those who collapse in the quarry and cannot stand up again are grabbed by the ankles by two men and face down dragged back to the camp over sticks and stones, over jagged rocks and tough tree roots. When the body has reached the camp there is definitely no life in it. Dragged to death...

No water ...

In July 1938 and into August an extraordinary summer heat wave sweltered over all Germany. The tortures of the prisoners were further increased through it. Buchenwald is in an elevated position. As already stated, this camp was still very provisionally established and unsuited for the mass billeting that it had to accept during the notorious week of 13th to 18th June. Water had to be pumped from below. The water supply was extremely deficient. The prisoners, who had to perform the heaviest work for 13 hours a day in the blistering heat, were denied the simplest thing required by any living being, drinking water. A torture beyond compare! A full ten days long these unfortunates were without any water whatsoever! The greatest number of fatalities was in those days.

"Life" in the camp

Whilst the day begins in Buchenwald at 3 in the morning and daily work lasts for thirteen hours, in Sachsenhausen waking is "only" at half past 5 in the morning and the work lasts "only" eleven hours. The camp consists of 60 blocks, most of these wooden barracks serve as quarters for the prisoners. A concentration camp is guarded day and night in three concentric circles by a threefold cordon. The outermost barrier externally consists of the electrified barbed wire all around. In between can be found the towers occupied by machine guns ready to fire, as well as searchlights for night which tirelessly spy all over in the dark and miss nothing. Wherever the slightest thing moves at night, the searchlights concentrate their beam and firing begins at the next moment. Daily existence for the inmates in the camp and at the workplaces beyond the camp takes place with the incessant threat of death from the machine guns and carbines. It is hard to imagine the discipline in the camp without experiencing it. Incessant checking of prisoner numbers assembled from blocks happens day after day. Numbers checks in the morning at reporting for duty, counting off for the march to work. Strict check on the march to the camp, new check in the evenings at Appell when the entire personnel is mustered by blocks. Woe if one is missing, if something does not tally! In Buchenwald when something did not tally at the count and the result of the counting compared to the camp population showed that one man was missing, the prisoners had to line up in blazing heat in rank and file and remain standing to attention for twelve hours, according to multiple consistent reports. The unfortunates had to remain standing thus in the position as described, beneath the muzzles of the machine guns without daring to move a muscle. Woe to him whose knees gave in! Even the most natural of human needs was no reason to move from your position throughout the whole time. Sweat dripped from bodies. Muscles failed. It was an outrageous type of torture. The inmates of Sachsenhausen were in the same situation for an hour and a half once when the difference between the count and the official figures differed by five men. Then it transpired after repeated recounting that a gang of five men had not been included inadvertently. This was a terrible warning sign permanently in front of their eyes for the inmates in Buchenwald: one remembers that a long time ago, months before the last Verhaftungsaktion in June, two Buchenwald concentration camp prisoners had killed the SS-Posten [guard] who were supervising them and had fled: one of them managed to reach safety abroad, the other was caught and executed. In the centre of Buchenwald concentration camp, a gallows projected towards heaven, on which hung the corpse of the executed man, preserved through embalming. Day in, day out the inmates of Buchenwald had him before their eyes.

Number checks

Person in front and side alighnment: the alpha and the omega of camp organisation. Person in Front and side alignment, the exact positioning of prisoners beside one another and behind one another in rank and file, which always gives an overview of their complete presence. One was mustered thus in the camp and marched thus to and from work. The speed of the march is extremely fast. It is more running than walking. A continuous run. The perpetual movement without a pause, which does not recognise any fatigue, must choke the people, most of whom were no longer young. The march back to the camp was at this speed after 13 or eleven hours of hard work. No notice was taken of exhaustion. Mistreatment, kicks do for them. Whoever wanted to remain behind was exposed to the heaviest punishments one can speak of, as Arbeitsscheu [work shy]. The prisoners in different categories have badges on their jackets in the shape of triangles of various colours. There are the political prisoners, the Gewohnheitsverbrecher and the Arbeitsscheuen. "Gewohnheitsverbrecher", with a green triangle are the inmates who actually committed a punishable deed, but had served the sentence, so were not now actually in the concentration camp for an offence. "Arbeitsscheue" is the official designation for the Jewish prisoners here. Yet this designation for people who were suddenly wrenched out of their profession, their home, their family by the Gestapo in June 1938, shows the arbitrariness of this measure. Perhaps the following incident is representative of this: in Sachsenhausen a prisoner was called out to appear before the SS-Führer shortly after his internment. He announced himself correctly, as is demanded of all Jews there: "Arbeitsscheue X. (surname) Y. (forename)." He was asked what his occupation was and reported: "For 20 years in a leading, regularly employed position at the Z. firm in H." – a major mercantile undertaking. These are the "Arbeitsscheue"! They wear a brown triangle and for labelling as Jews a yellow triangle too. Both triangles together form the Star of David.

Hygiene

The state of health amongst the prisoners in the concentration camp is a terrible chapter. The food, cooked with a large amount of [bicarbonate of] soda, which has at least improved in quantity recently in Buchenwald, the soup-like consistency of the warm food and the Kommissbrot cause diarrhoea and gastro-enteritis. The number of toilets in the camp is completely insufficient. In Sachsenhausen there were only three latrines for a thousand Jews, who were initially penned up separately from the others. (There is more to say on isolation in Sachsenhausen.) The uniforms that they received subsequently had to be worn by prisoners day in, day out. In the height of summer they were soaked in sweat down to the last thread, in rain soaked through. There is no changing of clothes. At night jackets also serve as pillows. The boots that are also provided often do not fit. In Buchenwald there were initially no boots at all, so the prisoners were forced to wear their ordinary light footwear for marches and work. They fell apart quickly. The prisoners dragged themselves through their miserable existence – always at top speed and pushed forwards by mistreatment and fear – on emaciated feet, with bloody soles and, often, deep sores. Much devastation was caused by the terrible heat in July. Caps were not available for the thousands of newly arrived prisoners. Their heads were shorn bald as though they were in prison. The sun was as relentless as their tormentors. They toiled in its blaze for entire days. For many, terrible sunburn on the head, on the face, and on the hands and arms was the consequence. Their skin fell from them in rags. The pain of sunburn is terrible, and often accompanied by fever and shivering. The appearance of ulcers and boils is widespread. On top of this can be counted the results of their mistreatment, blows and kicks. One sees a lot of infections, above all on the hands, which could have been prevented through a normal level of hygiene. In the sleeping quarters the prisoners were merely given blankets for the night. But in Sachsenhausen e.g. in the blocks for Jews the individual by no means always received the same blanket for sleeping. On top of this it was expressly forbidden to wear trousers and underwear during the night. Thus infectious diseases, boils and ulcers were spread from individual to individual through this exchange of blankets. It has already been explained what it means to present yourself to the doctor and register as sick. Once again one example will serve here in the place of many. A prisoner running a high fever, and who felt himself completely unfit for work, registered himself as sick. The thumb of the doctor in Sachsenhausen went to the left, and so the sick man had to march out with the others to build the firing range, which in Sachsenhausen replaced the quarry at Weimar. Here his "cure" took the following form according to eyewitness reports: he had to drag a heavy tree trunk, which a strong man alone could hardly heave, up the high, sandy hill to the SS guards standing close to the notorious red flags. Then the trunk was kicked down the hill, and once again he had to drag it up the hill, again and again, roughly 50 times! Accompanied by the ever-weakening strength of a man suffering from a fever. In this case, the goal of "Fertigmachen" the man for the red flags, i.e. deliverance by being shot by the SS, was not achieved. Indeed, the SS had their own methods of curing the ill in their terrifying empire, the concentration camps! Naturally, this form of existence often results in patients suffering from so-called lumbago, which has similar symptoms to rheumatism in the shoulders, the back and the neck, as a result of which the prisoners buckled, and are no longer able to stand upright or walk in a straight line. These wretches are not taken to a sick bay and do not receive any medication whatsoever. Even in their terrible state they have to drag themselves to work and do everything required of them. Their black-clad torturers come from behind and force them upright violently. It is no wonder, then, that the few allowed to leave the concentration camp come out as people broken in body and soul, who require months of care and recovery, which the pressures of imminent emigration hardly allow. A Jewish butcher from Berlin who, as his job suggests, had been the incarnation of prosperous and powerful life, was allowed to leave Buchenwald after just a few weeks, with emigration as his main priority. Yet he was now a creature with a heavily bent spine who was unable to walk, but had to crawl on two sticks. A most pathetically miserable sight. Apparently he had sustained a serious back injury from his mistreatment. He went to South America.

Isolation

The isolation of the Juni-Aktion Jewish prisoners during their imprisonment in Sachsenhausen was peculiar to this camp, and the description of this is vital for a full understanding of what happened there. Whilst a concentration camp itself is hermetically sealed from the outside world, the Jewish prisoners of Sachsenhausen found themselves subject to an extra level of isolation, by which they were strictly excluded from the other life in the camp. This isolation and all the increased terrors lasted for six weeks. Whilst the Jewish inmates of Buchenwald were allowed to mix with the other prisoners without special separation when they received their money, which they could use to buy small items, as well as the other items they had during their imprisonment, none of this took place in Sachsenhausen. It was only after the first six weeks that the Jewish prisoners were able to receive their own money or have money sent to them, with which they could buy extra items in the canteen to supplement their diet. It should be noted here that a certain percentage was deducted from each sum they received by the camp authorities, which was retained for the costs of their return journey. So the involuntary guests even had to cover their own travel expenses. The first signs of life from Buchenwald prisoners were received 14 days after their arrest; there they were at least allowed to write to their families in the strictly prescribed framework – naturally that they were well and that swift emigration should be secured – as well as receive post. In this way the name Buchenwald became common knowledge whilst that of Sachsenhausen remained shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Because there, the Jewish prisoners did not even have the least bit of contact with the outside world throughout the entire six-week period of isolation. The roughly one thousand people had to sleep in wooden barracks, which had not been built to cope with such numbers. They had to sleep on the floor, pressed up against each other tightly, with their prisoners' jackets as pillows. The space between their barracks, where they had to report was very narrow and surrounded by barbed wire, where they were made to line up and wait. Smoking, the only solace for many, was impossible, because they had no money with which to buy something. On Sunday, in their few free hours when they gathered closely packed in the tight space between their barracks, they were occasionally able to see beyond the boundary the camp's most famous inmate: Pastor [Martin] Niemöller. He was the only person to be kept in solitary confinement, and walked slowly in circles, smoking a cigar. During the period of isolation, these prisoners were not even able to buy one of the few newspapers which were allowed in the concentration camps. They did not possess even the smallest piece of paper to use when relieving themselves. Everything had been taken from them, even their handkerchiefs. They were unable to wipe the away the sweat that streamed from them during work. They received no field flasks in which to take water with them for work in the searing heat. In this way they were exposed to the same merciless, agonising thirst as their companions in suffering in Buchenwald.

The Vorgesetzte

Yet, who are the executors of this inhumane system in the Third Reich? In the case of the unconditional discipline of the SS it is the Lagerkommandant who sets the tone, and whose will everyone beneath him strives to fulfil. The tone that he gives is characterised by the slogan that has already been quoted: "Peng – Scheißdreck wird weggeräumt." Here, each crude act, each moment of brutality counts as credit, and each man attempts to prove that inhumanity is his strength. The direct Vorgesetzte of the prisoners are actually the Blockführer, SS men who comprise a lower rung in the organisational structure of the camp. The Blockführer stands at the head at the block. Terrible friends! Yet there are also nuances here. There are Blockführer who are relentlessly strict though nevertheless fair, and there are others who exercise their darkest instincts on the prisoners. No human imagination could easily conceive of the kind of things that were possible with them, even after what has been described so far. An example taken from the solitary confinement in Sachsenhausen speaks for the entire system. One night, the inmates of one of the blocks were suddenly awakened. They were ordered to dress and put on boots, and hurry at top speed through a small, narrow door into the eating room next to their sleeping quarters. One prisoner, a 70-year-old man, had to remain lying across the doorway. All the other 150 men had to run over him. The Blockführer stood at the door and distributed kicks and punches to the knots of prisoners trying to get through the door. But beneath their boots lay the 70-year-old man...

Alongside each Blockführer is a Blockältester, himself a prisoner and chosen from them by the Blockführer. He also has the power to give orders. He is also able to hit and often does so. These Blockältester, who for the most part have been in the camp for a long time, have the urge to be liked by those above them, in the hope that this may improve their own situation and might even speed up their release. The majority of these men are political prisoners. A former Communist named Hauer in Sachsenhausen distinguished himself through his foul beastliness. Vorarbeiter who kept watch on outside work were also selected from the ranks of prisoners. They also had the right to mistreat prisoners. Yet few characters resist the temptation of improving their own situation through denunciation and brutality. It is worth mentioning one punishment here that was thought up by one of the Blockältester in Sachsenhausen during the isolation of one prisoner, a singer from Berlin: during the hot summer he had to sleep for six nights on the latrine with the windows closed! Another time, the 150 inmates of the barrack had to spend several hours in rank and file in the dining hall with closed windows in great heat, performing endless strenuous callisthenics until they were soaked through and mortally exhausted. This after a heavy day's work!

Jewish prisoners were also used as Vorarbeiter, singled out to be the Vorgesetzte of their fellow believers. They are mostly subjects suited to this through inferior disposition. One name from Sachsenhausen should be denounced here: that of a certain Julius Woyda. Incidentally, corruption of the daily business occurred through these Blockältester and Vorarbeiter. Money donations were extorted from the prisoners.

It is worth mentioning the partial use of Austrian groups for the guard teams in Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. Some of those sent to Buchenwald were Austrian SA, whilst an Austrian SS-Sturm was sent to Sachsenhausen. They were here to be punished following inadequate discipline in Vienna. In Sachsenhausen the Austrians had to do Strafdienst, i.e. they were occupied the whole day and had no exit whatsoever in the evenings, always only staying in the camp. One can imagine the rage of these men. One can also easily imagine the inhumane ways in which this rage was taken out on the defenceless prisoners.

Camp punishments

All these – the humiliation, the abasement, the trials and tortures, the kicks and mistreatment – all these are by no means punishments in the true sense, but are what one might call the daily bread of prisoner existence. Nor is the "sport", as it is known in camp language, true punishment. The heavy work outside, which consisted mostly of moving earth with spades amongst other things, took place under the sharp gaze of the Vorarbeiter and observed by armed SS-Posten. In addition there were frequent visits by the more senior SS-Führer. The prisoners had to work constantly without respite. Work hard! At work the midday meal was often eaten hurriedly whilst standing. The prisoner was allowed to be as exhausted and distressed as he wished – but woe betide him if he showed traces of exhaustion! These would be pnished harshly. He must not show the least sign of his exhaustion because a terrible hand was always ready to strike him from behind. Exhaustion was regarded as a refusing to be obedient. To revive the exhausted man's willingness to work – sport. "Sport" is e.g. the following: the prisoner must bury a small short stick in the earth and grasp the top in the right hand. Without letting go, in a sideways bent-over posture he must move round the stick in circles like a spinning top. Blows encourage him in this. He rotates in circles around the stick until his senses leave him. Or another sport: the prisoner has to lie on the ground at the top of a slope and roll to the bottom, through sand or mud, and over roots and rocks. At the bottom he must roll to the top of the hill in the same position, and this "sport" continues until he is "prepared". From these two examples one can recognise how creative the fantasies in the sporting area can be in the concentration camp.

Bunker, gallows and Fünfundzwanzig vorm Arsch

As has been said, none of all this is true punishment in the camp. They initiate the progression. For the prisoner, fear, horror stands behind everything that he undergoes and suffers. The "bunker" means confinement. Solitary confinement. But the bunker is not the shape of solitary confinement as we know it: the bare cell with Pritsche for sleeping and stool for sitting. In the bunker, the confined had to spend the time from half past 4 until 9 o'clock in the evening, that is, from waking up until Zapfenstreich, standing upright! Can one imagine what it means to stand up for 16½ hours in a cell? And thereafter with painful limbs to seek an exhausted sleep on the ground whilst shivering? And yet the bunker is perceived as the mildest punishment. More terrible is the "gallows", a punishment applied particularly to Jewish prisoners. One who has heard the slowly extinguishing moans of the man hanging from the gallows will never forget it. The punishment is carried out in such a way that the arms of the prisoner are tied behind him at the wrists, just above the lower back; and in this way he is hanged from a thick post. The pain is inconceivable and only extinguished by loss of consciousness.

"25 vorm Arsch", as it is known in camp language, in the parlance of the Lagerkommandanten and SS-Standartenführer, is the most terrible and terrifying of all punishments. It means that the victim is strapped to a Bock with his face to the ground and is struck on the buttocks with a baton 25 times. The entire personnel of the camp attends in rank and file when this punishment is being carried out. The prisoners only see the heavy thick baton – in Buchenwald they use a so-called bullwhip – rise overhead in a circular movement and then crash onto the victim below. The baton circles once in the air to achieve the strongest momentum. The strongest, most muscular of the SS men are selected for this duty and they replace one another as it is being carried out so that the force of the strikes does not decline. Thus one sees the movement of the instrument of torture but there is no sound to hear. The slightest sound the tortured man gives out results in an extra blow.

This punishment is imposed for apparent infringements of camp discipline, for disobedience, dissent, refusal to obey orders. Obviously no single prisoner makes the slightest effort to resist, or to refuse to carry out the most inhumane orders. Certainly not intentionally and willingly. The prisoner is defenceless, surrendering to every whim. Each will, each human emotion in him is broken and suppressed. He will do everything in his power not to worsen his unfortunate lot and call down upon himself the most horrible punishment. Despite this, corporal punishment is still imposed.

In the terrible June days of 1938 a certain Bartsch from Breslau was brought to Sachsenhausen on one of the first transports. During "reception" – as yet in complete ignorance of the actual laws of camp life – he gave certain answers to certain questions that immediately marked him out as insubordinate. Even on the first day of his stay in the camp the punishment of 25 strikes was carried out on him. As he was unstrapped unconscious from the block the unfortunate man lost speech. But when a question was directed towards him and he did not reply he was prescribed 25 more strikes the following day for further insubordination. Once again 25 blows fell against his martyred, bloody body with merciless violence. Death was his salvation.