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The Most Terrifying Aspects of life in the camps

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The Most Terrifying Aspects of life in the camps

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1. The fact that the prisoners would believe the deplorable lie they were fed: that they were only going to take a shower. The Nazi's lured them in like they were animals, prey to the predator. Then in the "shower" room, as the gas crept in, they realized the truth as the first body falls to its death and they suffocate from the gas that spreads. Any ounce of hope suddenly dies. People scream and cry and attempt to get out by climbing the walls, only to meet more pain as their fingers break. And those that didn't die from the gas had to suffer through more agony as they burn alive in gasoline.

2. A hospital, meant to treat the sick with medicine and bring them back to health was in reality a selection of who would die and who would live. After doing many jobs for the Germans and committing to their jobs in fear of the aftermath if they disobeyed, the toils their bodies took weren't given treatment at the "hospital," but instead were signed off as a liability and so sentenced to death.

3. Millions of the victims in the camps were children. They had to endure a beyond difficult experience. A time in a child's life that should be spent in joy was spent being mentally, physically, and emotionally abused. And children of Jews were specially targeted so they wouldn't grow up to be a "threat" in any way. Children are seen as the hope of the future, and the life of Jewish children only meant another Jewish population. So they had to experience the horrid camps, then die. They were born with joy and happiness, and only lived a couple of years because Nazi Germany believed them to be less than human.

And it was all a gradual death of the mind, body and soul. Then life left their eyes and their soul left their body in a demeaning way, and they were eradicated thoroughly.

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People really believed it was a place for showers, so they were told.

The prisoners would be taken to a big room to undress their clothes. Every body would crowd inside the shower room, the door closed hermetic, lights turned dark. Zyklon b, a pesticide dropped into hollow columns.  After about 3-30 min, depending on how much gas they put, bodies would drop. Piles of bodies lay next to the door the prisoners tried to get out of.

Workers pulled the bodies apart with hooks. Big piles, with the strongest on top, older ones and babies crushed below. Skulls were often smashed. Fingers were broken from trying to climb the walls. Arms as long as bodies, pulled from the sockets.

They pulled the bodies with an elevator up to the ovens - many ovens - and each one they burned 2 or 3 at a time.

Those that finished in the gas chambers before they got pushed in the graves were lucky ones. Other ones jumped in the graves while they were alive. Then, they got gasoline poured all over them, dead or alive. They burned.

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Each week, the workers got 3 cigarettes. If a worker doesn't smoke, they could exchange it for bread.

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It was hard to do their everyday tasks and jobs, but to go to the hospital was much worse. You could easily not come out again. There was no medicine, just a place full of prisoners, to sick to go to work.

They looked to see if there was any pimples or sores on the body and If eating no food made you skinny. The doc chose the weaker ones to go and die.

If healthy, test passed you through and gave you another uniform until the next selection.

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Prisoners couldn’t talk with the guards. The guards believed the prisoners  were “below their dignity.” Jews were not considered men.

If you got in trouble, you were beaten.

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Serving food from the kitchen (mostly women)

tinmen:

- had to take out the fan and pipes for ventilating in the gas room.
- Some of the tinmen from Auschwitz would march to birkenau to fix roofs and do work there.

room cleaner

Digging graves for bodies

Special workers worked there separately. They Got better bread. But after a few months, they were sent up to the chimney to die.

“beitnach-zieher” A bed-after puller which consisted of Fixing beds. The guards wanted everything neat and in good order.

Shoemakers

black work (carrying big stones back and forth and digging holes. If you stopped for a minute to breathe, you got hit in the head hard)

laundry

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The prisoners would ask each other about the sight of their loved ones and their health.

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Two Auschwitz camps: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II (Birkenau), which is bigger and a couple miles away from Auschwitz I.

Auschwitz I: 20, 000 prisoners. A camp where they gave you work so they didn’t finish you so fast.

Auschwitz II (Birkenau) - five times Auschwitz I number. 800 people in a building made for 50 horses. “A death place with Jews waiting for gas.”

"Arbeit Macht Frei" - "Work Sets You Free"

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Each morning and evening, the guards made an Appeal. They counted the live and dead ones to see if there wasn’t any missing. Sometimes, the prisoners stood the whole night as they counted again and again.

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For breakfast, they got a bitter drink made from roots. Spiegelman would wake before everybody so he could use the toilet and find some tea left.

One time a day, they got soup from turnips.

To stand near the front of the line was no good, you would only get water.

Near the end, solid things from the bottom would float to the top.

To far in the end, was no good, too. There was a chance of no soup being left.

Once a day, they would get small bread that was “crunchy like glass.”

They got one brick of flour mixed with sawdust that should last a full day. Most gobbled it up instead of saving it for later.

In the evening, spoiled cheese and jam.

If they were lucky, a couple of times a week they would get sausage that was “big like two fingers.”

food: "If you ate how they gave you, it was just enough to die more slowly.”

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Trade and exchange items for needs                                                                                                                                 

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Trade and exchange items for needs                                                                                                                                 

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They traded and exchanged items like food and clothing from the people who came from outside and weren’t prisoners.

In Maus, the prisoners would exchange and trade with the specialist building workers that came to the prison but weren’t prisoners. E.g “I can get you a gold watch for a pound of sausage and 6 eggs.”                                                                                                    The laundry guy from Auschwitz was a guy Vladek Spiegelman had known before the war. Spiegelman got civilians clothing from him and wore it under his uniform clothes. He was so thin, guards didn’t see if he wore extra clothing.