The Theory and Practice of Hell (62 page)

The second possibility of exploiting the regime of corrup tion was personal or collective enrichment at the expense of others. Sometimes this attained downright shameless propor tions in the camps. Certain prisoners profited from their positions of power to such an extent that they lived like kings, while their comrades died by the hundreds. Surely there was no justification when whole boxes of camp victuals, with fat, sausages, canned goods, flour and sugar, were smuggled out of camp by SS accomplices and sent to the families of the prisoners in question. At a time when not even the rear-echelon SS any longer wore riding boots but merely ordinary army shoes, there were such provocative sights as members of the tiny goup of prisoner big shots stalking about like dandies, in fashionable tailored clothes, sometimes even leading a dog on a leash! And all of this cheek by jowl with misery, filth, disease, hunger and death! Here the “ instinct of self-preservation* *transcended all reasonable bounds, resulting in a ridiculous though quite intractable form of hypocrisy that ill befitted the social and political ideals proclaimed. These

268
EUGEN KOGON

things were not precisely typical of camp life, but un fortunately they were part of it.

From mere self-defense the concentration-camp prisoners occasionally proceeded to active resistance against SS measures. The most notable instance was occasioned by the attempt to impress into army service those inmates who were German citizens. A certain Dirlewanger, a fellow with a long criminal record who had fought on the Fascist side in Spain, offered his services to Himmler during the war for the pur pose of ‘‘indoctrinating’’ concentration-camp prisoners with a view toward their “ volunteering for front-line service.” Dirlewanger was later invested with the Knight’s Cross and the rank of SS major-general. He was one of the worst bloodhounds in the Lublin district, and personally committed atrocities which cannot be described here because of their bot tomless depravity.

In some concentration camps, such as Sachsenhausen, political prisoners were simply detailed to the Dirlewanger program against their will. In other camps, such as Buchen wald, the campaign went no further than an appeal for volun teers. Only an infinitesimally small number of prisoners wearing the red triangle responded, in contrast to quite a few greens and blacks. The last campaign of this nature was di rected at the homosexuals in 1945, but they never got to share the honor intended for them.

The convicts who evinced this solidarity with the
Waffen SS
—there were as many as five hundred at Buchen wald—contributed their share to enhancing the reputation of the SS as butchers. They were used in the fight against the par tisans in the eastern regions, and in 1944 to help put down the Polish uprising in Warsaw. Some of the survivors, after ex tended periods of such “ front-line parole,” were sent back to the concentration camps where their fate was not a happy one. The remaining prisoners were a good deal more amused than the SS men when such convicts who had donned the uniform sent army postcards, signed “ fraternally yours,” to the very men who but recently had taken the whip to them. The political prisoners observed maliciously that by rights the Dirlewanger men ought to wear a green triangle on their SS

uniforms as a distinguishing mark of their fellowship.

In 1942 Russian volunteers too were trained at Buchenwald.

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF HELL
269

They had volunteered in the prisoner-of-war camps for service against the partisans.

Such resistance as was practiced here and there in the case

of the Dirlewanger campaign was possible only on the basis of years of building up the power of the prisoners inside the camps. Many a privilege acquired in the course of the years by “ old concentrationaries,” however, was time and again en dangered by the ever-present chance of being sent “ on ship ment.” More and more slaves were needed in the outside details, and more and more prisoner functionaries were needed to man the new camps. The chance of evading such a dreadful pilgrimage, with the necessity of starting all over again in some other camp, grew smaller and smaller. Anyone who was not absolutely indispensable in the base camp or who failed to have the most influential connections, might find himself on shipment at any moment, in imminent danger of losing whatever privileges he enjoyed. Toward the end of the war, newcomers had very little chance of remaining in any of the base camps. As the confusion among the SS grew, power slipped more and more into the hands of the “ old-timers” among the prisoners, and new prisoners were naturally the most likely material for shipments. Another factor that helped to dispatch them to one of the new camps as soon as

possible was the serious overcrowding in the base camps.

Anti-Fascist activities proper among the concentration-camp prisoners extended to political organization and training and to sabotage.

There was a wide-spread notion throughout Germany that concentration-camp inmates received Nazi political in struction and were then returned to the “ racial community” as men who had “ seen the light.” This is sheer nonsense. After the initial phase at Dachau, the SS never even instituted, let alone carried out, any program of political indoctrination or the like. The only thing that could have been even remotely interpreted in this sense were the radio broadcasts over the German network. In the beginning the prisoners had to listen to Hitler’s speeches while standing in the roll-call area. The speeches were as endless as the rain that often poured down on the shorn polls. Their effect was the same. They were simply shaken off. Later on the prisoners were permitted to listen to the speeches in barracks. But by that time repeated defeats

2
70
EUGEN KOGON

had shortened Hitler’s speeches and made them less frequent, something the prisoners regretted since most of them were able to take a healthy nap during the oratory.

Party organization by the prisoners was well developed on the left, with the Social Democrats as well as the Communists. Indoctrination took place fairly regularly, though only in tiny cells. At times when there were no informers at large and when power was unequivocally organized, there was an enor mous amount of political discussion in the camps. Newspapers were available. In the course of time news broad casts from abroad got to be somewhat more widely known in camp. It was of the greatest importance that the prisoners should succumb neither to needless discouragement nor to vain self-deception. Some knowledge of the situation in Ger many and throughout the world was essential. Actually the monitoring of foreign broadcasts was only an effective sup plement to the kaleidoscopic intelligence brought into camp by newcomers from every nation and every walk of life. All this news was collected by the political leaders, carefully evaluated and transmitted to the appropriate men, often resulting in a picture that was more accurate than that available to most Germans on the outside.

The organization of this illegal intelligence service was fraught with great difficulty and danger. The central agencies in most camps were the construction offices and electricians’ shops. Prisoners who assumed the job of radio monitoring were in constant danger of their lives. In Buchenwald no one was ever actually executed for “ black listening,” but in other camps like “ Dora” and Sachsenhausen dozens of prisoners were hanged on this account. One protective device for the monitors lay in the policy of having then* pass on their news to but one or two fellow prisoners who in turn took care of transmitting it to larger groups.

During the last critical weeks in camp, when it was all-important for us to remain well informed about the situation at the fighting fronts, so that we could take appropriate measures in time, I myself spent many nights at a five-tube set, the property of Dr. Ding-Schuler, which I had been able to wheedle into camp “ for repair.” There I heard “ The Voice of America in Europe” and the “ Western Broadcasts for Soldiers,” writing down important dispatches in shorthand.

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF HELL
271

Curiously enough, there was probably no place in Germany outside the concentration camps where politics could be discussed so frankly! Something like an unofficial propa ganda ministry developed, which collected and transmitted obscure dispatches of significance, sometimes permitted to be published by Goebbels only in certain frontier papers. Astute political minds analyzed the situation, presenting a clear pic ture to those prisoners who were interested, especially at times when Hitler seemed to fail in nothing he undertook, spreading deep gloom among them.

Permanent lines to and from the outside world were carefully cultivated. Sometimes these lines were strung by prisoners who had won release, sometimes they ran by way of outside details and civilian employees. In this way the picture of conditions throughout the country which was sketched by the reports of new arrivals could be constantly corrected and supplemented. Important news from the camps was also sent to the outside.

Anti-Fascist celebrations were repeatedly held at Buchen wald. Appropriate security measures were always observed and naturally only absolutely reliable long-time inmates were invited. These occasions usually consisted of a serious and a humorous program, the latter offering barbed political satire. There were even anti-Fascist literary readings. The volumes in the camp library were carefully searched for suitable material, especially from the German classics, and the effect was always impressive. These programs were greatly enriched by material salvaged from the wastepaper collection. Heinrich Heine’s revolutionary and satirical poems were restored to honor from this source.

The morale of most of the prisoners might have been but tressed by some form of religious observance to a far greater extent than by these occasional celebrations. I think it is ap propriate in this connection to mention the utter lack of any religious work in the concentration camps. Naturally the SS permitted nothing of the kind. Prisoners of the political left who were otherwise of high character would have regarded religious observances as absurd and reactionary, because of outdated views and old and deep-rooted prejudices. True, in later years a few of them began to show more understanding, lending their authority time and again to keeping priests from