Langbein Hermann. People in Auschwitz

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

ss misconduct. For example, one of those women drew his attention to the

cruelty of the guard Irma Grese.

Höß writes the following about these women, whom the ss liked to call

Bibelwürme (Bible worms) or Bibelbienen (Bible bees):

They worked as maids in the homes of ss families with many children, in

the house of the Waﬀen-ss, and even in the home of leadership trainees,

but primarily in farming establishments. They did not need to be super-

vised or guarded and did their work industriously and willingly, for that

was Jehovah’s commandment. Most of them were elderly German women,

but there also were a number of young Dutchwomen. I remember a young

Polish woman as well. For two or three years I had two older women in my

home. My wife often said she could not take care of everything better than

these two women. There also were some strange creatures among them.

One worked for an ss leader and anticipated his every wish, but as a mat-

ter of principle she refused to clean uniforms, caps, and boots—anything

connected with military matters.

A Jehovah’s Witness was block elder in the staﬀ building. When Julia Sko-

dova spent her ﬁrst night on the block, this elder,whowas named Mizzi, came

to her room and said in her Viennese German, ‘‘Gute Nacht, Kinder!’’ (Good

night, children!). In that environment those friendly words seemed like a ca-

ress. Benedikt Kautsky observed that in some Jehovah’s Witnesses loyalty to

their beliefs intensiﬁed to the point of a deliberately fostered martyrdom.

n There was another group that was able to play a special part by virtue of its

ideological solidarity. It came to Auschwitz as a uniﬁed group with previous

camp experience and was housed in Birkenau under less unfavorable condi-

tions than most companions in misfortune. They were Zionists who had been

transferred from Theresienstadt to the family camp in Birkenau.

A young man fromGermany who had stood out inTheresienstadt was char-

acterized by the chronicler of that camp, H. G. Adler, as a ‘‘physical education

instructor and somewhat dictatorial male hero of young inmates, who was

with his Zionist idealism, at least in the early period, the inspirational model,

particularly of the smaller children.’’ Nina Weilova, who had been deported to

Theresienstadt at the age of ten, met this young man, who was named Fredy

Hirsch, and describes him as follows: ‘‘There was no one who was so self-

sacriﬁcing and devoted himself to the children as much as he did.’’ In the

familycamp Hirsch was given the function of a camp capo because, according

to his co-worker Hanna Hoﬀmann, his ‘‘personality and appearance suited

and even impressed the Germans from the beginning.’’ Hoﬀmann mentions

his elegant, always dapper appearance, his shrill whistle, and his Prussian

244 n the prisoners

discipline. Jehuda Bacon conﬁrms that ‘‘he looked goodand always wore clean

clothes.’’

Fredy Hirsch used the impression he made on the camp administration to

the advantage of theyoungpeople in the familycamp and managed to secure a

block for children between ages eight and fourteen. Hanna Hoﬀmann writes:

Until then, thechildren were housed in various blocks together with elderly

and sick inmates, and no one paid any attention to them. Their only ac-

tivity was the roll call, and they disturbed the ‘‘discipline’’ of the block.

Fredy picked out a few young peoplewho had already participated in educa-

tional activities in Theresienstadt....Withtheirhelpheclassiﬁed the 700

children who had up to then been mere numbers according to age and lan-

guage. He procured for the children better food, which was brought to us

from the Gypsy camp.Thanks to his good connections, he managed to ob-

tain for the children’s block some of the packages that arrived in the camp

and did not reach their addressees—for example, those who had already

died.

After Hirsch had managed to convince the camp administration that it was

important for the children to learn German, a school of sorts could be estab-

lished. ‘‘Of course, anything but German was taught, and only a few German

sentences were drilled into the children just in case German visitors came to

the block,’’ writes Hanna Hoﬀmann. ‘‘We always had to be on guard. The ss

frequently came to see how the children were doing and what they were learn-

ing. We taught sociology, Judaica, and so on in Czech. Then the children had

to stand at attention and read oﬀ German poems for the ‘guests.’ It was due

to the exemplary order in the block under Fredy’s direction that the ss was

pleased with it and frequently showed it oﬀ to the heads of other camps as a

curiosity.’’

Otto Kulka, who was ten and a half when he lived in the children’s block,

said at a later date: ‘‘At that time I learned about Thermopylae and the story of

the Maccabees.’’ A chorus practiced, and a children’s opera was performed. ‘‘I

didn’t know whether that was a kind of heroism or an absurd action,’’ writes

Kulka.

The teacher Hanna Hoﬀmann has mentioned the diﬃculties that impeded

instruction under the conditions of Birkenau. Added to the space shortage

and the lack of books, paper, and pencils was the fact that many children had

never had any regular schooling: ‘‘In experience they were as old as we were

and beyond that much more skeptical and even cynical, because in their short

life they had had few opportunities to see anything good and beautiful. They

could not believe in anything—or rather, they still believed in one thing: the

omnipotence of the chimney that was smoking right in front of their eyes.’’

Resistance n 245

An exhibit of playthings made by the children was organized, and Hoﬀ-

mann remembers that it was ‘‘greatly admired’’ by the ss. A girl decorated the

children’s block with pictures from Disney’s Snow White, and ‘‘subsequently

she became the sweetheart of our future camp elder.’’ This decoration had

other consequences as well:

At the request of the Germans,whowere impressed withthe pictures, Fredy

and the children rehearsed Snow White in German and performed it for the

Auschwitz notables. We had to contend with great obstacles, for we had to

make the stage, the scenery, and the costumes out of straw pallets, tables,

stools, and clay. Staging this play took months.We overcame the linguistic

diﬃculties, too, and the performance was a great success. Thanks to this

performance, at least in part, thesscamp leader made a second block avail-

able as a day home for children aged three to eight and permitted mothers

with children under ten and nannies to be housed in a separate block.This

materially eased our work. We could now supervise the children in the eve-

ning and at night as well and were better able to prevent the children and

their parents from bartering with the children’s soup.

This ghostly idyll in the tempestuous sea of Birkenau was cruelly destroyed

when the six-month grace period for the Theresienstadt transport expired.

Even though it was bruited about in the camp administration that the mem-

bers of this transport were being transferred to a labor camp,wild rumors, in-

cluding optimistic ones, circulated.This happened in March 1944, and Hanna

Hoﬀmann recalls that many prisoners hoped for a speedy end of the war. To

be sure, she writes: ‘‘The only thing that gave us pause was that Fredy, who

was among the best-informed inmates, walked around with a somber face,

but it was impossible to get anything out of him.’’

Information about the impending extermination trickled through and

aroused a desire to resist. Even though there could be no realistic hope of

successfully averting the extermination, prisoners wanted to set Birkenau on

ﬁre, thereby giving a signal that could not remain unnoticed and at least post-

poning the general extermination fora certain period of time.Those who con-

cerned themselves with such plans entrusted Fredy Hirsch with theleadership

of this action because he had the necessary authority with the various rival

groups in the family camp. When the resistance movement informed him on

March 6 that the crematoriums were being made ready for the inmates of the

family camp, he responded that he knew what his duty was. However, he did

not give the signal for an uprising, and that evening he poisoned himself with

Luminal. The next day the unconscious Hirsch and 3,791 others were taken

to the gas chambers on trucks. He kept the reason for his ﬁnal decision to

himself.

246 n the prisoners

The family camp also housed a later transport from Theresienstadt, and

its members were not murdered at that time because their six-month grace

period had not expired. Hanna Hoﬀmann reports that Fredyturned the leader-

ship of the home over to the comrades from this block and sent greetings to

friends in Israel. ‘‘He wrote that he had been ‘friends’ with the Germans, and

even theirconﬁdant in themost intimate matters, but had never trusted them.

They suggested that he stay in the camp with us (that is, with the members

of the second transport). Fredy rejected this because he wanted to go with his

children (from the ﬁrst transport).’’

It is to Fredy Hirsch’s credit that eventually a group of young inmates es-

caped the general extermination. Inmates and ss men agree that they were

pulled out of the group of those destined for death at the last minute because

ss men who regularly visited the children’s block and had formed a certain

bond with theyoungsters had requested this of sscamp leader Schwarzhuber,

who was receptive to their arguments for the same reason.

n As in the other Nazi concentration camps, groups were formed in Ausch-

witz that had been joined together in freedom by identical or similar political

views. In a collective where everyone was controlled by like-minded inmates,

an individual had the greatest chance of resisting all temptations to sink into

the swamp of general demoralization.

Eugen Kogon observed that the leftist parties were the only aspect of the

‘‘social structure of the world outside the kl that was taken over unchanged,

which means that their adherents found a piece of familiar psychic territory

to which they could escape. The consequence was a better material start and

a speedier retrieval of self-conﬁdence, but also the danger of unrestrained

primitivism and such a complete adaptation that it was no longer protective

but ruinous.’’

In contrast to Buchenwald (where Kogon gathered his experiences), Da-

chau, or other camps that were in existence before the outbreak of the war,

when Germans opposed to the Nazi regime were the primary prisoners,

Auschwitz housed only a small number of Germans or Austrians with the red

triangles of political prisoners. I have already pointed out that this triangle

was worn not only by political opponents of the regime.

Resistance groups were formed in all of the Nazi concentration camps.

This process was promoted by the imprisonment of many people who were

trained in illegal organizational work, by the self-government of the prisoners

on orders from a camp administration that with the growth of the camps was

ever more dependent on the work of the clerks and functionaries, and by the

fact that the prisoners were intellectually superior to their guards. In addi-

tion, the ss’s system of constant transfers from one camp to another enabled

Resistance n 247

prisoners to exchange experiences and establish contacts. After I had been

earmarked for transferfromDachauto Auschwitz, an Austrian active in the re-

sistance movement in Dachau suggested that I get in touch with Ernst Burger.

In point of fact, a resistance group had formed around that man in Auschwitz.

Bitter struggles between communist and social democratic groups have

been reported from camps in which numerous political prisoners were in-

terned. We have descriptions of an underground terror of communist groups

in some camps where they were able to capture top positions in the inmate

hierarchy—for example, in Ravensbrück, where Margarete Buber-Neumann

experienced this terror. In Dachau I found out that even a socialist group that

had gained power was capable of proceeding against communists. Together

with other communists I was shunted oﬀ from Dachau to Auschwitz because

we had begun to annoy the socialist group that dominated the Dachau inﬁr-

mary. The ss only prescribed the numbers, and the socialist inﬁrmary capo

and his friends determined who had to go to Auschwitz, where typhus was

raging.

Such internal struggles did not develop in Auschwitz—possibly because

there were too few political prisoners or because the leadership of the inter-

national resistance movement was composed of communists and socialists

from the beginning. Conﬂicts that were political in nature did exist within

Polish groups, but these hardly aﬀected the international organization.

The activities of a resistance organization in Auschwitz were hampered by

diﬀerent diﬃculties.The incomparably greater demoralization in an extermi-

nation camp and the considerably smaller number of those who were already

accustomed to political activity, not to mention the unrestrained terror with

which the Political Department dominated the camp, impeded an organized

activity. All too often a prisoner deported to Auschwitz had been worn out,

broken, and selected before a resistance group even had a chance to get to

know him, especially if he had to wear the Star of David. Although I had op-

portunities to examine the card catalog of the new arrivals in the inmate inﬁr-

mary, on more than one occasion I did not learn about the arrival of a Jewish

acquaintance from mycommunist organization in Austria or the international

brigades in Spain until after his death.

Kraus and Kulka write as follows from a Birkenau perspective:

Until 1943 two basic prerequisites for the formation of an organized re-

sistance movement were lacking. For one thing, there was a great dearth

of politically aware and progressive-minded inmates, and, for another, the

unfavorable environs of the camp were an impediment. The latter factor

was demonstrated by the experience of some inmates who tried to escape

but could not make much progress in that terrain....Foralongtimein

248 n the prisoners

the camp, there was a predominant feeling of absolute helplessness, which

had the most debilitating eﬀect, physically and mentally. Any thought of

escape was immediately quelled by the fear of betrayal and, above all, by

the condition of stolid submissiveness and apathyof the mass of prisoners,

amongwhom therewere only a small numberof politically mature persons.

Anyone who could even think of resistance, or had a chance to think of

anything, had to have risen from the lowest and widest stratum of inmates,

whose thoughts revolved only around food and fear of beatings. Every resis-

tance group had to begin by procuring bearable living conditions for those it

had come to trust.That was the prerequisite of its activity, not its goal. Beyond

this, such groups endeavored to secure inﬂuential positions for their mem-

bers. Here is what Benedikt Kautsky says on the basis of his experiences in

Monowitz:

It was understandable that political prisoners who felt they had the ability

to ﬁll these positionsclaimed thispower not forthemselvesbut in the inter-

est of the community. If they had not done so, life would have been even

more unbearable in many camps than it actually was. Thus it was certainly

in the interest of the inmates that the political prisoners held these jobs.

From a personal point of view, however, if a person allowed himself to

be enmeshed in that nest of intrigues, it meant a serious endangerment

of his character, and it took considerable strength of character to avoid

being corrupted by power or material beneﬁts.This honorable credit must

be given to a numberof Jewish political prisoners of various persuasions in

Auschwitz-Buna. But such shining examples of the genuine triumph that

the human spirit and character were able to achieve even over the worst

conditions must be contrasted with highly dubious ﬁgures, who show how

far persons of complete integrity could go astray if they thought they were

serving their cause.

Two examples from the main camp are suitable illustrations of Kautsky’s

observations. Ernst Burger and Dr. Heinrich Dürmeyer, both fromVienna and

former functionaries of theAustrian Communist Party, were active in the lead-

ership of the international resistance movement in the main camp—Burger

from its beginning and Dürmeyer from January 1944 onward, shortly after his

transfer from Flossenbürg to Auschwitz. Since I knew Burger from the inter-

national brigades, the requisite relationship of trust immediately developed.

When I met Ernst Burger in Auschwitz, he was already regarded as an ‘‘old

hand.’’ He could have claimed many privileges as the clerk of Block 4, but

he chose not to. His natural comradeship with all prisoners, including mem-

bers of other nationalities at whom he never ﬂaunted his privileged status as a

Resistance n 249

‘‘German,’’ as well as his modesty, protected him from all the temptations to

which a vip was exposed: to command, to dominate, and to gain access to all

attainable pleasures. Only a very few people suspected that Ernst occupied a

key position in the resistance movement, but all who knew himrespected him.

That respect beneﬁted the organization, for it had to work in a strictly con-

spiratorial way; thus the personal authority of every member was particularly

important.

Heinrich Dürmeyer became capo of the detail ss Clothing Depot because

the resistance movement considered this position especially important with

regard to its plans for escapes and rebellions. In September 1944 he became a

camp elder in the main camp. Both of these positions brought Dürmeyer into

close contact with the camp vips as well as the ss, and he utilized this contact

for the beneﬁt of the organization. Despite our warnings, however, he partici-

pated in secret drinking bouts with Greens and ss men, his rationale being

that this enabled him to get a lot of information and to inﬂuence members

of the ss. This has been indirectly conﬁrmed by ss roll call leader Claussen,

who later wrote in prison: ‘‘How often did I send for the camp elder and talk

with him over a glass of schnapps—not only in the line of duty but privately

as well....Ihavereasontostatethathetrustedmeatleastasaperson.’’

In this way Dürmeyer alienated himself from the nameless prisoners with

whom Burger always maintained good contact. At the evacuation of Ausch-

witz, which was a very diﬃcult test for a camp elder, the consequences of this

alienation became apparent. Those acquainted with the situation reproached

Dürmeyer for failing to use as much as possible his undeniably great inﬂuence

on the camp administration, gained by virtue of his intelligence and behav-

ior, for the beneﬁt of the community. They expected him to join a column of

evacuees and try to prevent, or at least alleviate, the worst outrages. Instead,

Dürmeyer left the camp in an automobile with other inmate vips.

Irmgard Jantsch, an Austrian woman who had delivered a baby in Ausch-

witz in May 1944 and as an ‘‘Aryan’’ was allowed to keep her child, seventeen

years later recorded her memories of Dürmeyer during the evacuation: ‘‘After

my arrival in the main camp with my daughter on January 17, 1945, I asked

him to get warm clothes for my child from Canada, or at least permit me to

take some. There was a stockroom, and many inmates took what they could.

Dürmeyer declined my request with these words: ‘That’s completely out of the

question. Others are freezing, too.’ Then he left in the car of ss camp leader

Hössler,whereas the evacuees had to march oﬀ on foot.’’ Jantsch was possibly

unaware of the circumstances that prompted Dürmeyer’s reaction, which re-

main an open question. At the critical moment of the evacuation, he took the

path that was most comfortable for him rather than the one that could have

made him most useful to his fellow prisoners.

250 n the prisoners

n Anyonewho attempts, after the fact, to describe resistance will understand-

ably encounter great diﬃculties. Why should survivors of Auschwitz behave

diﬀerently from someone who has weathered a critical situation and is after-

ward questioned about his resistance? Many people claim to have been there

and to be giving authentic reports. Others who never encountered the orga-

nization that operated in the camp with strict secrecy are skeptical about all

later reports. The only documentation is what may be read in the letters pre-

served in Cracow, and, understandably, these contain no information about

internal matters of the organization. Hence only the later reports of members

of this organization or notes of the guards can be used.

Anyone who wants to write about the resistance movement in Auschwitz

must ﬁrst providea deﬁnition of resistance. If a prisoner shared his bread with

a friend, that was an act of resistance against the ss’s program of extermi-

nation. If someone concealed an acquaintance from those making selections,

this was an even cleareract of resistance. On the followingpages, however, the

idea of organized resistance will be more narrowly deﬁned. Only when an ac-

tivity was not limited to helping a friend, compatriots, or like-minded people

(in short, acquaintances), but rather when eﬀorts were made to stave oﬀ a

general worsening of the situation, to eﬀect improvements, and to impede

theworkofthess—when, therefore, the anonymous inmate was to be helped

and the regime’s machinery of destruction and war was to be harmed—then

the concept of resistance will be used here.

This is certainly not intended to devalue the deed of a man who shared his

bread with a friend or saved him from an action of destruction. The narrower

deﬁnition is only used in an eﬀort to concentrate on fundamentals.

A prisoner who was strong enough to behave consistently was encouraged

to act in this spirit as soon as he had set himself the task of helping others.

RogerAbada has described it accurately:‘‘Surely therewere limits to solidarity,

and the death camps would not have continued as they actually were if the

solidarity of the internees could have become fully eﬀective.’’ If someone felt

solidarity with his companions and wished to take advantage of the possibili-

ties aﬀorded by his higher position to help them but kept bumping against

these limits, the reactions could be as follows: to resign and be demoralized

as a consequence or to seek organizational work.

I have alreadydescribed thedilemma of a physicianand a nursewhowanted

to help those under their care. Those who worked in labor allocation, which

was the second central location [besides the clothing depot] where help could

be organized, had to make similar decisions. Usually the clerks received only

general commands from the camp administration: so and so many inmates

are to be assigned to this or that labor detail or to a certain subcamp. These

commands had to be obeyed, and one was not allowed to bother the respon-

Resistance n 251

sible ss labor allocation personnel with appeals. Within this framework the

inmates assigned to labor allocation essentially had a free hand.

Oszkár Betlen, who worked in the clerk’s oﬃce at Monowitz, where labor

allocation for all subcamps belonging to Auschwitz III was coordinated, de-

scribes the dilemma he faced as a consequence of his job and his participation

in the work of the illegal inmate organization. Who, for example, should he

place on the list if the Gleiwitz I camp requested inmates? Betlen knew that

the ss camp leader there was Moll, one of the most notorious members of the

ss. ‘‘Under some pretext I could take one, two, or even three names oﬀ the

list. But what if others were sent in place of those who were saved? Then I had

the fate of those on my conscience.’’ His comrades used one argument that

ﬁnally helped Betlen dispel his doubts: ‘‘Sinceyou cannot save all of them,you

must ﬁrst of all take care of those who will in turn save others.’’

Those who only heard of this dilemma, but not of the strength and courage

of those who had not been broken by it, could draw such conclusions as were

formulated by Hannah Arendt:

Bycreatinglivingconditions in which conscience no longer suﬃces and the

good no longer can be accomplished under any circumstances, the deliber-

ately organized plan to make everyone, including the victims, accomplices

in the crimes committed by a totalitarian regime thus becomes ‘‘total.’’ We

know from several accounts to what degree inmates got entangled in the

real crimes of thess.Thessdid this byassigning broad segments of the ad-

ministration to inmates—criminals, political opponents, and Jews in the

ghettos and extermination camps. In this way the victims were confronted

with the insoluble conﬂict of whether to send their friends to their death

or to help murder others whom they did not know. The important point

is not that hatred is diverted from those who are really guilty (of course,

the capos were more hated than the ss) but instead that the distinction

between executioner and victim, between the guilty and the innocent, is

destroyed.

Hannah Arendt has been harshly criticized for theses of this kind by many

who have experienced the world of the Nazi concentration camps. Thus Jean

Améry has characterized hercomments as remarkably uncomprehending. She

overlooked the fact that it was precisely the compunctions described by her

that prompted many people to do more than merely help individuals at the

expense of others. What was required for such acts was the moral strength

to think beyond Auschwitz without any realistic hope of surviving Ausch-

witz. Another prerequisite was the good fortune of encountering like-minded

people. To muster this moral strength, an inmate had to be in possession of

his physical strength. Members of political parties were most likely to meet

252 n the prisoners

the ﬁrst two requirements, and the third one, which was absolutely necessary,

was found to varying degrees among the various groups of inmates.

In line with this thinking, Germans would have had to be most active and

Jews least active in the resistance movement. Lucie Adelsberger has com-

mented on the latter. ‘‘No Jewish inmate counted on ever leaving Auschwitz

alive.We lived in the shadow of the chimneys both spatially and intellectually.

The chimney was the alpha and omega of all conversations.’’ Nevertheless,

Jews worked in the resistance movement from the beginning, and the ﬁrst

resistance groups were formed by Poles rather than Germans, presumably be-

cause the very small number of Germans interned for political reasons were

dispersed among the criminals. Whenever a German actively worked against

the camp administration in the early period, like Otto Küsel in the Labor As-

signment Oﬃce, he did so in contact with Poles.

n In addition to the various Polish groups, one was formed around Ernst

Burger. The Frenchman Roger Abada has described it as follows: ‘‘There al-

ready was an organization. It consisted of Austrian inmates and also included

some Germans and Poles.’’ In December 1942 Abada established contact with

this group via theViennese Rudi Friemel.At thattime it also includedJews, but

Abada evidently did not know this. Since any contact between ‘‘Aryans’’ and

Jews was particularly dangerous, all connections with Jewish associates were

limited to the absolute minimum. Tadeusz Holuj must have had this group in

mind when he wrote that it was Austrian communists who took the initiative

in organizing politically oriented illegal activities.

I have already reported about individual actions of the resistance groups

and their results,which beneﬁtedeveryone—forexample, thestruggle against

the daily killings with injections of phenol in the inmate inﬁrmary; the con-

tainment of beatings by inmate functionaries; the removal of criminals from

key positions; and the successful ﬁght against the deleterious informer sys-

tem. The importance of the inﬁrmary in all endeavors to counteract the ex-

termination program has also been pointed out. That the people in this key

location managed to put a stop to the camp administration’s method of play-

ing one national group oﬀ against another has been conﬁrmed by Höß, who

wrote that it was ‘‘all but impossible to retain our trustees in an inﬁrmary.’’

Resistance groups also managed to listen to foreign broadcasts, most fre-

quently those of the bbc, on radios that could be used by inmates who had

to clean ss facilities before the men arrived for work. The dissemination of

these news broadcasts counteracted the general demoralization, and more so

as they became more positive in the course of the war.

AftertheleadingPolishorganization andthegroup that hadformedaround

Ernst Burger had worked alongside each other for some time, the two groups

Resistance n 253