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by Lizzie on February 27th, 2004

Lizzie

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What was the typical daily schedule in a concentration camp?

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  • by stryder on March 2nd, 2006

    stryder

    When I was a kid, I lived in Belgium for a number of years and I had the honor of getting to know several survivors very well. During the years I lived there, I was able to visit a number of the camps in Eastern Europe.

    They told me that the camps were divided into two major classifications. The first was the work camp, where the prisoners would be forced into slave labor and worked 14 to 18 hours a day until they became so weak or so sick that they were no longer useful. At that point, they would be sent to their death, which varied depending on the camp that they were at.

    The death camps were production facilities. They were designed to kill as many prisoners as possible. Families were separated immediately upon arrival, with the women and the children sent almost directly to their deaths. One of the methods used was to tell the prisoners that they were going to get showers to be de-loused. They would be forced into large buildings with sprinkler nozzles over the area and told that the water would be turned on as soon as they all got inside. Before they could go in, they were directed to strip so that they clothes could be cleaned. Once they were inside and the door was closed, the nozzles would actually release poison gas. Many different types of poison wer used, but the SS seemed to like to use Zyklon-B as the killing agent.

    Those prisoners who were stronger and/or healthier would be put to work to clean out the gas chambers and move the bodies to either the mass graves or the ovens. Once the worker became weak or ill, they joined the prisoners in the path to their death.

    In the labor camps, the prisoners would be called from their barracks at first light or before. They might get some warm liquid that may or may not have been soup at one time, and maybe a piece of bread or an old potato. This would be the only thing that they received until the end of the day. The barracks would be emptied and any prisoners that died during the night would be dragged from the barracks and sent to the graves or the ovens. Those that could walk and appeared to be able to work were marched to the work site and were worked for the rest of the day (usually until after darkness fell). Anyone caught slacking off or being insubordinate to their captors could very easily find themselves beaten to death or shot on the spot or eliminated in some other way. If you made a move to protect someone who was being beaten, you usually ended up with the same fate. Then they would be marched back to their barracks where they might have something to eat (probably the same water based substance that was supposed to be soup). They were assigned to sleep on wooden beds, frequently six to eight people laying side by side on a single pallet, and another row of pallets about 12 to 18 inches above them. If you were on the pallet, you could not sit up because there was no room, you couldn't roll over because there was no room, and you had sick people all around you, any one of whom could cause you to get sick - which meant that you were heading for the firing squad or the gas chambers or other things that are really too evil to think about.

    If you want to get a better sense of what it was like, read "Night" by Elie Weisel (who died not too long ago). He was a survivor of the concentration camps and he dedicated the rest of his life to ensuring that people remembered what had happened and that those responsible could be brought to justice.

    Comments

    • Very good answer. However, you are wrong about Elie Weisel:
      http://www.observer.com/node/33625
      .
      He judged, condemned, and purposefully put us out of American Holocaust history because of ONE Gypsy Kapo. What about all the Jewish Kapos? If he put US out of history due to one Kapo, he should have also put the Jews out of history and any other group who had Kapos.
      .
      The person who wrote that article forgave him.
      .
      That person is not a Rromani Gypsy. I am. I do not forgive.

      Arisztid

      by Arisztid on July 23rd, 2009

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