Auschwitz (18 page)
Authors: Laurence Rees
To resolve the deportation issue, a meeting was held in February 1942 in Bratislava, the Slovak capital, between the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Vojtech Tuka, the chief of his office, Dr. Izidor Koso, and Eichmann's agent in Slovakia, SS Major Dieter Wisliceny. Both Wisliceny and Tuka gave evidence after the war about the content of the discussions, and by comparing their testimonies it is possible to reach a judgment about what was said.
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The Slovakians put forward the view that to separate the breadwinner from the rest of the family was “unchristian,” because, after the resettling of the Jewish workers in the Reich, the families would have “no one to look after them.” Wisliceny's recollection of the meeting is that, rather than “Christian concerns,” the Slovaks were primarily worried about the “financial considerations” that would result from the Nazis receiving the workforce while the families were left behind with no means of support. Finally, the Slovaks suggested that they might in some way compensate the Germans
for the “expenses” incurred if the families were taken along with the breadwinners.
for the “expenses” incurred if the families were taken along with the breadwinners.
The matter was resolved in Berlin. The Slovak government agreed to pay the Germans 500 Reichsmarks for every Jew deported, on condition that they never came back to Slovakia and that no claim was made by the Germans on the property or other assets the Jews had left behind. The Slovaksâwhose head of state was a Catholic priestâtherefore paid the Germans to take their Jews away.
The forcible deportation of Slovak Jews began in March 1942. For most, the journey began with imprisonment in a holding camp in Slovakia. Silvia Veselá
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was one of those held in a temporary camp in the town of Poprad that spring.
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was one of those held in a temporary camp in the town of Poprad that spring.
Some of those Slovak soldiers behaved in a really silly way. For example, they deliberately crapped on the floor and we had to clean the dirt manually. They called us “Jewish whores” and they kicked us. They behaved really badly. They also told us, “We will teach you Jews how to work.” But all of us were poor women that were used to work.... It's a really humiliating feeling when your personality is being taken away. I don't know whether you can understand it. You suddenly mean nothing. We were treated like animals.
There were rich pickings for the Hlinka guards who worked in the holding camps. “When Jews were coming to the camps,” says Michal KabáÄ, “we used to take their belongings and clothes. The deputy commander always called us to go and choose the clothes we wanted. Everybody took what he or she could. I took a pair of shoes. I wrapped it up with string and took it home. The guards were doing fine.”
It also was not just the Slovakians who robbed the Jews before they left, says Silvia Veselá,
One day a heavy SS officer came and started to shout at us. We had no idea why he was shouting. Then we saw big basketsâthree big basketsâinto which we had to give our gold, silver, money, and all our valuables. We were told we were going to work and didn't need these
valuables. I was very poor. I had just one watch that was given to me by my aunt, and so I gave them it.
valuables. I was very poor. I had just one watch that was given to me by my aunt, and so I gave them it.
The holding camp was a place not just of theft but of casual brutality. “Our guards used to beat them [the Jews],” says Michal KabáÄ. “There was a special kind of unit who used to punish the guilty ones. They used to take them to a special room and punish them by beating them on their feet with a wooden stick.” It was, of course, the Hlinka guards themselves who arbitrarily decided who was “guilty” and who was not.
The stay in the holding camp could vary from a few days to a few weeks, but eventually the Slovakian Jews were taken to a nearby railway station to be transported out of the country. Silvia Veselá
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vividly remembers the walk to the station and her last memories of Slovakia.
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vividly remembers the walk to the station and her last memories of Slovakia.
They spat at us and shouted, “Jewish whores, it serves you right! You'll finally work!” They also threw stones at us. They used every possibility to humiliate us. There were also some people who just stood still and just witnessed the humiliation. Some of those people cried. However the majority, older and younger generation, humiliated us. I wouldn't wish this kind of experience on anyone. It is a horrible feeling.
The Slovakian Jews were escorted to the railway station by the Hlinka guards. “I was ordered to load the Jewish women on the train and watch them,” says Michal KabáÄ. “I was telling myself: âYou did not want to work, you Jewish swine!'” Within months, members of the Hlinka guards like KabÃ¡Ä realized that the Slovakian Jews were being sent to their deathsânews that did not fill them with compassion:
I was feeling sorry for them, but on the other hand I was not sorry for them considering they were stealing from the Slovaks. We were not very sorry. We thought it was good that they were taken away. That way they could not cheat us any more. They were not going to get rich at the expense of the working class any more.
KabÃ¡Ä had little direct contact with Slovakian Jews before knowingly
sending them to their deaths. There were no Jews living in his village, and he admits he himself never had any “problem” with the Jews in Slovakia. He enthusiastically embraced anti-Semitism not because of any personal experience but because he was a fervent nationalist, proud that Slovakia was now an independent country, and he was told by the Slovakian leadership that “the Jews were liars and were robbing the Slovaks.”
sending them to their deaths. There were no Jews living in his village, and he admits he himself never had any “problem” with the Jews in Slovakia. He enthusiastically embraced anti-Semitism not because of any personal experience but because he was a fervent nationalist, proud that Slovakia was now an independent country, and he was told by the Slovakian leadership that “the Jews were liars and were robbing the Slovaks.”
Michal KabáÄ's story is a telling reminder of how quickly prejudice can take root when presented as part of a package of values, the majority of which are more immediately attractive. KabÃ¡Ä adopted violent anti-Semitism to demonstrate that he was a committed and patriotic Slovakian nationalistâand in the process he gained financially, because he now stole from the Jews and dressed the crime up as some kind of “rightful vengeance.” Silvia Veselá witnessed first-hand how quickly the prevailing morality changed in Slovakia:
I thought about it several times. Human material is very bendable. You can do anything with it. When money and life are involved, you seldom meet a person that is willing to sacrifice for you. It hurt, it really hurt when I, for example, saw my schoolmate shouting with her fist raised, “It serves you right!” Since that time I do not expect anything of people.
In the meantime, at Auschwitz attempts continued to improve the killing facility of the camp. On February 27, 1942, Rudolf Höss, the SS architect Karl Bischoff, and Hans Kammler, head of the central SS buildings office,
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held a meeting at which they decided to move the location of the crematorium that had been planned for Auschwitz 1 to the new camp at Birkenau. The intention was to site the new crematorium in a far corner near a small cottage. This cottage was to be converted quickly into a makeshift killing installation by bricking up the existing doors and windows, gutting the inside, and creating two sealed spaces that could be used as gas chambers. New entrances would lead directly into each gas chamber, and a hatch would be placed high in the brickwork of the wall to allow crystals of Zyklon B to be thrown inside.
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held a meeting at which they decided to move the location of the crematorium that had been planned for Auschwitz 1 to the new camp at Birkenau. The intention was to site the new crematorium in a far corner near a small cottage. This cottage was to be converted quickly into a makeshift killing installation by bricking up the existing doors and windows, gutting the inside, and creating two sealed spaces that could be used as gas chambers. New entrances would lead directly into each gas chamber, and a hatch would be placed high in the brickwork of the wall to allow crystals of Zyklon B to be thrown inside.
The cottage, known as “The Little Red House” or “Bunker 1” was used for the first time as a place of murder at the end of March 1942, when a
transport of Jews from the local area who were considered unfit to work in the forced labor program were sent to Auschwitz. Around 800 people could be murdered in “The Little Red House” at any one time, crammed tightly into the gas chambers.
transport of Jews from the local area who were considered unfit to work in the forced labor program were sent to Auschwitz. Around 800 people could be murdered in “The Little Red House” at any one time, crammed tightly into the gas chambers.
Höss now had at his disposal a murder facility that did not suffer from the disadvantages of the crematorium in Auschwitz 1. No matter how loudly those being gassed in “The Little Red House” screamed, no disturbance was caused to the normal operation of the camp. But Höss knew it would be many months (in fact it was more than a year) before a crematorium could be built nearby to dispose of the bodies killed in this make-shift gas chamber. So, having solved one of his problems (how to kill in relative secret), he had created another (how to dispose of the evidence).
The first transports that arrived from Slovakia in March 1942 were not selected on arrivalâeveryone was admitted to the camp. But that did not prevent the SS men and Kapos from immediately terrorizing the new inmates, as Otto Pressburger, who was on one of these transports, experienced first-hand:
From the station we had to run [to Auschwitz 1] in groups of five. They [the SS men] shouted, “Schnell laufen! Laufen, laufen, laufen!” And we ran. They killed on the spot those who could not run. We felt we were less than dogs. We had been told that we were going to work, not that we were going to a concentration camp.
The next morning, after a night with no food or drink, Otto Pressburger, his father, and the rest of the Slovak transport of around 1,000 men were made to run from the main camp up to the building site that was Birkenau. He estimates that around seventy to eighty people were killed on the way. Birkenau, deep in mud and other filth, was an appalling place. As Perry Broad of the SS recalled, “Conditions in Birkenau were considerably worse than in Auschwitz [main camp]. Feet drop into a sticky bog at every step. There was hardly any water for washing.”
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Prisoners existed in an environment of utter degradation, covered in dirt and their own feces.
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Prisoners existed in an environment of utter degradation, covered in dirt and their own feces.
Once in Birkenau, Otto Pressburger gained an immediate introduction to the brutal regime of the camp. When he saw that a young Polish boy had
stolen his father's belt, he caught the boy and punched him. Another prisoner quickly told him that he had made a potentially fatal mistake. The young boy was a “pipel”âcamp slang for the young servant of a Kapo (and someone with whom the Kapo often had a homosexual relationship). “We had to run back to the barracks and hide,” says Otto Pressburger.
stolen his father's belt, he caught the boy and punched him. Another prisoner quickly told him that he had made a potentially fatal mistake. The young boy was a “pipel”âcamp slang for the young servant of a Kapo (and someone with whom the Kapo often had a homosexual relationship). “We had to run back to the barracks and hide,” says Otto Pressburger.
The Kapo of the block entered the barracks and ordered us to lie downâhead facing towards the aisle. There was the “pipel” coming looking for me. He didn't recognize me. We all looked alikeâno hair [all the prisoners had their head shaved on arrival] and the same clothes. I was very lucky, otherwise they would have killed me.
On that first day at work in Birkenau, Otto Pressburger witnessed another incident that demonstrated in an even more bestial way the desperate situation in which he now found himself:
We went to work to build roadsâKapos and SS men were supervising us. There was one Jew from our town, a tall and strong man from a rich family. The Kapo spotted his gold teeth and asked him to give them to him. He answered that he could not do that, but the Kapo persisted that he must. He still said he could not give him his gold teeth. The Kapo got angry and said we must all obey his orders. He took the shovel and hit him over the head a couple of times until he fell down. The Kapo turned him upside down and put the shovel on his throat and stood on it. He broke his neck and used the shovel to get the teeth out of his mouth. Not far away stood another Jew who asked the Kapo how he could do this. The Kapo came over and said he'd show him. And he killed him the same way. Then he told us never to ask questions and to mind our own business. That evening we had to carry twelve dead bodies with us back to the barracks. He killed them just for fun. All this happened the first day at work.
Murderous behavior by the Kapos had been a feature of Auschwitz from the very beginning, so the experience of these newcomers, though horrific, was nothing out of the ordinary for the camp. But the culture (if
one can use such a word in the context of Auschwitz) of the place nonetheless was about to change in two major ways as a result of the arrival of the Slovakians.
one can use such a word in the context of Auschwitz) of the place nonetheless was about to change in two major ways as a result of the arrival of the Slovakians.
The first change occurred because women were now admittedâup to this point Auschwitz had been an exclusively male institution. But the arrival of women did not have the remotest “civilizing” effect on those in authority at the campâalmost the opposite, as Silvia Veselá witnessed. She arrived at Auschwitz shortly after Otto Pressburger, on a transport containing several hundred women and one manâa Jewish doctor who had been permitted by the Slovak authorities to accompany the women.
When we came to Auschwitz we were kicked out of the railway trucks, and the SS officers started to shout at our doctor, trying to find out why he was the only man on the transport. He replied in perfect German: “I am a doctor, and I was assigned here by the central Jewish conference. My role is to accompany the transport and I was told I would then go back to Slovakia.” Then an SS officer pulled out a gun and shot him dead. They just simply shot him dead in front of my eyes. Just because he was the only man amongst so many women. That was the first shock for me.
The Slovakian women were then marched to Auschwitz main camp. “We saw high barracks and a gate,” says Silvia Veselá. “Above the gate was written, âArbeit macht frei'ââWork sets you free.' So we thought we had come there to work.” Several of the blocks in the main camp had been emptied and made ready for the women, who were ordered to strip off their clothes and hand over any valuables they had not already given up. “Although the Germans hated us so much, they did not hesitate to take our clothes, shoes and jewelry. Explain this to me,” demands Silvia Veselá. “I always had this questionâwhy didn't they feel an aversion to our belongings?”
As the Slovakian women sat, naked, having their heads shaved, an SS officer entered the room and ordered five of them to go to the doctor's office. “He wanted to examine Jewish women,” says Silvia Veselá,
and see if they were real virgins. He also wanted to know if Jewish
women were clean. After they carried out the examination they were surprisedâbut in a negative sense. They couldn't believe we were so clean. Moreover, more than 90 percent of us were virgins. These were all religious Jewish women. There was no way any of them would allow a man to touch her before the wedding. But in the course of the examination every girl was deprived of her virginityâthe doctors used their fingers. They were all defloweredâanother way to humiliate them. A friend of mine who was from a religious family told me: “I wanted to keep my virginity for my man, and I lost it this way!”
women were clean. After they carried out the examination they were surprisedâbut in a negative sense. They couldn't believe we were so clean. Moreover, more than 90 percent of us were virgins. These were all religious Jewish women. There was no way any of them would allow a man to touch her before the wedding. But in the course of the examination every girl was deprived of her virginityâthe doctors used their fingers. They were all defloweredâanother way to humiliate them. A friend of mine who was from a religious family told me: “I wanted to keep my virginity for my man, and I lost it this way!”
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