camps
The Nazi camp system began as a system of repression directed against political opponents of the Nazi state. In the early years of the "Third Reich," the Nazis imprisoned especially Communists and Socialists. In about 1935, the regime also began to imprison those whom were seen as racially or biologically less, especially Jews. During World War II, the organization and scale of the Nazi camp system expanded rapidly and the purpose of the camps evolved beyond imprisonment toward forced labour and outright murder.
The Daily Routine at Auschwitz (autobiographie)
Every day we were awakened by a German prisoner who served as the block or barrack captain. He woke us at 5:00 or 5:30 each morning. We slept in beds stacked three high and about three feet wide and three feet long. We laid on straw. We were told to get out of the barracks as fast as we could. We lined up and everybody was counted. Then we stood there and did absolutely nothing for quite a while.
We got a little soup at lunch time, around twelve or one o'clock. We got soup or just plain warm water in a metal tin like a mess kit. It wasn't hot. We each had a spoon, and we were fishing all the time in the soup to see if there was anything in it to eat. Unfortunately we could never find anything in there. In the evening we got a slice of bread about a quarter of an inch thick. On Sunday we got something with the bread like a tiny piece of margarine and a slice of salami.
Sometimes I was too sick to eat my soup, but I treasured it so much that I hid that little soup behind my bunk. One day when there was an inspection, the guards found the soup I was hiding. We weren't supposed to have any soup in the barracks. They took me outside and beat me. I passed out after three blows. A friend gave me coffee. He saved my life because I felt so sick I couldn't even move. With the coffee I was able to stand up when the camp officials came into the barracks for the next inspection. Anybody who couldn't move from his bed was taken away.
During the day sometimes, German guards on trucks ran back and forth telling prisoners to jump on. One time I was taken to do a little work carrying steel beams. It was winter time, very cold. Fifteen or twenty guys were lifting each side of the beam because it was a wide beam. Eventually they told us to place it somewhere. But when we tried we couldn't tear away our hands from the steel because they were frozen to the beam. The skin came off and started bleeding. They didn't permit us to put any kind of cloth over our hands. We had to carry it bare. The next day we put this same beam back in the original spot.
We stayed there until the end of 1944 when the Russians started pushing the Germans from the eastern front back to the west. The SS loaded us into cattle cars and took us to a forced labor camp in western Germany called Sachsenhausen. There was no cremato rium, so ft was by far a better feeling. I was there about a month or six weeks.
At the end of 1944 1 was moved again. This time I went south to a German concentration camp called Dachau (Dock-ow) closer to the Austrian border. By this time I was just a skeleton. Shortly after I arrived, camp officials decided it was time to leave. We could hear the machine guns and the heavy artillery booming and they told us to march. The Allies were getting closer. I marched for about five kilometers to Allach which was a tiny little camp. Then I fell. I couldn't walk anymore. The rest of them continued walking. The Germans killed all the people who kept walking. That was the death march. I survived because I could not walk.
The Daily Routine at Auschwitz (autobiographie)
Every day we were awakened by a German prisoner who served as the block or barrack captain. He woke us at 5:00 or 5:30 each morning. We slept in beds stacked three high and about three feet wide and three feet long. We laid on straw. We were told to get out of the barracks as fast as we could. We lined up and everybody was counted. Then we stood there and did absolutely nothing for quite a while.
We got a little soup at lunch time, around twelve or one o'clock. We got soup or just plain warm water in a metal tin like a mess kit. It wasn't hot. We each had a spoon, and we were fishing all the time in the soup to see if there was anything in it to eat. Unfortunately we could never find anything in there. In the evening we got a slice of bread about a quarter of an inch thick. On Sunday we got something with the bread like a tiny piece of margarine and a slice of salami.
Sometimes I was too sick to eat my soup, but I treasured it so much that I hid that little soup behind my bunk. One day when there was an inspection, the guards found the soup I was hiding. We weren't supposed to have any soup in the barracks. They took me outside and beat me. I passed out after three blows. A friend gave me coffee. He saved my life because I felt so sick I couldn't even move. With the coffee I was able to stand up when the camp officials came into the barracks for the next inspection. Anybody who couldn't move from his bed was taken away.
During the day sometimes, German guards on trucks ran back and forth telling prisoners to jump on. One time I was taken to do a little work carrying steel beams. It was winter time, very cold. Fifteen or twenty guys were lifting each side of the beam because it was a wide beam. Eventually they told us to place it somewhere. But when we tried we couldn't tear away our hands from the steel because they were frozen to the beam. The skin came off and started bleeding. They didn't permit us to put any kind of cloth over our hands. We had to carry it bare. The next day we put this same beam back in the original spot.
We stayed there until the end of 1944 when the Russians started pushing the Germans from the eastern front back to the west. The SS loaded us into cattle cars and took us to a forced labor camp in western Germany called Sachsenhausen. There was no cremato rium, so ft was by far a better feeling. I was there about a month or six weeks.
At the end of 1944 1 was moved again. This time I went south to a German concentration camp called Dachau (Dock-ow) closer to the Austrian border. By this time I was just a skeleton. Shortly after I arrived, camp officials decided it was time to leave. We could hear the machine guns and the heavy artillery booming and they told us to march. The Allies were getting closer. I marched for about five kilometers to Allach which was a tiny little camp. Then I fell. I couldn't walk anymore. The rest of them continued walking. The Germans killed all the people who kept walking. That was the death march. I survived because I could not walk.