ash rain | everyday life

holocaust | the death camps | everyday life | eyewitnesses | our experiences

The headline "Everyday life" can be misinterpreted. Titles like everyday horror, everyday hell or everyday death may bee more appropriate, because there was certainly not much one could call life. The death camps were hell on earth. Every day, every hour, every minute was a fight for survival. What you were fighting against was much stronger. It was in everything: the long marches, the kapo's stick, the bad hygiene, the smoke and the screams, but especially in the eyes of your fellow inmates. Some sad and exhausted, others hard and cold. No matter how one reacted, there was one thing that was the root to all of it; the fear.

Deportation and arrival at the camps
Many Jews were already imprisoned when the industrial mass-murder started. These were either in prison, in the many, smaller concentration camps around the or in one of the ghettos. The Jews was told by the Germans that they were to be transported to their new homes. They were put in overfilled trucks which took them directly to the railway-station. The Jews were pushed, kicked and hit over to the train. There cattle-wagons was awaiting them. They sat as sardines in a can. The train often used several of days to reach the camp. Several of days without food or water. Many died of exhaustion frost or thirst. Many of those who survived the trip got seriously ill, something which only a while later should mean certain death. The survivors were forced outside in snowy ice cold wind. The Jews were kicked, beat and shouted at. All their luggage was tossed in a pile at the ground, they were told it would be sent later. Then they were split into two groups. One with women, children, sick and old persons, and one with healthy men. The "weak" group was transported to the "shower". Inside the building they were given orders to undress and hang their clothes on a knob. It was also said that it was important to remember the number of the knob, so that one could easily find ones clothes afterwards. Then two prisoners followed them into the shower. The room looked normal, with showerheads and everything. But then something happened: The two prisoners suddenly went out of the room and locked the door behind them. A white powder was dropped through two hatches in the ceiling. It was a gas called Zyklon B. The ones closest to the hatches died momentarily. After ten minutes they were all dead. Half an hour after the gas was depleted the corpses was dragged out. There all gold-teeth pulled out and all hair cut off. Then the corpses were burned. Either in large flame-pits or in cremation-ovens.

The "healthy" group was told to fall into rows of five and five. Then the march towards the camp started. The prisoners were taken to the "real" shower. Outside all the hair on their body was shaved of. Then they sprayed them with pesticide. It burned terribly. The next step for the prisoners was the shower. There they got flushed by turns with burning hot and freezing cold water. When this torture was completed they were taken out to the yard were they had to wait for their next orders. This was done with all the prisoners. Even if it was the middle of the winter and it was blowing ice cold winds with snow all new-arrivals had to stand naked in the yard and wait. Eventually they were told to get their clothes. But that awaiting them was not the warm clothes they had left, but thin striped prison-suits that were either to small or to big. Instead of their warm boots they got wooden plates with strops over. These "shoes" had the habit of falling of , so to prevent that from happening they had to drag their feet along the ground. All the prisoners owned and held dear was to be taken from them. They didn’t even get to keep their own names. Instead they got a number tattooed on the inside of their left arm. This number was the only thing the prisoner should be called and the only thing he should obey. (It was only in Auschwitz the prisoners were tattooed., but when it started coming more and more prisoners to the camp they stopped this procedure to increase the effectiveness.

Triangles
Each prisoner had a triangle on their suit. This triangle was given to the prisoners the first day, and each prisoner had to sow it on themselves. It was the colour of the triangle that said why a prisoner was imprisoned in the extermination-camp.


	Red triangle:	Political prisoner
	Green triangle:	Criminal prisoner
	Pink triangle:	Homosexual prisoner
	Brown triangle:	Gipsy
	Yellow triangle/star:	Jew
	Purple triangle:	Jehovahs witnesses
	Black triangle:	asocial prisoner (not willing to work) - includes handicapped, gipseys, alcoholics, prostitutes and tramps

A day in a camp
Each morning in the extermination-camps was the same. One was waked by the screaming voice of the barrack kapo. Then it was served "breakfast" which consisted of black water that supposedly was coffee. After the "meal" it was roll-call in front of the barrack. The prisoners were to stand in rows of five and five with their cap of. They should remain this position until all was accounted for. They should all be counted. Even those who died during the night. They were laid in piles of five and five. "Ordnung muss sein", "it has to be order". It was seldom the roll-calls lasted less then an hour. The longest roll-call held in Auschwitz lasted 19 hours. When the roll-call was finished, the work was waiting. It could be allot of different things. Carry building materials for new barracks, shovel dirt in the latrine or carry corpses to the crematorium. No matter where you got work it was always hard. The only thing that could help was getting a less violent kapo. If one got a inconsiderate kapo there was a chance one would get beaten. Something that decreased the chance of surviving. For the ones newly arrived the worst wasn’t the tough work or the kapos beating and screaming or the everlasting hunger, but the knowledge of that they couldn’t help when friends and family vas brutally beaten. After a while this feeling rubbed off and their only concern was to stay alive. In the middle of the day it was dinner-break. It was served soup, but what earlier had been a nourishing meat-soup was only water when it reached the average prisoner. Hot water with a couple of cabbage-pieces and sometimes even a bit of potato was what’s left for the prisoners after others had had their go. But even if the food was terrible the prisoners thought it tasted like at a restaurant. It was the only hot meal of the day and evryboddy was starving. The prisoners ate and drank out of a so called "Schüssel", a little metal-bowl tied to their suit with a string. After the meal it was straight back to work. They then worked non-stop until five in the evening. Later in the evening it was supper. It was a piece of dry bread. For the prisoners the bread was a gift sent from heaven. Some of the prisoners actually managed to save some of the bread to the following morning. That must have taken an extreme willpower to do, cause a little piece of bread is not hardly enough for a grown person in hard labour. After hawing ate it was streight to the barracks and in bed. The bunks, which mainly consisted of hard, dirty planks that smelled off other prisoners excrements, was a blessing to the prisoners. It was the only place were they could get peace and quite. There they let their thoughts drift to better times, when they were gathered with their family in their homes, and all the evil they had experienced in the camp never had happened. Unfortunately that was not the case, and the thing that every morning reminded them of that was the kapo's laud scream: "Aufstehen".

The life in the extermination-camps was a bit different from life in the work-camps. Work in the extermination-camps was mainly performed inside the camp, not on work-command outside the camp. This work often consisted of transporting things on wagons, called Rollvagen, from place to place. It could be everything from medical equipment to corpses. The prisoners often formed gangs. This caused both advantages and disadvantages. One advantage was that one became more with the same meanings. This made it easier to communicate with the kapos and SS. An other advantage was the sense of belonging. A prisoner wasn’t so insignificant, he had friends, people that cared about him. If he got into trouble he would get help and compassion. This was important in the fight for survival. A disadvantage with these gangs was that they often was divided by what colour ones triangle had. This caused allot of difference from gang to gang and there was often an awkward atmosphere between them. Daring prisoners in the extermination-camps had enough time to plan breakouts and thefts. When the Germans found out that a prisoner had escaped or something was stolen one could expect sever punishments. Even if the punishments were hard was there always something that was stolen. And the most popular place to steal from was "Canada". "Canada" was the prisoners nickname for the barracks were all they had brought to the camp was stored. "Canada offered nothing to eat, but it had enough warm clothes and shoes. But to steal clothes was dangerous. If detected one was shot.

Ranking
The ranking in the camps was very clear. Not only among the SS who had their own ranking, but also among the prisoners.

On the bottom of the ladder you found the common prisoner, without privileges or power. On the next step up one found prisoners with easier jobs as helping hand in the infirmary or the kitchen. The Germans didn’t look upon these as anything more then a common prisoner, but still they had enormous power. They had the possibility to get food. A dried-up piece of bread was often all it took to gain huge favours. One more step up one would find the kapos, who helped SS with the daily attendance. Those of the prisoners who had the most power was the jailer of the whole camp (Lagerältester) and the jailers of the barracks (Blockältester). These were almost a part of the camp management and got, just as the kapos, warmer clothes and better food plus a lot of other privileges.

A group of prisoners not mentioned here was the sonderkommando, the group which removed the bodies after the gassing. They weren't mentioned because they are very hard to place. In a way, they were privileged. They received warm clothes, better food and better conditions for living. But on the other side they had to "trick" fellow inmates into the gas chambers to die. They had to pull out their gold teeth and shave off all their hair. Finally, they had to burn the corpses and get rid of the ashes. The prisoners in sonderkommando didn't usually live longer than two months. The germans were afraid that one of them would manage to escape, and Europe would find out what was going on.