Shoah Page #27

apart from being a Hinrichtung center,

a mass -murder center,

was a normal concentration camp too,

which had its order, like Mauthausen,

like Buchenwald,

like Dachau, like Sachsenhausen.

But whereas, in Mauthausen,

the main product

of prisoners' work was stone...

there was a big stone quarry...

the product in Auschwitz was death.

Everything was geared

to keep the crematoria running.

This was the aim.

This means that the prisoners would work

on the road leading to the crematoria.

They would build the crematoria.

Uh, they would build all barracks

necessary for keeping up prisoners.

And, of course, apart from that,

there was an element

of a normal German concentration camp,

because the Krupp and Siemens factories

moved in and utilized slave labor.

So the Krupp factories

and Siemens factories were built partly

directly within the concentration camp

Auschwitz-Birkenau.

AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU

The tradition in the concentration camp was

that there was a considerable amount

of political prisoners:

trade unionists, Social Democrats,

Communists,

ex-fighters from Spain.

What happened was

a very peculiar development.

The Resistance leadership in Auschwitz

was concentrated in the hands of...

German-speaking anti-Nazis,

who were German by birth,

were considered racially pure

by the Nazi hierarchy.

They got a bit better treatment

than the rest of the camp.

I don't say that

they were treated with gloves.

But they managed, with time,

to gain influence over various

Nazi dignitaries from the SS

and to use it in a way

which led systematically

to an improvement of conditions

within the concentration camp itself.

Whereas, in 1943... '42...

in Birkenau, in December and January,

a death rate of 400 prisoners

per day was common,

by May 1943,

not only because of the weather improvement,

but due to the activities

of the Resistance movement,

the improvement was so marked

that the mortality grossly decreased

in the concentration camp.

And they considered it

a great victory on their side.

And that improvement of living conditions

within the concentration camp

was, perhaps, not so against the policy

of the higher echelons of SS ranks,

as long as it did not interfere

with the objective of the camp.

This means production

of death on the arrivals,

which were not prisoners of the camp.

There was a rule that if there are

those people in the transport

who can be utilized for work,

who are in good physical condition,

they are not old, they are not too young,

they are not children,

they are not women with children,

et cetera, they look healthy,

they should come into the concentration camp

for replacement of those

who were dying in the concentration camp,

as a fresh force.

And I could see the following discussions.

I once overheard...

A transport came from...

I think it was from Holland or from Belgium.

I do not guarantee which one it was.

And the SS doctor selected a group

of well-looking Jewish prisoners, newcomers,

from the whole transport,

which would be gassed,

which was gassed.

But the representative SS

from the concentration camp

said he doesn't want them.

And there was a discussion between them

which I could overhear,

in which the doctor was saying,

Why don't you take them?

They are ausgefressene Juden

auf der hollndischen Kse.

This mean, uh, Jews full of...

very, very nourished on Dutch cheese.

They would be good for the camp.

And Fries, it was,

HauptscharfiJhrer Fries, answered him.

[Quoting Fries In German]

L can't take those people,

because nowadays they don't

kick the bucket so fast in the camp.

- This means they don't die fast enough?

- That's right.

In other words, he explained that

the stand of the camp was, say, 30,000.

If 500 or 5,000 died,

they were replaced by a new force

from the Jewish transport which came in.

But, if only a thousand died,

well, only a thousand were replaced,

and more went into the gas chamber.

So, the improvement of the conditions

within the concentration camp itself

made a higher death rate

in the gas chamber,

straight into the gas chamber.

It decreased the death rate

among the prisoners in concentration camp.

So, it was clear to me

that the improvement of the situation

of the concentration camp

does not impede

the process of mass executions

of those people

who were brought in into the camp.

Consequently, my idea, then,

of the Resistance movement,

of the sense

of the Resistance movement, was

that the improvement of the conditions

within the camp is only a first step,

that the Resistance movement

actually wants... is aware...

that the main thing is to stop

the process of mass execution,

the machinery of the killing,

and that, therefore,

it is a time of preparation,

of gathering of forces

for attacking the SS from inside,

even if it is a suicidal mission.

But, destroy the machinery.

And in this respect,

I would consider it as a suitable objective,

worthy objective.

And, um, it was also clear to me

that such an objective

cannot be achieved overnight,

that there is necessary a lot of preparation

and a lot of circumstances

about which, being only a small cog

in the whole machinery of resistance,

I could not know or decide.

But it was clear in my mind

that the only objective of any resistance

within a concentration camp

of the type of Auschwitz

has to be different from that

in Mauthausen or in Dachau.

Because, whereas

in Mauthausen and in Dachau,

this policy of resistance improved

the survival rate of political prisoners,

the same very noble policy

improved and oiled

the machinery of mass annihilation,

as practiced by the Nazis

within the concentration camp.

[Train Clacking ]

[ Woman, In English]

In Theresienstadt,

this time it reached us,

the transport to the east.

[Train Whistle Blows]

We were loaded

into these wagons for cattle.

RUTH ELIAS - ISRAEL

Deported from Theresienstadt

[ Clacking Continues ]

And it went for two days...

[ Clacking Fades ]

and one night.

- [ Lanzmann ] In wintertime?

- The second day...

It was December,

but it was warm inside

because we made the heat.

We heated it up with our temperature,

body temperature.

One evening, the train came to a stop,

the next day in the evening,

and the doors were opened.

And there was a terrible screaming.

Out! Out! Out! Out!

We were shocked. We didn't know

what's going on, where we are.

We saw only SS with dogs.

And we saw, in the distance,

in symme... in symmetric lights there,

but we didn't know where we are,

what the lights,

the thousands of lights, were meaning.

We only heard this shouting.

Out! Out! Out! And we...

- [ Lanzmann ] Raus!

Yes, just exactly.

And, Schnell! Schnell! Schnell!

Out we came of these wagons.

We had to line up.

And there were some people

with striped uniforms.

We didn't know what the stripes are.

And I asked one in Czech,

Where are we?

And it was a Polish who understood my Czech,

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